Gaming/hobby scares outside America

Theo R Cwithin · Jul 30, 2010

[Forked from this thread: "The curse placed on Irving Pulling?"]

In that thread, there's discussion about the D&D scare back in the 1980's-- something that was apparently largely restricted to the US. It's something that's very often talked about, and I get the impression that most serious gamers have some familiarity with the names and general situation.

I hear a lot less about similar "scares" in other countries. For whatever reasons-- cultural, media, etc-- it doesn't seem to be taken as seriously as a threat. However, a couple posters have indicated that it does to a degree.

What are similar scares in other countries?
How did it get resolved, if at all?
Other insights..?

Whether its D&D specifically or other gaming issues, I think it would be interesting to collect these kinds of observations into a single thread.

Here are a couple comments reposted from the original thread:

From France:

Stereofm said:
Lemme tell you ...

You had Mrs pulling in the USA. In France we had two speakshow celebrities : Mireille Dumas and Jacques Pradel.

Both had talk shows about the horrible effects of RPGs. How people climbed to the roofs of churches playing vampires, and then committed suicide by overdosing.

After the rage died down somewhat, it was revealed the deceased guy was a drug addict undergoind mental therapy after being dumped by his girlfriend, being broke and having failed his uni exams.

Also we had a cemetery profanation beoing framed on RPG players when it was later revealed to have been an act of the local National Front racist thugs drunken party.

Despite all the debunking I was asked for years if I climbed to the roofs of churches at night. And it was serious queries, not jokes. (Some might have wanted to join if I did)...

And I still think it's best forgotten, even if not forgiven.

From Finland:

jonesy said:
In Finland D&D and other similar games never really got that much attention in the media, because live role-playing was thrust into the spotlight fairly early. All the claims of satanism, violence, etc. were aimed at LARPers, almost exclusively. This didn't really have much effect, because LARPers here became quite organized (well, they'd have to be to play) and openly defended their hobby on national tv. The position of the media also helped a lot, because every time a story about RPGs and bad influences rose up, a different part of the media did a story on the way the opposers did their story, and the stories became more about how media was handling the stories than about the stories themselves. The media pretty much neutralized itself.

MortonStromgal · Jul 31, 2010

My personal favorite is still the panty stealing shadowrunner. I think it was near London.

DragonLancer · Jul 31, 2010

MortonStromgal said:
My personal favorite is still the panty stealing shadowrunner. I think it was near London.

That was amusing, but still did nothing but cause a few people to roll their eyes and ask "what's Shadowrun"?

Theo R Cwithin · Jul 31, 2010

MortonStromgal said:
My personal favorite is still the panty stealing shadowrunner. I think it was near London.

I'm not familiar with this episode in UK gaming history...?

Starfox · Jul 31, 2010

In Sweden we had a scare inspired by the one from the US. It was really only two people, but in the controversy-hungry media market, they got a lot of attention. They were quite big for a while. Then one of them did the mistake of writing a book about the dangers of RPGs. In book form, the arguments were so obviously hollow that anyone who read the book got convinced that the entire reasoning was false. The media scare died pretty quick.

Lets see, this would have been in the early nineties.

The real problem for the hobby was IMO the release of the occult RPG Kult by Sweden's at that that completely dominant RPG publisher. Aiming at the "RPGs are evil" and "teen angst" tropes, this made toy and book stores here ban RPGs - they are now only sold in specialty outlets, of which there are not many. This has reduced recruitment to a trickle compared to the heyday.

Today, RPGs are non-controversial, but slowly getting killed by computer games. We still have game cons here, but only about half as many as in the heyday around 1990 and the biggest ones have gone from maybe 1500 to 800 people (two cons on that scale yearly). Not so bad in a country of 8 million, but less than it was. Cons have also moved away from RPGs and into live, miniature, war, and tabletop games.

DragonLancer · Jul 31, 2010

the_orc_within said:
I'm not familiar with this episode in UK gaming history...?

Accused knicker nicker says he was in bad elf | Metro.co.uk

jonesy · Jul 31, 2010

Starfox said:
The real problem for the hobby was IMO the release of the occult RPG Kult by Sweden's at that that completely dominant RPG publisher. Aiming at the "RPGs are evil" and "teen angst" tropes, this made toy and book stores here ban RPGs - they are now only sold in specialty outlets, of which there are not many.

Yeah, that was a strange time. They tied the game to murders, suicides, and dissappearances. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they even try to use it to ban roleplaying clubs in Sweden? Or something like that?

Kult is awesome by the way. It's like Shadowrun mixed with every horror movie. Or like the friend who introduced me to it said "I'm playing Mulder. Except instead of Mulder, I am the Exorcist. And instead of the X-Files, it's Call of Cthulhu."

El Mahdi · Jul 31, 2010

DragonLancer said:
Accused knicker nicker says he was in bad elf | Metro.co.uk

I had a dream like that once...

Oldtimer · Jul 31, 2010

Starfox said:
Lets see, this would have been in the early nineties.

We did come under attack before this. In the mid-eighties a major newspaper ("Expressen") accused us of being devil worshippers. Never got any traction in Sweden, though.

The real problem for the hobby was IMO the release of the occult RPG Kult by Sweden's at that that completely dominant RPG publisher. Aiming at the "RPGs are evil" and "teen angst" tropes, this made toy and book stores here ban RPGs - they are now only sold in specialty outlets, of which there are not many.

There were also a few earlier scares about suicides, but I agree that the main setback came with Kult and how it was presented. (I mean, black candles and a teddy bear pierced by needles in a show window is just begging for it.)

We still have game cons here, but only about half as many as in the heyday around 1990 and the biggest ones have gone from maybe 1500 to 800 people (two cons on that scale yearly). Not so bad in a country of 8 million, but less than it was. Cons have also moved away from RPGs and into live, miniature, war, and tabletop games.

I must disagree. Gothcon is still very much alive with an attendance of 1600-1800. Not much lower than in the golden days. And Gothcon always had its share of boardgames and table top games.

Theo R Cwithin · Aug 1, 2010

Oldtimer said:
We did come under attack before this. In the mid-eighties a major newspaper ("Expressen") accused us of being devil worshippers. Never got any traction in Sweden, though.

Did the accusation come from just the newspaper, maybe trying to ride on what was happening in other countries' media at that time? Or was there an actual anti-D&D campaign like BADD behind the accusations?