Today, games like Dungeons & Dragons are a
little more mainstream than they have been
historically.
During the 1980s and 90s, there was a very
real moral panic that raged over D&D.
Why was D&D condemned as a tool of the devil?
Here's the controversial history of Dungeons
& Dragons.
The spark that ignited a multi-generational
movement against Dungeons & Dragons happened
on August 15th, 1979.
On this day, a teenage college student, child
prodigy, and D&D player named James Dallas
Egbert disappeared, leaving behind a note
explaining his intention to end his own life.
Police were called, and a private investigator
named William Dear got involved in the search.
Dear wasn’t interested in the pressures
of being a young college student, or the rumors
of Egbert’s drug use.
Instead, he obsessed over the fact that Egbert
played D&D.
Dear concluded that the missing teen had entered
steam tunnels under the school, while in a
fugue state caused by losing track of the
line between reality and the fantasy game.
Eventually, Egbert returned, still alive,
and fled the state.
He said he had done it because of academic
and parental pressure, but as far as the public
was concerned, it was all about the D&D.
Unfortunately, Egbert succeeded in ending
his own life in 1980.
In 1981, a Cosmopolitan journalist wrote Mazes
and Monsters based on the case.
It was turned into a movie starring a young
Tom Hanks.
“I’m going to join the great hall.”
“You can’t, it’s a trap!”
“I have spells.”
Dear released his own book in 1984, but it
didn't matter that he downplayed the Dungeons
& Dragons connection - that part of the story
had already been written.
Tragically, Egbert's wasn't the only self-inflicted
death linked to Dungeons & Dragons.
In 1983, the parents of Irving Lee Pulling
sued their son's high school principal after
Pulling ended his own life on the day before
finals, 1982.
An investigation by the sheriff's department
turned up a ton of D&D "paraphernalia," including
a magazine and a note with words in some unknown
language.
More to the point, classmates said Pulling
had difficulty fitting in, and suffered from
depression.
At any rate, his parents sued the school for
allowing them to play D&D there, including
the last session when another player supposedly
"cursed" Pulling.
Within just a few months of filing, a Virginia
judge dismissed the suit, but not because
of anything directly related to D&D.
It was dismissed because the principal had
been acting as a government official while
doing his job, and couldn't be sued as an
individual.
Patricia Pulling wasn't about to give up,
and that's when she launched a crusade against
the game.
She founded Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons,
or BADD, to tell everyone all about the evils
to which they would fall victim if they played
D&D.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal
thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK
(8255)​.
Patricia Pulling's crusade against Dungeons
& Dragons was a major one.
She even wrote books about this game she believed
promoted insanity, blasphemy, cannibalism,
and demon summoning.
She repeatedly claimed D&D motivated American
teens to end their own lives.
Clearly, something needed to be done.
What should Mom and Dad be on the lookout
for?
If little Junior started robbing graves, stealing
religious artifacts, drinking blood, signing
death pacts, or exhibiting "supremacist attitudes,"
D&D might be infiltrating your home.
Pulling profiled kids who were particularly
vulnerable to D&D, saying it was the intelligent,
adventurous, creative kids, with no history
of drug use or behavioral problems, who usually
get sucked in.
So, pretty much everyone's ideal kid was a
candidate for Dungeons & Dragons domination.
Pulling wasn't alone in her beliefs.
She appeared on television shows across the
80’s dial.
“It has been linked in suicide notes, police
reports, and coroner’s reports.”
And even sat down with creator Gary Gygax
on an episode of 60 Minutes.
Sure, she was misinformed, but who needs the
truth when you've got Shield of Faith to protect
your mind?
Most Dungeons & Dragons players will say there's
nothing dangerous about it - unless you count
the possibility of getting pizza sauce on
your Player's Handbook.
But in 1984, one player said D&D led him down
a path to kill 18-year-old Mary Towey.
19 year old Darren Lee Molitor was convicted
of killing Towey in 1985.
He claimed that his trial had been unfair
because he hadn't been able to enter D&D as
a defense.
According to him, D&D had taught him just
how effective mind games were - and this somehow
led him down a dark path with Towey.
Molitor even wrote a whole essay on it.
He described rolling up a "newborn character"
who would become real in your head.
He called his dungeon master, or “DM,”
"god".
He said D&D was, quote, "a device of Satan
to lure us away from God," and that playing
three to five times a week for up to eight
hours at a time numbed his mind to imaginary
violence.
It was mainly the devoutly religious and the
ultra-conservative who rallied against Dungeons
& Dragons.
For most people, these anti-D&D crusaders
aren’t household names.
But one Bible-thumping cartoonist made quite
a name for himself, one you might have actually
heard of.
Jack Chick was a California-based cartoonist
who published a ton of tracts about everything
that could get you condemned to Hell.
You’d be damned if you played D&D, or were
Mormon, Catholic, a feminist, even if you
went trick-or-treating.
He packaged his fire and brimstone in cartoon
Bible tracts that sold 750 million copies
during his lifetime.
Chick claimed D&D was just a way for a DM
to decide who got to learn real spells, become
actual wizards, and eventually raise the dead!
Chick discovered how to tap into America’s
silliest anxieties, sensationalized current
events, and made people feel justified in
their fear and hatred.
Things were looking pretty dire for Dungeons
& Dragons.
They were standing against everyone from Hollywood
to conservative groups like BADD, and they
even had some professional psychiatrists warning
the public of diabolical dangers associated
with D&D!
At the heart of the matter were “recovered
memories.”
In this phenomenon, someone might suddenly
remember their DM told them they had to sacrifice
their neighbor's cat if they wanted their
character to survive.
In reality, the memory was spontaneously created
at the encouragement of a D&D-hating psychologist.
By the mid-90’s, law enforcement started
to report the truth - there were no Satanic
cults and recovered memories weren’t authentic.
By this time, longtime D&D players had grown
into adulthood.
They spoke on behalf of a game that, at worst,
taught them problem-solving and creative thinking.
A lot of sword and sorcery media from the
70’s and 80’s was a tad… racy.
And D&D was no exception.
But there was one module so graphic it was
pulled from circulation almost the same day
it hit the market.
It was called The Palace of the Silver Princess,
and anyone who has a version of this with
the orange cover, congratulations: you've
got the Silver Princess in all her glory.
The story is a weird one - and it takes place
in the early 80s.
Writer Jean Wells was asked to create a basic
intro module to the game, and what she ended
up writing was a module based on her own D&D
character.
This character involved what artist Bill Willingham
called her own "private fantasies."
The contained images included a weird set
of 3-headed monsters that just so happened
to look like caricatures of colleagues, alluding
to company unrest.
It was a recipe for disaster.
But since Wells was good friends with both
creator Gary Gygax and creative head Lawrence
Schick, her work simply got pushed through.
It wasn't until after the module was printed
and distributed that management actually looked
at its contents, and that's when the bugbear
poop hit the fan.
There was an instant recall put out, employees
scrambled to hide copies, and those that weren't
hidden ended up buried at a Lake Geneva landfill
along with, presumably, a heck of a lot of
pride.
The media called them "the Dungeons & Dragons
murderers," and they did, in fact, play D&D.
That's largely why the killing case got national
attention; it happened in 1988, when the moral
panic was still going strong.
Haters determined to bring down D&D were quick
to ignore evidence and just blame the game
for society’s ills.
Here are the basics: In July 1988, Leith and
Bonnie Von Stein were attacked in their bed.
Bonnie suffered life-threatening injuries
but survived, while her husband was killed.
The motive behind the attack was Leith's recent
million-dollar inheritance and, unfortunately,
his own stepson was behind it.
Chris Pritchard regularly used the members
of his D&D game group as a sort of sounding
board for the rage he felt toward his stepfather.
When police headed to North Carolina State
University to get the truth, fingers were
pointed at James Upchurch and Neal Henderson,
who happened to be D&D players.
All three were arrested, put on trial, and
found guilty - Henderson was paroled in 2000,
Pritchard in 2007, and Upchurch is first eligible
for parole in 2022.
Meanwhile, Dungeons & Dragons got another
strike against it, despite no real connection
to the case.
In 2016, CJ Ciaramella filed a Freedom of
Information Act request to make FBI records
concerning Dungeons & Dragons parent company,
TSR, available to the public.
The documents revealed that the FBI took a
strange interest in D&D, TSR, and creator
Gary Gygax.
In 1983, the little Wisconsin town where D&D
was born was under FBI surveillance due to
the presence of "significant cocaine traffickers."
The FBI thought D&D might be connected.
In 1995, the FBI investigated a group of D&D
players they were actually convinced had something
to do with the Unabomber.
Yes, that Unabomber.
The players were referred to as "known members
of the Dungeons and Dragons," which makes
them sound like bike riders, not dice rollers.
Gygax was described as "eccentric and frightening,"
and the FBI actually visited the gamers, showed
them images related to the Unabomber, and
asked if anyone recognized anything.
Group members became "paranoid," and in all
fairness, who wouldn't be freaked out?
The FBI claimed to be, quote,
"...quite sure that some of the members of
the group fantasized about the possibility
that maybe one of their members was responsible
for the bombing,"
and it just goes to show real life is stranger
than anything out of the Monster Manual.
Surely, all that paranoia is in the distant
past, right?
Like... the 1980s?
Not quite.
In 2004, inmates at the Waupun Correctional
Facility had their books, character sheets,
and dice confiscated.
Why?
Waupun officials claimed Dungeons & Dragons
constituted and encouraged "gang activity,"
and they couldn't have any of that going on.
Crazy, right?
The inmates thought so, and appealed.
The courts didn't make a final decision until
2010, when the United States Court of Appeals
basically said that since there was no proof
that D&D didn't lead to gang activity, they
were upholding the ban.
When Patricia Pulling sued her son's school
for allowing the kids to play Dungeons & Dragons,
they were quick to distance themselves from
it.
How times have changed.
D&D is actually used for therapy at LiHigh
School - a school for students suffering from
various behavioral difficulties.
One instructor had this to say:
"Without a doubt, D&D has been one of the
most successful classes we've offered at LiHigh
School.
Students love it, staff love it, and it genuinely
helps the students achieve their social-emotional
goals."
It makes sense.
Take a student who has difficulty working
with their peers, and send them on an adventure
they can only complete by working together.
Students that play form friendships, learn
how to cooperate and solve problems, and achieve
goals together - even if that goal is imaginary.
Other therapists are also seeing benefits.
Kids with social anxiety come out of their
shell when they can pretend to be a dwarf
warrior, and offenders who have difficulty
connecting their actions with pain learn to
experience that through their character.
Dungeons & Dragons may have had a rocky start,
but its continued success against decades
of hysterical opposition speaks to the fact
that something good is going on in this game
of dice and imagination.
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