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When people ask me about my hobby, “I play PF or PFS..."
...
Just in the last year or so one guy even said, “Well as long as it’s not that hell-spawned Dragon Dungeon bull &%!#, then I don’t give a crap what silly thing you spend your time on!”
Have you told this story on these boards before? I could swear I've read it, or one very much like it.
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the worst part is my daughter Loves! Julie andrews movies so its beginning all over again!, tragically i'm wrapped around her sweet little finger (despite swearing to my wife that that wouldn't happen to me) so i can't do anything about it:/
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Have you told this story on these boards before? I could swear I've read it, or one very much like it.When people ask me about my hobby, “I play PF or PFS..."
...
Just in the last year or so one guy even said, “Well as long as it’s not that hell-spawned Dragon Dungeon bull &%!#, then I don’t give a crap what silly thing you spend your time on!”
Never mind.
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There are definitely still people who buy into this stuff. We had a gamer in our group in college (early 2000s) who couldn't tell her parents she was playing D&D. But they also wouldn't eat devil's food cake... not joking.
Back in my hometown, the local game store owner got so many copies of Dark Dungeons, he started handing them out to his customers as gag gifts.
But my most personal experience with it was that my grandmother's church was still preaching that nonsense well into the 90s. But, despite being incredibly devout, my grandmother still trusted me enough to get me the Spelljammer boxed set for Christmas.
I never really managed to explain how much that meant to me, but it's one of my fondest memories of her.
Cheers!
Landon
Have you told this story on these boards before? I could swear I've read it, or one very much like it.When people ask me about my hobby, “I play PF or PFS..."
...
Just in the last year or so one guy even said, “Well as long as it’s not that hell-spawned Dragon Dungeon bull &%!#, then I don’t give a crap what silly thing you spend your time on!”
Never mind.
Yeah, I've been known to repeat myself a few times about that. It is one of my favorite stories on this subject.
..
...
But my most personal experience with it was that my grandmother's church was still preaching that nonsense well into the 90s. But, despite being incredibly devout, my grandmother still trusted me enough to get me the Spelljammer boxed set for Christmas.I never really managed to explain how much that meant to me, but it's one of my fondest memories of her. ...
Eventually, my grandmother decided that, since I was the only one of her children or grandchildren that still attended church, maybe it wasn't quite as horrible as she thought.
One Christmas she gave me the money to buy one of the manuals, but made me promise not to tell her anything about it (and I didn't even buy Dieties and Demigods or the Fiend Folio just so she wouldn't feel bad if she found out about it).
A good story is always worth repeating:)
I live in the south, so the D&D iz eebul thing is alive and well. While RPGs are more popular than ever, there are still those who will purse their lips and look at me with apprehension or pity when they find out that I play them (I'm 50 years old. It shouldn't get to me by now but it still does).It's possible that they just think it odd that someone would still play a "fantasy" game at 50 years of age. I wasn't uncomfortable telling people I was a gamer when I was young but I would be somewhat self-conscious doing so now at 42 years of age.
Obviously, I am not saying that because I think it is odd to game as an adult, but I suspect that there are plenty of people who feel that way.
That may be the case in some respects, but not too long back there was a guy who spoke to various high school heads that games like D&D lead to gang formation and violence.
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It wasn't just against gaming... this mentality predates RPGs and probably goes back to the dawn of time. My mom shared stories with me about her church and growing up. According to her church, TV and movies were satanic. You didn't dare listen to music either unless it was holy music sung in the local style which I kid you not sounded like singing dirges. On a trip up there with my mom I got to attend that church and it frightened me. I asked a relative why they sing that way and told them about the upbeat songs from churches in the southern part of the state, and they told me that people who sing joyously are going to hell... I wanted to correct them with a bible passage but my mom took me aside and said to just put up with it till we got home. Sometimes people listen to other people instead of reading the word of God and so they get all these crazy ideas from people they respect.
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It's still happening to this day. Some 7 years ago, one of our friends stopped hanging out with us and playing D&D because his religious nutjob parents decided that we were worshipping Satan because they stumbled upon my copy of monster manual, found devils and promptly burned the book.
My father sued them over it and won thankfully. They however convinced our friend that we were horrible devil people and he stopped coming to the game. And being our friend.
It's still happening to this day. Some 7 years ago, one of our friends stopped hanging out with us and playing D&D because his religious nutjob parents decided that we were worshipping Satan because they stumbled upon my copy of monster manual, found devils and promptly burned the book.
My father sued them over it and won thankfully. They however convinced our friend that we were horrible devil people and he stopped coming to the game. And being our friend.
One of the things I have made a point to tell people (and sometimes you have to repeat it many many times before they hear it) is that almost everyone plays the game as the heroes that are FIGHTING evil.
What? Really?
On a trip up there with my mom I got to attend that church and it frightened me. I asked a relative why they sing that way and told them about the upbeat songs from churches in the southern part of the state, and they told me that people who sing joyously are going to hell... I wanted to correct them with a bible passage but my mom took me aside and said to just put up with it till we got home.
You were lucky! Julie Andrews movies were Required watching in our house! in high school i dated this girl for a few dates until she said "the sound of music is my favorite movie!" my exact response was "we need to break up, this isn't working out" my number one rule of dating, never, ever date someone with the same taste in movies as your Mom:)
The mom advice may be fine, but Bedknobs and Broomsticks is an Angela Lansbury movie, not Julie Andrews.
Carry on.
I'm from southern Wisconsin where, thanks to places like Lake Geneva and Alpine Valley, neither D&D nor rock and roll were considered Satanic. For the most part, we were pretty insulated from the hysteria that other gamers had to deal with. In fact, one of the main vectors for infecting people with the gamer disease was the local boy scout troop.
We did, however, actually lose one player to religious-based advice. His family went to a local Mormon church and the rev there told his folks that he shouldn't be playing D&D. So that was it for him. My opinion of the Mormon religion has never really recovered.
You were lucky! Julie Andrews movies were Required watching in our house! in high school i dated this girl for a few dates until she said "the sound of music is my favorite movie!" my exact response was "we need to break up, this isn't working out" my number one rule of dating, never, ever date someone with the same taste in movies as your Mom:)The mom advice may be fine, but Bedknobs and Broomsticks is an Angela Lansbury movie, not Julie Andrews.
Carry on.
ha! thats right! Angela Landsbury was even more required viewing then Julie Andrews tho, i have seen every episode of Murder, She Wrote, every episode! but yes i cant believe i messed that one up, got it confused with Mary Poppins:)
I Knew that was Dora!
personally i always suspected her! she's constantly shouting at people, and don't get me started on her f&~+ing Monkey!
;)
Diego? well Thats a darker story altogether......
I actually had and read Dark Dungeons before I started playing RPG's. My parents were evangelicals and I was raised as such. The Chick comics were distributed at our church to the kids.
At some point my friend and I got caught playing D&D and I was grounded. A few years later some friends and I started playing TMNT because it was not D&D and our parents had no opinions since they had no idea what the hell it was. Mind you this was printing of TMNT that had the now infamous necrophelia table and a chart that listed Homosexuality as a mental disorder.
So I sadly never really played D&D till I left the house in the early 90's.
Gaming in high school sucked! We hid our books and would run off to the library to discuss our monthly gaming plans. It was all very clandestine. Being a nerd/geek was in no way cool at all. Comic books, Role Playing, Star Trek...those could get you stuffed in a locker or worse.
It was the best of times...it was the worst of times.
-MD
I do remember hearing about kids who were specifically not allowed to play D&D, but got into some other RPGs that were arguably far worse in terms of their content (for example, Vampire: The Masquerade).
I also had a friend who claimed that he was worshiping Satan for years before he ever heard of D&D.
But on the whole I think I benefited from that hysteria, as I had already graduated from college at the time and thus its main effect was to reduce the number of immature players in my games.
In the US, I think the "Satanic panic" was focused more on the Bible Belt than other parts of the country. Individual experiences may vary, of course.
I grew up in Southern California, started playing D&D in '82-'83 or so. I never ran into problems about D&D per se; it just got lumped in as another reason to make my life miserable as an F/SF nerd/geek. My parents heard about the Satan bit, and did this amazing thing. They actually sat down and watched me and my friends play for a while. After a bit of that they got bored and left me and my friends to our devices.
Oddly enough, the first time I ran into specific resistance about D&D was after I got married (1997). My then-new wife was talking to her sister, and when she mentioned that I was a gamer, the sis-in-law insisted that my wife immediately burn all my gaming materials. Not throw away, not get rid of, burn. Because apparently if it's D&D, you must kill it with fire.
My wife and I had a good laugh about it after I got home from work, and we just don't bring it up around the sis-in-law anymore.
I lived in the heart of the midwest (the birth state of DnD in fact) ReaderBreeder and the Hysteria was full tilt there as well, not just the bible belt, it was absolutely magnified in small towns and rural areas, but what problems aren't.
i actually did a post earlier about getting kicked out of 3 sunday schools, before the age of ten!
also you're a better brother in-law then i would be, i would bring it up all the time! :)
I can't work out if this: Dark Dungeons Kickstarter is someone trying to reignite the hysteria or a piece of satire.
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It's satire by being true to the original. Dark Dungeons as written is asinine and hilarious at the same time.
Zombie Orpheus was involved in the production ... they did the Gamers series and Journey Quest ... check those out if you have not.
The Gamers - Horrible video quality, but awesome, but start here.
The Gamers: Dorkness Rising - much better quality
Satire.
Thing is, that this entire meme has survived for this long is direct evidence that fundamentalist religion is always a bad idea. If even something like D&D can get reactions like described above (stealing someone else's stuff because Satanism, really? Teachers and school heads giving their own students crap over it?), then the religious movements doing this are a menace.
.... it was absolutely magnified in small towns and rural areas, but what problems aren't.
Really?
If you had family that was religious enough to follow televangelism, you likely had a tough time where RPGs and metal music were concerned. My family was religious yet open minded enough to allow me to play Sci-fi or superhero RPGs, just not fantasy. When I was 18, fantasy RPGs were fine too since I turned out well enough by then.
On the other side of the spectrum, school was rough as being a geek placed you in front of the victim line for being picked on.
Luckily I was in college when the whole Vampire the Masquerade murders took place (some loopy teen killed his girlfriend's parents while "medicated", and the teens fled to New Orleans to live the vampire lifestyle....and were promptly caught).
I also remember a religious group casing a local gaming store I would always play at. The uniform white shirts, black tie, disapproving stare at everyone present. Nothing really came of it, it just seemed odd.
It wasn't just against gaming... this mentality predates RPGs and probably goes back to the dawn of time. My mom shared stories with me about her church and growing up. According to her church, TV and movies were satanic. You didn't dare listen to music either unless it was holy music sung in the local style which I kid you not sounded like singing dirges. On a trip up there with my mom I got to attend that church and it frightened me. I asked a relative why they sing that way and told them about the upbeat songs from churches in the southern part of the state, and they told me that people who sing joyously are going to hell... I wanted to correct them with a bible passage but my mom took me aside and said to just put up with it till we got home. Sometimes people listen to other people instead of reading the word of God and so they get all these crazy ideas from people they respect.
wow.
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Back to the original topic.
I would also like to say that the whole situation was often made worse by the gamers themselves. As mentioned by a couple of others up thread, they found it hilarious to play along with the hysteria. (At the time, I would have also found it funny, but it did exacerbate the situation.)
Several clips made the local news with things like a whole group being interviewed and describing in detail all the things they were doing to try and summon the devil. And a guy intentionally, in front of the news camera, chasing a screaming girl while chanting about sacrificing her to something or other. He almost got arrested before it was cleared up. It was his girl friend and she was screaming at him because he was threatening to smear a handful of mud in her hair. I was actually present for that one.
But we were teenagers. Teenagers are notorious for not considering the consequences of their actions.
I didn't play D&D in the 80's, but I loved watching the Saturday morning cartoon, and ogled over the ads for the game in various comic books. We were a fairly non-religious household, and my parents are very open-minded people, so D&D seemed like something right up our alley.
I started playing in the early 90's with some D&D boards games, and whatever other board game-rpg's we could find and raid pieces from to make our game bigger. I recall the very, very short time my older(cooler and more jock-like) brother played, we joked about all of the supposed satanism and devil-worship. I think he was disappointed that we didn't find any.
On the subject of Mazes and Monsters, we watched that on tv when I was a kid, and after it was over, the general feeling amongst my family was that "Wow, that poor kid had severe mental issues," and decidedly not "OMG the game is evil and made him crazy!"
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.... it was absolutely magnified in small towns and rural areas, but what problems aren't.Really?
Of course, have you never lived in one? i have, lots of them in fact, until i turned fifteen the biggest town i lived near (we were country folk:) was 1,140 and that was the biggest by far!
I started playing the game when I was 9 in 79, and the only concern was that I was younger than the recommended age range. My mother was quickly convinced when my vocabularly increased dramaticly from all the reading I was doing. To this day, this hobby of mine continually introduces me to words I've never heard of before. Just one of the many things I love about this game.
I am convinced that a big part of why I did so well on my ACT (college entrance exam) was the math and vocabulary skills I learned from playing D&D. I would see a vocabulary word like "lycanthrope" and think, "Thanks D&D!"
My parents fell for the Satanist scare hype and told me they were buying my D&D books back from me. They gave me cash and, somehow, I convinced them that Tunnels & Trolls (a D&D clone) was something TOTALLY different than D&D and not Satanic at all. We just kept playing with a different rule set with my parents none the wiser.
We did, however, actually lose one player to religious-based advice. His family went to a local Mormon church and the rev there told his folks that he shouldn't be playing D&D. So that was it for him. My opinion of the Mormon religion has never really recovered.
Too bad. I am Mormon and know a lot of great D&D/PF players who are Mormon. There is nothing in the teachings of the Church that prohibits D&D. Sounds like a local leader who was misinformed--just like my parents were for awhile. It sucks to lose a player to such ignorance.
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Of course, have you never lived in one? i have, lots of them in fact, until i turned fifteen the biggest town i lived near (we were country folk:) was 1,140 and that was the biggest by far!.... it was absolutely magnified in small towns and rural areas, but what problems aren't.Really?
That's about the size of the town I grew up in, maybe a little smaller - I think we were running just under/over 2000 when I graduated and moved away in 2003. I swiftly learned I much prefer smaller towns to big cities - I lived the next eight years in Phoenix and it greatly turned me off to ever living in a place with near that many people crammed into it. I'm pretty sure BT is of a similar mindset.
I'm currently working on trying to get out of Chattanooga, TN and move to some place smaller.
And no, your experiences do not ring true with me. I had far greater such problems living in the city. I didn't grow up in the era where this was widespread though, and my parents' knowledge of D&D pretty much comes entirely from The Big Bang Theory and Lord of the Rings. But the idea of "what problems aren't magnified in rural areas" is pretty heavily counter to my experiences overall.