In dragon they might have. But outside it they did very little. Thats been known a long time. Pretty sure Gary and Mike have commented on it before. But I cant find the info anymore.

Quote from: Omega;1109303One of the things that did not help at all was TSR doing nothing to really combat the accusations. Not sure if it is true or not. But apparently some moron believed that "Any advertising was good advertising" and D&D being on the news and declared by 60minutes to be satanic indoctrination was good advertising.

If they did believe that, I suspect they were correct.  The satanic panic started kicking in at the same time that the massive fad-era of D&D started.  It's a chicken-and-egg proposition which led the other, but I don't really think the attention brought to AD&D from extra scrutiny did anything but boost sales.  

The same thing happened over in the heavymetal world.  Churches went around crying about how evil metal music was and mostly just bought all kinds of attention and interest to a genre of music that had always been underground.  

It's entirely possible that Gygax, et al. initially thought it was great marketing.  2e was written after he was gone from the company.

Quote from: Omega;1109303One of the things that did not help at all was TSR doing nothing to really combat the accusations. Not sure if it is true or not. But apparently some moron believed that "Any advertising was good advertising" and D&D being on the news and declared by 60minutes to be satanic indoctrination was good advertising.

How are you supposed to combat "Satanic Panic" Derangement Syndrome?

I mean the POTUS can not stop "Trump" Derangement Syndrome and he has far more reach then TSR ever had.

Quote from: Shasarak;1109388How are you supposed to combat "Satanic Panic" Derangement Syndrome?

In fairness, D&D books did have demons and spellcasting and stuff. McDonalds was dogged by satanic rumors (I worked a summer with a Pentecostal guy who would eat lunch anywhere except McDonalds, because he knew that they sacrificed cows to satanic idols), and for less reason, and this larger company with decades of marketing experience and much more to lose was unable to end those rumors, and not because they ever had a Quarterpounder with Extra Evil on their menu. TSR had the choice of giving up their D&D trademark or simply weathering the storm; read about the McMartin preschool case and it's clear that anybody who vouched for D&D would just be seen as part of the conspiracy.

Interestingly, SPI published a game called Demons which purported to have actual demon names from the Key of Solomon, and every player engaged in demon summoning (of little cardboard counters). Apparently nobody gripped by the Satanic Panic ever heard of this. But usually the outrage is over things that are most popular, so Harry Potter got a lot more outrage than arguably worse young adult fiction.

My parents bought me the AD&D 1e Monster Manual in the late 70s, before I even knew what D&D was. (I just thought it was a cool book about monsters using fictional stats, much like the Terran Trade Authority books did with spaceships.) When I finally got into the hobby in the early 80s, they bought me game stuff for presents and so forth. I even played in my junior high school's D&D club, run and DM'd by a teacher.

Then the Satanic Panic hit.

My Mom was mostly worried about tales of the game causing suicide. Both my Dad and my Mom worried about me having my "head in the clouds" -- never mind that I was a straight-A student and generally a parent's dream child.

My parents eventually gave away all of my D&D stuff, something for which I didn't forgive them for a very long time.

A few years went by, and I got back into gaming by way of first Shadowrun, then Torg. My parents were displeased by this but didn't do anything actively to stop me.

Then my parents got divorced. This made a world of difference in my Mom, who really turned her life around in many ways. Among the changes was her attitude toward gaming. She helped me buy back the majority of what she'd given away and took an active interest in my game reviews. She even bought a copy of Boomtown Planet, an RPG that features me as a prominent NPC.

As for my Dad, well... Once I was out of the house and made it clear that I was no longer under his thumb, he suddenly became desperate for my approval. RPGs haven't come up between us in decades. At least, not directly. He sometimes likes Facebook posts I make regarding gaming, which, if I'm being honest, actually pisses me off. I guess that on some level, I don't feel like he has the right to act supportive of a beloved hobby he tried his best to drum out of me.

Quote from: Dan Davenport;1109449My parents bought me the AD&D 1e Monster Manual in the late 70s, before I even knew what D&D was. (I just thought it was a cool book about monsters using fictional stats, much like the Terran Trade Authority books did with spaceships.) When I finally got into the hobby in the early 80s, they bought me game stuff for presents and so forth. I even played in my junior high school's D&D club, run and DM'd by a teacher.

Then the Satanic Panic hit.

My Mom was mostly worried about tales of the game causing suicide. Both my Dad and my Mom worried about me having my "head in the clouds" -- never mind that I was a straight-A student and generally a parent's dream child.

My parents eventually gave away all of my D&D stuff, something for which I didn't forgive them for a very long time.

A few years went by, and I got back into gaming by way of first Shadowrun, then Torg. My parents were displeased by this but didn't do anything actively to stop me.

Then my parents got divorced. This made a world of difference in my Mom, who really turned her life around in many ways. Among the changes was her attitude toward gaming. She helped me buy back the majority of what she'd given away and took an active interest in my game reviews. She even bought a copy of Boomtown Planet, an RPG that features me as a prominent NPC.

As for my Dad, well... Once I was out of the house and made it clear that I was no longer under his thumb, he suddenly became desperate for my approval. RPGs haven't come up between us in decades. At least, not directly. He sometimes likes Facebook posts I make regarding gaming, which, if I'm being honest, actually pisses me off. I guess that on some level, I don't feel like he has the right to act supportive of a beloved hobby he tried his best to drum out of me.

Wow, I feel bad for you, that the Satanic panic still affects your relationship with your father negatively. I wonder if "D&D causes divorce" could become a new moral panic.

Quote from: Shasarak;1109388How are you supposed to combat "Satanic Panic" Derangement Syndrome?

I mean the POTUS can not stop "Trump" Derangement Syndrome and he has far more reach then TSR ever had.

Let's not move into off-topic territory.

One of the bigger problems with the Satanic Panic was.
A: It is very persistent and otherwise normal people will lock onto lies and never fucking let go. 50 hears from now there will still be fallout because somehow it will be carried over. Worse. It will be, and is even now, being added too with new "sins".
B: It was a landmine field you had to walk across possibly unknowing that each step could blow up. As said. I envy those who never had any problems and I am thankful I did not see any of the far worse things that happened.

And though I am not positive even now. I suspect very strongly that the player that disappeared after giving away his gaming material was sent off to military school to "fix" him. I thought this was just a fucking myth? Parents really do this to their kids?

Not exactly Satanic Panic but certainly fuelled  by it. In the early 80's when our RPG club tried to put up a poster to advertise we were refused because the word roleplaying was erotic and had sexual undertones.

No, and I live in the buckle of the bible belt...

I'm late to this thread, but my experience was that our perspective (in Seattle) was that the Satanic Panic was an annoying backwards joke, much like the rest of opinions of people who watch TV evangelists and don't understand non-Christian-fundamentalist behavior.

I did notice though when hanging out with some kids from more rural Eastern Washington state that they reported some parents of kids they knew did have concern, and that they also knew some teenage "Satanists" who supposedly did bad things (not playing D&D).

Quote from: Skarg;1109984I did notice though when hanging out with some kids from more rural Eastern Washington state that they reported some parents of kids they knew did have concern, and that they also knew some teenage "Satanists" who supposedly did bad things (not playing D&D).

I do vaguely remember some of my more religious relatives in Selah taking issue with D&D, but I didn't really spend enough time with them east of the pass to be affected by it.

Edit: Plus, even then I was playing more GURPS than D&D; I doubt they would have been able to discern what I was talking about if I had mentioned it, considering I still get confused looks from non-hobbyists when I bring it up.

In the 90s my parents passive aggressively left articles on the table detailing how pokemon was satanic, and I was barred from purchasing Warcraft because its name was too similar to Witchcraft.  It wasn't just the 70s and 80s, just saying.

D&D, my father played with us twice, so as to see what it was all about and verify it was NOT cult devilry and satanism, he found it very tame and perfectly fine as we were running it, and that was that.  There were definitely concerns, but it's not like we as kids were running the book of vile darkness or anything.

Quote from: Giant Octopodes;1110005In the 90s my parents passive aggressively left articles on the table detailing how pokemon was satanic, and I was barred from purchasing Warcraft because its name was too similar to Witchcraft.  It wasn't just the 70s and 80s, just saying.

Ouch, I'd never heard of Pokemon and Warcraft being affected by this sort of thing!

Quote from: Antiquation!;1110006Ouch, I'd never heard of Pokemon and Warcraft being affected by this sort of thing!

I've heard of Pokemon being viewed as Satanic by some of the more out there Christian groups, but not for some time now.
I've never heard of any groups having an issue with WoW, but that doesn't surprise me some have.