How Aspergers and Autism Ruined Dungeons and Dragons

Stop Faking Mental Illness

There are three types of people in the world:

Those that are mentally healthy.
Those with legitimate mental illnesses.
And those who fake mental illness for attention and government checks...which also makes them mentally ill.

For example, nearly every American man will date a girl who seemingly is bi-polar.  She will go hot and cold.  She will create drama.  She will rock your world in bed, and then the next day slash your tires.  At that point whether she actually has bi-polar disorder or not is moot.  "Da bitch be crazy" and effectively is mentally ill regardless and you should leave her ass immediately.

But there is a much larger segment of the population that this real-vs-faking mental illness plays out, and that is the two most popular mental illnesses to have today - Autism and Aspergers.

I need to be very clear here because there are two groups of people that are going to get their panties in a bundle and be highly offended. And the reason they're going to be highly offended, even apoplectic, is because I'm exposing their biggest hypocrisy in life. And those two groups of people are:

1.  People who fake having mental illness to garner attention, value, meaning, givemedats, and lower standards in their lives

and

2.  Shitty parents who did a shit job raising their children, and need to RUSH to blame their failure on a made-up mental illness their children don't have.

None of you nor your children have a mental illness.  You are lazy people who did not want to work for a living or put forth the effort to actually raise your children correctly.  You are an offense and an affront to those people who actually do suffer from legitimate cases of mental illness, and you are not fooling the rest of us that 25% of the youth today have "Aspergers," "Autism," "Social Anxiety," or "depression."

You are a sad group of people who lack the work ethic to go forth and accomplish things in life, and instead are so sad and pathetic, you will blame a made-up mental illness for your loser-performance in life because it spares your ego AND conveniently qualifies you for a world of special treatment, government hand outs, lower standards, and a life of sloth.

But, as I pointed out before, whether you have an actual mental illness or are merely faking it, the results are the same - you're mentally ill.

Now because it is "popular" (and I cannot emphasize that word enough, because it is the PRECISE word that describes people's use of mental illness) POPULAR to have a mental illness, this means a larger percent of the population are people faking mental illness who don't have it.  And these people then permeate into society, ruining it for the rest of us mentally healthy people.

Safe spaces.
Uber-nazi politically correct speech.
Irrational and pampering levels of accommodations.
Body mutilation as a substitute for meaning and agency.
Fake rape accusations.
Demanding recognition of a never-ending number of made-up genders.
You even have adults setting up play dates for their "adult" college age children.

Whatever the societal symptoms are of these mental-illness-fakers, the rest of us sane and healthy people are forced to walk around the eggshells they've laid out before society.  And if we don't, they will throw a temper tantrum. They will be offended, file reports, file complaints, drag you in front of an HR/Title IX circus court, all of which is arguably the only thing they have in life - to perceive CONSTANT offense and oppression, allowing them to masturbate and wallow in their self-created victimhood, while "fighting the evil injustices" of society, which is at the core of every pathetic SJW in existence.

Thankfully, my life is minimized to the point I no longer deal with these people.  I'm not in school.  I don't work in corporate America.  I don't watch TV.  I don't even watch the news.  I surround myself on the micro-level where weakling hypocrites who fake and co-opt mental illness to begat pity and an easier life from others are simply not in my environment.  But dare I ever leave the "Cappy Plantation" there are times I occasionally run into them.

Enter Dungeons and Dragons.

Dungeons and Dragons

In the 1980's and 1990's I was no stranger to Dungeons and Dragons.  Matter of fact it is one of my favorite pastimes that I thoroughly enjoyed, and continue to this day.  But admittedly, the caliber and character of young men it attracted to it was not exactly your most sociable or George-Clooney-esque.

RPG's like D&D attracted the nerdiest, most socially awkward boys like moths to a flame.  WITHOUT FAIL, there would ALWAYS be at a D&D game:

The fat guy who had three Mountain Dews he would drink in a 4 hour session, likely getting more.
The long haired, trench coat wearing kid wearing sunglasses indoors.
The also obese "rules" guy who knew the rules of D&D inside and out and would flaunt this "talent."
The guy who stank.
The token nerd girl of questionable attractiveness that every guy would inevitably pursue.
And a smattering miscellany of rank and file nerds.

These were no doubt the rejects of society.  They were the boys nobody wanted to hang out with.  These were the boys who would grow up to become men that would not lose their virginity till their 30's.  But for all their social flaws, psychological flaws, and hygienic flaws, there was one thing they all had in common:

They could keep it together during a game.
They could actually play the fucking game.
Even if they had a genuine mental illness, we were still able to play some fucking D&D.

And that is no longer the case today.

Meetup Groups

I winter down in Las Vegas at my "Southern Command."  I can afford to do this, not so much because I have the money, but because I have the freedom.  I have no kids.  I have no debt.  And so for some annual house maintenance, I am allowed to stay for free at a buddy's place in Las Vegas.

But once the work is done, or the golf courses golfed, the sun sets and I have to figure out something to do in the evening.  And a couple years back I decided to go dust off my dice, buy the 5th edition rule book for D&D, and attend several of the many Dungeons and Dragons games being offered on Meetup.

It had been a while since I played in person and was getting kind of excited about playing D&D in person again.  There would be intellectual banter, some sharp joshing, an intriguing story, some clever strategizing, and good old fashion getting my geek on.  Yes, I'm sure there would be the Mountain Dew guy, the Stink Guy, Rules Guy, and the token 4 on a scale of 1-10 girl, but that is what made D&D endearing and I would expect nothing less.  But what manifested in actuality can be summed up in one word:

Impossible.

The first D&D game I played indeed did have the retinue of Rules Guy, Stink Man, Mountain Dew Guy, and Marginally Attractive Girl.  I was almost excited to see these stereotypical, classical D&D characters that I saw in the late 80's.  But when we started to play the game, it quickly became apparent these were not the same people that played some 30 years ago.

Instead of playing the game, everybody placed their role and themselves above the game itself.  Rules Guy did not care about the game, as much as he cared about singling people out on their technical errors and mistakes.  This made for a start and stop, lethargically slow and jarring pace to the game. Every decision, every dice roll, every perception check was went over by this anal retentive creature with a fine tooth comb.  The Token Girl was married to a rank and file nerd, but they forced their cute little inside jokes on the game and the players.  Trench Coat guy and his equally scrawny friend would just do the dumbest shit imaginable in the game, making any kind of team work impossible.  And Mountain Dew guy had to make a joke out of every fucking thing possible that was not funny.  It became quickly apparent that "we" were there to play D&D, but "we" were there to showcase our shitty talents through a D&D catalyst because we had no real other talents in the real world.  This was a stage, not a game.  And the play fucking sucked.

Figuring it could have just been a bad batch of people, I tried another D&D meetup at the other end of town.  This was even more of a shit show than the previous one as NOBODY was actually playing the game, but cracking inside jokes about the previous campaigns they had played.  The dungeon master (referee) had no control of the players, people were spending more time talking about "crazy" moves they could make rather than sitting down and strategizing legitimate ones, the number of potty and food breaks (cheesy nachos of course) slowed the game to a snail's pace, and the only progress that was made in the game was when we left the tavern.  It had gotten so bad that when it came to my turn and the token "Rules Guy" started to open his mouth I looked at him and said "Shut your god damn mouth," and then turned to the dungeon master and said "You, roll your dice and tell me if I hit."  The table went silent not because I went stern, but because I was the only one who insisted on playing the game.

If you didn't think it could get any worse it did.  And this time I was back at home in Minnesota.  Hoping it was something to do with Vegas, I quickly found out it was not when I tried my third and final time at a physical D&D game.  This time it was at a comic shop in the Twin Cities suburb.  Dice bag, rules book, and character sheet in hand, I found the table advertised on Meetup and sat down.  Immediately, I was beset by one of the regular players who was saying I had to sign up online to register a slot so I could get assigned a seat so I could draw from the pool to get put on a list, until the dungeon master pulled him aside and said, "I should be able to get you into this game."

I was kind of hoping this dungeon master had control of the game, but it quickly became apparent it was more of a baby sitting operation.  Across from me was the 7th grader who weighed 80 pounds and had his headphones in.  To my right was the high school kid who wanted to talk instead of play the game.  To my left was one guy who might have actually seen a vagina and had his own apartment.  But then there was the 27 year old who was on the verge of tears because we didn't let him cast his spell first.

The game was a complete and total disaster.

The DM, rightly, let these "kids" play the game to see if they could figure out team work on their own.  They simply could not.  A logical course of action was recommended and each person would nitpick every possible detail as if they were all "Rules Guy."  Outlandish, irrational course of action were recommended which only begat further laughter and mockery of such ideas, rather than sitting down and playing the game.  Spells were being cast which had no bear on the game, simply because somebody wanted to cast the spell.  And meanwhile the DM had been hinting very clearly at a course of action that should be taken.

Running out of patience I simply took command and said, I'm going this way, I don't care if anybody else comes with.  People came with, but nobody wanted to get with a game plan or do what I recommended.  Every possible permutation and possibility of the course of EACH of our individual actions were hemmed and hawed over.  Irrational question that had no bearing in reality were posed.  And what would have only take about 2 minutes in the real world (had the game been played out in reality), took 90 minutes just to knock on a door and find out that, yes, indeed "thar be monsters."

I left more pissed off than when I walked in.  And when I realized that attending physical D&D games was not making me happier or more relaxed, but angrier and desiring nothing more than to physically beat people, I decided I would never attend a physical game of D&D ever again.  Life is too short to NOT to play D&D.

Aspergers and Autism - Faked or Not - Ruined D&D

Just as my psycho-ex may or may not have had bi-polar disorder, it doesn't matter.  Her behavior was unacceptable

And just as modern day physical players of D&D may have a mental illness, are faking it, or were just raised really shittily by really shitty parents.  It doesn't matter, their behavior is unacceptable.

Because whether you have a mental illness or are faking it, you can't play Dungeons and Dragons, let alone any other strategy RPG.  Because if you actually DO have a mental illness, well then it's obvious you're not going to be able to play a social game effectively since you are indeed mentally impaired.  But if you're faking mental illness for attention, you're also not capable of playing Dungeons and Dragons (let alone anything else) because playing a strategy game requires team work and selflessness.  And people who fake mental illness are 100%, completely self-absorbed, weak hypocrites, incapable of team work because they value themselves above all others.  It's why everybody at modern D&D games are "on stage."  It's why they're always trying to impress other people with shitty jokes or antics.  It's why Rules Guy tries to lord his supremacy of the rules over you.  It's why some players obsess about their "non-binary" gender of their characters over the game.  And it's why some dipshit players will do the dumbest things possible in the game.

It's all to garner attention.
It has NOTHING to do with the game.

Alas, if you're a mentally healthy individual, and you would like to play Dungeons and Dragons, there is really only one place for you to play D&D - the internet.  You can choose who you play with.  You can choose people who have jobs.  You can choose people who are there to play.  And you can choose people without Aspergers or Autism, faked or not.  It will result in an enjoyable game and a lot less stress than if you show up in person.

But sadly, gone are the days of physically showing up with your Tahitian Treat, dice bag, character sheet, and rule book.  Gone are the days of creating a character and sparring with others.  The world of D&D is filled with dysfunctional people who abuse the game for their own self aggrandizement.  Please do not be one of them.

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