Ah, I understand now. I thought you and Oldtimer were talking about two different incidents, aside from the Kult issue.
There were a few early calls during the late 80's, from media decrying the demon worshipping game. Those originated from an organisation called Home and School, who were antagonistic towards rpgs, and wanted to get the media on the bandwagon. Didn't go far though.
After that, one kid committed suicide, ostensibly dressed as a ninja, and he also played rpgs, so the media had a run with that story as well. Turned out the kid had other issues as well, and it didn't really go anywhere. Can't remember when this was, maybe late 80's early 90's.
For me personally, the one that hit home was the murder of a boy in Bjuv. he was killed by two "friends" of the same age, and somehow Mutant Chronicles the RPG was blamed. As I wrote MC, this disturbed me but later it became apparent that there was no connection. Still, it featured in the rhetoric of those opposed to rpgs for a while. That was in 1994.
Then there was this book, "The Army of the Abandoned". It is a masterpiece of conspiracy theories, disjointed imaginations, liberal interpretations of facts sprinkled with legions of ad hominems. The authors were unfortunately chosen as experts on rpgs by the aforementioned Home and school and did some lecturing on the evils of gaming. After the book, not many could take them seriously. Their main thesis was that gamers were a covert paramilitary organisation, planning to take over the country, and using the games as a pretext to train for the day of the revolution. And all this was financed and backed by the commercial game producers. That was in 1997.
A few years later I found my name in an article about the evils of rpgs featured in "Polis", the magazine for the Swedish police force. It wasn't that harsh, but it wasn't very positive either. I was mentioned for my work on Kult, together with the two creators (Petersén and Jonsson). Can't remember when that was, but I do remember a police chief up north trying to pin everything he could on rpgs at about the same time.
The most recent scare was the tragic murder of a guy associated with live Vampire gaming. That was nauseous, after his severed head was found the tabloids pinned his murder on the live gaming scene, and made a mockup of a picture of the guy in a Hammer horror Dracula suit. They ran with that for about a week, before it was revealed that the guy was murdered by two drugged up drug dealers while buying some dope from them. They panicked and dismembered the body. Tragic and nothing at all to do with rpgs, even though the media did its best to make it so. That was in early 2000.
After that incident, it seems as if media realised that they look like morons if they try to pin gruesome stuff on rpgs, given that most of us are meek guys spending a lot of time at home with friends playing imaginary heroes. I haven't read a good rpg scare for a while.
Unless we count World of Warcraft as an rpg, that is.
/M
I wish I still had the pamphlets, though.
