My School Sponsored Gaming Group was Disbanded

[DC1346]

After dusting off an old Hero Quest set last summer and building some dungeons, I became the faculty sponsor of a Hero Quest gaming group at my high school. For a while, everything was great. The kids were enthusiastic because this was the first fantasy gaming group that the school had ever had. Kids who had not previously joined an extracurricular activity or club now had a group to join. The students appreciated my miniatures and things were going great until the student elected club president decided to launch a D&D gaming session in the middle of one of my quests. He suspended game play to introduce a D&D campaign using my miniatures ... and since I'm not a D&D person, I was essentially pushed aside.

Although I was sorry to see the Hero Quest group become a Dungeons and Dragons group, there wasn't much I could do. As the faculty sponsor, my main job is to make sure that the kids are safe and that they're following school and district policy at all times. Since our extracurricular groups exist for students, it only makes sense for them to be run by students.

With this being said, some problems occurred that really bothered me. One of my culinary students was in this gaming group. The student in question is really lazy. He doesn't do much in the Culinary Arts kitchen other than to wash dishes. He never helps with getting ingredients or producing a product. After joining the gaming group, this student asked me on three separate occasions if he could sit out of the kitchen because he supposedly wasn't feeling well. Since he didn't look sick and since the nurse said that he didn't have a fever, I said no and I'm glad I did because even though he SAID that he wasn't feeling well, each of his requests occurred on a day that our fantasy group was meeting. While he was too supposedly to sick to work in the kitchen, he apparently wasn't too sick to show up for a two hour gaming session after school.

Another of my culinary students told me that he was enjoying this group so much that he was going to have the membership vote to have us meet two days a week. I said no and when he demanded to know why, I told him that the group couldn't meet without a faculty sponsor. The kid then asked if they could have a new sponsor. I told him to feel free to look with the understanding that if they were to find a sponsor, they'd have to do so without any of my miniatures.

The students grumbled but stopped pushing for me to sponsor two gaming sessions per week.

The wheels came off the proverbial apple cart when the D&D players (who are all teenage boys) decided to rape a non-player character using a "dong" sword. When I tried to intervene, the kids actually stood on their First Amendment rights to free speech and told me to buzz off. They also pointed out that this was an extracurricular group and not a class and that I couldn't tell them what they could or could not do in a fantasy game.

Since they weren't going to change and since I didn't want to provoke a confrontation at that time, I referred the matter to the faculty sponsor of our Student Council. The faculty sponsor told me that even though this was a fantasy gaming group and that the kids had only talked about doing this with a non-player character, my kids were still in multiple violations of district policy. After referring this matter to the Student Council, our student government voted to disband the fantasy gaming group ... and that was that.

The gaming group is no more. I doubt if I will ever sponsor it again.

For the time being, this entire experience has soured me on fantasy gaming. My old Hero Quest board that had been in storage since the late 90's has now gone back into storage once again. I don't know if I'll ever play this game again.

In any event, I did want to share this update with you. I also wanted to bid all of you goodbye since I will now be pursuing other (non-gaming) interests. I appreciated having this community of players to interact with last summer.

Regards to all!

David

[lestodante]

You should have used a special chaos spell who can make the dong sword bend forever!

[Anderas]

Sorry to hear that.
Interesting mix of interests, though.
Next time, if you ever try again, you call it "Heroquest Group" to be on the safe side.

I enjoyed your stories about the group, as long as they were alive!

[Nicodemus]

I have no patience for immature teens. Seems like they need some further education on the differences between “freedom of speech” and ethical conduct, decency, or appropriate conduct. Seems a lot of people try to use the concept of freedom of speech as a weapon to enable poor behaviour and actions.

Very sorry for hear about your experience. The real comments I wanted to make I don’t think are allowed on the forum. Maybe try your local gaming store... if there’s one around with a gaming room you might have better luck there.

[j_dean80]

I would hate for this sour taste to shelve an awesome game for good.

[Stoner81]

That's shocking! Those kids need a good hard slap each! What is the world coming to!



Stoner81.

[Goblin-King]

For starters I would definitely not have a problem with the group evolving to D&D. Seems like a natural progression to me. HQ is kind of a gateway game.
And as long as the kids are having fun with each other it doesn't really matter if they are playing HQ, D&D or Scrabbles.

As for the dong sword rape... The session were still taking place on school property, with school children and as a part of the school's extracurricular program. It is absolutely no different from if they had been in regular class.
I think you should have just taken the confrontation and explained those kids that freedom of speech doesn't mean you are literally allowed to say anything anywhere.

Anyways... Ye Olde Inn will always stay open, should you ever want to return

[Nicodemus]

You should have directed their dong sword wielding antics over to the oldscratch's HQ forum... that would fit right in and have brought some vitality to the discussions