Historical Perspective: 1980s "60 Minutes" segment on D&D

[Nifft]

Wow, blast from the past.

Do we need reports like that to make D&D popular today?

Headline: D&D: Your Parents Disapprove

Cheers, -- N

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

@Nifft: It certainly couldn't hurt.

Brings back memories, as I started playing about 3-4 years before the whole issue blew up. It did make things interesting -- I remember friends who had all their D&D stuff taken away and burned/thrown out by their parent; others who would hide their gaming stuff at a friends so they could still play, etc.

At the time, for some parents you'd think that given a choice between having their kid do drugs or play D&D, they'd prefer the drugs.

@ Pat Pulling (part 2): Nah, the police obviously changed their story because TSR cast a spell on them. Can't you see it? (I'm sorry for her loss, but what a sorry, misguided woman.)

 

[Relique du Madde]

My grandmother still enjoys telling the story of when one of our local newsreporters came on the air with a story about a devil worshipping cult at a local high school.

Oh no! she though, my son goes there! He might be in danger! Even worse, the reporter went on to explain that the cult was even supported by some teachers, who actively recruited students! Egads, this has to be stopped!

And the leader of the cult was none other than ... my uncle, who was DM for his high school's DnD group. She laughed and laughed. Lucky for me (and more lucky for my uncle) she wasn't ever the religious type, and knew it all for the foolishness it was.

Makes for a funny story now though.

You know, with the way the law is today, your uncle could have sued the newspaper and made millions (if not hundreds of thousands) as a result of liable and slander.

I wonder if the change in peoples attitudes towards lawsuits helped kill all that Christian anti-dnd propaganda. That or people becoming jaded in during the 1990s.

 

[Ranger REG]

So, where are they now? I mean the lady and her daughter Melissa?

I'm sorry about the loss of her son, but I'll be straight with her that even the smartest, brightest person is still vulnerable to mental sickness.

 

[Rykion]

So, where are they now? I mean the lady and her daughter Melissa?

I'm sorry about the loss of her son, but I'll be straight with her that even the smartest, brightest person is still vulnerable to mental sickness.

Patricia Pulling died of cancer in 1997.

If you go to the Pulling Report link in the 2nd post you'll see that she had multiple versions of things leading to her son's death. The family had seen him howling and barking at the moon, and the family's 19 rabbits were found dead 3 weeks before the suicide. They also found a disemboweled cat. There were definitely warning signs of serious mental sickness.

 

[Caliber]

You know, with the way the law is today, your uncle could have sued the newspaper and made millions (if not hundreds of thousands) as a result of liable and slander.

I wonder if the change in peoples attitudes towards lawsuits helped kill all that Christian anti-dnd propaganda. That or people becoming jaded in during the 1990s.

Actually, be newsreporters, I meant the a reporter for the local broadcast. He managed to make the local nightly news.

 

[Henry]

So, where are they now? I mean the lady and her daughter Melissa?

I'm sorry about the loss of her son, but I'll be straight with her that even the smartest, brightest person is still vulnerable to mental sickness.

Patricia Pulling, you mean? She passed away in 1997 from cancer. You can read her wikipedia entry to get some really fascinating facts about her anti-D&D crusade; Mike Stackpole's The Pulling Report, however, is the most authoritative document on her public statements.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

60 Minutes has always used selective editing to strongly imply things that are not true, while technically sticking to the rules of fair journalism. They pretty much were the first to use the practice to such widespread success, though they have certainly been copied a lot since. Keep those videos in mind, anytime a news program talks about a controversial subject where you don't personally know much.

As for what it did to the game, I'm always surprised that people got flak for playing D&D then (not that I'm doubting you). In the early 80's, I openly played D&D, in the heart of the Bible Belt, and never got a comment. Not one. I even carried the 1st ed. AD&D books to school and worked on adventures during breaks. Heck, at one time, we had playing over 20% of my graduating class--most of them evangelical Christians. A cousin in a neighboring county had the exact same experience. I wonder if small schools and communities had a lot to do with that. It's hard to get all worked up about "satan worshipping gamers" when those exact same people are on the basketball team, in the band, your distant relative, etc.

 

[Shroomy]

Ah, the Bad Old Days....those claims were ridiculous then and they're even more ridiculous now. Luckily for me, my parents, while they didn't understand the hobby, always defended it to others. However, I did have one friend whose day was a youth minister; I couldn't bring my books or even discuss the game in their house if he was around.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I got into D&D around '86, and I distinctly remember my mom telling me pretty sternly not to mention anything D&D around my very conservative grandmother. I don't think I really understood why until later though. I learned really quick not to let on in school that I played though. Even today I rarely openly tell people I play, though if someone notices my books or asks I'm upfront about it.