Did Bad make D&D Good?

[Haffrung Helleyes]

jaycrockett, you're absolutely right, that is hilarious.

What will the fundies make of it? There's a devil worship character option right in the PHB. It's rather odd, given that they took the evil gods out of the PHB.

Ken

 

[rgard]

I suspect the tragedies helped. It's human nature. I remember when Monty Python's Life of Brian came out. I don't think I had any intention of seeing it until I heard that several churches had complained about it.

I went to see it then.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Hussar]

Let's face it, after the Hayday back in the early 80's, D&D has slipped from the public radar. There are just much bigger fish to fry - video games being probably number one. Followed by Harry Potter.

 

[Remathilis]

Maybe Paizo should secretly hire some Satanists to murder their parents for drug money and blame it on Pathfinder...

KIDDING!

I'm not so sure it would work that way again...

The term "role-playing" has been usurped by video games mostly (Final Fantasy, Worlds of Warcraft) fantasy worlds aren't so weird and unknowable (Eragon, Lord of the Rings) and "magic" isn't as spooky as it once was (M:TG, Harry Potter). And D&D has been around now 30+ years and we had a handful of alleged murders/suicides in the very beginning, then a lot of nothing. Heck, D&D is probably responsible for more kids getting their lunch money stolen than it is for any crazed murder-cults.

The mystery behind the game is gone. Its been disseminated into a thousand pop-culture references that most people would find childish and nerdy before spooky and dangerous. Hasbro produces the dang thing, its name has been on countless video games and CRPGS, and I don't even think Orcus on the cover bats much of an eyelash in a world with WoW CosPlay and Rowling becoming her own tax bracket off Harry Potter kids.

Long and short, for D&D to ever regain that stigma to anyone beyond the same fundamentalists that hate Halloween, Heavy Metal, and DOOM, you'd have to have a pretty spectacular event. I just don't see that happening again in the future without D&D getting lost in the mix of fantasy lit, video games, card games, and Norwegian Speed Metal bands...

... Unless they actually used the PHB to summon REAL demons. That would get everyone's attention in a real hurry...

 

[Orius]

I'm pretty sure those were some of the best things to happen in D&D. That was marketing unlike anything TSR could have done.

Actually, I think the Blumes kind of let that BE the marketing for D&D back in the early 80s.

 

[Family]

Worked for Dr. Horrible. http://www.drhorrible.com/

 

[WayneLigon]

Did you mean BADD (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons)?

The thing that catapulted D&D into the national spotlight was the James Egbert case in 1979. Pulling didn't start until sometime after 1982.

http://ptgptb.org/0007/dallas2.html
http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/539/539197p1.html

Ironically, Egbert's disappearance had nothing at all to do with D&D and the investigator kept the real details of the case under wraps until Egbert's younger brother graduated high school, to protect the family. By then, of course, it didn't matter.

I seem to remember one of the 'ask Gygax' threads, Gary stating that their sales increased by 1000% that year, rather than the 100% or so they had been increasing in the years previous to the incident. Someone might wish to search for that in case my memory is faulty.

 

[deadplayer]

You play the game, not game plays you. Control yourself.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

As others have said, it was pretty much the best thing financially that can and has ever happened to D&D - or to go beyond that, tabletop gaming itself. It hilariously catapulted D&D from being a fun game to being the headliner in table top and making pen and paper gaming a household name.

Which has, in some ways, backfired. That kind of freak show of "professionals" can't really happen again; D&D is too mainstream now. It's already been accepted as a part of standard culture, and while it is marginalized into the whole "nerd" thing, the fact is that whole "nerd" thing isn't the horrifying stigma it used to be. Hell, I was talking to one of my old professors at the 2 year I used to go to and we had a good laugh over finding that some of the members of the football team had blamed WoW for their slipping grades.

 

[Family]

Worked for Dr. Horrible. http://www.drhorrible.com/

Off topic: ProfessorCirno I admire your (what I find to be) unique viewpoint on humor. I was wondering what you thought of the above.