Last week, I went out during lunch to visit the local comic/game store (to pick up a shiny copy of BESM d20); while the store owner rang the book up at the register, we started chatting. I asked what sorts of local games were run at the store (as there always seems to be a pack of bespeckled D&D players rolling dice in the store’s back room when I visit).
He didn’t have the schedule with him, but asked if I wanted the store contact info so I could get in touch with the employee who oversaw the game scheduling. Sure thing, I said. So he handed me a little packet of paper with the store’s contact info printed neatly on it. But this isn’t an ordinary business card! I slowly turn it over, and discover that their contact info is actually printed on the back of a…
Jack Chick tract!
This tract, to be precise. Now, Jack Chick, if you’re not familiar with him, is the guy who is best known in gaming circles for his rather melodramatic anti-D&D tracts (actual tagline: “Debby thought playing Dungeons and Dragons was fun… until it destroyed her friend”). Jack Chick also has a lot to say about Catholics, Muslims, rock-n-rollers, Jews, Masons, wishy-washy Protestants, and those Satanic New Age Bible versions like the NIV. And here is a roleplaying game store with a giant shelf full of D&D books handing out Chick tracts at the counter.
I shouldn’t read too much into it. I’m sure it not a sly jab at Chick’s expense–the store owners seem very kind and sincere and I’ve remarked before to Michele that they seem to have a really good influence on the kids who hang out at the store. And I’d previously deduced that they were Christians by conversations I overheard and the occasional strains of Michael W. Smith that wafted out of the CD player behind the front counter. And it’s not like you have to subscribe to Chick’s brand of wackiness to pass out one of his tracts–especially a relatively straightforward one like this.
But it did make me smile.

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