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ESCAPIST UPDATE - June 6th, 2007
GAMING WITH KIDS ON ROLEPLAYINGTIPS.COM - Katrina Middelburg-Creswell, a high school teacher and RPG club organizer in the Netherlands, wrote an article for roleplayingtips.com about gaming with kids that shares some very useful advice. She also dropped a link to an "excellent" (her word, not mine) gaming advocacy site and the Facts and Fictions About RPGs PDF! (Here's a link to it, if you have come here from there and are looking for it.)

CHRISTOPHER PRITCHARD RELEASED AFTER 19 YEAR SENTENCE - You may start to hear news stories about the release of Christopher Pritchard, who conspired with two friends to kill his stepfather, Leith Von Stein, on July 25th 1988 - stories that will describe him as "obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons," which, some will say, was the whole reason behind his actions.

The details, as usual, will be hidden well, or possibly ignored entirely. Pritchard believed he would benefit from a two million dollar inheritance if his stepfather died, and promised money and sports cars to his friends Neal Henderson and Chris Upchurch if they would help him with the assassination. Dressed in black, they infiltrated Von Stein's home and stabbed and bludgeoned Leith and Bonnie Von Stein. Leith died on the scene, but his wife survived and was able to call 911 for assistance.

Pritchard has always maintained that he was in a "fantasy world" when he planned and carried out the murders - but the promises of cash and sports cars to his co-conspirators were very real. He didn't promise them magic chariots and bags of gold. He handed his friends a map to his parents' home, not to a wizard's tower. Black clothes don't make someone a ninja, or even someone who THINKS they're a ninja - it's just the most convenient color to wear during your assassination plot.

"Fantasy worlds," however, are an excellent cover-up for any inhuman acts that you may have committed that you don't want to own up to. It's a common reaction for a person to be so offended by their own actions that they find some method of detachment from them. In Pritchard's case, he had some help.

The crime was the focus of two novels, Blood Games and Cruel Doubt, and two made-for-television movies - Cruel Doubt and Honor Thy Mother. Both movies featured misrepresentations of gaming materials in order to more closely relate gaming the crime.

Honor Thy Mother aired on CBS (the same network that brought us Mazes and Monsters) on April 26th, 1992. In it, a phony copy of an AD&D manual was featured as a prop. The cover of the manual was unlike anything TSR has ever put out for AD&D, and while reading it, an investigator claims to find a reference to "extra points for multiple hits," an obvious fabrication by the writers, as AD&D contains no rules that are even similar to such a description.

Cruel Doubt was a miniseries that aired on NBC, May 17th and 19th, 1992. In it, a copy of TSR's AD&D Player's Handbook was featured as a prop with different artwork that included a picture of a character with clothing and a backpack that matched that of one of the show's killers, as well as other illustrations that were extremely occultic and sinister in nature. This was an obvious attempt to make the book appear to be more of an inspiration to the crime.

Pritchard may have really been in a fantasy world when he planned to gain fortune by killing his stepfather, but blaming it on a game is wrong. So is misrepresenting that game to make it appear as if it was a part of the crime - even going as far as to add artwork and rules to it.

Pritchard has allegedly redeemed himself, and is now working with at-risk children. He claims to have his head "screwed on straight" now. Let's all hope he has gained some wisdom and personal responsibility in the process.

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