In the few days since the story broke, I have seen several different articles on it. Few of them can agree on the ages of the children, but all manage to drop the name Dungeons & Dragons at least twice. The Straws were involved in other MMORPGs as well, according to every article, but all chose to focus on the D&D brand. Could it be because it's such a tried and trusted scapegoat?

Expect to see this come up again later as "proof" of the corrupting nature of tabletop D&D. There won't even be a need to make a distinction between the online and face-to-face versions. You can likely count on it.

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DEXCON 10 - Once again, I have been invited to be a guest at Dexcon - a great con held at the East Brunswick Hilton in East Brunswick, New Jersey. I've been a bit busy lately, so this update is very late (the con starts TOMORROW, in fact). The folks at Dexcon have also renewed their offer for Escapist readers - if you pregister for the con, you get a $10 discount just for letting them know that The Escapist sent you! (When filling out the preregistration form, enter RPGADVOCATE-DEX10 in the SPECIAL DISCOUNT CODE field, and $10.00 in the DISCOUNT field.)