"The day Dungeons and dragons set off a moral panic " Topic

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The 1980s were prime years for accusations that the game fostered demon worship and a belief in witchcraft and magic. Some religious figures cast it as corrupting enough to steer impressionable young players toward suicide and murder. As Retro Report recalls, fears began to be stirred in 1979 with the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III, a gifted 16-year-old student at Michigan State University and a devoted D&D player. The game warped his thinking and drove him to behave erratically — or so some insisted. In reality, the boy was already troubled. After a month's absence, he was found. But in 1980 he ended up taking his own life

Damn you, H G Wells.
Damn you to heck!

I blame Tom Hanks.

I remember a little comic book put out by a church about this. In it the kids were corrupted by an older woman who used the game to get them into witchcraft.

I stopped attending church back in the '80's for this very reason. Their ignorance opened my eyes and I was done with organized religion.

Two words: Jack Chick

Good thing they never saw The Emerald Tablet. Real honest to goodness demon conjuring instructions. Just to give both sides, you could also summon Angels.

There are crazy or uninformed people in any group. I am an Evangelical Christian and I had seemingly constant conversations as an adult with people who could not understand it is just a fancy version of Monopoly. Which I could argue encourages greed, pride, and ruining other people but won't.

Leaving the church over people quirks is like committing suicide because there are people who disagree with you over politics or fried chicken restaurants. Leave because you disagree with the theology, fine. Find another church because there are overly controlling or completely dysfunctional leaders, wise move. Leave because there are stupid people (there are some here) seems egotistic and foolish.

And as for Jack Chick – to quote my hero Bugs, "What a Maroon."

I blame Tom Hanks.

Ya beat me to it!

Mute Bystander +1

I am always amazed, in retrospect, that gamers ended up winning this battle so decisively.

-Will

And by the way, my D&D program at the libary is on full throttle, with a new DM taking over the current group (the previous teen moved out of state), *and* I'm gearing up for a repeat of last year's successful "Introduction to Dungeons & Dragons" program this summer!

On a side note, had a young paraplegic teen arrive yesterday, interested in the program, who was immediately welcomed in and embraced by the current group. Friends made, on the spot. That's what D&D really does.

Parzival, drop me a line at joxash AT grandecom Dot net if you can. We are talking about doing a "gaming unplugged" night at my library and I would be interested in any experience you can share.

Joe

I was managing a small occult bookstore at the time. I used to have somebody walk in every other day and ask if we had Dungeons & Dragons in stock. And not all of these people were kids. We were already the bane of every bible thumper in town and we had to keep an eye on the usual suspects because we were afraid that they might plant "evidence" in the store to prove that we were corrupting the town's youth (they used to pull stunts like witness my customers or conduct exorcisms in front of the store).

The funny thing was, on slow days, I'd pull out my copy of Metamorphosis Alpha and have a happy time walking my players around the derelict starship Warden.

Jack Chick--a name to,er,"conjure" with! Started collecting his stuff the moment I first came across it back in 1971. The title in question is "Dark Dungeons". Local game shop had one on display for a while. I knew some gay people who kept copies of another top seller,"The Gay Blade". Even more thrilling was when he went the full-size,all color route. One was on rock music: "the music comes from witchcraft,the lyrics are from old Druid manuscripts!",which fact would have certainly surprised the druids,who didn't write anything down.
Funnily enough,my last few "finds" were at HMGS cons.

I'd be interested to know if the D&D "panic" tied into a later case of mass hysteria,the "Ritual Satanic Abuse" panic that swept the country in the late 80s – early 90s. Younger members may not remember,but that one had some real-world consequences--lives destroyed,people sent to prison,etc,all on the basis of no physical evidence whatever.

Not that cracks weren't visible in the edifice from the beginning. I remember one local,self-proclaimed RSA "expert" being questioned by a skeptical reporter about the basis of her estimate of the size of the(fair-sized city's) "Satanist" population: "You're saying you believe ten percent of the people here practice Satanism? That seems like a very high figure. How did you arrive at it?"
"Well, five percent of adults,and five percent of children".

The phrase "go figure" comes to mind…

"YOU'RE DEAD!

"You don't exist any more."

The tract is still available here: link

There was a documentary called Uber Goober that came out in 2005 that had a very excellent vignette about the whole "Mind Perverting Devil Game" mythos and an expose on the James Dallas Egbert story.

Ms Frost is hot.

Wow, I just read that comic on the link. Much more disturbing and twisted than any D&D stuff I've seen.