"Bruce Grubb" <bgrubb@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:bgrubb-7C8836.09550616092006@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In article <1158380152.327263.79480@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> "Jax" <IlGreven@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > julian814 sez:
> > <<
> > > The main story was about a gifted teenager who went to college, then
> > > disappeared for a long while. According to the movie and the media
hype
> > > at the time, the kid went crazy after playing an RPG. The real
story,
> > > which wasn't revealed until much later, was that the kid who
> > > disappeared was a closet homo***ual (at a time when homo***uality
> > > wasn't as well accepted as today), schizophrenic and cooked his own
> > > drugs. He didn't like himself for what he was and what he was doing,
so
> > > he went into the steam tunnels underneath the campus to kill himself
> > > with sleeping pills. When that didn't work, he ran away. His
problems
> > > had nothing to do with role playing games. The reason the truth
didn't
> > > come out sooner is because the family of the kid didn't want such
dirty
> > > laundry aired in public. When the kid in question finally committed
> > > suicide, the real story came out. Anyway, most people refer to Mazes
> > > and Monsters as the definitive proof that role playing games are
evil,
> > > even though in the movie you'll notice it was the kid's guilt of
> > > helping his brother run away that caused him to go over the edge,
not
> > > the game.
> >
> > So, basically, this is Reefer Madness, except replace pot with D&D...
>
> That is being too generous. Reefer Madness at least had some basis on
fact
> though exagerated to the point that no one with a thinking brain in
their
> head would take the film seriously. Mazes and Monsters has no basic on
fact.
So that's what this movie is all about?
The description given here was pretty close, but not exactly as I remember
it in the book "The Dungeon Master" written by the P.I. that was paid to
track the kid down The book was in the late 70's, extreme early 80's time
frame. I was still in high school when I read it (prepared to valiantly
thwart the efforts of evil naysayers to affix D&D with an undeserved bad
rep).
In that book, there was no indication of homo***uality and the PI tracked
the kid down to running off and living secretly with an older woman in the
area. Could that have been written as a cover up to homo***uality? Hmm.
They were so interested in the D&D and the steam tunnels connection
because
the kid's group would go down into the tunnels and LARP (long before
LARPing
was cool) their scenarios some times. It drove them nuts because all
indications were the kid should be down there somewhere until the PI
finally
figured out he had to be elsewhere, they were barking up the wrong tree
(or
down the wrong tunnel in this case).
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