CAR-PGa: For All Your Role-Playing Advocacy Needs
I'll lead this with a link: At long last, the CAR-PGa now has a public website, so if you find yourself needing to defend tabletop RPGs, you have a good starting point, and the knowledge that there is a group of people out there who want to help you.
And now, the full story: a while back I went looking for materials that promoted traditional pencil-and-paper Role-Playing Games. After quite a bit of digging I came up with only a small handful of sites. I publicized my quest, and received email from a few people in both camps -- some insisting that Dungeons & Dragons and all games like it were evil, and others anxious to point out the benefits of those games, especially for kids in junior high and high school.
I also got email from M. Alan Thomas II, a regional director of the Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games (CAR-PGa). This organization had been around since the '80s, but though they'd discussed it for years, they did not yet have a public website.
Mr. Thomas credits me as the impetus for finally getting the site off the ground. And so today you can find version 1.0 of the CAR-PGa website at www.CAR-PGa.org (though you've certainly already figured that out, what with all the linkage thus far in this post.)
If you play table-top RPGs, and you have a website or blog, you, too, should link to the CAR-PGa.
Why? Because when concerned citizens, parents, teachers, and others go searching for information on table-top RPGs, they need to be able to find something besides Jack Chick tracts and articles on Rocket Propelled Grenades.
The best kind of link is something that not only names the organization, but also says something about what it does. Like this: CAR-PGa: In Defense of Role-Playing Games.
You'll see that link go live on my archive pages here in the next couple of days. I'm putting my money where my (big) mouth is.
If you're really interested in advancing the cause, you could join the CAR-PGa and contribute to the materials on their site. This is especially true if you don't think their offering is complete. The best kind of constructive criticism is the kind that is actually accompanied by materials and tools for further construction.
For the record: I play table-top role-playing games at least weekly, and usually five or six times per month. I've played with my kids, and will certainly continue to do so. In fact, I've got plans to launch a new campaign with them during 2008, and many of the figures I've been painting recently are geared towards just that. Most of you know me (from my blog entries, at any rate) as a devoted family man with an active imagination, and table-top RPGs fit that perfectly.