Page4-Friday, June 6, 1980-The Michigan Daily WWI Feiffer OP InHola GgHO t' or40 W C FI5- 2 I J-OF Ninety Years of Editoridl Freedom Edited andoianaged by students ~ II at the University of Michigan0'rW1- q fIfAM-" R Deprogramming: Some questions 4 TATE REPRESENTATIVE Thomas Scott (D- S Flint) introduced an unusual bill Wednesday. He wants to make illegal the pradtice of paying money to persons to have them deprogram someone under the influence of a cult. flisit rWt Scott has some rather foolish ideas. He insists, n e w.i~u that he is not against the practice of deprogram- ming, but is upset with the profits deprogrammers BERKELEY, CA. - It's can make. His legislation would permit Friday afternoon, no school work. deprogrammers to "kidnap" those under the in- for a while, and at Michael fluence of a cult-as long as they perform their Rosenbaum's house it's once services for free. This suggestion must seem ar- again time for Dungeons and ticularly ludicrous to professional deprogrammers Dragons. As soon as a couple more players show up they will who know full well that the high expenses, legal and . resume where they left off last otherwise, of their profession and the high risk of week, though this time they won't landing in jail for a year of two justifies the rather go till morning. Michael's paren- high service charge. ts want them out by 10. The house Scott's bill, the first of its kind in the nation, does is small and when they get carried away, the rest of the raise an unsettling question: Should deprogram- family can't sleep. ming be a legal profession? Dungeons and Dragons (D and Many cults take young, impressionable people D to insiders) is a game played and through a variety of brainwashing and indoc- nationwide, mostly by high trination techniques manage to change entire per- school age boys with an intellec- tual bent, the kind of boys who sonalities. Given the horror stories of Jonestown like to play chess, read, invent and Reverend Moon's cult, it certainly seems right- things and collect hero comics. that parents ought to be allowed to hire a Some become so obsessed with D deprogrammer to "kidnap" their adult child and and D they spend most of their attempt to brainwash him or her back to normal. non-school time playing it, while other classmates go out for team Few other avenues are open to distraught parents, sports, customized cars and the and the high percentage of those who have been pursuit of girls. deprogrammed successfully and are grateful TO CALL D AND D a game, speaks in favor of the deprogramming profession. however, is misleading because it And yet, advocating a practice which allows a is less like Monopoly and baseball than it is like ancient Greek group of adults to hire a professional to kidnap theater or tales from Arabian another adult is a squeamish business. Whatever nights. It can be a vehicle for a the solution, hasty legislation is not the answer. mythic search into the profound questions the human soul con- fronts in its time. The game involves a mythical ry eojourney through a dungeon or EWK" R' world. Each player assumes a R MENTA character, who has particular OFF 10T41qualities, strengths and weaknesses, and stands in a cer- { 'y.tain relationship to the universe, - K ranging'from fully lawful to fully chaotic. The idea is to complete the journey without getting killed to have as many adventures as possible along the way, to stay true to your nature and to acquire experience. There is no com- petition. But there are many e ',-levels of skilland creativity. f E When asked why they play it, D and D addicts give answers that suggest the game is far more / Wqg r? than a pastime. "The only limits are imagination and time," said David Woolsey, who has been playing with Michael Rosenbaum for about four years." It satisfies my need for a universe that is both finite and unbounded," said Yoy cca m aft ry own heart, pal" - Michael. game proviues es o passage Bv a cfii ny nasa Gustaitis "JUST TO LET the mind go free," said Roland Brown, a high school student in Mill Valley, Ca., who is gifted in art. Like other mythic tales and rituals, the game allows its players to try out new roles and perspectives preparing them for roles they will later assume in the adult world. It can be a rite of passage. "It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in coun- teraction to those other constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back," wrote Joseph Campbell in his book, "Hero of a Thousand Faces." At the heart of all myth, he pointed out, is the quest of the hero, which is the quest of self. THE ONLY objects needed for playing D and D are graph paper, pencil, and five sets of dice. Three-by-five cards and small figures representing characters are alos often used, thouth they are not essential. The action takes place mostly in. the mind and is talked out, like im- provisational theater. . The shape of the adventure is outlined by the dungeon master, who must design a dungeon through which the other players will travel, meeting monsters, aliens and other hazardous creatures he introduces. They move in accordance with the dic- tates of their nature, the choices they make and, according to the throw of the dice. Michael, as the god-like dungeon master, has chosen to designnot a dungeon but a world, which has a continent and islan- ds. He keeps its map hidden behind a propped-up book. The players get to see only that por- tion of the world which is im- mediately around them. It is drawn on a separate piece of graph paper. As they move on, they see more. They have to figure out where they are and how to travel. MICHAEL SUMS up the action thus far, for the benefit of Carl Yost, who is picking up a charac- ter, a giant, ihdt another' Player ran last week. Two elves, a palladin ("a kind of knight in shining armor, only more so") and two giants were transported by a dragon to an island where the dragon's father lived. A battle ensued. The survivors-the palladin, one giant and one dragon-were left in front of a cave which had a floor like an Escher painting (with creatures and shapes changing from negative to positive, depending on whether you focus on the black or the white spaces in the design.) Tonight's challenge is to get off the island. The - game is underway. Another mystery has been in- troduced. Breaking once, for some stew, the group will con- tinue over the next seven hours in getting off the island and reaching the mainland, while in the other world around them, Michael's sister Sarah will go off to a dance and return, his mother and father will occupy themselves in the living room, then retire to their bedroom. TODAY, BEFORE the game began, they had discussed whether it was possible, within the game, to have a mage (magician) who was also a technician. The question had come up duing lunch at Berkeley High. There is a split among D and D players between those who go in for Star Wars-type fantasy and those who prefer to deal in the realms of unicorns, gnomes and wizards. David has been trying to work out a synthesis. "A techno would have trouble finding a mage willing to teach him," Michael said. "It's possible. But he would have to be very intelligent." Anything is possible in.D and D-if it's thought out. And this may be its most important message to its players: that their imaginations, more than anything else, will both limit and extend the potential of their future. Rasa Gustaitis is an editor for 'Facific News Service.'-.