As an aside, yes, much of the anger was religiously based/directed because it had to do with "satanism." There is no denying that.
It does explain many gamers' aversion to religion or faith. It isn't 'just' a sign of the times, but also a backlash.
I suspect most of the persecution was focused within the Bible Belt area, although without polling, it's harder to be absolutely certain.
PS Do not read this as an attack on faith. It is not. Instead, take it as an opportunity to look into history, accept it...and then learn from it. If we learn, we are less destined to repeat.
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.
Tracy and Laura Hickman are Mormons IIRC.
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The only time I remember being questioned about RPGs was back in 1994 (I was 18 at the time), right after the Menendez brothers killed their parents. There was some vague story about how they may have played RPGs and that it made them crzay.
My mom asked me if anyone ever hurt anyone else during the game, so I told her nope, those guys probably had other issues. Nothing came up again.
When I was living in New Mexico a few years ago however I would occasionally need my neighbor to babysit for me if my normal one flaked on me. She refused to allow my daughter to bring a Harry Potter book into her house, it has magic spells and all. She was a very closed-minded Baptist type.
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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.
I think the way that I would put it is that not *all* problems are magnified by living in a small town -- in fact you might have fewer overall. But whatever problems you do have are magnified and much harder to escape from.
This was especially true in the 70s and 80s when there was no internet. In many ways, all the different varieties of this panic were because you were being exposed to ideas outside of the local cultural norm, and the detail of the that exposure -- whether RPGs or rock music or new wave sf or drugs or other religions -- were much less important. These days, even the most isolated of small towns has *way* more exposure to different points of view than they did then.
That I can agree with a little more.
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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?Problems not magnified in small towns......
Over-crowding, crime sprees, gang activities, smog, Starbucks......
FTFY.
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.
yall 're weird.
I didn’t start playing D&D until ’91, and didn’t play in public areas. It was either at home or clubs already established for roleplaying.
However, one of my friends, who grew up in the 60s and 70s, said that he played 1st edition at church with his friends. They had made book covers to cover the fronts of their 1st edition books. His parents would walk off and talk with other parishoners, but when adults (including their parents) would walk by, they would quickly hide their dice and play off like they were ‘studying’ and would get smiles and comments on how good of students they are.
Cracked me up when he told me about it.
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.
I think the way that I would put it is that not *all* problems are magnified by living in a small town -- in fact you might have fewer overall. But whatever problems you do have are magnified and much harder to escape from.
This was especially true in the 70s and 80s when there was no internet. In many ways, all the different varieties of this panic were because you were being exposed to ideas outside of the local cultural norm, and the detail of the that exposure -- whether RPGs or rock music or new wave sf or drugs or other religions -- were much less important. These days, even the most isolated of small towns has *way* more exposure to different points of view than they did then.
perfect way of stating it! nailed what i was trying to say perfectly, thank you!
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yall 're weird.
And proud =)
if i had enogh time this is where i would put the link of Nobody Wird Like Me by Red Hot Chili Peppers, but i dont, or rather dont know how:(
{url=(link goes here)}text{/url}
change { } to [ ]
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i had some dark times growing up in small towns in the 80s, i had long hair (we were also really poor so it either grow my hair long or let my legally blind mom cut my hair, i stand by my choice) i also was a big fan of fringe music like Fishbone and suicidal Tendencies, throw on the RPGs to top it off so you can see where it wasnt the best of times, things picked up and got way better in the 90s so im all good with it:)
I've posted this elsewhere, but seemed mostly relevant to this.
The first time I picked up D&D was finding the New Easy to Master box set in the early 90's. My parents were with me and either watched me buy it or bought it for me. Later though my mom got scared, saying the cover (a red dragon peering out at you) disturbed her. Didn't understand that. I bought a bunch of Forgotten Realms stuff but played only minimally because my siblings quickly grew bored of it and no one else I knew played D&D.
Later on, when I was in my 20s, I found D&D again and bought the 3.5 rulebooks. But then I had a Mormon religion teacher from my church tell us about the dangers of Dungeons & Dragons. He said it might be hype but why take the chance with your soul. Young as I was, I believed him and went home and promptly threw my 3.5 core rulebooks in the trash. And then, I kid you not, I went to my room and cried.
Years later I figured out that guy didn't know what he was talking about, probably had never even seen the game played. In my late 20s, a friend from church reintroduced me to 3.5 and I found Pathfinder by accident a year later.
Strangely enough, my current group is 3/4 Mormon (+ one atheist and a Baptist).
I remember the craze in the 80s and im only 33 lol. I still remember to this day that my parents were watching a movie on lifetime or ae or something that was about a court case where these kids murdered this kids parents and blamed it all on dnd. I remember even as a little kid why the driver got executed who never held the gun or step foot on the grounds but the people who did got life.
there where the chik tracks that as a young boy loved reading and i remember church meetings about dnd was actually devil worship in disquise. Ive seen some of the pickits that they did in front of shops and centers. Basically made me grow up thinking the nerds were practicing devils worshipping and didnt even know it.
granted it didnt effect me none because i had always seen dnd guys as nerds like they were shown on tv and i was on a farm and such. Nerd wasnt a good thing to be growing up.
Fast forward into the future, i have grown acceptance of my nerdhood and wear it proudly. im getting to that age where having 4 kids and fulltime job, the pleasures of life (aka video games since i havent done drugs in several years-theres a time and a place and its called high school and college) where video games were losing their appeal and still are sadly and not having time for my friends, outta the blue someone asked me if i wanted to play in a game of theirs and after an hour i had found my new thing. Maybe its a midlife crisis, maybe instead of going with flashy cars i went with pathfinder lol.
But anyways the 80s did leave an impression on me for several years that dnd was this devil worshipping that was desquised as a game where u didnt even know u was doing devils worship. Like a gate way drug lol. Around high school i think it got to the point where i didnt care if it was or wasnt because by then i had been exposed to alot of different preachers views on what is acceotable or not (using hair products in ur hair to make it look good was acting like a !@#$/ or women wearing pants or un-knee length skirts was dressing like a harlot, etc etc) that i guess i got desentized about the whole ordeal.
Now rock music making u do things, now thats a sticky question. No i dont believe it will make u want to worship satan or kill ur family, no. But i do believe music is the oldest form of magic that goes on even today and that music will change ur moods (aka get u hyped up, extremely sad, sleepy, really happy, etc etc). So the music i could understand gettiing attention though i believe of course like most things, it got the wrong attention and handled teh wrong way.
Sorry bout the rant
I caught the tail end of it as a kid. I don't really remember being unaware of D&D, I was born in 1980, but I think it was probably the cartoon show. Nobody I knew still played, and people I didn't know thought I was too young, so I wanted to play for years before I ever got to. I understand what other people are saying about small towns, I grew up on an island. There was this total disconnect between those people who played 1e and those of us who started on 2e, two totally different scenes of gamers. The older people were much more stereotypically nerdy, it really seems different for gamers older than me than those my age and younger, I think they had it much worse socially.
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Now rock music making u do things, now thats a sticky question. No i dont believe it will make u want to worship satan or kill ur family, no. But i do believe music is the oldest form of magic that goes on even today and that music will change ur moods (aka get u hyped up, extremely sad, sleepy, really happy, etc etc). So the music i could understand gettiing attention though i believe of course like most things, it got the wrong attention and handled teh wrong way.
Certainly music can alter a person's moods, but then so do most things. I love gaming and have a regular game once a week. When I have to miss the game, it can leave me tense the following week because I didn't have that emotional outlet to unwind.
The problem with most "<insert music here> made this person do this!" arguments is that they're usually attempting to swerve around obvious problems that are more likely suspects, either to push forward a lucrative lawsuit or sensationalize the story for the news, or as an outlet for the grief of parents not wanting to cope with guilt during a tragedy.
Case in point, when a suit was brought against Judas Priest by the parents of two young men who attempted suicide, claiming that subliminal lyrics caused them to do it. The fact that both of them were drunk at the time was secondary, and any existing psychological problems didn't seem to weigh in at all.
Their manager had it right. He said he didn't know what subliminals were, but if they put them onto albums, they wouldn't be telling fans to kill themselves. They'd say "buy seven copies."
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.
+1
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yall 're weird.And proud =)
+1
I grew up in a small town in the north of the UK. None of the adults around me or my friends cared too much. Some of the other kids tried to use it as an excuse to bully me, but they tried that with pretty much everything from the colour of my hair (auburn with a fair amount of ginger) to the style of my hair (long), so it was hardly a shock, and it worked about as well as any of there bullying did - not at all. It always seems to depress bullies when you tower a half foot or more over them as they try to pick on you.
Honestly, I suspect one of the reasons I enjoyed the games so much was because it annoyed other people. Much like my long hair, chest long beard and utter contempt for Newcastle Brown Ale.
But yeah, by the 1990's my school had D&D fiction in the library and a painting club for Warhammer. It was surprising geek friendly.
I started in 82' friends older brother taught us while he was grounded and I was over for the night. I loved it right away.
My Mom is an educated liberal but very deeply Christian. She complained about it but never outright banned it. My grandmother showed me a newsclipping from the Savannah news paper that seemed kinda damning, I chuckled at how it was accurate but out of context.
The South had some silliness with RPGs but you could buy D&D literally everywhere back then. When the B.A.D.D. started getting real attention it got more hectic and weird. My Mom rightly realized that reading was cutting into outdoors and put her foot down and went for the "it warps your mind" argument.
Honestly though she actually sat down and played with us once when I was about 9, she was instantly bored. Several other kid's Dads sat in a session or 2 during boy scout trips or sleepovers and that's what I think most parents did. Once they realized it was just another path to fart jokes they mellowed out.
Now around 1983-84 my Mom apparently had a long talk with my Godfather about this hobby, he was a Priest in the Episcopal Church and big dog I guess, one of his duties was as the head of the North American Episcopal Dioceses Cult Investigation Board, or some such,he'd actually lookedinto this and had been over to the house to specifically watch us play the game once. He had suggested to my Mom to sit in and to listen.
His official position was that D&D was about as dangerous as Jazz music and far less a cult than Scientology or freemasonry. I didn't learn this till years later. He was aware that it got us reading and was actually impressed with some of the stuff I had learned from RP books, including all the names for ecclestical garments priests wear during services (I was occasionally pressed into Acolyte service).
Later on when I was about 12, we were in Waldenbooks at a mall somewhere and I was rifling through D&D modules and Comic Books and my parents were fussing about me reading "crap". The manager was a young guy, he pointed out that he still read comics and had read most everything else in the store. He was working on a Master's degree in Foreign Policy and that it was D&D that had got him into that in the first place. My Mom took that to heart I think, and really quit complaining about my taste in literature; at least until I dropped out of Grad School to tend bar in the Caribbean.
8)
The funny thing about all that was that the bad publicity actually helped the game and hobby. Kids played Atlantis or Paladium because it wasn't D&D, other kids would play just because they knew it was bad, M'kay.Heck for a time D&D was in the same league as Ozzy! As the kids got older, and remembered the stupidity of the arguments some, like me, came back to regular gaming just to see how much we missed it.
I've wondered if the fad or P&P gaming would have survived without the rebellious pushback by gamers who played just to spite someone. Probably, but Americans are funny sometimes.
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...
Now around 1983-84 my Mom apparently had a long talk with my Godfather about this hobby, he was a Priest in the Episcopal Church and big dog I guess, one of his duties was as the head of the North American Episcopal Dioceses Cult Investigation Board, or some such,he'd actually lookedinto this and had been over to the house to specifically watch us play the game once. He had suggested to my Mom to sit in and to listen.His official position was that D&D was about as dangerous as Jazz music and far less a cult than Scientology or freemasonry. ...
I always loved it was honestly impressed those few times, one of the religious leaders would actually investigate and check out whatever it was that had people so frantic. Most seemed to just want something to get hysterical about or wanted something on which to blame all the worlds problems.
Thanks for posting about one of the voices of reason. If you ever get the chance, tell that guy I appreciate his honest care and concern.
At school it was added to the list of excuses to punch me in the face and/or ostracise me, fat, red hair, nerd, not good at sport, plays that psycho game where people kill themselves.
My mum and dad were very cool with it.
I had friends that would play Starwars, Mechwarrior, and Startrek RPGs but not D&D because of their god botherer parents.
I will elaborate more... I grew up in a small costal fishing/farming(sugar, tropical fruit, bananas, macadamia nuts, dairy and beef)/ tourist town - 12 hours drive from my state capital, 4 hours from the next states capital. The nearest "city" (25,000 pop) was an hours drive, or 2 hour bus ride.
Australians don't like overtly religious people, they find them annoying, "god botherers" or wowsers, and nutters are generally what they are refered to as. Quiet religious types are just fine, as long as they don't talk about it.
So when Australian 60 Minutes did their story it was all about the murders and suicides and the drugs and steam tunnels.
We used to be very open about the game before then, after that it just gave the bullies more ammunition, in their minds they were bashing dangerous psycho's and teaching them a lesson. So we hid that we played.
A friend of mine who was in the year above mine got harassed so much he brought a knife to school and pulled it on a guy in class. He was expelled, I felt so sorry for him, his father used to bash him, and school which used to be a safe place for him became hell because of ignorant f$#~heads. I can't blame him for loosing it, things got better for him in the long run. His new school wasn't full of arsehats and his mum divorced his dad.
The other confusing thing was all of a sudden we were "bad boys" and "dangerous" and girls took an interest in us, for all of a week.... Until they worked out how boring we were and how un-dangerous the game was.
On th whole, it was unpleasant and made life difficult.
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We usually got verbally harassed, through school. Nothing big, plus I didn't really pay any heed to unimportant people. Some of my friends took it more to heart thought, stopped playing and started the harassment as well.
But then, I was a nerd by anyone's standards in school. I loved fantasy, animated series, reading books and playing video games. And when you live in a country of close-minded, uneducated, bigoted pricks, it tends to be nasty for the few of us that actually own half a brain.
That is why most of my friends who exhibited any kind of intelligence and education ran away, most of them live in either US or Canada now. I wanted to escape too, but didn't have the money, and now I don't have the motivation.
And no, your experiences do not ring true with me. I had far greater such problems living in the city.
Interesting. At the risk of further derailment, I've lived and worked in cities, suburbs, deserts, swamps, coal towns, and everything in between, and in the balance I've had far fewer problems in cities. Ten years in Houston, I was never once held at gunpoint -- it was way out near San Angelo that I was first able to "enjoy" that experience Texas-style. In Troy, NY -- known for its ubiquitous and very visible drug crime -- I never had a problem with drug dealers; they were generally too busy making money to harrass random citizens. It was in the marshes of rural Virgina that my crackhead neighbor was an issue. And so on.
Granted, personal anecdotes are in no way statistical data; just wanted to throw mine into the pot.
And no, your experiences do not ring true with me. I had far greater such problems living in the city.Interesting. At the risk of further derailment, I've lived and worked in cities, suburbs, deserts, swamps, coal towns, and everything in between, and in the balance I've had far fewer problems in cities. Ten years in Houston, I was never once held at gunpoint -- it was way out near San Angelo that I was first able to "enjoy" that experience Texas-style. In Troy, NY -- known for its ubiquitous and very visible drug crime -- I never had a problem with drug dealers; they were generally too busy making money to harrass random citizens. It was in the marshes of rural Virgina that my crackhead neighbor was an issue. And so on.
Granted, personal anecdotes are in no way statistical data; just wanted to throw mine into the pot.
Troy is becoming hipster, at least downtown. One of the biggest dive bars, The Ruck, has 35 craft beers on tap.
And no, your experiences do not ring true with me. I had far greater such problems living in the city.Interesting. At the risk of further derailment, I've lived and worked in cities, suburbs, deserts, swamps, coal towns, and everything in between, and in the balance I've had far fewer problems in cities. Ten years in Houston, I was never once held at gunpoint -- it was way out near San Angelo that I was first able to "enjoy" that experience Texas-style. In Troy, NY -- known for its ubiquitous and very visible drug crime -- I never had a problem with drug dealers; they were generally too busy making money to harrass random citizens. It was in the marshes of rural Virgina that my crackhead neighbor was an issue. And so on.
Granted, personal anecdotes are in no way statistical data; just wanted to throw mine into the pot.
Heh. This is hardly the first time your and my personal experiences have been complete 180s from one another.
Never had an issue.
I started playing in 1981. I don't remember when I got the DM's Guide, but I remember my parents looking at it and seeing the chart for mental illnesses. They're both psych nurses, and were very impressed that a game would include such technical stuff. The descriptions were accurate enough for them that they didn't worry about other aspects of the game.
They even adopted the term "half-orc" for very unpleasant coworkers.
I think the only negative experience I had was with a coworker's wife, who apparently took Jack Chick's description of a secret cabal of 'uber players' to heart and was convinced that if I played too much I'd be indoctrinated into their cult.
So no, no issues at all in southwest Michigan.
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... complete 180s from one another.
There is a guy at my work that keep's saying he's a complete 360 from me. I say, "Excellent so you agree with me completely!" Even though I have tried explaining it to him several times, he just doesn't get it.
Does anyone remember that Seinfeld episode "The Secretary"? In it, George got a secretary at work, and got to do the interviewing for the position. Jerry implied that George, characteristically, would select the most beautiful woman for the job, but George denied that he would do so this time. "I’ll never get any work done. So I’m doing a complete 360. I’m going for total efficiency and ability."
Jerry replied "That's a 180, George."
True to his word, George actually hired an applicant who was not particularly attractive. He even rejected one woman on the grounds that she was too beautiful, and that her looks would distract him. What made this funny was that George wound up falling for his plain-looking secretary, and having an affair with her. So he did a complete 360 after all.
Even though I have tried explaining it to him several times, he just doesn't get it.
All of humanity's problems in a nutshell. :)
Now that I think about it, I have run into a little bit of this. At Job Corps, we were allowed to play Dungeons and Dragons, but in the past the rule had been inconsistent as to whether to allow it or not. Some staff were still of the mindset that it was not appropriate to play, even though the residential living head had ruled it okay.
When I was in Job Corps (Manhattan Kansas) they specifically told me roleplaying games were contraband. Found it funny that the library was well stocked with Ravenloft and Dragonlance novels.
As for other stories, when Final Fantasy first came out for the NES I wanted to rent it, but the rental place I went to (they were MUCH cheaper than the big chains) was a "mom and pop" store that ONLY did video games where the woman who ran it was very religious and anti-D&D. So, because when returning it someone had commented "This game is great, it's just like Dungeons and Dragons" she immediately took the game off the shelf and refused to rent it. Even had a sign on the counter that said so and why.
It even extended into the 90's here in Topeka, Kansas! When I was in high school the librarian was the faculty advisor for our "Roleplaying and Games Club" and she was a big advocate for us, but when she retired the new librarian had no interest. So, another teacher (Mr. Appelhanz) took over and we could no longer play in the library every day after school. Then, I tranferred to another school, but I heard from friends still there that some of the other teachers pressured Mr. Appelhanz to disband the club.
Troy is becoming hipster, at least downtown. One of the biggest dive bars, The Ruck, has 35 craft beers on tap.
Meh. I left in 1994. Holmes and Watson was an oases of awesome in the midst of otherwise urban blight and underage college drunkfests (Elda's, Sutter's).
Growing up for me, D&D was forbidden, but not playing computer rpg's like Final Fantasy or the Ultima series. I always thought that was odd. Especially since the objections were to the subject matter (demons and magic) and not the type of game. To be fair, my parents had the same objections to some movies so it wasn't just "That crazy Game." Of course, there were a lot of things I enjoyed doing that the conservative group I grew up around would denounce. It's funny how these things stop being such an issue as you grow up. At least for me, since I have more control over who I associate with.
The funny thing is, in the 70's D&D was largely considered to be an amazing game for very creative people, and we youth who played were admired by adults for participating in such an engaging and stimulating activity, so unlike the mindless goofiness they expected of us.
Then the 80's happened. Suddenly D&D was "Satanic" because it happened to mention "devils" and "demons" ... and those names were dropped from the game. The same thing happened to music at the time -- any lyric mentioning Satan was branded as Satanic, regardless of the nature of the actual message.
On top of the threat of Satanism, there was the scare about how D&D caused kids to go insane, climb down into real sewers to hit alligators with sticks (I grew up in Florida).
Fortunately, most reasonable people didn't believe any of this nonsense, and the only fallout for us was that once in a while a potential player with particularly credulous parents was not allowed to play with us.
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I had an aunt who, when she heard I played D&D, asked me to my face "Doesn't that do stuff to you?". Looking back on it, that would've been an easy question in which to reply with all the beneficial aspects of playing RPGs.
At the time though, I just brushed that off... It was the same aunt who, upon hearing I was going to a 'They Might Be Giants' concert, asked my mom if she was okay with me going to a concert with all those sex and drugs. My mom's reply was 'One of [the band] plays an accordion'. Awesome reply on her part.
Going back to RPGs: Really though, there wasn't too much i had to deal with other than just the social stigma, but honestly, I had the kind of personality that if RPGs were mainstream, then I wouldn't have been interested in them.
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I grew up and still live in Southwest Louisiana. I started with the EO boxed set and from there we played mostly Basic D&D.
I do remember my Church of the Nazarene preacher talking against it and my mom questioning me about it but I assured her it was not satanic. My preacher, I offered to let him borrow my Basic D&D rulebook but he would not and I lost a great amount of respect for him after that.
I did hear about the larger Baptist church down the road having mass book burning of AD&D books and heavy metal albums and cassettes.
There was the one kid (an AD&D player) that began to totally hate church after they burnt his gamebooks.
Pretty much there was talk about it being satanic but we gamers knew that was stupid.
I would have to say being the short kid that was picked on terribly, RPGs saved my life. I can't think of how bad it would have been without that escape from all the bullies and jerks in the world.
A satanic panic sure is good for sales though!
I'd like to think nerds & geeks have it easier today but then again we old farts did not have to worry about social media.
Getting pansed or stuffed in a locker and then having videos of the event distributed via phones or posted on you tube....I'm not sure I have thick enough skin.
Nerd culture has become more accepted but the tools for cruelty have grown expediently.
-MD
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I was thirteen when an American woman overheard me discussing D&D. She told me that I should be careful with that stuff because it was dangerous. I quite eloquently told her that no such correlation had ever been found. She just stared at me.
When my best friend was having some trouble and was living at a homeless shelter he came back from work duty to find a pile of ashes on his bed with a note about satanic literature not being allowed. One of the staff (who was giving him lots of problems overall because he was Baptist and my friend was Mormon, like he'd go to church then get in trouble for not attending church services or he'd go to his actual job, then get in trouble for not attending work detail (which was only for those that didn't have an actual job) had gone into his bag and burned the GURPS books he had in his backpack. This was late 90s too.
Check out this... fully authorized by Jack Chick himself (which that in and of itself is hilarious, because the guy who asked for the rights is a frickin' writer for THE ONION!)
http://www.darkdungeonsthemovie.com/
Growing up with Pentecostal parents meant that I was not allowed to play D&D as the church preached it would just lead to devil worship and summoning demons and I would end up possessed if I played. Thankfully I found friends with cool parents that understood it was just a game and got to play at their house.
Joboo, your screen name made me do a double take. We've had a running joke in our campaigns about "Joboo the Snow Boy"... lol
I once bought my Dragon mags at a used bookstore/comic shop. The owner saw Mazes and Monsters on tv one night and then refused to carry it.
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I grew up with religious christian parents. I bought the red box of DnD and a couple days after that my parents waited till I was in class and threw it away. I also bought a number of those pick your own adventure books at Kaybee toys. Parents asked me tons of questions about them and the once again waited till I was in school and threw them away. I was furious with them! TBH, even to this day I don't really tell them I play DnD, Pathfinder, etc. Just crazy nonsense!