Israeli Army Frowns on D&D 984
Big Rob found us a gem of a story about the Israeli Army frowning on D&D players. Apparently '18-year-olds who tell recruiters they play the popular fantasy game are automatically given low security clearance.' I especially enjoyed the pictures of D&D players with swords, as generally the only thing in my hand during D&D is soda and/or swiss cake rolls.
I'm thinking that a few generals should meet up with Jack Chick and have a good long discussion about the evils of role playing.
IDF has smart people working for them ... (Score:2, Interesting)
I do not mean to cast aspersions on D and D players, but if IDF says that people who indulge in fantasy games, as a statistical group, have personality traits that make them a lower security risk, then I am inclined to believe them.
After all, these people have some of the best clinical and occupational psychologists in the world working for them.
One possible characteristic not mentioned in TFA was: People who role-play might be more inclined to game the system - definitely not a desirable personality trait to have in personnel deployed in sensitive positions.
Re:IDF has smart people working for them ... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll assume you meant to say, higher security risk.
Also, I believe you have an excellent point. I and a bunch of my friends have been avid Mage players for a few years now. (Much better game, IMHO, check it out at http://www.white-wolf.com.) Anyways, one of my friends joined the army a few years ago, entering the intelligence branch. They eventually took away his security clearence because of some of the stuff he was analyzing about his unit.
Personality faults (Score:1, Interesting)
Surely you mean more of a security risk?
I'd also argue that people who indulge in fantasy games have a tendency to be morally rigid and idealistic -- a bad trait in a soldier.
Re:IDF has smart people working for them ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The numbers they cite where pointless. How many people would not qualify for high clearence if ALL recruits went to see the psychiatrist? who knows.
Another case where someone who does something different has to experience bigitory. Personally, I would welcome some good open studies on role-players. The few that where done(that I know of) never found in results worth reporting.
I say this as someone who has play role-playing games since '76*.
*I loath to put out how long I have been playing, because I hate those 'I've been playing for x years therefore I am right' types. I do feel that disclosure is neccessary for context in this discussion.
Re:IDF has smart people working for them ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Something carried on 60 minutes (take with whativer size grain of salw you wish) One other thing you may wish to consider, few of the radical-right, orhtodox jews, serve in combat rolls in the IDF. Why? Because they're religious scholars and exempt from such duty. Yet, they are usually the ones howling the loudest about how it's their promised land and establish these lovely settlements in whatever speck of land the palestinians have left. You can usually tell, when you see some footage on TV, these people are heavily armed and ready to die for their house on the pile of rocks they claimed for themselves. They also tend to have larger families and are expected to control the majority of the electorate in a country where the armed forces are mostly composed of the secular or moderate jews.
Games Help to Think Unconventionally (Score:3, Interesting)
(This isn't a jab at the Jewish faith at all. I'm about to join the Catholic faith myself, but the question is there, as I'll explain.)
There are a few studies that show positives with game playing. At heart, a proper game based on reality or fantasy settings in an Earth-like setting is a simulation. Sims teach with low costs and reduce or eliminate the expenses needed in live training. Twitch games aid in dexterity and coordination, of course.
And the US Army believes that a good sim of their work is also not only a fun game, but a great recruiting tool. [americasarmy.com]
While board games like D&D itself may not show an immediate dividend to fighting a war, consider that any game helps plot strategy, conserve resources, and deal consequence.
Game playing may help a soldier think "outside of the box" in a combat situation where unusual solutions with conventional weapons and tactics may prove worthwhile. It seems that the Israeli Army may decide to stick to convention.
Weird... (Score:3, Interesting)
They do ask you about your hobbies when you go through recruitment (at 16 years old). They may assume that people who play fantasy games are a 'security risk', but they definitely recognize that kids who play complex rule-based cooporative games in their teens
The Israeli army tends to know how to assign people to jobs they'd be good at. And use the rest for cannon fodder. Or, in my case, tell them to just stay home if it's all the same.
Re:IDF has smart people working for them ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Right (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that they'd neccessarily agree on much in one-on-one dialog
Hah! (Score:3, Interesting)
Ynetnews has learned that 18-year-olds who tell recruiters they play the popular fantasy game are automatically given low security clearance.
"They're detached from reality and suscepitble to influence," the army says.
So, if you're "detached from reality," or as some people call it, "creative," you're subject to "influence"? So no Israeli soldier has an original thought, ever?
No wonder the country is in such a fucked up situation...
The IDF's personnel problems (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:IDF has smart people working for them ... (Score:2, Interesting)
SCA, not D&D (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:IDF has smart people working for them ... (Score:4, Interesting)
It wasn't a problem in is US Army in the 80's (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it has to do more with being creative and maybe anti-establishment. My squad (and I) would often ruffle brass when we did something that worked and worked well BUT wasn't by the book.
Oh well, that was 20 years ago. Now the US Army just wants bodies...
You pompous ass! (Score:2, Interesting)
And who do you think occupational and clinical psychologists respond to [blogspot.com], you pompous ass? I weep at popular idolization of state-sanctioned authority.
Actually.. (Score:5, Interesting)
However, it should be noted that this was news to me, as I know quite a few people who played or still play D&D and other RPGs (I did, too) and served in highly classified jobs (Like myself).
Also, a prominent Israeli portal posted this caricature [nana.co.il] about the issue.
The guy on the dragon is saying (Very loosely translated) "I won't go anywhere but Golani", which is an elite unit.
And for the Slashdot crowd, the artist (Miki Mottes) was once the Sysop of a major Israeli BBS.
Is Jack Chick gonna get /.'ed? (Score:2, Interesting)
Call it the --Revenge of the Geeks--!
Right now, I'm sure they are freaking out...
Re:IDF has smart people working for them ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Had he done it a second time, he'd have found his seat taken come the 3rd session.
It's everywhere and everytime the same... (Score:3, Interesting)
Let me comment some headers of TFA:
'Simply detached from reality'
Does mean subject is mentally independent from factual perception, able to create experience according his own intentions. That allows him potentially diverge from lined propaganda. Note, the military propaganda is also somewhat "detached from reality", but other, organized and controlled way.
'The game indicates a weak personality'
"Strong personality" in military sense is someone who obeys all commands unquestionably and is capable to force them out to the lower levels. Higher intellect, which is often a characteristic for D&D players, is not a bonus for performing something that "does not make sense to do" in critical situation. Actually, in D&D all good players are very picky about what does make sense to do in dangerous conditions. Sometimes, simply stand and fight is not an option in dungeon and players already know about it.
The intel community is *full* of geeks! (Score:2, Interesting)
Everyone in the building had a high security clearance, and the vast majority of them were "free thinkers." The traits that made them most valuable in D&D also made them great analysts:
- quick lateral thinkers
- work well on small teams ("parties")
- open to new or contradictory data ("plot twists"/"betrayals")
- efficient min-maxers
- logical approach to difficult situations
I know if I ever go back to that kind of work, there'll be plenty of Elvish Paladins and Dwarven Mages and so forth. I wouldn't have it any other way!
Re:IDF has smart people working for them ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:There's a good reason (Score:5, Interesting)
That's exactly the sort of people you want in your army. Clueless nimrods who can't function if the expected parameters are altered are exactly what they should be trying to avoid.
I ship out to Marine boot camp Aug. 1st and people have told me over and over again that when I get there...I shouldn't stand out. D&D players are different...and normally very smart.
You assume that being smart will make you stand out in the military. Well, sorry to burst your bubble but the military has a LOT of smart people, and chances are your intelligence won't stand out as much as you think. Anyone who says "don't let on that you're smart" is really saying "don't spout off trying to be a know-it-all". Keeping your mouth shut and your eyes open (particularly when in boot camp) is the wisest course. Once you've been in a while you'll figure out when it's appropriate to offer your "smarts". Nobody (particularly drill sergeants) likes a wise-ass.
In an army you want drones who can think for themselves but will never question orders.
You got a lot to learn about the nature of the US military. Your description fits the old Soviet military, but not ours. In an army you want people who can understand an objective and modify an operational plan of the fly as the situation changes. Soldiers who stop and look at their commanding officer every time they run into an unexpected obstacle are worthless. I suspect you'll get quite an eye-opening education on this come 2005AUG01, courtesy of the US Marine Corps.
Why do you think the great dictators killed teachers???
Which "great dictators"? Name a dictator that had an effective army full of mindless, uneducated "drones". Name an effective army that wasn't backed by a solid educational system. Killing teachers is a move to solidify a political position, not to create an ignorant pool of cannon fodder.
As for the IDF automatically lowering RPG-ers security clearances, I think they're idiots. I spent 4 years in the US Army as a SIGINT analyst, and I'd say that fully half the people I worked with played role playing games. I wonder, do they think that D&D is "bad" and that hex-map war games are good? At what point does pretending you're Rommel the general become OK, vs. playing Skorzeny the commando? Is it the level of abstraction? Is it the medieval fantasy aspect of D&D? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that most people entering the IDF are there for compulsory service. I knew a lot of D&D dorks in high school who would never be a good fit for military service. The thing is, those of us dorks who were a good fit would have been stuck as truck drivers or something under an IDF-style rule. I think the IDF is tossing out the baby with the bathwater here, but hey, it's their stupid army.
Re:It Could Be Worse (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, this is the same calibre of people who find pro-gay messages in Sponge Bob and Teletubbies. I've known quite a few roleplayers in fairly fundementalist churches who have had to abandon their hobby after being pressured or outright threatened with being given the boot. I think it's sad, and I do get mad that a perfectly reasonable and enjoyable recreational hobby is so misunderstood and maligned.
Re:It Could Be Worse (Score:5, Interesting)
In his autobiography 'Black Boy', Richard Wright recalls his grandmother's attitude towards his writing. She believed that fiction was the work of the Devil. Paraphrasing: 'You writin' down things that ain' true. Tha's the Devil's work, boy.' (My apologies to Richard Wright for my crude approximation of his characteristic style.)
Things are getting a little better as time goes on, I hope.
Role play (Score:2, Interesting)
Heaven forbid that a grunt might think back to being a schoolkid him/her self and not pull the trigger on a child who strayed off a path.
Re:D&D or LARP? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, seriously, it has always struck me as rather odd that guys who sit around and collaboratively make up stories, be it about dragons or spaceships or spies, are considered weird, and yet guys who sit around memorizing and arguing passionately about statistics for rich athletes who they've never met and never will is considered perfectly normal. The athletes may be real but it's still fantasy to live vicariously through them. I think going out and PLAYING sports with my buddies is better than either, but for some reason being a sports fanatic is normal and RPGing is strange. I don't get it.
US Military doesn't seem to share the opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
They gave me a TS SCI clearance. Also, the Army hired me years later and gave me a Secret... (or they tried... I quit before it came through, nearly two years later. Still, I had a interim secret clearance for that period)
On the other hand... If anyone had ever stuck a gun in my hand and told me to shoot someone, I'd have probably deserted.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:There's a good reason (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems that you might not have understood the bad effects of a soldier being impressionable, so I'll try to explain. First of all, he can cheat his country. Not stealing the plans to a secret underground volcanic weapon, but something smaller. Then his opinions might get modified easily, and he might lose some of his support for the cause his country is fighting for. His mind might become fluctuated (damn, I really don't know English) by what he sees in the battlefield. And an impressionable mind often implies a weak mind, which sucks for a soldier. (Plus, the other guy who replied to me does a pretty good job of explaining too.)
Exactly what aspects do they disagree with (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nope (Score:3, Interesting)
Quickie lesson:
Abraham in the Bible had 2 sons: Isaac, who is the father of modern day Jews, and Ishmael, who is the father of modern day Arabs. Jewish & Christian Scripture agree that God annointed Isaac, and therefore his descendants (the Jews) are God's people.
Islam tells us that the conniving Jews lied and changed the Bible so that Isaac got annointed, when it was supposedly Ishmael that was annointed by God, and therefore his descendants (the Arabs) are God's people.
Additionally, the Qu'uran commands Muslims not to associate with Jews and Christians because they are bound together in their common faiths.
Amusing if true, given my clearance (Score:2, Interesting)
I suggest that this stunt will result in a 1D4 roll for self-inflicted damage to the Isreali Army, as RPG players are frequently better able to compartmentalize information learned with a higher classification and only release that which is appropriate, as well as how to deal with semi-conflicting rules sets to preserve the intention of security.
But, hey, what do I know - I was only Acting Security Officer for the whole Pacific Region
IDF doesn't have smart people working for them ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? Doesn't seem so to me. Some possible theories why the IDF is skeptical of roleplayers (TFA says D&D, but seem to refer to RPGs and LARPs in general):
- RPGs do have a bad image due to some Christian fundamentalists spreading FUD. The same Christians are avid supporters of Israel and Zionism so maybe the IDF actually believed these guys.
- there's a higher percentage of left-leaning among roleplayers than among the general population. This may also be the case in Israel. Beeing a roleplayer thus makes you more likely to be exposed to leftists. This is indeed a security issue.
- roleplayers are more individualistic and creative and thus less likely to accept orders without questioning.
- the IDF are prejudiced. Psychologists have a tendency to view everything trough psychologist-glasses. This makes "escapism" a bad thing.
- some idiot deceided this some years ago and nobody has corrected it since due to hiearchy issues.
- the IDF are idiots
Probably a combination of some of the above.
Re:Roll the dice... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm no cleansing nazi (godwin!), but if someone had a gun to my head and forced me to choose between the suicide bombing of 100 "average" people, or 200 mental retards, I'd choose the latter. *gasp!* Not until the ratio got up to around 20:1 would I rationally favor the murder of the normal group. *GASP!!!* (At this point my empathy for the familys of the larger retard group outweighs the rational reasons for the smaller group of productive people to continue living.)
It's nice to pretend that everyone has an equal right to life-- even to the point of selfishly keeping your vegetable relatives alive -- but it's not that simple.
(not posting anonymously)
I'm sure somebody's just appalled by my line of thinking. :)
Re:You got it wrong (Score:1, Interesting)
--To the post above concerning religious fanatics--
A) if we didn't eat cloven hooves, we'd all be vegetarian.
B) it is a known issue in the army that Orthodox boys and girls do not make good soldiers. The reason, however, is that they learn too much independent thought, and are encouraged to constantly question the system. If you are so ignorant of Judaism that you confuse the simplest and most commonly known rules of it, however, I can't expect you to figure out other elementaries.
Re:Right (Score:1, Interesting)
Insightful but incorrect. [bbc.co.uk]
Re:You got it wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
"The reason the American Army is so good at war is that war is chaos, and the American military practices chaos on a daily basis." - From a World War II German Army War Manual
Re:IDF has smart people working for them ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Such people are less desirable in an inflexible military system and more valuable in specialised operations.
Re:You got it wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A world of make-believe... (Score:3, Interesting)
Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.
Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that the Lord has once for all entrusted to us, his people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling--these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" Yet these people speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals--these are the very things that destroy them.
Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam's error; they have been destroyed in Korah's rebellion.
These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm--shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted--twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him." These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.
But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, "In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires." These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.
But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear--hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.
To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy--to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.