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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