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Author Topic: Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?  (Read 9468 times)

Conanist

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #45 on: October 08, 2019, 12:07:01 AM »
Quote from: Shasarak;1108144
As far as I am aware New Zealand missed out completely from the Satanic Panic.

Certainly by the time I was playing in the 80s the biggest problem I ever had was people telling me that I should be playing some kind of sport.  To be honest it seems like Religion is completely different in NZ then in the US.  No anti evolution rhetoric, no humans existing together with dinosaurs.


Different views are held in many areas of the US.

I started in the early 80's in Yankee territory and saw no impact.

neonitril

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #46 on: October 08, 2019, 12:10:49 AM »
Never encountered the satanic panic per se when I started gaming in 85 or so but in Sweden it was never much of a thing (where I grew up anyway). We did have an instance in the 90s when some kids roleplayed killing one of their mates in Drakar och Demoner and then acted it out in reality killing the mate. I remember the debate about the so called negative influence of RPGs in media at the time and my mother sat me down to talk about it. I was heavily into Kult at the time and I remember my mother looking through the game, looking at me and say we better buy tou the available supplements now before they pull them from the stores. It was so awesome! My mother always believed that playing rpgs kept me and my brother out of trouble and our mischief to a minimum and that was more important than worrying about some nonsense about brain washing or satanic worship.

Shawn Driscoll

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #47 on: October 08, 2019, 12:42:03 AM »
Quote from: danskmacabre;1108094
Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?


Nope. Not at all. I do remember though that bookstores were selling fantasy novels that were far more adult than what D&D books were telling us to roll for.

Haffrung

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #48 on: October 08, 2019, 01:04:15 AM »
The mom of one of the guys in my group was religious, and got all stirred up by a cassette that was passed around her church warning of the evils of D&D. We had a good laugh listening to it before a session one night.

Which isn't to say D&D was socially acceptable in my early days of playing ('79 to '85). It wasn't. But that was because it was regarded as an obsessive, dorky, immature thing to do, not because of any occult associations. By the time I was 14 and still playing, my dad thought I should have set aside such childish activities and be dating girls. Another friend's dad thought we were pasty losers for playing D&D all day instead of kicking a soccer ball around (even though we were both on the track team). And teachers didn't like it because it was associated with heavy metal, gore, violence, etc. and they were trying to keep that out of school.

So widespread social disapproval yes. Satanic panic no.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2019, 01:08:41 AM by Haffrung »
 

David Johansen

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #49 on: October 08, 2019, 01:10:44 AM »
Yeah, peripherally at least.  I'm a Latterday Saint (Mormon) and while the church never took an official policy on D&D there was a negative article in the Church News that I saw once and I certainly knew kids from church who's parents wouldn't let them play D&D.  Several of them played James Bond or Traveller instead.  But my junior high DM's parents sent him to a born again Christian boarding school.  The first year they played D&D and the next they banned it, he came home at Christmas and destroyed all his books.  I had another friend freak out and ask if I thought he was crazy when I asked if he played D&D.  I was painful aware of the satanic panic and really defensive about it but my parents were relatively accepting.  They were more bothered by the money and time I spent on it than any satanic aspects.  I got harassed at school a bit by people who would have found some other reason to harass me.  I don't know, I know I over reacted and got a bit hostile and angry about the whole thing, I supposeit was more of a thing in my mind than in my immediate surroundings.  I intensely disliked the "gamers are geeks and losers" thing that was popular in the media of the 90s.  In some ways, I think that was worse for the hobby than the satanic panic. At least Satanism is edgy, weird geeky losers aren't."
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Toadmaster

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #50 on: October 08, 2019, 01:25:42 AM »
Not really, it was mostly something read about or seen in the media (movies, TV shows with lame portrayals of RPGs etc). Every now and I ran into a kid who wasn't allowed to play D&D specifically, but other RPGs were fine (including Call of Cthulhu which amused me). Ran into the same issue with one of the places we played for a time as well. In college one of the guys I played with for a time had access to a room in his church where we could gather to play. The only stipulation being we didn't play D&D, but again other games were fine. In that case the church official who granted permission didn't really care himself, but he was worried there were church members who would object, so wanted to head the issue off before it started.

We played a ton of games, so not playing D&D wasn't much of a hardship when it was an issue for somebody involved. Ran into way more people that just plain didn't like D&D and wanted to play something else, than people banned from playing.

Being California I don't think any of the satanic panic took much hold here, I didn't see a lot of backlash against that devil rock & roll music either growing up.

The only issue I had with my parents is my mom thought games were a lot of money to spend on "paper". My dad has been into model ships, tanks, lead army men etc since he was a kid, so the attraction to gaming and the associated figures made perfect sense to him. He gave me a lot of pointers on painting minis when I got started.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2019, 01:29:56 AM by Toadmaster »

RMS

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #51 on: October 08, 2019, 01:45:30 AM »
I'm a pastor's kid in a fairly conservative church.  My parents were pretty good about it.  My dad read through the books when I first got them and didn't think it was any big deal.  His only concern was how a bunch of kids would handle someone being the DM and having so much control over other kids.  This was fairly reasonable.  We had a teacher at school that sponsored a gaming club.  He ran and played games.  I should note here that I'm just old enough that I was already well into games before the satanic panic really kicked up.  I was also a massive metalhead.  My dad was a huge classical music snob, so he was far more worked up about my music interest, but not due to the satanic panic.  He just though rock music and especially metal was lower class and nonintellectual.  

Anyhow, my extended family had far more issue with D&D and generally got more hung up on religious things.  (They still do.)  I taught my cousins to play D&D once.  They loved it, but their mom cut them off from it and told them they couldn't play anymore.  

Funny anecdote about the above aunt:  she was visiting our house one evening.  She stops in my room where we're gaming.  I didn't even realize she was there because I had my stereo blasting music (metal of course) so she catches us off guard.  She asks if we're playing D&D.  I truthfully answer that we're not playing D&D, but playing a different game, Stormbringer.  She commented that it was perfectly fine, so long as it wasn't D&D.  When she walked in, the players were at the local slave market, purchasing slaves to sacrifice for a demon summoning.  Everyone in the room barely held it in until she left the room, before we just about died laughing.  She's still an idiot.....

danskmacabre

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #52 on: October 08, 2019, 02:03:15 AM »
Quote from: RMS;1108204
I truthfully answer that we're not playing D&D, but playing a different game, Stormbringer.  She commented that it was perfectly fine, so long as it wasn't D&D.  When she walked in, the players were at the local slave market, purchasing slaves to sacrifice for a demon summoning.  Everyone in the room barely held it in until she left the room, before we just about died laughing.  She's still an idiot.....

This one made me lol in real life..  haha!

I used to run Stormbringer and other Eternal champion games a LOT and yeah, I remember scenarios like that way back...
Imagine if Stormbringer became really mainstream. The media , churches etc would throw a fit!  lol

ElBorak

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #53 on: October 08, 2019, 02:08:32 AM »
I was blissfully unaware of the "Satanic Panic". The only reason I even know about it is because every now and then someone starts a thread like this.:cool:

danskmacabre

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #54 on: October 08, 2019, 02:13:27 AM »
Quote from: ElBorak;1108207
I was blissfully unaware of the "Satanic Panic". The only reason I even know about it is because every now and then someone starts a thread like this.:cool:

I checked the thread history here and went back a few pages to make sure no-one had raised the subject in the last few years.
It's been a really interesting thread this time. Some of the experiences are really full on.

I was lucky I guess, it was there, but it was only fringe groups that really cared and they were always fun to wind up  ;)

Jaeger

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #55 on: October 08, 2019, 02:14:56 AM »
Quote from: David Johansen;1108201
Yeah, peripherally at least.  I'm a Latterday Saint (Mormon) and while the church never took an official policy on D&D there was a negative article in the Church News that I saw once and I certainly knew kids from church who's parents wouldn't let them play D&D. ...


It must have really depended where you lived and what your local stake/ward was like.

I literally learned that I lived through the "satanic panic" from RPG forums in the early 2000's.

I had no clue. But in retrospect my dad was a big wargame collector. And when RPG's came out he bought them from the same companies as a matter of course.

I found a Holmes basic set in my closet along with a bunch of other games. And it took off from there. (Never did like Traveller, even though I had every supplement.)

I grew up with most every major every system at my fingertips without having to pay a dime.


Quote from: David Johansen;1108201

 I intensely disliked the "gamers are geeks and losers" thing that was popular in the media of the 90s.  In some ways, I think that was worse for the hobby than the satanic panic. At least Satanism is edgy, weird geeky losers aren't."


This. Much worse for the hobby. The whole "nerd vs. jock" construct of the late 70's to now has been bad for dividing the youth.

Things get real interesting if you look at who was behind the whole "D&D is the devil!" proselytizing: You have a delusional single mom looking for someone to blame, two peacock preachers nobody ever heard of looking for cash, two true crime authors trying to sell a book, and an outright fraud in William Schnoebelen.  WTF!? Why were these people even given the time of day?

Ratings.

Basic journalism and a few hours actually reading and playing the game would have shown most people with an ounce of journalistic integrity that these people were full of it. "D&D is the devil!" was a total nothingburger.

But 60 minutes and a whole lot of other people seemed to really want to play it up. Because controversy is good for ratings. The whole D&D=Satanism was basically a media construct to gin up the ratings for ad revenue.
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S'mon

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #56 on: October 08, 2019, 03:41:05 AM »
The matron in my archaic Belfast boarding school ca 1986 was a bit freaked out by RPGs/D&D religious references, but they were never banned. The more progressive Grammar school I went to after that had no problem with them. I did have a younger player who was banned by his mother, that would have been around 1991.
I think it was definitely an issue in fundamentalist Protestant circles in Northern Ireland, which are heavily influenced by their US brethren, but the liberal-Catholic teachers in my Grammar school (state selective entry school) didn't care.

David Johansen

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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #57 on: October 08, 2019, 04:03:12 AM »
Quote from: Jaeger;1108209
It must have really depended where you lived and what your local stake/ward was like.

Maybe, local leaders don't make policy but they do have a lot of leeway and room for personal judgement.  I never had a bishop who had a problem with it.  I've heard that some mission presidents listed it as something that caused problems for missionaries in the field.  I've also heard that it "promotes the wrong kind of thoughts."  I used to be bothered by the church's "control your thoughts" doctrine but eventually I realized that if I wasn't controlling my thoughts, who was?  It might not be quite their intent but seriously, it's worth paying attention to where ideas and notions get into your head.  On the other hand, the church's education program, and events like Especially For Youth were quite actively anti-D&D and I knew kids back then who came back with the notion that the spells in D&D were real or that the second coming would be on April 6, 2004.  I especially like the second one because it clearly contradicts scripture and doctrine, well that and it's 2019 right now, losers.  :D
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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #58 on: October 08, 2019, 04:30:32 AM »
Superstition performs an important role in evolution. Animals cannot think logically. It is better to be wrong 99 times out of 100 if being wrong is not fatal than to be right 99 times out of 100 if that one time of being wrong results in death. Thus evolution selects for superstition. It is embedded in our culture's ancient wisdom to protect us from the unknown. It's a warning to be careful because reality can kill you without prior warning.

99 times out of 100 there may be nothing hiding under your bed at night. 1 time out of 100 it might turn out to be a psychopath with a knife. So check under your bed every night and keep that night light on. The fears of children are the wisdom of millions of years of evolution.

Much of what appears in the original D&D game comes from the stories and myths of our culture. That some who practice the religion of our culture (and thus embody our culture's ancient wisdom) should be disturbed by some elements of D&D should not be surprising.

I recently saw Suspiria (1977) and I thought the overall vibe of the movie was pretty good. The antagonist that is revealed at the end of the movie was essentially a lich (who even used the spells invisibility and animate dead). As a fan of 70's horror I appreciated it.

That movie was from the same era that created D&D and I can definitely see a connection because both share the same mythological base. And of course demons and devils are the most inspired part of the MONSTER MANUAL (also from '77). Druids at that time were portrayed as mysterious Satanic figures in TV shows and movies, not the banal tree-hugging hippies which they were later turned into. Tree-hugging hippies are not likely to inspire fear, or interest, in anyone because it is not a story that resonates with the majority of our culture. Good stories are good because they contain an element of truth that resonates with many. The great horror movies, like The Exorcist (1973) and Alien (1979), were good because they vibed with our shared cultural mythology and the horrors of our collective history. Thus a good game of D&D should make the more superstitious among us nervous. The game is, after all, a journey into the unknown.

Hic sunt dracones


Quote from: Shasarak
As far as I am aware New Zealand missed out completely from the Satanic Panic.

Certainly by the time I was playing in the 80s the biggest problem I ever had was people telling me that I should be playing some kind of sport. To be honest it seems like Religion is completely different in NZ then in the US. No anti evolution rhetoric, no humans existing together with dinosaurs.


To be fair, the "anti evolution rhetoric" is a misstatement (by ignorant people -- many people practice religion without fully understanding its traditions, both oral and written) of the belief that evolution (or any science) should not be taught to children outside the context of a moral framework, lest people get back around to the idea of eugenics (and mass executions), which, from the standpoint of pure science, makes perfect sense. In other words, teach the science, but place a layer of theology (i.e. a moral framework) over the top of it. Evolution taught sans theology makes it clear to the nihilist that human life has no intrinsic value. We are just animals. And killing animals is acceptable. The official position is that belief in evolution is perfectly fine as long as one does not believe that the "immortal soul" is the result of "random" evolution. Atheists don't believe in the immortal soul, so in reality there is no point of conflict. The apparent conflict is the result of misinformed people jumping to conclusions, as well as malevolent ideologues trolling the uninformed.

Again here is a situation where superstition might be wisdom. After the atrocities of the 20th century, people might have good reasons to be nervous about pure science without a moral framework, so do not be too quick to judge. New ideas in science that seem promising today might be taken to a bad place by psychopaths later on. The doctors in the concentration camps were scientists.

Assume that the person you are listening to (even if it's someone you disagree with) might know something you don't (Rule #9 from 12 Rules For Life)



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..When I was in Al-Taif a few weeks later I met a Imam (Islamic Priest) who had come to a dinner party hosted by some of my Saudi business partners, and I asked him why the Mutaween had trashed my Luggage, and pretty much all of my books, except for my D&D books. He wanted to see them, ...of course, and I showed him. He knew the Demon on the cover the the 1e AD&D very well, and grew wide-eyed when he saw the image. He explained to me that in ancient times, Demons had walked the earth, and they looked just like the giant Efreet on the cover of the DMG. He told me that the Mutawaheen probably would have very much liked to beat me senseless right when I had arrived, and imprisoned me, but that they were afraid that the books contained actual knowledge of how to summon such a demon, and they didn't want me to summon a demon that would torment them...


Imagine if you showed up in Germany with suitcases filled with swastikas. Demons did indeed walk the Earth. The Saudis are obviously traumatized by something horrific that happened to them in the past.

GameDaddy
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Question for the oldsters: Were you impacted by the 70s - 80s Satanic Panic?
« Reply #59 on: October 08, 2019, 04:45:08 AM »
Quote from: David Johansen;1108201
I intensely disliked the "gamers are geeks and losers" thing that was popular in the media of the 90s.  In some ways, I think that was worse for the hobby than the satanic panic. At least Satanism is edgy, weird geeky losers aren't."

From 1982 on, the media including the press, hated on Gamers. Part of it was right-wing ultra religious Monsters and Mazes crowd where anything that competed with their church, snake whispering, and evangelical proselytizing was deemed satanic.Part of it was psycho control freak parents that couldn't handle that little junior growing up and was actually thinking independently. Part of it was the Hollyweird IP control freaks who simply couldn't bear to lose money on the poor quality books, music and movies, they were releasing.Gamers were not buying their crap, because they were buying RPG books instead. For a short while the Movie Industry capitalized on the RPG Industry by releasing so many reaaaly good sci-fi and fantasy movies, starting about 1980 or so, Alien, Terminator, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Star Trek Movies, Escape from NY, Big Trouble in Little China, ET (Where they were playing D&D), Mad Max,  The Thing, Flash Gordon, Hawk the Slayer, Return of the King, Princess Bride, Conan, Red Sonja, Clash of the Titans, Dragonslayer, Heavy Metal, Excalibur, Time Bandits, The Beastmaster, The Dark Crystal, Legend, The Last Unicorn, The Sword and the Sorceror, Krull, Sorcerors, Zu Warriors, Yor, Hunter from the Future, Ladyhawke, Conan the Destroyer, Neverending Story, Ghostbuster, Gremlins, The Company of Wolves, Sword of the Valiant, The Warrior and the Sorceress, Barbarian Queen, Legend, Knight of the Dragon, HIghlander. Literally all of these really great movies were released in just a 4-5 year period starting in 1980. Right around 1988 or so, Hollyweird literally ran out of ideas because they had none of their own ideas in the first place, and had been buying written stories and converting them into screenplays.

Meanwhile D&D and other RPGs literally had their own fantasy and sci-fi generators built-in, and taught every kid how to be better at making up their own adventures. The best part? This only cost a fraction of what the Movie Industry wanted for their movies (which I didn't mind at all dropping $$$ on, if the movie was good, like, for example Conan, Alien, The Thing, or the original Terminator and Terminator II). Back in the early 80's It cost like $30-40 to take the family to the movies. The same money would get all of the 1eAD&D core books and a GM could run games for years, without having to spend any more money. Back in the days when I was broke, gaming carried me through tough economic times.

So, the media went onto the offensive in a frenzy, in an attempt to wrest control of the minds of the youngsters from them. Mostly that brainwashing worked, and gamers were looked down on.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2019, 04:55:37 AM by GameDaddy »
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