The great 1980s Dungeons & Dragons panic

[Overlord]

Interesting article on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26328105

Discusses how Dungeons and Dragons has gone from being a game that was once under an extraordinary sustained assault from fundamentalist religious groups who feared its power over young minds to nothing more than something 'geeks' do.

It shows an example of a trial where D&D was described as "a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings" in order to convince the jury it was responsible for a suicide.

Quite like the final paragraph:

"The view of roleplaying games has changed over time," says Smith, "mostly because the predicted 'streets awash with the blood of innocents as a horde of demonically-possessed roleplayers laid waste to the country' simply never materialised."

(Thank to G.R. Matthews for the link!)

[Saraband]

"The view of roleplaying games has changed over time," says Smith, "mostly because the predicted 'streets awash with the blood of innocents as a horde of demonically-possessed roleplayers laid waste to the country' simply never materialised."

Not yet, but the demon of RPG that has possessed my soul is still hopeful.

[rkrugg]

Yup, I can remember back in the 1980s how one of my friends had to leave whenever we played D&D because it was a satanic influence...

[Essentia-Li]

I think that the dangers of these things, whatever 'evil' it may be, is not that they will infect ALL who get involved with them - not every one who gambles loses the house, car, entire life savings, not every one who drinks, even to excess, is an alcoholic - but to the susceptible some things pose more risk of getting in over their heads than other things.

Harry Potter is another book that falls into the same category. I don't like it because I think its written in an immature style, with clumsy sentence structure and harks to some non-existent world in which the Great British Institution of the public school is hallowed and not the somewhat different reality that it is or was - not sure how much they have cleaned up their act regarding hazing etc. I do not like the impression the author has left with me after the few interviews etc I have seen / read, but I would not categorise her or the books as evil personified as some do. However, having said that, I would have no difficulty in believing that certain vulnerable children reading the books could be influenced into having entirely wrong perceptions on how to handle problems.