"They told me it was something else."
- Thread starter 1Mac
- Start date
Ummm... Dad, I can explain....
Yes, yes, son. In a minute. I'll have to... look further into this. Yeah.
I'll be in my bunk....
Celebrim
Legend
I think that there was a certain amount of hysteria, irrationality, fear of the unknown, and complete misunderstanding of what was going on - Jack Chick is sufficient evidence of that.
I don't think its fair to bundle all the parents, pastors, and the like who got caught up in the scare with that label.
When D&D first showed up, it was a very 'fringe' behavior. It was associated with anti-social groups, Satanists, mysogyny, drug use and so forth not by wild overreach, but because there were alot of groups for which that characterization fit perfectly well. At the time, I did know groups that played D&D and smoked pot during sessions, or which played D&D and who were avowedly Satanists. I think that Jack Chick and the like helped reinforce the sterotype, in as much as by advertising D&D as fringe behavior it only helped recruit more fringe groups and tilt young peoples assumptions toward D&D as part of a entire lifestyle of anti-social behavior and rebellion, but I don't think that the then sterotype of the '70's D&D player as a pot smoking hippy Satanist is wholly without a basis in fact. Heck, the whole bearded grognard image of older players we retain of that time, is also the image of a person who is permenently stuck in late 1960's early 1970's college culture and if you talk to those players a great many of them will readily admit that in that era D&D, drug use, and/or what you might call 'experimental religion' (of some sort) interweaved.
And it's worth noting that the 1e D&D game books did nothing to help dispell this initial notion. Umbran says, wisely, that a parents approach should be, "Son, let me see those books, please. I want to read through them and understand." However, supposing the average parent did do that, and you handed them OD&D pamplets, or AD&D DMG's or MM's and they started reading them it's wholly unreasonable to assume that anyone would get what the game was about from a rules dump like that. Nothing in the MM told you how to play the game. The DMG was confusing and difficult to read even if you did know how to play the game. What the average person and particularly parent would have noticed first would have been half-naked females, demonic imagery, and half-naked female demonic imagery. I am obviously an RPG supporter, but I don't blame anyone for picking up the 1st edition DMG cold and taking away from it that it had something to do with soft core porn and demons. It would have required a rather large amount of tolerance and patience to come to understand the game on its own terms. My own parents had absolutely no problem with D&D and stayed out of the contriversy until I started brining the 1e AD&D books home instead of the basic/expert D&D books. Convincing them that the imagery in the book wasn't actually what the game was about and wasn't actually a core and essential feature of play was not easy, because after all, why would you illustrate it if it wasn't?
The problem defenders of the hobby had was that the narrative about the hobby was superficially believable. If you were on the inside, you could see how ridiculous many of its claims were, but from the outside if you were raising your kid, claims that this 'new thing' was related to drugs, Satanism, anti-social behavior, and all sorts of 'bad influences' were entirely believable even upon inspection. Either an inspection would turn up groups that fit the description of 'bad influences', or else would turn up mystifying rule books filled with pictures you didn't associate with what you wanted for your 12 year old.
I get very skeptical of anything which it is convienent to believe. I find that when people don't actually understand something, they immediately try to explain things by ascribing ignorance and stupidity (or evil or insanity) to everyone but themselves. I'm certain that I do that from time to time. But while you seldom go wrong betting on the ignorance and stupidity of the human race, generally speaking you are better off including yourself in that assessment because the real story is usually alot more complicated than, "I'm smart and you are not."
I don't think its fair to bundle all the parents, pastors, and the like who got caught up in the scare with that label.
When D&D first showed up, it was a very 'fringe' behavior. It was associated with anti-social groups, Satanists, mysogyny, drug use and so forth not by wild overreach, but because there were alot of groups for which that characterization fit perfectly well. At the time, I did know groups that played D&D and smoked pot during sessions, or which played D&D and who were avowedly Satanists. I think that Jack Chick and the like helped reinforce the sterotype, in as much as by advertising D&D as fringe behavior it only helped recruit more fringe groups and tilt young peoples assumptions toward D&D as part of a entire lifestyle of anti-social behavior and rebellion, but I don't think that the then sterotype of the '70's D&D player as a pot smoking hippy Satanist is wholly without a basis in fact. Heck, the whole bearded grognard image of older players we retain of that time, is also the image of a person who is permenently stuck in late 1960's early 1970's college culture and if you talk to those players a great many of them will readily admit that in that era D&D, drug use, and/or what you might call 'experimental religion' (of some sort) interweaved.
And it's worth noting that the 1e D&D game books did nothing to help dispell this initial notion. Umbran says, wisely, that a parents approach should be, "Son, let me see those books, please. I want to read through them and understand." However, supposing the average parent did do that, and you handed them OD&D pamplets, or AD&D DMG's or MM's and they started reading them it's wholly unreasonable to assume that anyone would get what the game was about from a rules dump like that. Nothing in the MM told you how to play the game. The DMG was confusing and difficult to read even if you did know how to play the game. What the average person and particularly parent would have noticed first would have been half-naked females, demonic imagery, and half-naked female demonic imagery. I am obviously an RPG supporter, but I don't blame anyone for picking up the 1st edition DMG cold and taking away from it that it had something to do with soft core porn and demons. It would have required a rather large amount of tolerance and patience to come to understand the game on its own terms. My own parents had absolutely no problem with D&D and stayed out of the contriversy until I started brining the 1e AD&D books home instead of the basic/expert D&D books. Convincing them that the imagery in the book wasn't actually what the game was about and wasn't actually a core and essential feature of play was not easy, because after all, why would you illustrate it if it wasn't?
The problem defenders of the hobby had was that the narrative about the hobby was superficially believable. If you were on the inside, you could see how ridiculous many of its claims were, but from the outside if you were raising your kid, claims that this 'new thing' was related to drugs, Satanism, anti-social behavior, and all sorts of 'bad influences' were entirely believable even upon inspection. Either an inspection would turn up groups that fit the description of 'bad influences', or else would turn up mystifying rule books filled with pictures you didn't associate with what you wanted for your 12 year old.
I get very skeptical of anything which it is convienent to believe. I find that when people don't actually understand something, they immediately try to explain things by ascribing ignorance and stupidity (or evil or insanity) to everyone but themselves. I'm certain that I do that from time to time. But while you seldom go wrong betting on the ignorance and stupidity of the human race, generally speaking you are better off including yourself in that assessment because the real story is usually alot more complicated than, "I'm smart and you are not."
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
I think that in the UK there was much less concern about roleplaying in general, and I started in the 70's, before any furore that might have kicked off in the 80's.
As a result, my parents never bothered to read any of our books, but they were perfectly happy that friends would come round 2-3 times a week and we'd disappear upstairs to play this game. As my mum said to me some years later "At least I knew you weren't going out getting drunk or getting into trouble" or words to that effect.
As a result, my parents never bothered to read any of our books, but they were perfectly happy that friends would come round 2-3 times a week and we'd disappear upstairs to play this game. As my mum said to me some years later "At least I knew you weren't going out getting drunk or getting into trouble" or words to that effect.
Celebrim
Legend
I don't think you can separate fear of D&D from fear of those things. D&D was being equated with the lifestyles that included drugs, alcohol, risky behavior, suicide, "human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!" Anti-D&D hysteria was part of a whole larger picture, and D&D was seen as - and even at times championed as - being on the other side.
If you look at the screen play for ET or the novelization of the story, I think you get a very fair treatment of D&D both as it actually was and as it was percieved as being. The fears of the single mother raising her kids aren't centered around the D&D game itself, but on the snippets of drug references, violence, and so forth she hears coming from her den while her son is playing the game. It's D&D as part of a large adolescent rebellion, and fears of that adolescent rebellion and risk taking were I think largely behind fears of D&D. It's not like the Jack Chick's of the world are really all that common. Before they can stir the larger culture, they have play into some larger set of fears.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
I think that in the UK there was much less concern about roleplaying in general, and I started in the 70's, before any furore that might have kicked off in the 80's.
As a result, my parents never bothered to read any of our books, but they were perfectly happy that friends would come round 2-3 times a week and we'd disappear upstairs to play this game. As my mum said to me some years later "At least I knew you weren't going out getting drunk or getting into trouble" or words to that effect.
As a result, my parents never bothered to read any of our books, but they were perfectly happy that friends would come round 2-3 times a week and we'd disappear upstairs to play this game. As my mum said to me some years later "At least I knew you weren't going out getting drunk or getting into trouble" or words to that effect.
Thornir Alekeg
Albatross!
After buying the Basic Set for my 10th Birthday, my parents then asked me to teach them to play. I ran them through a couple of adventures and they decided at that point that the game was nothing to be concerned about...at least until my mother saw "Mazes and Monsters." After that she worried again until the owner of the hobby store where we played, a good family friend, reassured her about the game we were playing.
Werebat
Explorer
I was born in '73 and started getting interested in D&D around the age of 5, so I feel I can weigh in here...
My father thought the whole religious scaremongering thing was hilarious, but that's more a function of him and his family than D&D specifically.
His best friend (my godfather) was into D&D and was our first exposure to it. When I turned 12, he invited me to play at his place every other weekend with their group (all grown men), and of course those nights became the highlights of my month. When my godfather died, my father mentioned those nights he sent me off with him in his eulogy, claiming that if everyone had a good friend who they could trust their children with for regular nights of entertainment with, the world would be a better place. My oldest son is named after him. Today, decades later, his nephew still games with us.
One of my Dad's brothers, who would later grow to be pretty seriously Christian, played D&D once and said it was an "imagination game" because "you have to imagine you're having fun." I still think that line was pretty funny. It's also the worst thing anyone in our family ever said about D&D.
One time my father was in a discussion with the extended family at a New Year's party about one religious figure or other ranting about the evils of D&D on television, and how when kids "summon demons" in the game they are actually summoning REAL demons in real life. He said that a fun thing to do, if they really believed that, would be to send them a letter claiming that "I play D&D, I know who you are, and I know where you live -- expect a major demon soon!"
He didn't actually DO that, of course. He was only joking. A good man, my father.
- Ron ^*^
My father thought the whole religious scaremongering thing was hilarious, but that's more a function of him and his family than D&D specifically.
His best friend (my godfather) was into D&D and was our first exposure to it. When I turned 12, he invited me to play at his place every other weekend with their group (all grown men), and of course those nights became the highlights of my month. When my godfather died, my father mentioned those nights he sent me off with him in his eulogy, claiming that if everyone had a good friend who they could trust their children with for regular nights of entertainment with, the world would be a better place. My oldest son is named after him. Today, decades later, his nephew still games with us.
One of my Dad's brothers, who would later grow to be pretty seriously Christian, played D&D once and said it was an "imagination game" because "you have to imagine you're having fun." I still think that line was pretty funny. It's also the worst thing anyone in our family ever said about D&D.
One time my father was in a discussion with the extended family at a New Year's party about one religious figure or other ranting about the evils of D&D on television, and how when kids "summon demons" in the game they are actually summoning REAL demons in real life. He said that a fun thing to do, if they really believed that, would be to send them a letter claiming that "I play D&D, I know who you are, and I know where you live -- expect a major demon soon!"
He didn't actually DO that, of course. He was only joking. A good man, my father.
- Ron ^*^
TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
To figure out exactly what it was that we were doing, my mom played the game with us once.
... and she was an absolutely terrible player.
DM: The gelatinous cube is moving toward you down the hallway. You see chunks of former adventurers within it being slowly digested.
Mom: It's probably lonely. I give it a hug.
... and she was an absolutely terrible player.
DM: The gelatinous cube is moving toward you down the hallway. You see chunks of former adventurers within it being slowly digested.
Mom: It's probably lonely. I give it a hug.
jonesy
A Wicked Kendragon
I bought my first D&D books from a friend at school when I was 9 or 10. We had hallway duty that day, which meant we were supposed to make sure other students weren't late from class, but really what we did was spend the time reading the rules. When I got home I had to head out to the market to get groceries, so I left my backpack and the books at the kitchen table.
When I got back I found my mom reading them. And making sketches. She's a fashion designer and while she found some of the drawings ridiculous she was inspired by the imagery. So she 'stole' the books for the rest of that day.
As for my dad, I think he did the math in his head and figured it was a pretty cheap hobby to support. Plus not having to drive me to icehockey practise every day. Which I didn't mind because I suck at it.
And my grandparents, I don't think I've ever seen them be shocked or even bothered by anything. My swedish grandparents even tried playing the game. They thought monopoly was better. "You have a game about killing monsters and taking their money, but the game doesn't come with money? What's that about?"
When I got back I found my mom reading them. And making sketches. She's a fashion designer and while she found some of the drawings ridiculous she was inspired by the imagery. So she 'stole' the books for the rest of that day.
As for my dad, I think he did the math in his head and figured it was a pretty cheap hobby to support. Plus not having to drive me to icehockey practise every day. Which I didn't mind because I suck at it.
And my grandparents, I don't think I've ever seen them be shocked or even bothered by anything. My swedish grandparents even tried playing the game. They thought monopoly was better. "You have a game about killing monsters and taking their money, but the game doesn't come with money? What's that about?"
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