TheRPGSite

So yeah, it's going back some years now.

I started playing RPGs about 1982 I think and the Satanic Panic was in full swing around then.
I was in Sydney Australia around then and there were documentaries on "60 Minutes" addressing RPGs and DnD in particular.
It was all done in a spooky way to promote the "Magic" and potential entry point into Satanism etc.

I used to get joking references to this sort of thing from older people I knew who knew I played DnD and RPGs in general.

Still, Australia is pretty open minded in general and most people don't really care, or not enough to actually do anything about people doing their own thing for the most part, so it wasn't really a problem for me.

TBH, I probably enjoyed the attention and played up to the hype sometimes to get a reaction.

So, for those around then, what were your experiences with this?
Were you impacted by the Satanic panic?
If so, in what way?

The closest I ever got to it was the movie Mazes & Monsters and that one Dark Dungeon comic. But I've always lived in more "progressive" areas of the US, and I'm young enough that I suspect whatever 'Satanic panic' was present (if any) largely missed me.

I should probably clarify for the younger people here.
In the 70s and 80s, more the 80s really, various groups such as concerned parents, religious organizations and so on were concerned about RPGs, Dungeons and Dragons specifically.

They went on media campaigns, even to courts and so on to get DnD banned or at least looked into.
I believe some police forces in the USA took an interest in it as a cause for concern.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1108095The closest I ever got to it was the movie Mazes & Monsters

Yeah that movie kicked off a lot of panic too.  lol

I started around the same time in the UK. But the only sign of the satanic panic I saw was when that dreadful Mazes and Monsters TV movie came out. It was as hysterical as the 2015 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode Intimidation Game. That anyone is ever taken in by such blatant twaddle is a mystery to me.

No.  And I was living in an area that was supposedly hot with it.  Never had anyone get in my way while being very public about our gaming.

The closest I came to personally dealing with it was in a little mini revival of the panic, in the late '90s, when a friend cautiously asked me about it.  One conversation later, it was no longer an issue.

Yes. My first DM's mom threw all his D&D books into the fireplace and burnt them. He stopped playing right then out of embarrassment and heartbreak.

Several years later, he turned into a drug dealer.

A few years after that, he killed himself.

My own mother had a bunch of whacky beliefs, but she thought playing D&D with friends was an excellent way to stay away from drugs. She was right on that account.

Thinking back to those years, D&D was a great game for us poor folks. We pooled our money and shared books. We even shared dice. The dice sat in the middle of the table, and you rolled them as needed.

But I still feel bad for Mitch to this day. He worked hard one summer to buy his AD&D books. The game he ran was more to the Christian heroic ideal, the opposite of satanic. His mom didn't care; all she cared about was what her friends thought about her son playing D&D.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1108094So, for those around then, what were your experiences with this?
Were you impacted by the Satanic panic?
If so, in what way?

Only a couple of small moments.

We used to play after school sometimes, and I asked a teacher to sponsor us as an after-school activity. The teacher in question declined, her comment was along the lines that she didn't want to be associated with the controversey surrounding the game.

My mother once asked me if there was anything about D&D that should concern her. I told her no.
It helped that we played at the house and she could see what we were up to. Mostly when bringing us bags of popcorn for snacks.

Quote from: Anthony Pacheco;1108107Yes. My first DM's mom threw all his D&D books into the fireplace and burnt them. He stopped playing right then out of embarrassment and heartbreak.

Several years later, he turned into a drug dealer.

A few years after that, he killed himself.

My own mother had a bunch of whacky beliefs, but she thought playing D&D with friends was an excellent way to stay away from drugs. She was right on that account.

Thinking back to those years, D&D was a great game for us poor folks. We pooled our money and shared books. We even shared dice. The dice sat in the middle of the table, and you rolled them as needed.

But I still feel bad for Mitch to this day. He worked hard one summer to buy his AD&D books. The game he ran was more to the Christian heroic ideal, the opposite of satanic. His mom didn't care; all she cared about was what her friends thought about her son playing D&D.

Well,that's a rather depressing story.

Not really.

I grew up in a rural Southern area with small towns and mostly Baptist churches. In late 80s/early 90s, a few older folks (60s+) maybe furrowed their brows suspiciously at the mention of D&D, but I never encountered anyone who actually tried to dissuade me from playing in any way. In fact, my grandmother (very religious) bought me tons of books. She was happy to see me reading. So, my own experience doesn't really foot with the horror story stereotypes I hear people mention from time to time. Maybe the crazy had passed by then. /shrug

Quote from: Anthony Pacheco;1108107Yes. My first DM's mom threw all his D&D books into the fireplace and burnt them. He stopped playing right then out of embarrassment and heartbreak.
Several years later, he turned into a drug dealer.
A few years after that, he killed himself.

That's absolutely awful. Poor guy.
I wonder if his mother realises what she might have caused, at least in part?

I left home very young at 16, so I could do whatever I wanted without anyone breathing down my neck.
Although had I still been at home when getting into RPGs, it probably would have been a huge problem.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1108109My mother once asked me if there was anything about D&D that should concern her. I told her no.
It helped that we played at the house and she could see what we were up to. Mostly when bringing us bags of popcorn for snacks.

You have a cool mum, send her a thumbs up from me :)

Yes. Mom hated D&D but I got away with playing Traveller because it had equations in it (I told her it was helping me learn math and science, she relented).

EDIT: I should probably add that my Dad didn't care. Years later after my mom passed away, I asked him about it and he told me that when he was the age I was when I started gaming, that he used to collect WW1 flying ace pulp magazines and dreamed of that. He didn't think that RPGs were much different.

My grandmother was a religious fanatic who jumped on the hate train as well. But when she was finally driven from our immediate lives by my mom. I actually bought the Basic, Expert and Companion sets. And that started a huge controversy with my mom over it because she had been brainwashed by my grandmother.

I finally had enough. I grabbed my books and told her to read them and make her own decision. After she did, I never heard a negative thing about roleplaying games or D&D from her again. Reason and fact won out with her. Instead of lies that were told by fanatics and strangers.

My mom has always supported my interests.

Not the original Satanic Panic (I started playing in 86), but when I moved to Victoria BC in 1990, it was right after a grisly double murder. The criminals were three guys who went to my high school and played D&D together.  Their victims were the DM's grandmother and aunt. Apparently they wanted their inheritance right now.

My parents didn't care. But some of my teachers took a dim view of anyone playing D&D.  So we kept it out of school.

It had largely run out of steam by the time I started playing in '89 .  I'd get some guff about it at school or church, but if I stuck to don't-ask/don't-tell, it was no big deal.

My little brother wasn't allowed to play D&D with one particular friend, so they played Heroes Unlimited and other non-fantasy games.  

I think I remember another friend's mom confiscating his 1st edition DMG because of the cover.  That was especially weird as his mom was otherwise so permissive as to be seriously neglectful, but she gave it back eventually.  

My mom asked me if my rpgs ever made me think about hurting myself or someone else.  Laughing, I said "No" in a tone that made it clear I thought the question was beyond ridiculous.  She never brought it up again.  My parents did, however, confiscate my RPGs more than once, and regularly gave me a hard time about playing, but this was because I was "wasting my time".  

I was, however, once seriously harassed by a cop who thought I might be "one of those satanists".  It wasn't directly D&D related, but was an outgrowth of the "satanic panic" and the "ritual child abuse" scare that some ideologues and their useful idiots pushed on police departments across the US.  

By far the most difficult thing about being a TTRPG player when and where i grew up was negative peer pressure.  Adults generally left us alone.

Was a non-issue in our household. To help me learn English my mom read the Hobbit, as well as the Lord of the Rings to me, starting in 1967. When Mazes & Monsters came out in 1982, I knew it couldn't possibly be true that there was a gamer who was so twisted that he would run off into some college steam tunnels to live in a Dungeon. We did our own tunnel and cave expeditions out in Colorado, and came back with fluorite after exploring an abandoned old mine, and slayed some rattlesnakes in the rather large drainage pipes that ran under our streets, all great fun! But not one of us thought about making this a vocation.

Tom Hanks lost a serious amount of credibility playing James Dallas Eggbert, and portraying RPG gamers so negatively. It would be a couple decades before I started watching him in other movies.  ..and of course, later on, everyone found out almost the entire story was fabricated.

Patricia Pulling and the rest of the religious right nutcases didn't affect any of my gaming groups at all, as we were playing original D&D, and not AD&D. We were also playing wargames, and we weren't constantly morally toeing the line while we were playing our games. We just kept to ourselves, and shared our games with people that would appreciate them. They did force TSR to reign in the themes, npcs, monsters, and stories that had made D&D really interesting and entertaining, and I watched as D&D became more and more bland. They made D&D suitable for only for kids, even though it had been originally designed as a game for adults. The worst part... TSR was self-censoring and pandering to the moral majority (who were really immoral, after all, many of the old gamers and especially the moral majority had just come back from vietnam after doing their tours of real killing and murder-hoboing), ...and here we were, just playing this silly fantasy game. Most of the gamers in my group were a bunch of wimpy nerds who spent most of their time at school avoiding fights and conflicts, and dodging the very christian children of the vietnam murder-hobos, who all weren't very christian at all, and they would be found cruising with their friends on the weekends with a carload of weapons looking for another gang to rumble with, or some hapless nerd on the street to torment.

No. we just played games and kept an eye out to dodge the retards all the  while the religious right were ignoring the real problems that were developing in our country.

My parents left me with relatives while they were out on an overnight trip. I brought my AD&D books with me to read. One of my aunts took my books from me with the plan on burning them. After my parents picked me up the next morning once we were back home they realized I no longer had my books with me. I explained that my aunt and cousins had basically browbeat me into letting her take them. They went right back to my aunt's house and took the books back from her off of her front porch. She was too afraid of the books to keep them in house. Thankfully, my folks never left me with that aunt again.

I suspect most of us with stories dealing with the Satanic Panic end on positive notes since we're still gaming. I feel sad for those gamers who did have their books taken away and weren't allowed to take with their friends anymore. Their stories aren't likely to be heard as much as they should.

It was very real for me and caused a significant rift between me and my father when he destroyed some of my books. Later, when I had just graduated high school and was aged 17, he gave me 24 hours to remove my (new) rpg books from the house. I left home with my books for good within 24 hours.

As a teenager in the 80s, without internet or widespread physical recreational media, a hoard of RPG books, saved up for and much loved, was a big deal, and to have them destroyed by parents was perhaps, if I may overstate just a tiny bit, akin to having your puppy killed.

I feel for the above story of the friend who ultimately committed suicide. The intolerance of a teen's escapist hobby is part of a story of abuse and neglect. The cycle, for me, was one where the home was a place of rejection and chaos, and then a main (and harmless) source of escapism is singled out and destroyed, in a further act of emotional abuse.

In the late 70's we had a war gaming club that met in a church basement.   One of the Catholic priests played war games with us as well.  
Someone discovered D&D at the local hobby shop and we started to enthusiastically play that.  
The priest played in a few sessions with us (he played a cleric... obviously).
I don't recall anyone having difficulties with their parents over it due to this satanic panic thing.  
This was in suburban northern Ohio.

Actually I do remember one incident where a lady became quite agitated with us because our club was demonstrating a war game (Russian campaign).
She was Jewish and thought making a game based on WW-II was disrespectful.

It was a major factor for me. I was a child in the 80's. I grew up in Texas, and had friends who lived nearby from the midwest. Those friends were into D&D, and their parents didn't care. All was well until one day I had to explain to my parents this game we were playing when I went over there to play.

Shit. Hit. The. Fan.

I was forbidden from associating with those friends. My parents also had a small militia's worth of members from our church congregation come "pray over me". There was, effectively, an exorcism performed to cast the devil out.

Then they took pretty much all my toys - many of which were first edition Star Wars - and burned em all. Because apparently the devil speaks to kids through their toys. And that was the end of my gaming as a child.

But I never forgot it - how much fun I had with it. So years later when I was on my own (I left home as a teen and consequently had to grow up fast), I found a group and we started playing. And I never stopped.

Didn't really have to worry about it.  My mom wasn't a panicky person and I stayed out of trouble, so she didn't mind.  Didn't hurt that dad was a big fantasy fan, so she was passingly familiar with the idea.

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.

Not at all. In the second half of the 70s, rpgs were just the hot new thing in the microscopic world of wargaming. Nobody in the mainstream outside that tiny world knew they existed or cared. The satanic panic blew up around, when, 1980 maybe? By then we'd been playing for years, and parents already knew there was nothing to panic about. Of course we did hear about the satanic panic when it emerged, but it seemed very remote and had no impact on us. If anything, I recall a sort of "even bad publicity is good publicity" feeling that yay, people outside the wargaming world were finally becoming aware that rpgs existed.

Quote from: Brendan;1108124I think I remember another friend's mom confiscating his 1st edition DMG because of the cover.  That was especially weird as his mom was otherwise so permissive as to be seriously neglectful, but she gave it back eventually.  

My mom asked me if my rpgs ever made me think about hurting myself or someone else.  Laughing, I said "No" in a tone that made it clear I thought the question was beyond ridiculous.  She never brought it up again.  My parents did, however, confiscate my RPGs more than once, and regularly gave me a hard time about playing, but this was because I was "wasting my time".

When I went to Saudi Arabia in 1987 I brought me AD&D books with me. At customs in Riyadh my suitcases were opened without my knowledge or consent and search for contraband by Saudi Customs people which happened to include a group of Mutaween, otherwise known as The Committee for the Promotion of (islamic) Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. They happen to be looking for books, especially non-islamic religious books, and they routinely censor or deface objectionable illustrations and text in regular books, magazine and media like movies, completely marking out objectionable content, drawing extra clothing on scantily glad women. Because it is against Islam for them to steal, they can't actually tear out any pages of an objectionable book or magazine, but I have had plenty of books that have been colored in heftily with a black sharpie, so much so, that it they were completely worthless as reading material. Same for VHS movies, they just pull the magnetic tape out cassettes and tore it all up. the Mutwaheen would beat anyone smoking or talking to Saudi women (50 lashes), or caught out wandering the street during prayer (10 lashes). They were constantly out messing with foreigners, bullying them. I was usually on a work compound, out in a tent in the desert or on the coast, or in my private walled villa, in the penthouse suite the General had given me.

Anyway, I get my luggage at customs, and both suitcases I had checked in were destroyed. Now these were Samsonite suitcases, that you could literally drop them out of a flying aircraft right on to a runway, and they would be completely unscathed. The locks had all been forced open and were busted, and I couldn't even properly close the suitcases anymore. I opened the first one up, to check if anything was missing, and right at the top of the pile, completely untouched was that 1e AD&D DMG with the Demon on the cover, completely pristine and brand new looking. Every one of my magazines that were in the suitcase had been defaced, as well as a few other books. The D&D books were completely untouched though. I was mystified. All the customs people didn't say a single word, they just stared at me.

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.

I never told him it was just a game, and quietly put away my books. Later I would only take them out to play D&D when I was in my villa, with my American and European friends. I never showed those books to another Saudi, or Arab, in Arabia again.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1108126When Mazes & Monsters came out in 1982, I knew it couldn't possibly be true that there was a gamer who was so twisted that he would run off into some college steam tunnels to live in a Dungeon.

Tom Hanks lost a serious amount of credibility playing James Dallas Eggbert, and portraying RPG gamers so negatively. It would be a couple decades before I started watching him in other movies.  

I had a completely different reaction to Mazes & Monsters. When it came out back then, I thought it was funny to my 13 year old self because nobody played like how they were portrayed in the movie. When I picked up the DVD a few years ago and watched it, you can tell that while Tom Hanks had a crap role to act - he was the only cast member who really could act. I cut him a lot of slack because acting is just a job, it isn't like he wrote the script.

Most of it seemed to be aimed at "rock music" where I lived. (Weened on my brother's Brit-invasion tastes, I had a thick skin by the time gaming came around.) But it did keep our group small due to failed recruiting attempts.

Before gaming I was on the edge of being held back at school, after I was ahead in all my subjects. It was like a light switch. It was so dramatic an especially religious teacher called me "unnatural" which actually turned into a parent/teacher conference since she also loudly claimed I had to be cheating.

People would try to witness, which got old. Sometime later we found Gamma World and just used that as code for all gaming get-togethers in public. I do remember another instance of being at a house after a break of kickball with a guy from the losing team bringing up my D&D playing as sour grapes. An "old guy" (probably younger then I am now) was there and railed games were made by "the jews." Later my friends warned me he was a KKK "snake enthusiast" so I just avoided the place. Especially since he got pretty mad when I asked if that meant kickball was "jewish."

I was lucky with my parents. Their panic was I'd grow up to be a street musician or pot farmer/drug dealer. (We were lower middle class.) They not only accepted my geekism, they fed it when they could.

Not much, priests were only branding as Satanic tools the carebears, the smurfs, He-Man and of course Rock, not forgetting D&D, I might be wrong but the satanic panic was a thing before it impacted RPGs I seem to remember it started with the "autobiographic" book "Michelle Remembers".

If only México only took the good stuff from the USA we would be the world hegemon simply by going forward while you guys were fighting demons. :D

I was only indirectly affected by it. I was born in 1970, and I was first introduced to D&D while I was still in preschool.

My parents wouldn't have listened to anything from the Religious Right. However, the panic did fuel a bunch of negative portrayals of RPGs -- and my parents did have a negative view of the games based on secular things, like some magazine articles about them. As far as I know, they weren't aware of Mazes & Monsters, but that might have lent to a negative view. They never burned my books or anything, but they did give me long lectures about how I had to be careful about them.

I think the most major concern was RPGs might be a distraction from getting into medical school. :)

Quote from: cenmarik;1108155Most of it seemed to be aimed at "rock music" where I lived...

I got hit with that, too (see my post above). I forget the guy's name but there was this minister who traveled the world and preached against the evils of Rock N Roll with a program he called Hells Bells. There was all kinds of stuff about "back masking" (I think it was called), and about how the rhythms of rock produce graphs or charts or something vaguely similar to cancer and blah blah blah. Ironically, even Christian rock was verboten.

This thread is making me remember just how badly the 80's sucked for me. I think I'll go pour a drink and do some casual reading of the D&D player's handbook...

I started playing D&D in the early 1980's, and the satanic panic was a huge nothingburger where I lived.  My devout Christian mother bought me D&D stuff for Christmas and birthdays.  I attended Catholic school, and nobody ever said anything bad about D&D, or any other game.  Nobody I knew had any problem with it whatsoever.  And my friends and I enjoyed the Mazes & Monsters movie, because it was so far removed from reality for us.  I've actually been waiting for that film to come out on Blu ray.  I'll buy it when it does.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1108164This thread is making me remember just how badly the 80's sucked for me. I think I'll go pour a drink and do some casual reading of the D&D player's handbook...

Sorry raising this thread brought up crappy memories for you. :(

The whole "Satanic Panic" thing for me at the time was more of a laugh and RPGs in general were a big refuge for me then and for years to come.

I did have a fun experience when playing Call of Cthulhu years ago and Jehovah's Witnesses knocked on the door.
To cut a long story short, we wound them up a bit, trying to sell a copy of "The Necronomicon" to them.
They left in a hurry and never returned.  lol

Quote from: cenmarik;1108155Most of it seemed to be aimed at "rock music" where I lived. (Weened on my brother's Brit-invasion tastes, I had a thick skin by the time gaming came around.) But it did keep our group small due to failed recruiting attempts.

Before gaming I was on the edge of being held back at school, after I was ahead in all my subjects. It was like a light switch. It was so dramatic an especially religious teacher called me "unnatural" which actually turned into a parent/teacher conference since she also loudly claimed I had to be cheating.

Yeah, it wasn't exclusive to RPGs.
I remember the back masking thing, which I think started around the 70s, but carried on over the 80s as well.
There was even a horror movie in the 80s which had a storyline around backmasking.
It was called Trick or treat (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092112/?ref_=tt_urv)
It was a good laugh!  :D

Quote from: danskmacabre;1108094Were you impacted by the Satanic panic? If so, in what way?

Not at all.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1108171I did have a fun experience when playing Call of Cthulhu years ago and Jehovah's Witnesses knocked on the door.
To cut a long story short, we wound them up a bit, trying to sell a copy of "The Necronomicon" to them.
They left in a hurry and never returned.

OMG that's hilarious and brilliant! There's a couple that keep coming around my place that we've asked explicitly to not come back, but they keep doing so anyway. And now I know exactly what I want to do the next time they come knocking on my door. C.J. Carella's Witchcraft should serve perfectly for this.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1108175And now I know exactly what I want to do the next time they come knocking on my door. C.J. Carella's Witchcraft should serve perfectly for this.

Haha! please post a synopsis when that happens.  it'll be good reading! :D

Quote from: GameDaddy;1108147When I went to Saudi Arabia in 1987 I brought me AD&D books with me. At customs in Riyadh my suitcases were opened without my knowledge or consent and search for contraband by Saudi Customs people which happened to include a group of Mutaween, otherwise known as The Committee for the Promotion of (islamic) Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. They happen to be looking for books, especially non-islamic religious books, and they routinely censor or deface objectionable illustrations and text in regular books, magazine and media like movies, completely marking out objectionable content, drawing extra clothing on scantily glad women. Because it is against Islam for them to steal, they can't actually tear out any pages of an objectionable book or magazine, but I have had plenty of books that have been colored in heftily with a black sharpie, so much so, that it they were completely worthless as reading material. Same for VHS movies, they just pull the magnetic tape out cassettes and tore it all up. the Mutwaheen would beat anyone smoking or talking to Saudi women (50 lashes), or caught out wandering the street during prayer (10 lashes). They were constantly out messing with foreigners, bullying them. I was usually on a work compound, out in a tent in the desert or on the coast, or in my private walled villa, in the penthouse suite the General had given me.

Anyway, I get my luggage at customs, and both suitcases I had checked in were destroyed. Now these were Samsonite suitcases, that you could literally drop them out of a flying aircraft right on to a runway, and they would be completely unscathed. The locks had all been forced open and were busted, and I couldn't even properly close the suitcases anymore. I opened the first one up, to check if anything was missing, and right at the top of the pile, completely untouched was that 1e AD&D DMG with the Demon on the cover, completely pristine and brand new looking. Every one of my magazines that were in the suitcase had been defaced, as well as a few other books. The D&D books were completely untouched though. I was mystified. All the customs people didn't say a single word, they just stared at me.

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.

I never told him it was just a game, and quietly put away my books. Later I would only take them out to play D&D when I was in my villa, with my American and European friends. I never showed those books to another Saudi, or Arab, in Arabia again.

Huh, my family left Saudi by mid-1980s (work contract done), and my brother's D&D was similarly unscathed. In fact, I remember getting hooked onto Demigods & Deities book in Saudi as a wee child, inspiring a love for diverse mythologies, and I guess diversity in general. :) That explanation you got probably explains why it was untouched.

Pretty much all non-children magazines were black sharpied... except for National Geographic articles. The Western woman in an ad's tennis outfit would have her shorts and polo sharpied to her wrist & ankles -- studiously avoiding the tennis bracelet or watch being advertised -- but the following page with a native tribe with bare chested women would be untouched. Probably has to do with their concept of ignorance and innocence not extending to the 'people of the book'. :)

Quote from: GameDaddy;1108147When 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.

Wow, that whole thing would have been a scary experience.. eek!

I had hyper-religious parents and heathen older brothers who played, so they looked not very favorably on the game.  When I started playing it mom asked me if it was dangerous/occultic.  I pulled out my copy of beowulf and pointed at the Narnia books we had, and I said it was little different than they, except you could roll dice to see what happened.  That didn't make her entirely at ease, but she never stopped me and my friends from playing it.

FWIW I wouldn't have been too bothered if she had said "not in my house"; i.e., no owning or keeping those books there.  I mean, it's their house and they should be comfortable in it first and foremost, if they're weirded out by the art, content, or whatever.  Unlike kids today I moved out immediately after high school so, like many other things they definitely did not want in their house, I'd have simply done it elsewhere.

I started playing red box and then AD&D in 1980.  We lived in south Texas and were members of a Baptist church and then an evangelical Bible church. The satanic panic missed us altogether.  My friends and I played at our house all the time, my parents and grandparents bought me the various books and boxed sets, and I don't recall anyone from the church saying anything about D&D one way or the other.

After I left for school, my gaming buddies would still come by my house to see what was for dinner, and my folks would feed them - even though I wasn't there!

Sadly I saw the Satanic Panic in action first hand.

Librarians trashed the rented library room we were renting each week to RPG game in while we were out taking a break. And blamed it on us.
And around the same time a priest shows up at the library and was asking me about one of my players. And that player then disappeared after giving me a bunch of his gaming material.
And the mother of two of my other players freaked out and just up and moved out of state to "escape from that game".

And this is mild compared to the absolute hell others were put through because of these nuts.

I played here in Los Angeles starting in the late 70s and through most of the 80s. I did not even hear about the Satanic Panic during that time. I guess because I am Jewish (so not my religion driving that stuff) and it's Los Angeles (not as many evangelicals here per capita as many other places).

Greetings!

The "Satanic Panic" didn't have any significant impact where I was growing up, in Northern California in the late 1970's and into the 1980's. A friend of mine, who was Baptist, heard about it from some folks at his church, and his parents were initially pretty caautious. Once I taught him the game though, he was able to explain D&D to his parents, and they relaxed. My other friends, whether Catholic or otherwise, didn't have any real pressure or harassment. My junior high school, as well as the high school I went to, both had organized game clubs, sponsored by at least one teacher, from which we would often gather everyday at lunch to play, as well as after school. Lots of pick-up games and different groups forming and playing together. It was a blast, and a lot of fun!

As for my own home, aside from my best friend who had originally taught me how to play, and got me into a campaign, I started my first campaign as a DM with my best friend, another friend, and my own mother and father. I remember my father playing an educated, crusader-Cleric, something like a Bishop Turpin from the Middle Ages, or famed warrior-priests from the Crusades fighting against the evil forces of Islam. My father was excellent as a player, being decked out in his heavy armour, carrying a heavy mace, and stomping the shit out of Orcs and evil bandits. *laughs* My father would frequently preach at the enemies encountered, and use some Biblical quotation, before smiting them with his mace, and calling down fire from the heavens against them. Meanwhile, my mother, she rolled up a Barbarian. As this was AD&D, class-wise at the time it was a Fighter, but she wanted to wear furs, and have necklaces of wolf teeth and carry a giant sword. My mother also embraced playing the game with great enthusiasm, and she was very zealous in slaughtering any enemies that the group encountered. All this modern talk about getting triggered, whaa, whaa, whaa. My own mother said that enemies they captured would be tortured with sharp knives and shimmering fire. Enemies would be made to talk, and they would suffer judgement of pain and death for their crimes against the Kingdom! My mother was epic as a fierce, warlike barbarian woman! *laughs*

Both my father and mother would take me to this cool local game store, and walk about it with me for several hours, buying me bags of coloured weird dice for the game, as well as books and modules, and boxes of lead figures. My first box of figures my mother bought for me--a variety monster pack, of Monsters by Grenadier. My parents gave me the whole hardcover set of books for AD&D as a Christmas present, as well as more dice, and more boxes of figures. My father used to help me paint figures on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, where he would primer them for me, and suggest colours for different monsters, as well as paint and colour schemes for different knights and medieval warriors.

There were many weekends where I would invite 3, 4, or 5 of my friends over to my house, often sleeping over, where we would have these epic marathon game sessions lasting the whole weekend. My parents would often play as well, or at least supervise us. Lots of pizza, steak, pasta, salads, and sodas then, as well as cookies and chips! Good times! Even when my parents were not playing, they would often relax nearby, watching and listening to us play the game. Cheering at us, or making suggestions as we battled hordes of Orcs, trolls, evil bandits, Pagan rebels defying the King, and savage dragons! My father would sometimes relate war stories that were similar to medieval combat, echoing some of his experiences in combat while serving in World War II, or explain mythology or stories from the Middle Ages and the days of Knights and great Kings, barbarian hordes, and the ancient Roman Empire. That was always such fun, too!

Great times indeed!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Shasarak;1108144As 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.

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.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1108094Question 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.

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.

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."

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.

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.....

Quote from: RMS;1108204I 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

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:

Quote from: ElBorak;1108207I 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  ;)

Quote from: David Johansen;1108201Yeah, 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;1108201I 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.

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.

Quote from: Jaeger;1108209It 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

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 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y0EEqtWrJI) (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: ShasarakAs 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)

Quote from: GameDaddy..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.

Quote from: David Johansen;1108201I 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.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1108126Was a non-issue in our household. To help me learn English my mom read the Hobbit, as well as the Lord of the Rings to me, starting in 1967. When Mazes & Monsters came out in 1982, I knew it couldn't possibly be true that there was a gamer who was so twisted that he would run off into some college steam tunnels to live in a Dungeon. We did our own tunnel and cave expeditions out in Colorado, and came back with fluorite after exploring an abandoned old mine, and slayed some rattlesnakes in the rather large drainage pipes that ran under our streets, all great fun! But not one of us thought about making this a vocation.

Tom Hanks lost a serious amount of credibility playing James Dallas Eggbert, and portraying RPG gamers so negatively. It would be a couple decades before I started watching him in other movies.  ..and of course, later on, everyone found out almost the entire story was fabricated.

Um... Have you ever actually watched Mazes & Monsters? It is a totally fictitious group playing a game that is not D&D at all (but Jaffe did crib some notes from). They do not play in steam tunnels and the main character played by Hanks is nothing like Eggbert.

Instead Hanks' character has some mental issues related to a family trauma. The players of M&M are talked into taking the game "to the next level" by dressing up and playing in an abandoned cave system. This is where things go awry as it, along with his dating anxieties, sets off Hanks' characters mental problem and he essentially becomes his character more and more until he eventually vanishes. The group then try to cover things up and then search for him. Things do not end well.

If anything Mazes & Monsters reads more like a warning against LARPing. :eek:
Yes it plays off of the Eggbert case. But things move about vastly differently. The movie adaption isnt bad really and Hanks was still relatively new on the scene.

Late to the game, but yes I was. I grew up in and have now returned to Oklahoma. I was born in 1965 and was actively playing during that period right here in the bible belt. Now, I was lucky because my parents weren't particularly religious, and because I excelled in school and wasn't a discipline problem, I was afforded a large measure of freedom that many of friends were not. We played for a while at lunch at school, but once the panic broke out, and particularly after the Sean Sellers incident, many of my friends were forbidden from playing the game. Two of which were forbidden from even socializing with those of us that did still play. Those same friends were also forbidden from rock music, particularly metal, which also got a bad rap at that same time.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1108139Then they took pretty much all my toys - many of which were first edition Star Wars - and burned em all. Because apparently the devil speaks to kids through their toys. And that was the end of my gaming as a child.

That was likely thanks to "Apostle" Gary Greenwald and his Eagles Nest show and a series of Satanic Panic shows he created that told parents that toys were tools of the DEVIL! That they could walk and move and speak!

Quote from: ElBorak;1108207I 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:

Everything you need to know is in The Pulling Report (http://www.rpgstudies.net/stackpole/pulling_report.html).

Conversely at home we never had a problem at all. Even got my grandmother to play BX D&D and several sessions of Gamma World. Hopefully still have her mutant bear character in the box. :cool:

The only issue my folks had with D&D was the cost of the AD&D books when they came out. But I suspect they were being overpriced at Century 21. I am not positive after all these decades.

Mazes and Monsters is a great movie. When I was a kid I saw it and decided whatever game they were playing, I wanted to be a part of. Unfortunately, we never got to go adventuring in caves or anything fun like that.

I was introduced to D&D in 8th grade by a kid named David who brought the Metzer Red Box books to school. I was pretty much obsessed with playing it after that. My mom saw some crap on the 700 Club and decided D&D was a gateway to Satanism, so I bought Tunnels and Trolls and Rifts and Palladium Fantasy, Rolemaster, GURPS, Star Wars, whatever I could find that wasn't D&D. Apparently that was okay, AS LONG AS IT WASN'T D&D! Getting Rifts Atlantis for Christmas/Hannukah was just fine, even with the really overt occult stuff, but D&D was of the devil. We played BECMI anyway and just called it something else. When I was in high school I moved to AD&D and didn't care what she thought after that.

I'm of the opinion D&D was targeted because it was becoming a part of pop culture, just like rock 'n' roll. I vaguely remember a conversation when I was really young about how KISS stood for "kids in Satan's service" and AC/DC = "anti-christ, devil's children". The people having this conversation were the same ones who listened to Black Sabbath, so a literal what the fuck.

Quote from: Omega;1108238That was likely thanks to "Apostle" Gary Greenwald and his Eagles Nest show and a series of Satanic Panic shows he created that told parents that toys were tools of the DEVIL! That they could walk and move and speak!

That name does sound familiar. Do you know if he was the one who did the "Hell's Bells" anti-rock music thing too?

Very much affected.

By the time the Satanic Panic really took hole-  I'd been playing and running D&D for years. My mother's side of the family is *very* Catholic... and a lot of my relatives knew I was into D&D without knowing what it actually was... until it started making the airwaves.

Then going to school it became an issue. To the point where many of my fellow players put book-covers on their DMG's and PHB's. Since I was pretty much Lawful Evil as an adolescent - I wore it like a badge even though it got me in trouble with my teachers - who started banning D&D books specifically. So as an asshole I started running Arcanum (2e) at school...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3892[/ATTACH]

Needless to say... it didn't help matters. Pulling this out of my backpack in class was always a treat. But fuck it. Arcanum was an awesome game (and still is). On the plus side - I was really into metal, so it only added to the fire.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1108094So, for those around then, what were your experiences with this?
Were you impacted by the Satanic panic?
If so, in what way?

No impact.  I grew up in South Jersey in the USA, and began playing in 1977, so that was before the height of the Satanic Panic stuff setting in.  Thankfully it never had any impact on me personally, or any of my friends' ability to game as kids.  I do remember the "60 Minutes" episode, and wrote to them to get a copy of the transcript of the show, since I had missed some of the live broadcast when it initially aired.  
Still have it :D

Allan.

Lots of great stories in here! What is it with all the crazy aunts?! Mine was a teacher, my brother and I went to stay with her for a weekend. As a 'treat' she offered to let us pick out two books each from the library using her card. I picked out a book on the anatomy of WWII tanks. She flipped her lid, ordered me to put the book back, and told me "nothing about war or violence!" (despite the book basically just being cool art and mechanical diagrams). I said "screw it" and decided not to get anything.

Later that night I pulled my D&D books and dice out of my backpack; we spent the rest of the evening murdering goblins in droves, stealing from merchants and burning their shops down in the upstairs bedroom. :D

I lived in Wichita, KS, when I started playing (late 70s). The only incident I recall from there was a concerned teacher that confiscated D&D materials and made your parents come pick them up, at which point she would give a small lecture about the dangers of its satanic connections. She was an older lady. She also had her students bring Bibles in from home and taught everyone a song to memorize the books of the Bible. And yeah, this was at a public school. I doubt that would fly in a public school, these days.

(What was amusing about the above situation is that most of the guys who were into D&D at that school were in the "GTC" (gifted/talented/creative) program. So we'd finish our regular classwork and then go to the GTC room...where we'd play D&D, among other things. I remember the non-GTC teachers not liking the whole GTC thing much. I'm sure we gave the impression that their class was something to "get out of the way" so we could go to the GTC room -- that was precisely how I looked at it, anyway --, so I suppose their attitude was understandable.)

In the early 80s we moved to the St. Peters/St. Charles area in Missouri (near St. Louis). That's where most of the "satanic panic" stuff I saw happened. I think a lot of it was where we lived. Lots of families with parents in their 30s, lots of church involvement in the community. Lots of young mothers talking to each other and working themselves into a tizzy.

My mother freaked out during the "satanic panic," but my father thought that whole thing was ridiculous, so I escaped any major impact from it. Witnessed the storm that hit some of my friends, though. One guy had to cut the "satanic runes" out of his DMG to appease his mother. One guy who was really into D&D when he was introduced to it went home and told his father (a Baptist minister) and was never allowed in my house, again. And so on.

I remember my church youth group watching this (and the seminarian who ran the film for us seeming embarrassed by the whole thing): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHy9-tLyB_Y

(D&D reference at around 17:30 in that video.)

Didn't effect us at all. Our D&D group was all kids from our Baptist youth group and no one said a word of disapproval.
Music though, that was a bit of a thing... but still not through our church and only directly on one kid I knew because of his nutty parents.
I only knew of it by some news reports and stuff I heard on Christian radio. There was a Christian 'comedian' a lot of kids liked, Mike Warnke, who told a lot of stories about having been a 'high priest' in a satanic cult before finding Jesus. He made the rounds as a cult expert in the 80s before being exposed as a cheat and a fraud... but is still trying out there trying to make money off the gullible.

I was raised by super-permissive secular parents, and even my mom felt the need to sit down and have a "serious" talk with me about keeping the game at the table, and staying out of the alligator infested sewers.

My parents never gave half a crap. My uncle had played D&D while he was in the Navy, and was an avid wargamer and model enthusiast (everything from Warhammer to military aircraft models and similar); he introduced me to a lot of that type of stuff from a very early age, and he's also who I have to blame for my nature as a cinephile and interest in film production (lots and lots of evenings watching the best film classics... and the best film fuckups; he was a stuntman, briefly) and introducing me to videogames. He's almost entirely given up all of those hobbies/interests now due to a multitude of health problems and other issues, but I'll always have him to thank for instilling in me my most cherished interests and hobbies.

Heck yes, the school "guidance Counselor" and a teacher came to the house and berated my parents trying to force them to make me stop playing. the teacher was into Kung -Fu or some such. My dad was a pistol instructor for the county Sheriff. The county sheriff arrived and arrested the two.  

I live in Lansing Michigan where this seems to have started. After James Dallas Egbert ran off the local police and the school herded us "D&D cultists" into  a class room and began an interrogation that Stalin would have been proud of.We asked for our parents and a Lawyer. Our request was denied. The courts and politicians would not hold anyone accountable for this civil rights violation.

Strangely enough my Baptist church had no problem with Dungeons & Dragons.

Quote from: jeff37923;1108239Everything you need to know is in The Pulling Report (http://www.rpgstudies.net/stackpole/pulling_report.html).

I think I already know more than I need to know.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1108208I 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  ;)

Several forums have one or more threads on the subject.

Quote from: jeff37923;1108239Everything you need to know is in The Pulling Report (http://www.rpgstudies.net/stackpole/pulling_report.html).

Lol. How anyone could have taken this profile seriously when it's riddled with so many spelling errors it would make a grade schooler blush is beyond me.

[sic]! [sic]! [sic]!

My dad actually tried to DM for me once...he didn't understand it (but he hates all games).
But it was all I talked about so my parents confiscated my books. I 'stole' them back and moved them to a buddies house where we could play in peace after my grounding was over.
No one played D&D at my school...we were like a secret cult, because everyone would ridicule you if they found out you played. My buddies parents thought it was better than us doing drugs, so let us play and kept quiet about it to my parents.

My parents still don't understand it, turn their nose up, and think its a waste of time. Of course...I had too listen to them talk about all their hobbies over the years and not allowed to speak of mine.

Parents confiscated and threw out all my stuff in 1979 I think. I couldnt game openly till I graduated and left home. 40+ years later they still think its Satonic and hate that I'm still involved in it.

Saw some propaganda at church about D&D that was very ANTI, but surprisingly my parents never made me get rid of my books (or my heavy metal albums).

I had a 6th grade teacher who preached to my gaming group constantly about the evils of D&D. She even convinced my friend to burn all his books.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1108114That's absolutely awful. Poor guy.
I wonder if his mother realises what she might have caused, at least in part?

Based on the way her immediate family talked about her later before I left town (many years ago), it's highly likely.

Quote from: Jaeger;1108209It must have really depended where you lived and what your local stake/ward was like.

Yes, particularly what the local "elders" are worried about kids doing.  I'm in the rural south, Southern Baptist country, right in the middle of the "panic".  Locals are worried about precisely two things with the kids:  Underage out of control drinking and underage pregnancy.  Given what was happening at the time, those weren't necessarily misplaced worries.  (Their solutions weren't always very good, but the problems were real.)  Given that I lived in a county that had three consecutive sheriffs arrested by the Feds for running moonshine, the issues for the kids weren't just about the kids, either.

Good students getting together at someone's house to eat cookies and play games that reinforce math and reading ability?  No worries.  We were openly carrying the books around in school, talking about the game before and after church, you name it.  I think our parents' attitude was that if D&D was a satanic tool, Ole Scratch didn't know how to use it properly. :)  The parents felt the same way about various music and just about anything else you could name that famously causes a parent/teen rift.  Heck, it took this group several years to get worked up about kids smoking weed--and might not have at all until it obviously started to correlate with education and discipline problems at the school.  For a long time it was, "If they are out smoking in the sunlight, they aren't down at the river getting plastered, naked, pregnant, and then dead trying to drive home."

Now, if they had known some of the crazy stuff we did playing backyard sports with our own made up rules, there might have been a "panic".  It's a wonder that none us were killed.  But then again, given what our parent had done in their youth, maybe not.

Had a friend in the 80's who was living with his grandparents and his grandmother burned his D&D books. He still played D&D and Warhammer and it was a real big stress point. He eventually left and bounced around living at various friend's houses. He ended up at my apartment in the 90's in a new area and I helped him get a job there(was a better economy) and he pretty quickly got himself set up pretty well. He's married with a kid now(to a girl who was in our original D&D group) and has done well for himself. He still doesn't have anything to do with his grandparents as far as I'm aware.

I had one other friend in the 90's who parents were very against D&D. But we just played non-D&D RPGs instead and they were fine with that, which was silly. They ended up donating funds set aside for his college to some scam TV preacher.

My mother worked in various Christian churches and at one a pastor there was super anti-D&D. So my mom just asked to read my books, saw there was nothing to the Satanic panic, and supported my being in the hobby.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1108285I lived in Wichita, KS, when I started playing (late 70s). The only incident I recall from there was a concerned teacher that confiscated D&D materials and made your parents come pick them up, at which point she would give a small lecture about the dangers of its satanic connections. She was an older lady. She also had her students bring Bibles in from home and taught everyone a song to memorize the books of the Bible. And yeah, this was at a public school. I doubt that would fly in a public school, these days.

I'm in Wichita now, and my middle-school son's math teacher runs an after school 5e club two days a week.  My older son founded an AD&D after-school group that played pretty regularly throughout middle-school (but not at school, mostly at our house ;) ).  

When I lived in Lawrence, KS, for grad school in the 1990s, the one aspect of the Satanic Panic that I ran into was in Topeka, where Gatekeeper---the FLGS---would not stock Cthulhu books on the shelves/in the store.  They would order them (and anything else you wanted), but not stock them, given that Topeka was still a very conservative city then (I don't get there much anymore, so I have no idea if that's still the case or not).  

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1108285(What was amusing about the above situation is that most of the guys who were into D&D at that school were in the "GTC" (gifted/talented/creative) program. So we'd finish our regular classwork and then go to the GTC room...where we'd play D&D, among other things. I remember the non-GTC teachers not liking the whole GTC thing much. I'm sure we gave the impression that their class was something to "get out of the way" so we could go to the GTC room -- that was precisely how I looked at it, anyway --, so I suppose their attitude was understandable.)

My GTC teacher in elementary school (K-8 for me) was very supportive of my D&D interest, as I've written about in my blog:  https://grodog.blogspot.com/2018/05/grodogs-start-in-gaming-1977.html

Allan.

As fucked up as the Satanic Panic was, I'd trade those days in an hot second for the SJW bullshit we're currently under. At least back then, the hobby wasn't being torn apart from the inside by poseur assholes.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1108263That name does sound familiar. Do you know if he was the one who did the "Hell's Bells" anti-rock music thing too?

Yes. Him and another of his ilk called Phil Phillips. "Rocks Primal Scream" was one VHS from the 80s. "Deception of a Generation" was another. PTL channel aired his stuff a-lot.

Quote from: Omega;1108234If anything Mazes & Monsters reads more like a warning against LARPing.

At least the film had some value. :D

Quote from: Spinachcat;1108332As fucked up as the Satanic Panic was, I'd trade those days in an hot second for the SJW bullshit we're currently under. At least back then, the hobby wasn't being torn apart from the inside by poseur assholes.

Well, at least the purpose of the entire demonization(!) of D&D was to protect children from the occult; it's hard to blame some suburban housewife for not wanting her son to become a devil worshiper. The SJW stuff is purely about mind control.

I was going to say that having known quite a few Satanists in my day, I'd take them over SJWs any day of the week; but it occurred to me that the SJWs have entirely infiltrated and taken over the "occult" community.  Wicca fell sometime in the 80s to early 90s, followed by the Crowley inspired "Thelema-sphere" and eventually even the hard core "Ayn Rand + horns" CoS/ToS types.   There are certainly individual exceptions but all the "big" groups (big is relative here) have guzzled the kool-aid.  There are folkish "Asatru" groups in the US and Evolian neo-Fascist groups in Europe that buck the trend, but they're really small and obviously have their own set of (*cough* actual Nazis *cough*) problems.

Quote from: Cloyer Bulse;1108228To 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)

What do you mean that Evolution teaches that human life has no intrinsic value?

Quote from: Shasarak;1108351What do you mean that Evolution teaches that human life has no intrinsic value?

Off topic. But it is one of the lines of "logic" religious types sometimes use. "Science is soulless and to science life has no meaning." Probably egged on now and then by PETA and other eco-terrorist cults.

Unfortunately, some scientists seem to go out of their way to re-inforce this view. "Animals have no emotions." or the ones wanting to make real the "copy & kill" style teleporters for examples I've run into. And other Sci-Fi tech that is getting increasingly closer to being not sci-fi. And not in a good way.

Back on topic. A minor example of the Satanic Panic fallout way into the 90s. I was at an art and indie comic convention in California that was attacked by a "Moral Guardian" group. Anything even remotely suggestive had to be taken down. Various adult artists and comics were hit hard. And the gaming room for RPGs had a security officer placed there to "watch" us. And this creep was armed and nasty.

Next year the moral guardian group took over the con which had been going every year for a decade. And within a year of that it was DOA. Said group eventually became a neo-terrorist organization using the exact same tactics as SJWs would years later.

I only caught a little whiff of the Satanic Panic through a guy in my class whose parents were evangelicals or born again christians or whatever those brainwashed nutters call themselves. This guy was not allowed to listen to pop and rock music and could not hang posters of pop or rock artists in his room. They were also convinced that this music contained satanic messages that could be heared when you played it backwards. Nothing regarding D&D however. I don't think D&D was particularly big here at the time.

I only started playing RPGs in the early 90s and never noticed any backlash. Of course, any sensible young person knows that their parents are often just as full of shit as everybody else and if they forbid you to do something that only means you make sure they don't catch you doing it, not that you actually stop doing it if you don't want to. This applies to everything, not just RPGs.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1108332As fucked up as the Satanic Panic was, I'd trade those days in an hot second for the SJW bullshit we're currently under. At least back then, the hobby wasn't being torn apart from the inside by poseur assholes.

+1 on this. Although DnD did pander to the concern trolls wayback in the late 80s and 90s and toned down dnd unfortunately from 2nd edition.

I had a long running AD&D Forgotten Realms game and we lost one of the places we played in and needed a new one. So I asked my dad if we could play at his office which was unused on the weekend. He agreed and so we played there. For several months.

Then he comes to me and says "you can't play at the office anymore. One of the salespeople found out and insists that game summons demons and pitched a fit." - and so our perfect gaming space was no more. I begged my dad to be able to talk to the fanatic, but he wouldn't allow it.

This was later in the panic, at a time when I thought it had blown over. :-O

I despise fanatics in any form. They always ruin everything. Misery loves company.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1108332As fucked up as the Satanic Panic was, I'd trade those days in an hot second for the SJW bullshit we're currently under. At least back then, the hobby wasn't being torn apart from the inside by poseur assholes.

Agreed.

Having experienced the final remnants of the Satanic Panic in the early 2000's, I see a lot of scary parallels between the SJW's and the Evangelicals of old.

The difference is that with the SJW's is that the calls are coming from inside the house.

Dungeons & Dragons was banned at our high school from 1985 to 1988.
Which was fine, as this allowed us to play RuneQuest, MERP/ Rolemaster, and even Call of Cthulhu right under their noses, heh heh

Quote from: Spinachcat;1108332As fucked up as the Satanic Panic was, I'd trade those days in an hot second for the SJW bullshit we're currently under. At least back then, the hobby wasn't being torn apart from the inside by poseur assholes.

I sometimes think that the main reason the Satanic Panic still gets so much attention is because it is so small in proportion of effect to the SJW bullshit.  You get one wacky parent reviving something similar a few times a year, or trying to anyway.  It spawns tons of pushback and outrage.  You get daily and more SJW bullshit, and the usual suspects are mad that anyone even notes it.

The main difference is that with a few key exceptions (Pulling, a few shyster ministers), the Satanic Panic drivers were mostly just misguided and ignorant.  Many of them could be reasoned out of a position they had been argued into.  Most of the SJW are lying and know they are lying, when they aren't purely emotional.

My parents wouldn't let me play D&D, and they also took away my heavy metal albums (up through eighth grade or so). It was a product of the Satanic Panic and my mom eventually changed her mind. It was part of a lot of stuff that was in the air at the time and I am sure it shaped a lot of our views about things like free expression. At the same time, it wasn't like it was so horrible. I mean parents frequently control what media content their kids consume and if your family was religious, there was likely to be a tighter grip on that stuff. I also wasn't allowed to play with GI Joe for example or have toy guns. Even though my mom changed her mind, and clearly D&D didn't pose any kind of threat, I do see where she was coming from because she was hearing all kinds of crazy stories from friends about kids playing D&D in sewers and killing each other. It was a new game and there were people saying it had all these profound effects psychologically. Really the more terrible stuff related to the satanic panic was folks getting charged with satanic ritual abuse (that is where lives were really ruined). For gamers you just had to be a clever kid and game on the sly (which was really the easiest thing in the world to do). Also some of the cooler stuff from the 1E books got edited out when they made 2E.

It is one of these things where people often either make too much of it, or too little of it. It definitely is a lesson in how moral panics can get out of control, and for those who were drawn into ritual abuse allegation, life destroying. For gamers it was a frustration, but one that shows it is better to lean on the side of free expression and not leaping to conclusions about how media impacts things. But it wasn't some kind of traumatic incident for most gamers. It was just folded into the normal kinds of things parents do when they control what their kids do (and in this case, it just kind of happened to be something harmless that was misidentified as bad).

Quote from: Spinachcat;1108332As fucked up as the Satanic Panic was, I'd trade those days in an hot second for the SJW bullshit we're currently under. At least back then, the hobby wasn't being torn apart from the inside by poseur assholes.

You know what? I was giving this a molecule of thought. I suspect you're more right than I realized. Because I was active on BBS's back then... and I can't remember a SINGLE Satan worshipper ever endorsing D&D, or even pretending it was real. Even the jackasses in religion-topic threads.

But SJWs... are LARPing that this shit is real (and it is only to them). And clearly they're on any form of social media to show their self-loathing and demand everyone partake in it... or else.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1108332As fucked up as the Satanic Panic was, I'd trade those days in an hot second for the SJW bullshit we're currently under. At least back then, the hobby wasn't being torn apart from the inside by poseur assholes.

Amen to that brother! ;)

Quote from: Mankcam;1108494Dungeons & Dragons was banned at our high school from 1985 to 1988.
Which was fine, as this allowed us to play RuneQuest, MERP/ Rolemaster, and even Call of Cthulhu right under their noses, heh heh

It's interesting you mention that, as that was how my friends "forbidden" to play D&D got back into roleplaying... Runequest specifically.

It didn't really affect me, mainly because my junior high D&D group was short-lived and we had moved on to other things before the panic really set in. I never quite lost the itch, though, and picked it up again in college.

The Satanic Panic mindset had more of an effect on what TV shows I was allowed to watch, and what music and books I was allowed to buy. It was annoying at the time, but ultimately not that big a deal.

I feel bad for those of you whose games were taken away, that must have been a terrible experience.

Oh even more fucked up. There is an episode I recall from Bibleman where they actually tell kids that it is ok to steal someones game books and destroy them. And the guy playing Bibleman was one of the voice actors of the main cast of the D&D cartoon.

Quote from: tenbones;1108512You know what? I was giving this a molecule of thought. I suspect you're more right than I realized. Because I was active on BBS's back then... and I can't remember a SINGLE Satan worshipper ever endorsing D&D, or even pretending it was real. Even the jackasses in religion-topic threads.

But SJWs... are LARPing that this shit is real (and it is only to them). And clearly they're on any form of social media to show their self-loathing and demand everyone partake in it... or else.

I've thought about similar angles myself. I'm not afraid of being threatened with a Hell I'm confident I don't belong in, should a just God exist. Similarly, I'm fairly confident that I am innocent of the modern set of unforgivable sins, though I'm certainly guilty of wrongthink and badquestions.

But I am afraid of being run out of my job and unable to find another one because the internet never forgets, and a lie travels 'round the world before the truth has its shoes on. (I grew up with a fair amount of economic insecurity, which makes me more afraid, perhaps irrationally so.)

I caught the tail end of the Satanic Panic in the 1990s. I'm later than the requested time period, so I'll try to keep it brief.

The impact to me was largely not-quite-right content -- for example, art that had been censored to remove things that could be argued to be "Satanic". Being at the end of the panic (and at the start of the panic over video games and music) made me strongly oppose censorship and limitations on speech, and is part of what left me with a lasting distaste of authoritarians and a bit of a cheeky streak. In middle school, I wrote a couple of essays on the topic arguing against the Satanic panic in games, and wasn't reprimanded for it, which is both a small wonder and a notable contrast, now that I think about it.

On the other hand, I did also wind up with some amount of sympathy for the people panicking -- I had several "moms of friends" who took care of me (after school babysitting, etc.) who were devoutly Christian. They hated the "Satan-entangled games" like D&D and Magic, but there was a lot of earnest love behind it, too. They didn't know the details, but my immortal soul was at risk, and they loved me too much to let a silly game risk the eternal consequences. They didn't understand what they were arguing against, but they argued because they cared. There's something to that.

I guess it was an early lesson in the fact that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1108831They hated the "Satan-entangled games" like D&D and Magic, but there was a lot of earnest love behind it, too. They didn't know the details, but my immortal soul was at risk, and they loved me too much to let a silly game risk the eternal consequences. They didn't understand what they were arguing against, but they argued because they cared. There's something to that.

I'm not convinced about that. Seems to me that they didn't care enough to investigate the actual games, or to get involved enough with the kids to check out what the attraction of such entertainment actually was. I saw a lot of cheap moral posturing, overriding things like property rights and what I perceived as respect for others.

Quote from: The_Shadow;1108849I'm not convinced about that. Seems to me that they didn't care enough to investigate the actual games, or to get involved enough with the kids to check out what the attraction of such entertainment actually was. I saw a lot of cheap moral posturing, overriding things like property rights and what I perceived as respect for others.

A little off topic. Possibly political.
Alot of religions, especially the evangelical ones, push the idea hard that you should believe what you are told by pastors. Especially ones claiming to be in direct contact with God like the evangelicals. This gets indoctrinated into kids at a very early age.

Which brings us back on topic.
So the reason why these folk might not investigate is because they have been brought up to believe that questioning your pastors, etc is questioning your religion or god itself. See where this is going?

When you have an "apostle" telling you that he throw D&D minis in the fire and they screamed, or that he saw himself childrens toys move and talk. And that this is all the work of Satan! Then for some it is difficult to question that.

It is akin to how many have trouble questioning the news or law even when they have strong reason to think something is false. Its also how the SJW cult has set themselves up. You should ALLWAYS believe the accuser. Same old tactics with a not so fresh coat of paint.

Which is why I have no patience with this. I've seen this cycle at least 3 times now in various forms.

Quote from: Omega;1108863A little off topic. Possibly political.
Alot of religions, especially the evangelical ones, push the idea hard that you should believe what you are told by pastors. Especially ones claiming to be in direct contact with God like the evangelicals. This gets indoctrinated into kids at a very early age.

Which brings us back on topic.
So the reason why these folk might not investigate is because they have been brought up to believe that questioning your pastors, etc is questioning your religion or god itself. See where this is going?

This is an example of where gamers know about as much about evangelicals as the purported evangelical knows about the games.  You are doing exactly the same thing you just quoted the Shadow on, only in reverse.  

A key point to remember, in games and everywhere, is that people are people.  They run the full gamut.  You have people that can fit into almost any gaming group while others are such dicks that a normal person wouldn't let them into any gaming group.  Guess what?  Evangelicals run the full range, too.  It's particularly more striking with Evangelicals for two reasons:  1.) They are the least hierarchical of the major religions in the USA (with the possible exception of some of the Pentacostals).  2.) They don't get a lot of attention except for the ones that are the most strange.  Hmm, the parallels to gamers run even stronger than I thought.  Most of them quietly do exactly the opposite of what you said in that they expect reason and logic to be applied to the theology, not blindly accepted.  You are confusing what is taken on faith with the study of theology, which is not the same at all.  

No, if there is a bone to pick with Evangelicals as a group, it is right there in the name.  They'll talk to you about it anywhere, anytime, like that gamer that always wants to tell you about their character.  I'm thinking maybe the stress between the two groups is less about differences and more about the near similarities rubbing people the wrong way.

Quote from: Omega;1108863A little off topic. Possibly political.
Alot of religions, especially the evangelical ones, push the idea hard that you should believe what you are told by pastors.

Ironically this is kind of the opposite of what I remember in Ulster. We were told that Protestantism was about having a personal relationship with God and thinking for yourself, whereas in slavish Popery they did whatever the priests told them (the converse we weren't told being that priestly authority could often have a calming influence on the madness of crowds). So on this reasoning it seems to me that parents caught up in the Satanic D&D Panic did have a responsibility to investigate for themselves what their kids were up to.

I think we sometimes forget the Comic Book, Cartoon, and Television (We didn't have TV until I was eight or so and I knew families that kept their TV locked in a cabinet) moral panics.  We also discount the various cult related murders in the sixties and seventies with Jonestown being the particularly famous and massive one.  I think it mostly comes from ignorance and fear of change.  But there's also that stubborn refusal to become informed that seems so natural to so many human beings in every generation.  And, of course tribalism and loving to have someone or something to hate are very human things.

My conservative Methodist parents fully bought into the anti-D&D hysteria (I started in '83), but fortunately, D&D was the only game they feared.  Because my game groups in grade school were typically much more interested in sci-fi and modern spy/action stuff anyway, my gaming wasn't really affected that much in the '80s -- we played Star Frontiers and Top Secret to our hearts' content.  By the time I got into actual D&D in the early 90s, there wasn't really anything they could do about it, but I kept it on the down-low around them to keep the peace.  It took a really long time (the early aughts) for my parents to finally see that D&D wasn't the bogeyman after all.

Quote from: The_Shadow;1108849I'm not convinced about that. Seems to me that they didn't care enough to investigate the actual games, or to get involved enough with the kids to check out what the attraction of such entertainment actually was. I saw a lot of cheap moral posturing, overriding things like property rights and what I perceived as respect for others.

There was definitely that too, I should be very clear. Hypocritical moral grandstanding was everywhere, on this topic and others.

I'm trying to distinguish a subgroup and I guess the argument is over whether it's worth distinguishing. Maybe not, though I am trying because these people really did have earnest concern and kindness underneath their position. Lots of people didn't.

I guess the generalized point is that there is so much to know about so many things, that some people are going to wind up using heuristics about a topic that lead them to the wrong conclusions, and aren't otherwise pathological or bad people. And with certain kinds of reinforcement structures around those bad conclusions, it's hard to talk them out of it.

Anyone feel like worshiping some Satan yet?

Quote from: S'mon;1108873Ironically this is kind of the opposite of what I remember in Ulster. We were told that Protestantism was about having a personal relationship with God and thinking for yourself, whereas in slavish Popery they did whatever the priests told them (the converse we weren't told being that priestly authority could often have a calming influence on the madness of crowds). So on this reasoning it seems to me that parents caught up in the Satanic D&D Panic did have a responsibility to investigate for themselves what their kids were up to.

It's true, they did have a responsibility to pay attention to what their kids were doing. But, there is a good and bad way to do it.

I was amazed in junior high to discover that my parents were actually capable of interacting in a social environment, because up until that point their main influence was to deny me things that I had discovered on my own and enjoyed, because of some rumor going around their bible study. This had the undesired effect of teaching me not to tell Mom about anything that I enjoyed, lest it be arbitrarily forbidden.

As my generation raises our own kids, we tend to focus on leading the kids into things we like (and think would be good for them), rather than simply declaring things off limits.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1108870This is an example of where gamers know about as much about evangelicals as the purported evangelical knows about the games.  You are doing exactly the same thing you just quoted the Shadow on, only in reverse.  

Actually that was from experience. Not hearsay. Sorry. Try again.

Quote from: tenbones;1108897Anyone feel like worshiping some Satan yet?

I'm all Sataned out, his worship extracts a heavy toll. Might have some time to do some Mammon worship, though...I like money.

Quote from: tenbones;1108897Anyone feel like worshiping some Satan yet?

I'm more of a Xenu guy, myself.

Quote from: S'mon;1108873Ironically this is kind of the opposite of what I remember in Ulster. We were told that Protestantism was about having a personal relationship with God and thinking for yourself, whereas in slavish Popery they did whatever the priests told them (the converse we weren't told being that priestly authority could often have a calming influence on the madness of crowds). So on this reasoning it seems to me that parents caught up in the Satanic D&D Panic did have a responsibility to investigate for themselves what their kids were up to.

Lucky you. Of the four or five different denominations my mom sent me to over the years of those only 1 was so open. Though to be fair I am pretty sure it varies from place to place just like everything else. But gradually over the years into the 90s we saw an increasing push towards not thinking for yourselves. Why? No clue.

About 10 years ago went to an Easter event at a church with a friend and whooooeee was it "special". Very not what was expecting. One of my players moms was, possibly still is, a living example of the "allways believe the church." mentality.

It is this sort of thing that makes some people more susceptible to just kneejerk believing what they are told. I'd love to say religion is the only source. But fucks sake have I seen it too much in RPG circles and especially Board gaming. "I hate this thing because someone told me to.".

And that is not even getting into the near fanatical closed mindedness of some gamers that would make the satanic panic groups envious. Like the whole "We played the game wrong and now I 10000% believe that EVERY game is EXACTLY like that! There is no other style of play!" ad nausium.

Personally I envy anyone who never ran into even a fraction of the abject nuttery in various venues I've had to deal with. And I am very thankful I somehow dodged the bullets that others unfortunately did not.

Quote from: Omega;1108901Actually that was from experience. Not hearsay. Sorry. Try again.

Anecdote is not data.  Oh what the hell, I should just start ignoring you again.  You are an overly literal-minded asshole that is infatuated with an inflated idea of your grasp on logic.  It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have moments of lucidity.

Quote from: Brad;1108902I'm all Sataned out, his worship extracts a heavy toll. Might have some time to do some Mammon worship, though...I like money.

Respect.

At least you're not one of those "Moloch" guys... they're the WORST.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1108903I'm more of a Xenu guy, myself.

Xenu... so modern. So flawed. But mad props for re-inventing the game Xenu. Love him or hate him - that dude is way up on the scoreboard!

Quote from: tenbones;1108947Love him or hate him - that dude is way up on the scoreboard!

Indeed! He's at least several hundreds of billions of thetans ahead by my estimation! :D

Quote from: nightlamp;1108881My conservative Methodist parents fully bought into the anti-D&D hysteria (I started in '83), but fortunately, D&D was the only game they feared.  

This was very common - several posters have noted it on the thread, and it was my experience too. The parents and pastors were so literal-minded that "Dungeons and Dragons" was evil, while "Tunnels and Trolls" was fine. In fact, my book-burning father personally enjoyed the occasional game of T&T, with myself as GM. Those were weird times.

Quote from: tenbones;1108897Anyone feel like worshiping some Satan yet?

I feel more schadenfreude than I should, that basically the entire evangelical milieu that I was part of as a child has dissolved, with religious attendance down massively since the 80s, while my shelves are stacked with RPG books. I'm not anti-Christian, but the expressions of it that I have seen have singularly failed to meet modern challenges, and the RPG panic was a part of that failure.

Quote from: tenbones;1108897Anyone feel like worshiping some Satan yet?

I feel more schadenfreude than I should, that basically the entire evangelical milieu that I was part of as a child has dissolved, with religious attendance down massively since the 80s, while my shelves are stacked with RPG books. I'm not anti-Christian, but the expressions of it that I have seen have singularly failed to meet modern challenges, and the RPG panic was a part of that failure.

My dad just wanted to make sure I knew the difference between fantasy and reality. Wanted to make sure i wasnt gonna pull the 'my character died so now I have to kill myself' story that was making the rounds on the news.  Trouble was he sorta kept riding that same thematic train a little longer than he should have with me. It slowly turned into 'so you know there's real life and then there' gaming. Real life is making money and being useful and gaming is having fun but basically maximum bullsh*tsky.  Which drove home for me the idea that you can never make a real living in the gaming industry, so instead i'm not in any way involved in any creative pursuits and the religion has become the reality for me... There is now very little chance I'd ever have enough skills to make a living in the gaming industry because I was discouraged from pursuing gaming, and then by extension any artistic endeavors like drawing painting singing or acting as a way to survive financially in the world.  I will never be 'doing the job I love and thus never working a day in my life'.

On a good note that means i've been trained to critically resist the capitalization of my hobby in nearly every way. I'm much easier able to see when a gaming company is producting second rate content purely to make a buck, 'phoning it in' to meet publishing deadlines to fill the pockets of the shareholders blah blah blah.   I am able to still love the game by ardently keeping it inexpensive as it was when I got into it in the first place.  Buy a few megaversal rulebooks and you'll have enough gaming to last a lifetime.  I dont have to blow 300 a year on minis and paints and someone elses published adventure modules or gaming systems entirely built around 'settings', particularly copywrited ones.  I still love gaming because its maximum fun for minimum bucks.  But theres plenty of proof out there these days that my dad was wrong.  There's plenty of financial success for people who want to earn a living in the gaming industry.  But I feel bad that my dad wired my brain to only make money doing practical utilitarian dredgery instead of taking the leap of faith and hitching my cart to the wagon of song and dance and art and imagination.

Unfortunately its sort of developed in me this sort of subnature that 'if I'm not supposed to have been able to make any money doing this then neither should anybody else' which I dont think is good for the hobby as an industry even if it does keep me from wasting thousands of dollars on second rate content.

Grew up in the south in a Southern Baptist family.  Jack Chick tracts were actually handed out at my church.  Not only did I play D&D uninhibited, but also the weekly games were at my house, in full view of my mom.  There might have been some singular cases of stupidity, but the "Panic" was far more a creation of the media than a popular reality, in my personal experience.  Much like the "woke" today, only the leftists in the media really care about these moronic ideas...

Quote from: [Omega"A little off topic. Possibly political.
Alot of religions, especially the evangelical ones, push the idea hard that you should believe what you are told by pastors.

 Those are usually referred to as "cults", not to be confused with Evangelical Christians who derive their authority from Scripture ("a personal relationship with God"), not individual persons. Cults are often trotted out to be used as a strawman.

People also often conflate the terms "fundamentalist" and "ideologue" which may or may not mean the same thing depending on the context, religious or secular; I prefer to use the latter word rather than the former to avoid confusion. In the religious context, "fundamentalism" is a movement against theological liberalism and cultural modernism (relativism). An ideology is a quasi-religious system built on partial truths and which reduces everything to a single cause, and as such tends to be at variance with reality.

When I first heard of D&D I thought it was a cult. Then I discovered that it was a game about evil cults in dark dungeons filled with monsters from horror movies. For those who fear that their children might contact demons through OuiJa boards, I don't think that the distinction is much of a consolation, especially since those who are religious understand the power of myths and stories.

Before encountering D&D I gave myself nightmares watching Jaws (1975), Trilogy of Terror (1975), and Dawn of the Dead (1978), and by concocting games and other activities in the abandoned and overgrown orchard behind our house when I was left to my own devices after my best friends moved away. But as a horror enthusiast I love nightmares. If I ran a game that caused other people's children to have nightmares and the parents objected, then I wouldn't be surprised or offended, merely amused.

With respect to the Christian "defamation" of D&D, the sense that I get is that they are using D&D as a strawman, a rallying point for circling the wagons against what is perceived to be a decadent culture.

Quote"Because of this intense and emotional involvement in Fantasy Role Playing, we find young people who are latent schizophrenic pushed easily over and into, a real Fantasy world where their ethics become situational and their traditional values are eroded."

-- Dungeons and Dragons, Patricia A. Pulling

Emphasis added.

And here seems to be the real crux of the matter, inaccuracies regarding D&D and their questionable psychoanalysis notwithstanding. What is being referenced here is what's called "moral relativism", which is very much anti-Christian, and in particular anti-Fundamentalism, and characteristic of secular materialism and self-indulgence.

This pamphlet is clearly meant for internal consumption, therefore accuracy with respect to D&D, psychology, or anything else is completely irrelevant. What matters is that they fire up the base,  communicate what they mean to communicate to members of the in-group, and defend their children from being infiltrated by values which are contrary to their own. This is politics 101. We can see clearly how SJWs have infiltrated our hobby to use it as a platform for evangelizing their ideology, which could easily be described as the "Fantasy world" of a 12-year-old girl. Evangelical Christians clearly mean to prevent such an infiltration.

Quote"The seductive siren's song of the world has begun to seep into even the most protected of environments. And as a result, the hearts and minds and souls of our children have become a battleground.

"Amazingly though, the chief weapon used in this spiritual raid on our children is a game -- just a simple little game. It is called Dungeons and Dragons. Even more than all the cartoons, toys, comics, books, videos, and music, this simple little game has served to make our children a 'generation at risk.' "

-- A Christian Response to Dungeons and Dragons, The Catechism of the New Age, by Peter Leithart and George Grant (1987)

What's interesting in the above quote is that as mainstream D&D is co-opted by SJWs, this statement, written in 1987, almost becomes prophetic.

QuoteYou can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture's expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. For example, a male drow cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface.

-- D&D 5e, PHB

Regardless of one's own personal view, it should be obvious that many people do not want their children reading this or role-playing any sort of "sexual behavior".

I was allowed to watch the D&D cartoon and got quite a few of the D&D toys. I was pretty spoiled, so when I saw and fell in love with the Monster Manual at our local B. Dalton, I was surprised that I couldn't get it. That happened in probably 1980.  

I didn't actually start playing RPGs until I was a sophomore in college, around 1991, and we played Champions 4E. The following spring when I was telling my Mom that we were about to play AD&D 2E, she got real quiet and asked me if I was worried about my friends being in a cult and trying to draw me in and teach me magic.  I busted out laughing, because if magic was available to any of us, we wouldn't be working or going to college and we'd probably had girlfriends.

I then realized that my Mom had subtly steered me away from D&D as a kid and I didn't notice at all.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1108094So, for those around then, what were your experiences with this?
Were you impacted by the Satanic panic?

I started playing RQ in 1982 and had no experience of, or knowledge of the Satanic Panic. We played at University, first of all with friends in a common room, then with friends in a campus bar. Some people might have wandered past us in the bar and wondered what we were doing, but nobody accused us of anything, as far as I can remember.

In fact, it was only afterwards that I even heard of the Satanic Panic and thought it was a silly idea.

Thinking on it a little more, a couple of my friends actually got in trouble at school for reading D&D fiction at school.  Probably the Dragonlance stuff, if I had to guess.  The crazy part is these weren't guys who were really cut out for school.  The teachers should have been doing cartwheels over these guys voluntarily reading at all, not punishing them for it.

I started playing in college and well before the Satanic panic, and my parents would not have been influenced by it anyway (my mother may have disapproved very slightly of D&D because it took too much time away from serious things like education, career or producing grandchildren, but never because of the content). I think I observed a slight effect in the content of RPGs (e.g., the names devil and demon banished from AD&D 2e). The panic started outside of RPGs but owning D&D books was promulgated as an indicator of satanic involvement, probably because actual blood-stained altars were hard to find. It was notable that most widely reported cases depended very little on actual D&D playing, with the problems leading to suicide or whatever clearly stemming from something else like drug use.

Something not mentioned so far, and not directly connected, although it wouldn't surprise me if they were at least somewhat due to the negative press RPGs got from the Satanic panic. Also possibly related to the similar fears that came out of "how to" manuals like the Anarchist Cookbook and a general fear of "those damn kids and their computers".

In the early 1990s the FBI and Secret Service did target some RPG companies apparently not understanding that the products they sold were just games. Steve Jackson and Tri-Tac games were both raided at different times.

Steve Jackson Secret Service Raid (http://www.sjgames.com/SS/)

Tri-Tac FBI Raid (https://web.archive.org/web/20131207055236/http://tritacgames.com/FBI.htm)


These were two companies whom I happened to play their games so heard about it at the time. I don't know if there were other companies that had similar encounters with Government agencies.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1109274In the early 1990s the FBI and Secret Service did target some RPG companies apparently not understanding that the products they sold were just games. Steve Jackson and Tri-Tac games were both raided at different times.

Steve Jackson Secret Service Raid (http://www.sjgames.com/SS/)

Tri-Tac FBI Raid (https://web.archive.org/web/20131207055236/http://tritacgames.com/FBI.htm)


These were two companies whom I happened to play their games so heard about it at the time. I don't know if there were other companies that had similar encounters with Government agencies.

That was part of the first national crackdown on computer hackers in the United States, and literally began in earnest during the summer of 1983 and continued until new computer piracy laws were introduced in 1996. The relevant laws being the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, US Code 1030.

This law prohibits accessing a computer without authorization, or in excess of authorization. Prior to computer-specific criminal laws, computer crimes were prosecuted as mail and wire fraud, but the applying law was often insufficient.

The original 1984 bill was enacted in response to concern that computer-related crimes might go unpunished. The House Committee Report to the original computer crime bill characterized the 1983 techno-thriller film WarGames--in which a young teenager (played by Matthew Broderick) from Seattle breaks into a U.S. military supercomputer programmed to predict possible outcomes of nuclear war and unwittingly almost starts World War III--as "a realistic representation of the automatic dialing and access capabilities of the personal computer."

The CFAA was written to extend existing tort law to intangible property, while, in theory, limiting federal jurisdiction to cases "with a compelling federal interest-i.e., where computers of the federal government or certain financial institutions are involved or where the crime itself is interstate in nature.", but its broad definitions have spilled over into contract law. (see "Protected Computer", below). In addition to amending a number of the provisions in the original section 1030, the CFAA also criminalized additional computer-related acts. Provisions addressed the distribution of malicious code and denial of service attacks. Congress also included in the CFAA a provision criminalizing trafficking in passwords and similar items.

Since then, the Act has been amended a number of times--in 1989, 1994, 1996, in 2001 by the USA PATRIOT Act, 2002, and in 2008 by the Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act. With each amendment of the law, the types of conduct that fell within its reach were extended.

1988-1992 were really interesting times. Brand new open source software had been introduced around 1984 called BBS software which was an acronym for "Bulletin Board Software". With a copy of BBS software any guy owning a computer could setup his own discussion board identical in all respects to the RPGsite. One of the additional advantages of BBS software was that it included a number of additional add-ons, utilities, and modules which enabled (amongst other things) setting up a file sharing service. Most personal computer communications occurred over the telephone, and a modem was used. The BBS owner would once a day or so, direct dial another BBS, establish a connection, and exchange message board messages, as well as files with the remote BBS, which would then forward said messages to another BBS, on so on. In very short order a new worldwide communication network was established. A worldwide network with a fluid framework, that was completely unregulated. Guess how that went over with authorities?

This was in pre-world wide web days, when computers were not linked by high-speed fiber optic or cable internet connections, or by Internet Service Providers. Outside of telephone companies, there was no such thing as an Internet Service Provider. If someone in the United States wanted to communicate directly with someone in Europe, they would setup their own BBS, and if they were willing to pay the charges, could communicate directly with another BBS in Europe, by having their computer dialing direct once a day, and exchanging email, board messages, and computer files with the remote computer. Because it is easy to compress data it was a very inexpensive, and much more efficient way (compared to using standard long distance phone calls) way to communicate with a large number people who live a long ways from you.

This of course creates a nightmare scenario for the government, for all governments in fact that are intent on controlling the population. All of a sudden everyone in the world can talk to each other, and cannot be directly monitored in real-time. All because this new software (BBS Software) allows for establishing point-to-point secure encrypted communications anywhere in the world 24/7.

Naturally some people took advantage of this. Also back in the day, software wasn't encrypted or protected. Anyone could look directly at the source code and modify or hack the software. Companies like Microsoft, and Lotus, Ashton-Tate, and Apple ( a rising star in the computer world then) would release new software, and working copies would almost instantly appear, that could be freely downloaded off of your local friendly BBS. This really ticked off the software companies that wanted to charge ridiculous prices for their operating systems, for example, Microsoft used to charge almost $700 for Windows, and the spreadsheet software from Lotus 1-2-3, was like $399, and Ashton-Tates dbase III+ was $500. (Note that this free now, because the data standard software was actually based on open-sourced software developed using federal grant money at Universities and Colleges. the ODBC, In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS) . The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. An application written using ODBC can be ported to other platforms, both on the client and server side, with few changes to the data access code.    

Anyway, same deal for games, a computer pirate (Not a hacker!!!), would for example, download the latest copy of F-119 Stealth Fighter, or King's Quest, or Legend of Zelda, and then decompile (or unbuild) the computer code used to build the game, and add in a software module that would automatically provide the passwords used in the password protection scheme, then rebuilt the software including the new cracked module so that anyone could then install and play the game, without the manual or password codes. For some who had say, bought a game for example, and lost the manual, or receipt with the password code, such a website was a boon. Some people just liked to steal cracked software or shareware and didn't want to pay for any of that. They figured if they had the technical chops to modify the game so they could play it, they deserved to own it. This of course really ticked off the AAA game companies, and they also went crying to the government about how they were getting ripped off by the customers they were busy ripping off by ridiculously overcharging. In 1989 new provisions were added into the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that specifically targeted hackers and computer pirates.

Everyone I knew at that time pretty much had their own BBS. I was a personally a big fan of the Wildcat BBS software (and still have an updated copy that still works using telephone modems as well as via TCP/IP internet), and maintained my own BBS gaming site supporting both computer games and RPGs much like an enhanced version of the RPGSite at the time in Boston, where some of the first raids of 1990 occurred. Both the FBI and the Secret service conducted dragnet operations in 1990 specifically targeting computer pirates and hackers.

The FBI targeted any people associated with hacking and piracy, and of course targeted Loyd Blankenship who was busy at the time writing a game about hackers and such, GURPS:Cyberpunk. He had probably actually contacted some hackers that were known to the FBI, so they swooped in on a dragnet operation, Steve and SJG were targeted simply because he ran a BBS for his game company, the Illuminati BBS.  The FBI had searched through Steves' computers looking through the BBS for stolen or cracked software, so they could charge him with computer software piracy under the newly modified U.S. code 1030.

For the record, BBS software is still superior to utilizing the internet with its' internet service providers, because it can be easily configured for point-to-point secured encrypted communications, unlike the regular internet which is funneled through choke points known as the Internet backbone, where the Justice Dept (FBI)., and Department of Defense (through the DHS), and the CIA have established data collection and real-time monitoring apps on what is basically an unsecured open network.

References:

Operation Sundevil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sundevil

The Inner Circle
https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-untold-story-of-the-teen-hackers-who-transformed-th-1770977586

Kevin Mitnick
https://www.hackerscrackersandthieves.com/kevin-mitnick/

Mitch Kapor, Founder of the EFF
https://cd.sc.vilga.org/DOCS/nearnet.gnn.com/mag/10_93/articles/kapor/nkapor.whole.html

One 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.

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.

This sounds very wrong to me.  I remember reading articles in Dragon trying to defend D&D.  TSR certainly tried to "clean up" their image.  They scrubbed the terms "demon" and "devil" from the monster lists, retooled the artwork, and generally tried to make the game more "family friendly" with 2nd edition.  No one in the media cared, or bothered to take notice.

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.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1110020I'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.

The Pokemon thing just seems super bizarre to me. Like, I can't envision how it could be perceived as in any way Satanic. I suppose maybe calling out your pocket monsters being somehow allegorical to demon summoning? Or the fact that there are spooky-looking ghost ones that could be demons/spirits?

Interesting. Might have to dig deeper into that one later.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1110020I'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.

To be fair for me personally it was more Warcraft I than World of Warcraft which I had trouble with, but considering the shamans, druids, warlocks summoning demons, undead, and so forth, I also would not be surprised if there were groups which raised a fuss regarding that as well.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1110024The Pokemon thing just seems super bizarre to me. Like, I can't envision how it could be perceived as in any way Satanic. I suppose maybe calling out your pocket monsters being somehow allegorical to demon summoning? Or the fact that there are spooky-looking ghost ones that could be demons/spirits?

Interesting. Might have to dig deeper into that one later.

Yeah, seems Pokemon is training our kids in the arts of demon summoning.
https://filmschoolrejects.com/pokemon-satanic-panic

All good fun!  haha!

Quote from: Giant Octopodes;1110025To be fair for me personally it was more Warcraft I than World of Warcraft which I had trouble with, but considering the shamans, druids, warlocks summoning demons, undead, and so forth, I also would not be surprised if there were groups which raised a fuss regarding that as well.

I did a quick google of Wow and Satanic panic type hysteria and a cursory Google search comes up with some hits about some Christian groups getting all worked up over WoW. heh.

Don't you guys know that the Muppets are a satanic plot to prepare children to accept the beast of Revelation?  Haven't you heard that Proctor and Gamble is secretly satanic and their moon logo is a spell?  You probably don't realize the Free Masons are a devil worshiping witch cult, though that one's a few hundred years older but still prevalent enough that I've seen Joseph Smith's masonic connections used to prove he was a devil worshiper.  Catholics are devil worshipers. Yoga is satanic.  Islam is satanic.  It goes on and on, really.  I've got a Catholic friend who married a Pentecostal lady and he's got a pretty good theory, "Stupid, scared Christians are more profitable than comfortable progressive ones."  It's a bit of an ugly theory but I suspect he's got it right.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1110034Yeah, seems Pokemon is training our kids in the arts of demon summoning.
https://filmschoolrejects.com/pokemon-satanic-panic

All good fun!  haha!

Huh. The More You Know!

Quote from: David Johansen;1110051Don't you guys know that the Muppets are a satanic plot to prepare children to accept the beast of Revelation?  Haven't you heard that Proctor and Gamble is secretly satanic and their moon logo is a spell?  You probably don't realize the Free Masons are a devil worshiping witch cult, though that one's a few hundred years older but still prevalent enough that I've seen Joseph Smith's masonic connections used to prove he was a devil worshiper.  Catholics are devil worshipers. Yoga is satanic.  Islam is satanic.

Holy shit! I had no idea. :eek: Gonna have to warn the local school system on these!

seriously, not really.

prejudicially, sometimes yes.

Quote from: Brendan;1108124the "ritual child abuse" scare that some ideologues and their useful idiots pushed on police departments across the US.

What a difference a few weeks makes!