The devil in D&D: How Dungeons & Dragons overcame claims of witchcraft and murder to become a global sensation
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: The role-playing game 'Dungeons & Dragons,' which is widely discussed in the media and popular culture, has generated a lot of controversies. The game D&D had occasionally attracted unfavorable publicity, particularly in the early 1980s when it was still in its infancy.
Dungeons & Dragons has faced criticism at various points throughout its history for allegedly promoting satanism, witchcraft, suicide, pornography, and murder. The 1980s saw the height of the moral fear surrounding role-playing games, which is the widespread fear that evil is threatening society. The moral panic around D&Ds had diminished, The New York Times stated in 2016.
RELATED ARTICLES
'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves': Official runtime for Chris Pine-starrer revealed
What is the Dungeons & Dragons game?
Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) was possibly the first real roleplaying game back in 1974. Gamers adopted the role of explorers from a variety of ethnicities and professions. A Dungeon Master served as both the referee and the storyteller for each game. Almost 20 million people were thought to have played the game by 2004, reports BBC.
How was D&D connected to satanism and suicide?
In the 1980s, some religious organizations charged that the game promoted magic and the worship of demons. Several of these critiques have been leveled about fantasy role-playing games as a whole and not just D&D.
The notion that satanic ritual abuse occurred in Dungeons & Dragons was connected to the idea that there were large, organized satanic organizations and societies. D&D is portrayed as a recruiting tool for these organizations in sources like the Dark Dungeons tract from Chick Publications.
William Schnoebelen, a Christian author who claims to be an ex-Wiccan and Satanic priest, wrote "Straight Talk on Dungeons and Dragons" in 1989, which was published by Chick Publications. D&D was described as "a feeding program for occultism and witchcraft" in the article. "Dungeons and Dragons contradicts the prohibition of I Thessalonians 5:22, 'Abstain from all appearance of evil.'" It claimed that the game's rituals could summon malicious demons and cause other real-world impacts, said Wikipedia. "Since fantasy typically features activities like magic and witchcraft, D&D was perceived to be in direct opposition to biblical precepts and established thinking about witchcraft and magic," stated Dr David Waldron, lecturer in history and anthropology at Federation University Australia and author of 'Roleplaying Games and the Christian Right: Community Formation in Response to a Moral Panic'. "There was also a view that youth had an inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality," reports BBC.
'Connected to number of suicides and murders'
Ed Bradley, who was hosting a 60 Minutes segment which was aired in 1985, said, "[Dungeons & Dragons] has become popular with children anywhere from grammar school on up. Not so with a lot of adults who think it's been connected to a number of suicides and murders." It included interviews with Patricia Pulling, whose child died by suicide, Gary Gygax, a co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and Dr Thomas Radecki, president of the National Coalition on TV Violence. It also featured interviews with the parents of game players who had supposedly committed murder or committed suicide as a result of playing the game. Radecki connected 28 murders and suicides to the game. Gygax stated, "This is make-believe. No one is martyred, there is no violence there. To use an analogy with another game, who is bankrupted by a game of Monopoly? Nobody is. The money isn't real." He added, "There is no link, except perhaps in the mind of those people who are looking desperately for any other cause than their own failures as a parent," as per Dangerous Minds.
How Dungeons & Dragons overcame claims
The moral panic about Dungeons & Dragons had eased, according to a 2016 article in The New York Times, as "parental anxieties have turned to videos, notably those dripping with gore," with worries over video games being especially high. The fact that this campaign was part of a bigger Satanic panic movement that had its beginnings in the 1970s was emphasized upon by The Washington Post. "The direct consequences of this particular moral panic weren't as severe as some others," claimed the outlet. "It mostly involved efforts to ban the game and, of course, led to ostracizing the kids who played it. [...] [The] larger trend did have some pretty devastating fallout, particularly within the criminal justice system."
"The view of roleplaying games has changed over time," stated Veteran roleplayer Andy Smith, "mostly because the predicted 'streets awash with the blood of innocents as a horde of demonically-possessed roleplayers laid waste to the country' simply never materialized," as per BBC.