D&D Still Satanic? "So my mom threw away all my D&D books..."

[Diamond Cross]

No wonder you ain't so keen on logic, when the figures representing logic and understanding were . . . a graphic novel earlier in the thread. Craig Thompson's Blankets. It's not a dudes' book, but I'd want to read it if I'd been in your position. And the brushwork's awesome.

My folks paid for me to go to town to pick RPG stuff at the game store, drove me to and from games, and bought me Led Zep, Thin Lizzy and Rolling Stones' albums. When my grandparents gave me a bit of cash the folks let me invest in a great deck, amp, . . . the lot. Both professional teachers

Actually I didn't learn anything about critical thinking and logic until I started going to college which was at thirty. I'll look into that graphic novel.

 

[Elf Witch]

She was protecting you from the evils of Mary Sue!

I hope that didn't come of as too insensitive given the background, but I couldn't resist. Sorry. You seem to be aware of the whole self-insert bad fanfic thing.



See, that's the real problem here. They're convinced that anything that's said to be even remotely Satanic will damn their kids eternally if it's experienced for even 5 minutes. It's a natural protective instinct that's gone into extreme overdrive, and nothing Stackpole or anything anyone else will convince them otherwise. Particularly if they've been convinced by some preacher, because they implicity trust him in everything. If he says D&D is from the devil, it's an eternal truth.

My stories were not even good Mary Sue's. My character in the stories didn't have delicate ankles that twist at just the right moment and all the male characters were not in love with her. Though she was a top notch pilot, engineer and handy with a phaser.

Personally I think a lot of what some of these people believe to be off the wall. Sometimes it seems they see satanism in everything. And you usually can't change their mind.

But that doesn't change the fact that if you have certain religious beliefs you are going to try your hardest to raise your child in them because you believe that it is the right way. And when you believe in an immortal soul and damnation for all eternity you want to make sure that your child does nothing to endanger that.

I was raised Catholic and I was brought up with the entire concept of mortal sin and purgatory. It was a sin to eat meat on Friday or go to mass without your head covered. I was taught that doing those things would endanger my soul. I once had a hot dog on Friday and my mother panicked and dragged me to confession because she was afraid if I died before atonement I would be heading to hell. She really believed this. So parents who really believe DND endangers their child's soul are going to be against it.

If this mother truly believed the whole satanic BS then as a parent she did the right thing to protect her child.

I feel sorry for the kid and I am glad his friend rescued his books and he will be 18 soon so hopefully he can be on his won and not have to deal with this.

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

I am SO grateful that my parents were wise and just people who separated their parenting obligations from their personal beliefs.

When I got into D&D ('79), rather than just make assumptions or parrot rumors, they actually asked me questions about the game... and trusted my intellect and personal responsibility to choose what kind of hobby I wanted to pursue.


The first time someone at high-school said "that game is satanic" to my face, I remember staring at her in shock for a few seconds and then belly laughing at the silliness of it. I said something to the effect of, "You fight against demons and devils you goofball. They are the enemy."

The girl never even considered what I'd said. She just went off on irrelevant tangents and at least one bible quote... and I just continued laughing at her... until she finally threatened me with hell and walked away.

I encountered similar situations a few other times over the next few years, but never with the same rudely confrontational pig-ignorance of the girl at school. Most people were questioning its "status" rather than flat-out accusative.

 

[Essenti]

There are three 17 year old players in our group, and the mother of one of them plays too! She is actively taking part in a portion of her son's life and probably knows a heck of a lot more about what is going on with him than the mother in the linked story.

If only more parents would take such an active role in befriending and understanding their children. She could have been there to steer him away from buying that one overtly offensive book to begin with.

And wow. Putting the books out on the street so that the "evil" can spread to the rest of the world. Mighty neighborly and morally responsible thing to do...

 

[TarionzCousin]

A suppose a compiled Wormy collection would be good, too.

I would definitely buy the cancelled "Downer, Part Two" book from Paizo.

 

[Relique du Madde]

My mom went through a Extreme Religious phase.. so much that during the 90s she had a Priest come in and exorcize the house of demonic influence (in the form of CDs which he pulled out and passed judgement on).

Yet, with all that she still allowed me to play DnD. She didn't like it, but she allowed me to since it kept me out of trouble.

 

[nedjer]

Many of the behaviours reported seem mediated by fears, which are our most easily pushed buttons. However, religion doesn't have a monopoly here, as our fears are continually manipulated, e.g. it's currently quite the thing for millions to consume pro-biotic sludge for breakfast.

For most people the gut populates itself with bacteria, so there's no obvious medical benefit and the ads carefully avoid making medical claims. However, the fear of not being one of the smiley, wholesome family, sunny breakfast team on the ad has people pouring this deliberately unappealing looking gunk down their throats.

Where this becomes all the more relevant to us is that these same politics of fear, linked to status, control and a sense of control, are built into every game session. The rules lawyer as prophet, the TPK as 'take your medicine', the misogynistic 'girls can't have the same strength', the newbie v's the grognard, and the 'my Edition genitals are bigger than the your Edition genitals'.

This traps many games in the meta-game and meta-world, as exemplified by new Monopoly, where it's 'fun' and 'win' to lower the value of your kid's property by dumping a sewage farm next to the kid's hotel.

Which in turn, perhaps, explains a lot of the fear of RPGs, as they are much, much more open to player choice, mediation, compromise and collaboration than regulation or rule-bound games. That doesn't mean we play to all those values all the time, (who could), but the potential to re-formulate, shape your own imaginative experience and 'cut lose' by making your own decisions is anathema to those seeking to control and confine.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Nar, D&D ain't Satanic, but Satan does play D&D. One Hell of a DM, but the worst rules lawyer that you can imagine on the rare occasion that he gets to be a player. And don't let him use his own dice.

I played and ran my first D&D games in the basement of a local Unitarian church, and one of the players was a Catholic priest. By some lights you just don't get more damned than that.

The Auld Grump

 

[CharlesRyan]

Back in 2004, when I was the Brand Manager for D&D, we conducted a huge PR campaign around the game's 30th anniversary. It was the first year in many that D&D had been given a real marketing budget, and it was the biggest the brand had had in--well, possibly ever. Certainly in the modern era.

As I said, PR was a major part of it, and the year spawned scores and scores of newspaper, magazine, and TV spots around D&D's 30th. I personally was interviewed dozens of times by journalists.

A big part of the PR talking plan was countering the negative stereotypes of D&D--in particular, the satanic angle. Everyone slated to be interviewed was thoroughly prepared to fend off that one.

You know how many times it came up, over something like 60 or so interviews I gave? Exactly zero.

No, I lie: Occasionally, the interviewer would say something like, "Do you remember back in the 80s, when some people thought D&D was satanic? Ha ha! Do you ever get that anymore?" The answer to which, truthfully, was "Not really."

The moral to the story? Yeah, there are still people out there who think D&D is satanic. But their numbers have been reduced to the same looney fringe that burns Harry Potter books. I feel sorry for anyone who runs afoul of them, but overall they're not really a factor any more.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I would definitely buy the cancelled "Downer, Part Two" book from Paizo.

The cancellation really was a Downer........