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Dungeons & Dragons: Teh Moral Panic

Started by CountDeMoney, April 18, 2016, 07:37:41 PM

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CountDeMoney

April 18, 2016, 07:37:41 PM Last Edit: April 18, 2016, 07:53:38 PM by CountDeMoney
Ah, the good ol' days...nothing like Jane Pauley scaring the shit out of our Moms.

QuoteWhen Dungeons & Dragons Set Off a 'Moral Panic'
Retro Report
By CLYDE HABERMAN APRIL 17, 2016

Going back at least to the 1690s, when the elders of colonial Salem, Mass., executed 20 women and men for supposedly practicing witchcraft, there have been Americans who find the devil's hand in all manner of human activity.

Satanic messages have been ascribed to the corporate symbols of major companies like Starbucks and Procter & Gamble. Some religious fundamentalists are certain that 666, the number of the beast in the Book of Revelation, lurks in swirls that are central to the logos of the Olympic Games, Google Chrome and the Walt Disney Company. The Harry Potter series, with its incantations and wizardry, has also come under fire (and brimstone) for ostensibly promoting occultism.

Then there is Dungeons & Dragons, introduced in 1974 as the first role-playing game made commercially available. D&D players, working collaboratively, can let their minds roam free through stories about brave warriors locked in combat with trolls, orcs, dragons and other evildoers. The game's millions of players include prominent writers like Junot Díaz and Cory Doctorow, who have described it as their apprenticeship to storytelling, a gateway to the essence of fantasy and narrative.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/us/when-dungeons-dragons-set-off-a-moral-panic.html

Great embedded video with archival footage, by the way.

Makes me want to spin up Mazes & Monsters.

11B4V

#1
April 18, 2016, 07:45:34 PM
Nice.

OMG the devil, witchcraft, sorcery......fucking idiots. Goes to show morons ignorant panic.
"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

CountDeMoney

#2
April 18, 2016, 07:53:15 PM
I had to wait a while before I could keep that stuff in the house.  Mom wasn't against it per se, but she had issue with gaming in general, RPGs, wargaming, what have you.

11B4V

#3
April 18, 2016, 08:07:58 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 18, 2016, 07:53:15 PM
I had to wait a while before I could keep that stuff in the house.  Mom wasn't against it per se, but she had issue with gaming in general, RPGs, wargaming, what have you.

Mine was opposite. I remember when I asked her to get the Elric series from Tower of Books. She asked what it was about and I told her an albino with a demonic sword, running around. She just shook her head. I got the books.

With war games I think she was just fascinated. What's that game? Hey Ma it's a tactical war game about a Nato/Warsaw pact war. A US Cav company is delaying a Soviet Tank Battalion (Mech War 2). She just looked at the map and said that's nice, walking off. I didn't know algebra, but I knew the TOE of a Soviet Tank division.

"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

CountDeMoney

#4
April 18, 2016, 08:28:17 PM
QuoteI didn't know algebra, but I knew the TOE of a Soviet Tank division.

Yeah, didn't matter that I had an undergraduate grasp of European geography by the time I was 13, either.  Funny, never got any credit for that on PTA Conference Night.

For me, it was more like--
"You can find time to play your stupid games, but you can't find time to do your homework!"

*Throws Third Reich (3rd Ed) at head, destroys game box*




AD&D devil worship was just icing on the cupcake.


11B4V

#5
April 18, 2016, 08:29:22 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 18, 2016, 08:28:17 PM
QuoteI didn't know algebra, but I knew the TOE of a Soviet Tank division.

Yeah, didn't matter that I had an undergraduate grasp of European geography by the time I was 13, either.  Funny, never got any credit for that on PTA Conference Night.

For me, it was more like--
"You can find time to play your stupid games, but you can't find time to do your homework!"

*Throws Third Reich (3rd Ed) at head, destroys game box*




AD&D devil worship was just icing on the cupcake.

:lol:
"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

11B4V

#6
April 18, 2016, 08:38:53 PM
I wonder if their are any nongamers on this site. I can't think of one.

Just think 35 years ago the average gamer didn't have the internet, which IMO, revolutionised gaming. You'd go to the (war)gaming store, or club/group and just game all night. Now it's a key board away.
"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

Admiral Yi

#7
April 18, 2016, 08:43:03 PM
IIRC Mihalia is not a gamer.

crazy canuck

#8
April 18, 2016, 08:53:53 PM
Quote from: 11B4V on April 18, 2016, 08:38:53 PM
I wonder if their are any nongamers on this site. I can't think of one.

Just think 35 years ago the average gamer didn't have the internet, which IMO, revolutionised gaming. You'd go to the (war)gaming store, or club/group and just game all night. Now it's a key board away.

And I think we are lesser for it.

I am glad to see a report that acknowledges all the benefits we got from that game.  And I think I will protest about the bit about all players being geeks who didnt have girlfriends or go to parties.  We certainly didnt all fit that stereotype.

Seeing that piece brought back some great memories.  And did you notice the young Mary Hart  :wub:

derspiess

#9
April 18, 2016, 09:12:40 PM
My parents never cared.  My dad even made copies of character sheets at work for me.  My friends and I were really into D&D for a while and even played a few times on the playground at school.  We all grew out of it by around 4th grade, though.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

Razgovory

#10
April 18, 2016, 09:23:55 PM
My mother talked to me about it, I said I told her it was indeed Satanic and I had killed all the cats in the neighborhood.  That's how we learn not to ask stupid questions.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Martinus

#11
April 19, 2016, 12:13:35 AM
I used to play D&D and ended up as a gay anti-Christian lawyer with an interest in occultism.  :hmm:

Martinus

#12
April 19, 2016, 12:14:01 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 18, 2016, 09:23:55 PM
My mother talked to me about it, I said I told her it was indeed Satanic and I had killed all the cats in the neighborhood.  That's how we learn not to ask stupid questions.

Not as much as the cats.

Habbaku

#13
April 19, 2016, 01:28:25 AM
I've been doing table-top role-playing since I was 13.  Never caught any flack from the parents.  They came from a background where any reading is good reading.
The medievals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers.

Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people.
-J. R. R. Tolkien

Pedrito

#14
April 19, 2016, 02:06:30 AM
It was my dad, when I was around 11 or 12, that brought home THE RED BOX and gave it to me saying something about playing with friends.

I remember I forced my younger sister to play with me, before finding a semi-stable group.

L.
b / h = h / b+h


27 Zoupa Points, redeemable at the nearest liquor store! :woot:
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