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

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

These stories continue to amaze me...

The strongest thing my mother once did was throwing away a bunch of military vehciles that my father bought me on a flea market while he was slightly drunk. (And I got to keep the regular cars, though they got a repaint )
Somehow, that feels a lot saner (then and now) to me than the burning of D&D books.

I am not aware of any moral panics on D&D or RPGs in general in Germany. But I wonder what moral panics we might have had that I forgot or missed.

Video Games and TV might be it, but it's not even close to what happened with D&D then...

 

[Gailbraithe]

When I was 12, my mom remarried and we moved in with my new step-dad right about the time I started middle school. So it wasn't too long after we moved in that I was asking to host a D&D game with new friends from school. And my step-dad kinda freaked out. He was really shocked that my mom allowed me to play D&D, but she didn't think it was anything to worry about. He had seen that very 60 Minutes report right up there, and he was from Montana and had heard of Pat Pulling's anti-D&D campaign before seeing the report, so he perceived it as the mainstream media validating Pat Pulling. He begrudingly agreed to allow a game, but insisted it happen in the living room so he could listen in from his office.

It took about twenty, maybe thirty minutes of gaming before he realized that the 60 Minutes story was total bull, and he never asked to listen in on a game again. He frequently demanded the exact opposite, as I recall.

 

[Dykstrav]

Oh, it gets much kookier...

Fortunately, I was smart enough to get my books out of the house before my father burned them. I took them over to a friend's house the same day he brought the minister over (I had to get out of the house for the weekend, I was pretty pissed, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise).

Lo and behold, next week my father was upset because I had taken the evil books out of his house, he was looking for them when I was at school. Apparently, someone he went to church with told them that they had once burned a ouija board and that this ouija board had literally screamed--and he wanted to see if my D&D books would scream when burned.

Yes, he wanted to see if my D&D books would scream in pain when burned, and people were worried about ME being insane because of D&D.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Those were the days. My stepmother thought it was unnatural for kids to want to read instead of play. I played and ran around like other kids, but I liked to read also. But the more she pushed the less I played and the more I read. And you would not believe how hard I had to fight to get into college (you should get a job). Just to frame things.

Now with D&D I had started playing before my Dad even met her. I had copies of the books and she never even noticed. At one point she even asked what the game was about and wanted to play. Then she mentioned it to her mother and her mother freaked. She made my stepmother watch all the evangelical crusades stuff she had recorded and then my stepmother became convinced it was evil and destroyed my stuff. So I went to hiding it.

It didn't end there, when I went to college I got involved with campus ministry and I was told point blank that if I still wanted to be part of it all and develop my walk with God that I had to burn all the stuff and this continued off and on for years. It doesn't help that I am also a theistic evolutionist and refuse to read Dumbsky (oops...Demsky) and Behe.

I also had a friend whose little brother had wanted to play D&D. His parents didn't allow him because of it was evil (they were orthodox jews), but they allowed him to play Vampire the Masquerade.

I do like how the Pulling's normal and adjusted son had threatened his sister so strongly that she was still crying about it.

 

[TerraDave]

I believe they were also the program that started the dubious process of re-recording the interviewer and their questions after recording the interviewee and their answers

I think this is a pretty standard tactic. It is, or at least was, justified by having one camera.

 

[The Little Raven]

I think this is a pretty standard tactic. It is, or at least was, justified by having one camera.

Oh, I know it's standard these days. However, I've read a number of complaints about interviewees that were asked one question, their answer recorded, then when the interviewer is recorded again, they put an entirely different question in, which changes the context of the whole interview.

Reshooting to clean up bad camera work or jitters is one thing. Reshooting to change context is entirely different.

 

[taliesin15]

Ah, yes, the good old days. I lived in the boring mass of suburban North Dallas (Richardson to be precise) when I got into D&D in the late 70s. At the time when I first got into it I was actually into a quasi evangelical form of Christianity which I decided was a crock, having nothing to do with D&D (though surely there are some madmen out there who would decide otherwise).

One particularly bizarre moment was when we were playing at the house of a friend whose father was American, and his mother Philipino, both Catholics, and she freaked out upon seeing the cover of the 1st edition DMG, crossing herself, etc. In retrospect, too bad she didn't get that the big nasty fiery Efreeti was the monster, and that the player characters were the Good guys fighting him. Most PCs tend to be on the Good side.

Then the next year, when Deities and Demigods came out, my friends and I perused it with fervent interest. The section on the Arthurian heroes led some of us to surmise that it is essentially a Christian based system overlaid on a Celtic/Pagan one (with some Norse). One person said "where's Jesus Christ, Lawful Good Major Deity, 400 hit points?"

Another bit of hysteria was when I joined a campaign in Austin in 1982, wanting to play an Assasin character. The group was highly spooked out by the prospect of playing with an evil character. It all seems very strange to me now.

FWIW, even though I attended school here in Texas, definitely the Bible belt, there was never that much hysteria towards gaming among fellow students. Even teachers were tolerant. The danger was being seen as nerds. Ironic now, since some of these nerds are the most successful and richest alumni of my high school (IOW, computer and engineering types).

 

[ProfessorCirno]

The horrible thing is, while not at the same extent, this thought process is STILL going on in many of the more rural parts of the US, and there's still a strong "nerd" stigma both there and in urban and suburban areas.

 

[amysrevenge]

"nerd" stigma

Nerd stigma I cna deal with. It's all the other nonsense that bothers me. Haven't had to face much of it myself, other than one conversation with my mother in the early 90s. She now thinks my hobby is "stupid", which is a huuuuge step up from "immoral".

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Wow! I started playing mostly in the mid 80's though I had dabbled with the Box Set D&D some time before that and I had heard about the Satanist scares in the US I never believed it was that bad, burning a guys books. I think in Ireland there was such a small minority of gamers that it never entered general conciousness.
A relative, who is a Catholic priest did ask me to explain the game concepts to him, including wargames (which I was more into at the time) and I remember bringing books and a hex game to him and going through the stuff. He looked it over and ultimately asked more questions on the wargame that the rpg stuff. I suspect he was curious as to the fuss and wanted to see for himself. He never asked to see a game and it never really came up in conversation again.