dungeons and dragons
From: 21329KAD@msu.edu (Kim Dyer)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.suburban,alt.folklore.urban,rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: These D&D Rumors
Date: Thu, 12 May 94 20:53:23 EDT
>Practically every role-playing gamer has at some point run across the
>popular misconception that "Dungeons and Dragons" is somehow
>"dangerous." I've been soberly informed of this by numerous people,
>usually middle-aged women. I'm not talking about fundamentalist
>fanatics, either. These are well-educated people, with a variety of
>political orientations. At least some of them are not the churchgoing type.
>So where are these rumors being spread? What is the disease vector, so
>to speak? I know about the big-time fundamentalists -- Pat Robertson
>running shows about the perils of D&D on his Christian Broadcasting
>Network, and so on -- but how has this gotten so firmly entrenched in
>the mainstream?
One of the earliest that *I* can recall involved an MSU student named
Dallas Egbert. (Not sure of the spelling, it was a LONG time ago.)
Yes, he was a part of the group on campus that was involved in playing
D&D. Yes, he was "strange" ... but he was "strange" long before he met
the RPGers. He was one of those "wunderkinds" who went to University
much younger then most of us do. (I don't remember how old he was,
this was back in the mid 1970's.) SO Dallas up and vanishes for a
while. All his friends are RPGers, so the parents get REALLY weirded
out and start accusing them of brainwashing the son. (It soon becomes
apparent that the kids family is pretty messed up, putting pressures on
him that he really DIDN'T need, etc.) They wind up searching the steam
tunnels on campus, figuring that he is down there acting out games on
his own in some wild fantasy. Manage to find heraldic symbols painted
on some of the neat-o stone walls by SCA types so they have a "castle"
atmosphere to take pictures of their costumes in front of. OH, the
EVIL satanic dragons and griffons and lions etc. Now, you have to
admit that explaining D&D to someone who has NO imagination makes you
sound just a LITTLE strange. And you DO talk about "spells" etc.
which some parents were beginning to think people took seriously. At
this point the RPGers on campus sort of went into hiding, mostly because
everything they said got twisted around anyway. Dallas turned up a
few months later, living with a friend in Texas ... basically hiding
from his parents. Several books, including one by his parents, came
out at this time. They seemed to fail to understand that it was not the
GAME, but an individual's underlying mental state, that caused problems.
He could as easily have been sucked into SCA or any OTHER fantasy. I
heard, years later and without any actual news clipping, that DE eventually
committed suicide. But I believe that this incident is one of the ones
they dress up and trot out when they talk about the evils of RPGs ...
carefully leaving out some points. I was only MARGINALLY involved in
the RPG community at the time. I spoke to Dallas all of ONCE (and he
struck me as odd even for the RPG group). I really wish I had more
details for you ... but it was quite a circus for a while. A few people
got VERY involved in the games (like the current situation with MUDDers)
but they were the fringes. OUTSIDERS looked at these fringe folks, and
thought they and ALL RPGers actually BELIEVED in demons and orcs and
magic spells, etc. And some RPGers didn't understand folks couldn't
comprehend the word "GAME" until it got insane.
From: ludator@illuminati.io.com (ludator)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.suburban,alt.folklore.urban,rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: These D&D Rumors
Date: 13 May 1994 08:50:12 -0500
Dungeons & Dragons rumors start from basically 3 sources:
1) There are 2 documented cases in which people who HAPPENED to play D&D
did questionable acts (one committed suicide, the other (a group)
committed murder). In both cases, the gamers were also social outcasts
and cocaine addicts, and had been so before beginning gaming. The second
case is notable because they made a movie about it ("Cruel Doubt", I
think), and because the kids (high school seniors, I believe) actually
tried to claim the /game/ had warped their minds. Sorta like the twinkie
defense, I guess.
2) Rona Jaffe's "Mazes & Monsters", a book VERY LOOSELY based on the first
case. In this book, a whole slew of folks who game together have their
lives ruined, and one commits suicide. The book uses the fictional game
M&M as a linking element for their individual problems, but for the most
part, the game gets blamed by readers. Many people believe this story
really happened, and are adamant about it.
3) Pat Robertson, who will get a very big surprise when he dies and finds
himself descending. It disgusts me that a religious leader has nothing
better to do than pick on homosexuals, Hindus, and gamers (and all in the
same show, no less). Anyways, Pat has in all likelihood no idea how D&D
is even played, and is just freaked out by the "Satanic symbols" on the
book covers: Dragons.
BTW, for folks who are not gamers, this IS how games like D&D (and it is
not the only one of its kind, thank god) ARE played: a bunch of people sit
around a table with the rulebooks. Each of the players has a character
which they control, deciding his/her actions as if they were that
character. One player, called the Gamemaster, Dungeonmaster, referee, or
whatever, plays all the other characters (like the villains, etc.) -- he's
essentially the one who creates the stories that the other players run
through. In essence, it's a pencil & paper MUD/MUSH.
I've roleplayed (the proper verb for D&D playing) for 10 years now, and I
started at a very impressionable age. I can say beyond a shadow of a
doubt that my psyche has not suffered.
January 25, 1995