RPG Evolution - True Tales from Stranger Things: The Satanic Panic Comes to School

Stranger Things' latest season incorporates the Satanic Panic into its storyline, but in my experience it wasn't the jocks who became the biggest threat. It was a teacher.

The Satanic Panic Was Real​

Depending on where you lived and your family's social circle, the experience of Dungeons & Dragons players with the Satanic Panic could vary greatly. For the most part, my family rarely encountered any prejudices against the game. I've mentioned previously that my aunt was a big supporter of my hobby.

I was introduced to D&D as part of a learning program. It was considered a means of promoting reading and imaginative play and was promoted as such in elementary school. The Satanic Panic backlash came soon after while I was in high school.

The only incident I knew of where someone had a problem with us playing D&D was that my dad mentioned a coworker frantically telling him that I had to stop playing the game immediately as my soul was in danger. My dad told him off.

And that was about the extent of my experience with the Satanic Panic. Until I took an art class in high school.

Meet Mr. P.​

Mr. P. was an art teacher who was not particularly interested in art. Ironically, I met one of my lifelong fellow gamers in his class. It was a drawing class in which we would be asked to draw something and then, since there was no deadline as to when we were finished, sit around talking.

That meant a lot of time for discussions of topics Mr. P. was much more interested in. And once he found out that two of us played D&D, he then spent every class publicly debating me about it.

Mr. P. felt he was doing us a favor. He brought in material that criticized the game, then asked us to refute it. And me, being me, eagerly engaged him in a public debate. For the entire class.

This went on and off for weeks. We would barely do any drawing, then Mr. P. would bring out anti-D&D material, I would refute it, neither of us would budge on our position, and we'd do it all over again the next class. I remember at one point an audible sigh from my classmates, who were sick of the debate and certainly weren't learning anything about drawing.

The "Evidence"​

Mr. P's arguments were wide-ranging and poorly sourced. Here's some of the criticisms in the literature he shared and my response to the criticism:

• The most powerful character is formed by rolling three sixes on a D6. I didn't even understand that "666" was supposed to be an evil number at the time. I explained there were lots of ways to generate a powerful character, and not just getting sixes.
• There were demons featuring sexual content in the Arduin Grimoire. I'd never heard of the Arduin Grimoire until Mr. P's pamphlet mentioned it; some of the content in it was obviously for mature audiences. That wasn't in any way "official" D&D though, and I made it clear we didn't play in that setting.
• The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide featured "real" magic circles. This was true (see picture, AD&D DMG, page 42), to the extent that they were based on what you could find in text books (I have no idea if the symbols on the magic circle are accurate). For parents concerned about exposing their kids to "occult" topics, I had to admit that it was in the book. It didn't have any bearing on the game though, as never drew these circles or used these symbols.

There was a lot more of course, but this was the kind of thing I spent my art class discussing with a teacher. To get a sense of the arguments leveled against D&D players, see Mike Stackpole's Pulling Report.

Your Tax Dollars at Work​

As a kid, I was excited about the opportunity to debate an adult publicly. My parents didn't fully understand what was happening and I didn't consider it a big enough deal to tell them. Although it was a badge of pride to take on the Satanic Panic so publicly, I also didn't really comprehend what was happening.

As an adult and a parent, I see this exchange very differently. A student and teacher are most certainly not equals, and the literature Mr. P brought in was religious in nature. There are a lot of things wrong with these exchanges, not the least of which being this teacher was bullying a student during school hours on school property and not actually doing his job.

As much as Stranger Things would like to make its villains fellow students, our critics were frequently more powerful, better connected, and protected by entrenched institutions. And they were almost always adults.

Mr. P. was a terrible art teacher, but he taught me an important lesson about how art can be perceived; be it a drawing of a demon, three numbers grouped together, or magic circles. I passed the class (he gave me a B, I think), but I learned a lot from him about what the outside world thought of my hobby.

Your Turn: How did you deal with the Satanic Panic when confronted with it?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Unfortunately, very true. The claims that D&D and heavy metal were indoctrinating children into Satanism absolutely are mirrored by all the accusations of "grooming" we see being levelled today.

Except for the fact that we are going through the same thing today. This is what Q anon is based in - a lot of CTs traffic in the Satanic Panic tropes. It is far too convenient a tool for the reactionary crowd to ever give up on. The thing about the SP in the 80s is that it was a cultural movement where you could pin anxieties about public schooling and exposure to new cultures / ideas on it being a tool of subversive elements. As such it encompassed so much more than D&D. It covered Heavy Metal music, sex education, psychiatry / therapy as well as D&D. To this day, outside of gamer circles, most people think it was about Daycares being run by Satanists. So, no - it is not retrograde - it is current.

 

[Undrave]

Except for the fact that we are going through the same thing today. This is what Q anon is based in - a lot of CTs traffic in the Satanic Panic tropes. It is far too convenient a tool for the reactionary crowd to ever give up on. The thing about the SP in the 80s is that it was a cultural movement where you could pin anxieties about public schooling and exposure to new cultures / ideas on it being a tool of subversive elements. As such it encompassed so much more than D&D. It covered Heavy Metal music, sex education, psychiatry / therapy as well as D&D. To this day, outside of gamer circles, most people think it was about Daycares being run by Satanists. So, no - it is not retrograde - it is current.

Felt retrograde in the 80s... sad to see nothing's changed.

 

[Stormonu]

This whole satanic panic thing feel laughably surpersitious and retrograde... It also feels like a very Protestant thing. I didn't play D&D in that era but I don't recall even hearing about such things until much later.

People are fickle things, quick to judge what they don't know about and fearful to delve into things that might put them into risk. While a lot of it comes across as "you can't like that thing I don't like", for a lot of people something they aren't knowledgable about is scary - especially if it seems similar to some other thing they've been warned against. Most people, once you show them (over time) it isn't a big bad scary thing will be okay with it. There are some that won't, of course, but they tend to out themselves as being ignorant, given time.

 

[Chris Mortika]

I was free-lancing for TSR when the Satanic panic hit, and so I thought it was a good idea to walk out and meet any public concerns about the game. In my experience, the criticisms came in three batches:
1) There are pagan gods in the game (Indeed, it's fiction.)
2) There are devils and demons in the game (Indeed, they're fictional, and we fight them.)
3) The game teaches that killing people is the best way to address anyone you disagree with. (Fair point. The game grew out of war-games and battle simulations, but it could do better.)

 

[pukunui]

The older kids I played with when I first started later asked if I wasn't worried about the suicide risk from playing D&D, I never figured out where they got that.

That was the only thing that ever came up for me. When I first got into D&D in the early 90s, my mom expressed concern and mentioned a story about some teen who’d killed himself after losing touch with reality from playing D&D.

I must have been able to convince her it wasn’t anything to worry about because she subsequently funded a large portion of my collection of 2e game books and novels.

 

[MNblockhead]

That was the only thing that ever came up for me. When I first got into D&D in the early 90s, my mom expressed concern and mentioned a story about some teen who’d killed himself after losing touch with reality from playing D&D.

I must have been able to convince her it wasn’t anything to worry about because she subsequently funded a large portion of my collection of 2e game books and novels.

It is interesting because this was an important aspect of the moral panic. But I never recall that ever once coming up. In my experience the concerns were mostly:

1. "satanic" tropes, symbols, monsters in the game
2. playing the use of magic
3. concerns about drug use (funny considering at least my circle of gamers, but in the 1980s "drug use" was the one moral panic to rule them all)
4. there are better things you should be spending your time on

 

[MNblockhead]

I was free-lancing for TSR when the Satanic panic hit, and so I thought it was a good idea to walk out and meet any public concerns about the game. In my experience, the criticisms came in three batches:
1) There are pagan gods in the game (Indeed, it's fiction.)
2) There are devils and demons in the game (Indeed, they're fictional, and we fight them.)
3) The game teaches that killing people is the best way to address anyone you disagree with. (Fair point. The game grew out of war-games and battle simulations, but it could do better.)

1 and 3 are evergreen concerns and I expect we'll see the heat raise on these issues again as the game continues to gain in popularity.

For number one, keep in mind it was not just satanic-panic concerns. It was that they put gods in the game initially that people still worship. WotC isn't going to be publishing books in with, say, the Hindu pantheon and it doesn't seem that neopagans who worship Norse or Greek gods are objecting strongly to the continued use of these pantheons in the game. But using real-world inspired gods is fodder for those who want to claim that the game is promoting paganism. But even if they ditched all real-world inspired pantheons, the use of clerics and religion mechanically will always lead to some attacks on the game from certain crowds. I just do not think that in most of the regions where the game is popular that there are enough people who care enough to make it much of an issue for WotC.

Same thing goes for 2. Bringing in the words demons and devils and using names inspired or taken from historic demonology is going to lead to objections. But I just don't think there is going to a critical mass of people who take these things seriously in most of the countries where D&D is most played.

As for three, it doesn't seem that violence ever raises the moral panic in the way that, say, sex does. I've read accounts of wargamers and, later, D&D players in the USA, in the 60s and 70s being criticized glorifying violence. This was at the height of the peace movement. If anything, highly violent entertainment has significantly increased and has been mainstreamed in most of our entertainment. Some families will have an issue with it, but I don't see it getting much media or interest group attention.

D&D, like everything else will have to navigate the current culture wars, but I don't see anything like the moral panic of the 1980s happening in my kids generation.

 

[MGibster]

As for three, it doesn't seem that violence ever raises the moral panic in the way that, say, sex does. I've read accounts of wargamers and, later, D&D players in the USA, in the 60s and 70s being criticized glorifying violence. This was at the height of the peace movement. If anything, highly violent entertainment has significantly increased and has been mainstreamed in most of our entertainment. Some families will have an issue with it, but I don't see it getting much media or interest group attention.

Truth be told, where we draw the line at what's acceptable in an RPG and what isn't seems to be rather arbitrary at times.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I think this was more a US thing than a UK thing although there was one guy in my group whose family joined an evangelical church and he suddenly stopped coming to Friday night D&D. He may have had other reasons though.

It was entirely a US thing. It had no meaningful impact even in Canada.

As for why: self-described Evangelical/conservative Christians are about 35% of the American public. In Canada, that equivalent number is only 7%. This has profound effect on both social and economic policies as well as even things as pedestrian as in-school D&D play,

Our public schools still allowed D&D throughout the 80s and D&D clubs at public schools were commonplace. This lead to significant differences between the business of the hobby in the two countries.

The Satanic Panic is the USA lead to in-store play and smaller city and regional Conventions as a feature of RPG gaming in America that never really took hold in Canada until well after M:TG. In-store play was not a regular established feature among Canadian hobby retailers until the mid 2000s; even then it was solely due to FNM, not D&D or other RPGs.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I have said it before and I am going to say it again. TTRPGs was totally unknown for the 80's in Spain, but the cartoon show. In the 90's there was a murder tagged by the press "el crimen del rol" (the crime of the role(play game) and a fool, and his TTRPG was totally homemade, without links with comercial products.

Later the RPGs of World of Darkness arrived to Spain, and videogames as Warcraft or Diablo.

I suspect the 2023 will be a year of "satanic panic" worse that the one from 80's, but this time WotC hasn't to worry about this, not even other RPG publishers, or videogames studios with titles as "Doom" or "Mortal Kombat". The target of the wrath by the people will be other.