"How We Won the War on Dungeons & Dragons" Topic

Thirty years ago, a war raged between the dorks who played Dungeons & Dragons, and the conservative parent groups who believed that gaming was debauched at best and Satanic at worst. Lives were ruined. People died. And now that war is over. I still can't believe we won.

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reminds me of the good old days. playing DnD that is!

Yup, being the Dungeon Master and coming up with interesting ways to kill off the party members.

Like the pit trap that dumps you into a 10x10x10 foot room that is filled with 6 feet of Green Slime.

Lol. I remember reading a DnD book on the bus when I was a teenager and getting yelled at by a stranger who told me I was playing with the Devil.

One of my co-workers was a "Christian" who was shocked, SHOCKED! to learn that I played it in grad school.

Part of the campaign against it was "Rona Jaffe's 'Mazes and Monsters'". What a stupid movie.

I remember in the late 70's/early 80's there were reports locally that some D&D players had taken to hanging out in local sewer tunnels--and that they had actually killed one of their peers. Quite an urban legend, but it was believed by many at the time! It's all pretty astonishing, looking back on it.

I do have a level of hypocrisy here, however. I have to admit that some of the more gruesome bits of rpg's, some of the Warhammer demonic stuff and quite a few video games make me very uncomfortable these days. I wouldn't claim they lead to devil worship, but they push the barriers of good taste and I wouldn't want my daughters playing them. Perhaps it's just a function of growing old!

If we looked at accepted mainstream practices such as football or golf, how many players of said sports committed suicide? Pretty sure one can demonize any amusement if one practiced the same selective "evidence gathering" that the conservative Christians did then (and still do with their current targets).

Also, our Editor was part of that war. He wrote an article in the Space Gamer back then about how he defended his local D&D group, and how you could go about it.

Never judge anything by its worst examples, be it the players of a game or the followers of a faith.

I grew up in what is now labelled (with much gross misunderstanding) a conservative evangelical Christian family, and remain one today. My parents had no problems with D&D or video games (not that our graphics were much more than fancy blocks back then), and my friends and I played both in our home, as well as in the homes of their families. We were, among us, Baptist, Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Church of Christ, and in the American South, too. Our parents were engineers, doctors, teachers, and businessmen and women; one dad was also a lay minister. None had a problem with D&D or anything like it, though they had heard the hysteria. They just weren't fooled by it. And in reality, I think most others weren't either. As with anything else, the problem is partially that the loud ones get the press. You can film a book burning. You can't film a mom and dad quietly allowing their son to explore his imagination with his friends.

I got kicked out of my school in 8th grade because a character sheet fell out of my backpack on to the floor. An evangelist that happened to be in town said that the symbols I had drawn on the back of the sheet were well known witch and demon symbols with specific meanings. (they were stuff I made up and represented water breathing and some other benign power). My parents not only burned all of my d&d books they also burned all of my comic books, story books ect..
So I actually had the entire different rule books from d&d copied into notebooks by hand so I could play and not have my stuff burned. I like to make fun of my parents these days for that.

Funny how they attacked D&D, but ignored Chivalry & Sorcery.

A friend and I had the idea of setting up a book store next to one of the televangelist's churches selling nothing but D&D. We planned on having a burn barrel out back. Figured we'd make millions :).

My High School D&D group was entirely made up of kids from our Baptist Youth Group. No one ever said a word about the game though one guy's parents did decide we were a bad crowd to hang out with… and shortly after that he became convinced that Pink Floyd was demonic because of the 'backmasking' on a Ummagumma's "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict".
Luckily rather than just burn the records he decided to give them away to his pals…

@Parzival

Never judge anything by its worst examples, be it the players of a game or the followers of a faith.

"Judge not, that ye be not judged." Then said conservative Christians should actually heed that line from Matthew. I would not have judged them save they chose to judge me and condemn me for various reasons. (Though not all at the same time, usually).

This was a longer post originally, but I decided I was revealing too much and so edited it. Let's just say I have had enough negative personal experiences with your "loud ones" that being non-judgmental is unwise. And that if other members of a congregation consider that those "loud ones" are a poor representative of their faith, they should take effective action to police their own, instead of washing their hands of responsibility like Pilate.

Crikey, that is just so weird, only in America…

Honestly, there were very few who acted like this. It's such an exaggerated myth so players could feel naughty and rebellious.

I think CPBelt is right.

D&D was big in my Catholic school back in the day. Neither parents not teachers had a problem with it.

Never judge anything by its worst examples, be it the players of a game or the followers of a faith.

I grew up in what is now labelled (with much gross misunderstanding) a conservative evangelical Christian family, and remain one today. My parents had no problems with D&D or video games (not that our graphics were much more than fancy blocks back then), and my friends and I played both in our home, as well as in the homes of their families. We were, among us, Baptist, Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Church of Christ, and in the American South, too. Our parents were engineers, doctors, teachers, and businessmen and women; one dad was also a lay minister. None had a problem with D&D or anything like it, though they had heard the hysteria. They just weren't fooled by it. And in reality, I think most others weren't either. As with anything else, the problem is partially that the loud ones get the press. You can film a book burning. You can't film a mom and dad quietly allowing their son to explore his imagination with his friends.

Thank you. I could have written this and I am glad you did. We played in a church Sunday school classroom weeknightes.

Victory? Well it was a marginal one. D&D exists and RPGs are mainstream.
But we are still hounded by moralizing God-botherers.
I'll have dig out my 'The Moral Majority is Neither' old punk button.
-TV

While it is true the media like to play up extreme elements only…

My son's friend is not allowed to play any video game that has magic or skeletons in it.

Go figure.

@ Ancestral Hamster

I'm sorry that others judged you and treated you poorly, and even more that they did so under the claim of Christianity. During the day I ran into those sorts, and occasionally still do. Back then I defended games and gamers, and persuaded many of the misguided I personally encountered to change their attitude and temper their behavior. I know I was not alone in doing this. But again, I wasn't in front of a camera or slobbering all over the letter-to-the-editors section. As I said, book burnings get press. Reasonable, persuasive discussions don't.

And I agree, far too many Christians don't heed the actual teachings of the faith they profess. They get caught up in social trappings, or in trying to use the faith to change the world to their preferences, or simply operate out of a position of fear rather than faith. All are anathema to the faith's message of love, acceptance and forgiveness. You can't accept others if you're condemning. You can't find forgiveness if you don't know how to forgive. And you can't love others if you're screaming.

I wish that you had encountered my D&D group, or gone to the summer camp I went to where our age-group's lead counselor joined into a D&D session I DMed over our after-lunch rest period (great guy, and a real influence on me). I wish you had met Aaron Alston, a minister who eventually worked for TSR, and wrote much of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia (I did not know him, but I knew of his faith background). I wish you had encountered people like the McBrides of TMP (purveyors of the excellent Splintered Lights Miniatures line). I wish you had met me. But most of all, I wish that whomever hurt you had been wiser and less afraid of what they didn't understand. You got hammered by the loud ones; don't hold it against the ones you couldn't hear. We were speaking; we still are. We just don't attract the cameras.

It seems to me that the one thing missing from the article was any description of how they won the war. :-)

Parzival, Hear! Hear!

nochules: I suspect "we" won the war by being younger and some 40 years having passed.

My mom bought me my copy of Basic D&D for Christmas (during the height of the fearmongering, but it hadn't penetrated up to Canada), she thought it was what the smart kids were doing and that I was a smart kid (bless her).

Weirdly, Mazes and Monsters to me as an 11 year-old was clearly just an example of a mentally unhealthy kid, nothing to do with D&D (but made me want to game more). I think my parents talked to me about it after we watched it, just like they did for The Day After, but that was it.

Was a bit too complicated for me back then.

Mazes and Monsters did feed the urban legend of D&D players being a 'cult' (weirdly that movie did predict the rise of LARP).

I did not grow up in a religious household, but neither my parents or anyone else's ever interfered with our gaming. It was seen as it really was, a hobby. Of course, we were adolescent guys and some of us did snigger and paw over the illustration of the succubus.

Parzival, I did not know Aaron Allston was a minister! A brilliant game designer, so sorry to hear of his passing.

Does anyone else remember a 'counter-DnD' movement within the industry? I recall advertisements for explicitly Christian fantasy RPGs.

Puritan (fundamentalist of any sort):

Someone who is afraid that someone, somewhere, is having fun.

Dan

Did you see the movie that someone did based on the old "Dark Dungeons" Jack Chick anti-D&D comic tract he did? Wish I hadn't tossed all the copies I had thrust on me by strangers back in the day, they are worth money now.

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It's "Not" a parody or a Satire, at least that's what the FAQ says. Although they also end up using the wonderful term "Mono-zombeistic" (great word) in the same FAQ so I would say it's up to the individual viewer to decide the intent on the movie makers.

This was a fairly interesting example of a moral panic. What I find the most interesting is that it was so limited and regional. Spurred by a sensationalist and authoritarian loving media one would figure that it would have more legs.

They tried hard. Even Hollywood couldn't make it stick. I imagine that was because the original instigators were fringe Christian groups. The media has little understanding of Christianity. This was coupled by the fairly wide known fact that both authors were confessing Christians.

Too bad some of the later moral panics have been successful and caused real damage.

Joe Collins

My brother was the president of the D&D club at his Catholic high school in the 80's. No problem there.

Sounds like the same numpties who declared Harry Potter devil worship, despite the fact it got more kids reading books than anything before.

Wow, lucky I never played DnD then, my first RPG experience was Empire of the Petal Throne no one seemed to notice the demons and sacrificial rites which could show up in that. Had some great games too.

My group in high school caught flack from one of the school librarians, which was a little bit hard as that is where we played during lunch. We also had a friend who's mother threw out his D&D books. So it was not a myth, there were a great many people (especially in the south) believed that D&D was evil and the work of the devil.

Honestly, there were very few who acted like this. It's such an exaggerated myth so players could feel naughty and rebellious.

You obviously never lived in and around SE Texas during the 70's and early 80's…Southern Baptists ruled with an iron fist….

D&D is devil spawn. On the other hand Hero System was divinely inspired.

Interesting times for me. I became employed by TSR in early 1980, at the beginnings of the anti-D&D hysteria and while the Egbert case was in the national eye. The management at TSR was VERY concerned about the negative PR D&D was receiving, which threatened to derail the boom that FRPGs were starting to enjoy. The product development staff was always made very aware of the need to do nothing that might be misconstrued by consumers or the general public and to avoid anything in our products that was less than "wholesome family entertainment." It was at about this time that some elements from the original D&D books were expunged, to avoid giving offense (some actual demonic names from tradition were eliminated; TSR also had to remove certain dubious copyright infringements, such as references to "hobbits" and "ents", altho' they fought a successful legal defense over the term "orc." Anyway, they were very paranoid about the bible-thumpers causing trouble for D&D sales and devoted a lot of resources to putting out positive PR about D&D and hobby gaming in general.

Rona Jaffe's "Mazes and Monsters" is a much better book than movie, in my view. The movie has to compress a lot and is too curt, altho' notable for a very young Tom Hanks in a very credible perfomance (probably the strongest performance of anyone in the cast). The book makes clear that the Hanks character is disturbed even without the effects of "the game", so really the theme becomes more of "mentally disturbed people seek out avenues to explore that reinforce their delusions" more than "the role-playing game drove him nuts." but that's too subtle for most people to pick up on.

Few now remember it, but there was a very similar book about this same time that examined the same themes, a troubled youth losing his identity in a fantasy RPG (or does he?) It also involved a horror mystery theme. The book is "Hobgoblin" by John Coyne -- the blurb on the lurid pb cover reads "The Dungeons are real. The Dragons are real. The Terror is here." Like the Jaffe book, it invents a fictious FRPG game, in this case, "Hobgoblin", based primarily on Irish/Celtic mythology, that the socially awkward protagonist(s) is absorbed by. I recall at one time the author soliciting a designer to make Hobgoblin an actual game, after the novel was in print, but I don't remember ever hearing more about this pursuit. It was never adapted for the screen either, far as I know. But it would make a decent enough horror-thriller B-movie.

Here's more flavor text from the back cover of Hobgoblin:

"Scott Gardiner is weird. he thinks the monsters in his fantasy game are real. he thinks he sees Hobgoblins at the castle where his mother works. he thinks his girlfriend is being stalked by the Black Annis because of what happened to her in the graveyard. He thinks his high school is filled with blood-spewing Gorfs and flesh-hungry Groundbats from the darkness of Irish legend. Scott gardiner is right. So he's throwing the biggest party of the year. On Hallowe'en."

The anti-Harry Potter hysteria seems a very pale echo of the "D&D is satanic" or "Heavy Metal music is satanic" hysterias.

PS: I also recall from articles at the time that Rona Jaffe did in fact seek out D&D players and participated in games to learn about what RPGs involved. She may have hitched her plot to sensational media treatment of the Egbert case, but she didn't buy into it. BUT she did have mixed feelings about RPGs being healthy pursuits for people who were already unstable. She didn't offer any solutions in "Mazes and Monsters" but the book is by no means a simple anti-D&D, anti-gaming diatribe.

I too thought it odd they left Chivalry & Sorcery alone, especially since C&S took a lot of the demonology (summoning, black masses and what not) from existing myths.

FWIW, Gary Gygax at TSR was adamant about not including overtly Christian elements (as much as could be avoided) into D&D. He nixed adding "angels" as deities or "monsters." "That is too close," was his view. My impression at the time was that TSR execs would have liked to have removed the demons and devils from the Monster Manual but the genie was out of the bottle by then, the original game and materials had included them for too long to erase them at that point. But overt ties of these or anything else to the Judeo-Christian tradition were downplayed wherever possible.

Wait, I remember Hobgoblin! Wow, was that a forgotten bit of my past. After a quick google, I realized I had read the thing way back when— it had references to Brian Boru (that's what triggered the final, "yeah, I did read this" memory). I don't think in the end I much liked the book, or I'd probably still have a copy floating about. As I don't, I must have dumped it or given it away— a very unusual thing for me to do with a book! Come to think of it, I don't know if I bought the book or was given it as a gift…

"Scott Gardiner is weird. he thinks the monsters in his fantasy game are real. he thinks he sees Hobgoblins at the castle where his mother works. he thinks his girlfriend is being stalked by the Black Annis because of what happened to her in the graveyard. He thinks his high school is filled with blood-spewing Gorfs and flesh-hungry Groundbats from the darkness of Irish legend. Scott gardiner is right. So he's throwing the biggest party of the year. On Hallowe'en."

OMG I read that book. In 7th or 8th grade. Hell I might even still have it in the attic.

Xin

I'm going to give it its first re-read in probably 20 years, just to trip down Nostalgia Boulevard. Rereading the Rona Jaffe book even now! It's not exactly written with any great skill or style, but it does move briskly along.

That was my basic feeling about the Harry Potter books (and I have the stifles to prove it!)