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Ben Riggs Interview on the Death of the Golden Age
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<blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 9255822" data-attributes="member: 7023840"><p>That's both true, yet also misleadingly incomplete. I recommend reading <em>Game Wizards </em>to get a more complete version of the story.</p><p></p><p>This is what happened.</p><p></p><p>The initial "Satanic Panic" operated like rocket fuel for D&D. The press surrounding the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert in 1979 led to the greatest growth period in D&D's history, and the resulting publicity around D&D (the first wave of the Satanic Panic) was an unalloyed positive for D&D. I don't think that anyone argue that the (first?) Golden Age of D&D can, at least partially, be credited to that.</p><p></p><p>However, the story isn't quite that simple. The moral panic that took root around Satanism in the Reagan '80s was a very real thing. As stupid and crazy and bizarre as it is to think of today, it had real and devastating impacts on people. In the early '80s, for example, it was common to see the full range of D&D products sold at the Scholastic Book fairs for kids. Lots of schools across America had (formally or informally) D&D clubs. It reached a cultural zeitgeist (a highwater mark) where D&D (or a very similar RPG!) was featured in E.T. in '82, and it was a Saturday morning cartoon in '83 through '85. But as the panic set in during the 80s, those opportunities disappeared.</p><p></p><p>Clubs at schools were forced to shut down. Books weren't being sold (although, to their credit, B. Dalton and Waldenbooks resisted the pressure ... something other large chains did not). There were a lot of people and places where you wouldn't talk about D&D. Heck, there were people charged with murder, and prosecutors would use playing D&D as evidence.....</p><p></p><p>While the powers that be at TSR maintained a brave face, this resulted in internal policies at TSR that toned down the material they were putting out ... this is why you see a massive shift in the overall tone in the early 80s, and is what lead to the design direction of 2e.</p><p></p><p>So yeah, the "Satanic Panic" was responsible for putting D&D in the mainstream and sold a lot of product initially, it had real and severe impacts as the '70s turned into the '80s.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Snarf Zagyg, post: 9255822, member: 7023840"] That's both true, yet also misleadingly incomplete. I recommend reading [I]Game Wizards [/I]to get a more complete version of the story. This is what happened. The initial "Satanic Panic" operated like rocket fuel for D&D. The press surrounding the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert in 1979 led to the greatest growth period in D&D's history, and the resulting publicity around D&D (the first wave of the Satanic Panic) was an unalloyed positive for D&D. I don't think that anyone argue that the (first?) Golden Age of D&D can, at least partially, be credited to that. However, the story isn't quite that simple. The moral panic that took root around Satanism in the Reagan '80s was a very real thing. As stupid and crazy and bizarre as it is to think of today, it had real and devastating impacts on people. In the early '80s, for example, it was common to see the full range of D&D products sold at the Scholastic Book fairs for kids. Lots of schools across America had (formally or informally) D&D clubs. It reached a cultural zeitgeist (a highwater mark) where D&D (or a very similar RPG!) was featured in E.T. in '82, and it was a Saturday morning cartoon in '83 through '85. But as the panic set in during the 80s, those opportunities disappeared. Clubs at schools were forced to shut down. Books weren't being sold (although, to their credit, B. Dalton and Waldenbooks resisted the pressure ... something other large chains did not). There were a lot of people and places where you wouldn't talk about D&D. Heck, there were people charged with murder, and prosecutors would use playing D&D as evidence..... While the powers that be at TSR maintained a brave face, this resulted in internal policies at TSR that toned down the material they were putting out ... this is why you see a massive shift in the overall tone in the early 80s, and is what lead to the design direction of 2e. So yeah, the "Satanic Panic" was responsible for putting D&D in the mainstream and sold a lot of product initially, it had real and severe impacts as the '70s turned into the '80s. [/QUOTE]
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