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

[Treebore]

Lets see, according to this 60 Minutes report its in the rules how to summon demons, and its in the rules how to Astral Travel by putting a bullet in your head.

Which edition of D&D was this in?


(Don't worry, I know, I am just being sarcastic, and wondering why Gary and TSR didn't sue 60 Minutes and CBS for allowing such blatant lies to be given in the report.)

 

[Ranger REG]

I forgot to ask. What happened to Melissa Pulling? Did she continue her mother's campaign?

 

[El Mahdi]

Man, as a younger member of the boards, this is really one of those things where I can only shake my head and give it the "People seriously believed this?" treatment. I mean, the portion where they mention parents seeing their child actually conjure up D&D demons? Really? . . .

As someone said earlier, one way of understanding how people could believe this is to understand that D&D wasn't the only "EVIL SATANIST CULT" scare going on. There was a lot of that kind of thing.

Man, you're so right that this wasn't the only thing. I remember the self styled "Christian" comedian Mike Warnke. My parents loved this guy, and believe it or not, he really was funny. He professed to being a former satanist high priest (as well as a drug addict). On one of his performance albums he claimed to have proved it to a non-believer. He said that while he was a satanist he cast a curse on an abandoned building because a friend challenged him to prove that satanism was real. Several hours later, they were passing back the same way and found the building had burned down.

He has since been completely discredited, but a lot of people believed him. Theres a good entry and bio on him at Wikipedia. But the point is there was a lot of this going on, and it scared people, making it easy for them to believe it.

 

[Shroomy]

I forgot to ask. What happened to Melissa Pulling? Did she continue her mother's campaign?

BADD pretty much dissolved when Patricia Pulling died in 1997, so it doesn't appear so. I googled her and couldn't find anything.

 

[Umbran]

CBS long had a particular tradition and reputation of doing the news by the rules--being objective reporters to a degree not achieved elsewhere. Whether this was deserved is another question (and probably not fit for this forum), but suffice it to say that they were so perceived, by much of the public and themselves.

Ergo, it was not possible for them to convey an agenda any other way. They not only had to fool the public into thinking they were being fair, they had to fool themselves. Fooling yourself is hard, at least until you've had some practice. It was vitally important to them that they have the appearance of being objective.

Non sequitur - it does not follow. The fact that they had to be and were perceived as objective in no way implies that they had to fool themselves into thinking they were being fair. Fooling oneself is not required to fool others. Sorry.

 

[armyofme]

when i was younger and i told my school counselor that i played they said that devil worshipping and all that crap d&d has come a long way but all it needs is some retard to completely take it out of context and bam we are all set back twenty years

 

[teitan]

In some more rural areas of the country we still deal with the "Satanic Panic" about D&D. I took one of my 4e books to work to read while on break and several of my co-workers complained to management that I was reading "Satanic material". Of course management didn't take it seriously. Many of the complainers were surprised to discover that we sell the stuff when management told them.

 

[El Mahdi]

Since they work for someone who sells 4E, you should tell them that, according to the 4E rules, they would be considered "minions" - therefore they are: "Satans' Minions".

You could make up name tags for them that say:

(Their Name here)
"Satans' Minion"

Also have them wear buttons reading "Ask Me About 4th Edition!"


I really am joking. I'm sure, in the real world, this would create an enormous uproar and probably get you fired. But it would be fun!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In some more rural areas of the country we still deal with the "Satanic Panic" about D&D.

I live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, and I still encounter some residual effects of that.

Part of that is because of the prevalence of Southern Baptists- a very conservative Christian faith, to be sure. In the 1983, Longview Christian HS decided not to play my Catholic HS (Cistercian Preparatory) football team because we were Catholics. The headmaster was fielding calls from ABC, CBS, NBC, and the local press for weeks. The football coach got calls from his family on the East Coast. We had been playing them for years, and somehow they missed that Cistercian is a name only associated with Catholocism...so we removed them from the schedule of all of our athletic teams because they were jerks.

That kind of attitude crosses over into anything dealing with paganism, and lets face it, any game that starts with an assumption of polytheism isn't going to look too good to them.

And to be perfectly clear, its not ALL Southern Baptists- there are some in my circle of gamer friends, after all. Its mostly those in their hierarchy and the zealots... And the same holds true of more conservative Catholics and other religious types, as well.

 

[grodog]

I have the official transcript from the airing, but I haven't seen this in years. Thanks, Dru!