The very first time we meet Mike,
Will, Lucas and Dustin, they're rolling D20s
in the basement of the Wheeler house.
Fast forward a few years
and there's an official Stranger Things D&D set,
and people can talk about demogorgons
without fear of being spit-balled.
What you might not know, however, is that outrage
surrounding D&D in Stranger Things 4
is not a dramatic invention.
It seems unreal that a community
could become suspicious of a game that encourages people
to spend time together, use their imaginations,
and even learn some arithmetic on the side.
-Fireball him. -I need a 13 or higher.
-Risky. Protection spell. -Don't be a pussy.
But sure enough, the show gets plenty right
about the disproportionate reaction to the popularity
of Dungeons & Dragons in the early 1980s.
It began in 1979,
five years after D&D was first published.
Sixteen-year-old James Dallas Egbert III
disappeared from his room at Michigan State University.
His family hired a private investigator,
William Dear, to find him.
The truth is that Egbert,
suffering from depression and drug addiction,
had gone into hiding in the utility tunnels
under the university.
But Dear believed that Egbert's interest
in Dungeons & Dragons was the cause of the problem,
especially since students allegedly played
live-action D&D sessions beneath the school.
The story captured public attention,
and the nationwide focus on Egbert's disappearance
actually led to soaring sales of Dungeons & Dragons.
Suddenly, millions of people were playing
instead of just thousands.
Egbert was found two months after he disappeared,
but committed suicide a year later.
This, however, was just the beginning
of public scrutiny of D&D.
In 1982, a high school student
in Virginia named Irving Lee Pulling II
committed suicide
by shooting himself in the chest.
His mother, Patricia Pulling,
believed her son's interest in D&D was to blame.
Pulling first tried
to sue her son's high school principal,
claiming a curse placed on her son's character
during a game run by the principal was actually real.
She also brought an action against TSR,
the game's publishers.
After her lawsuits were dismissed,
Pulling formed an action group
called Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons,
otherwise known by its somewhat unambiguous
acronym, BADD.
What began as simple condemnation
quickly became a full-scale moral panic,
similar to the outcry surrounding gory comic books
in the 50s.
"At first, regarded
as a harmless game of make-believe,
now has both parents and psychologists concerned."
Pulling went so far as to describe D&D
as a fantasy role-playing game
which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder,
rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity,
sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution,
satanic-type rituals, gambling, barbarism,
cannibalism, sadism, desecration,
demon summoning, necromantics, divination,
and other teachings.
So, you fight with dice?
Yes.
But these aren't your normal dice.
They have up to 20 sides.
It sounds shocking now, but the campaign
gained widespread, uncritical coverage
via conservative Christian outlets
and the mainstream media.
BADD even published a series of warnings
designed to help identify
the first signs of teenage Satanism.
These included creativity, curiosity,
underachieving, overachieving
and intelligence.
Adolescents from all walks of life,
aged between 11 and 17,
were considered the most vulnerable.
Rock concerts, parties and even school clubs
were all considered hotbeds
of potential malevolent influence.
Nobody tell Mr Clarke.
When Will sees this,
he is totally going to blow his shit.
Lucas.
It wasn't limited to the US either.
BADD documents were distributed to schools,
churches and local governments in Britain,
Canada and Australia.
The widespread coverage even led to feature films
portraying D&D in a negative light,
being produced, made with support
and consultation from BADD.
These included 1982's Mazes and Monsters,
a made-for-TV drama notable for starring a 26-year-old
Tom Hanks in his first leading role.
Over time, the moral panic subsided.
No legal action ever succeeded
in implicating the makers of Dungeons & Dragons,
and there was almost no academic evidence
to support BADD's claims
about the malign effects of D&D.
In fact, when prevalence of suicide in RPG players
was investigated
by the American Association of Suicidology,
the Centres for Disease Control
and the National Safety Council,
the report found that suicide amongst RPG players
was actually significantly lower
than national averages for their age demographic.
Meanwhile, BADD
and their supporting organisations
made increasingly grandiose, unsupportable statements.
They suggested RPGs were actually
a form of satanic worship,
which involved things like human sacrifice,
real-world spell casting
and a belief in lycanthropy and vampirism.
The Juju bites your arm. Flesh tears.
Seven points of damage.
Lurid comics were printed,
warning of D&D mind bondage and occult training.
Some BADD documents even focussed on whether or not
RPG-playing kids had been exposed to the Necronomicon,
which would be difficult since it's a fictional book
invented by H.P. Lovecraft.
Ultimately, the outlandish nature of BADD's claims
eventually alienated the people
who once supported them.
And now, 40 years on,
D&D is more popular than ever.
Google Trends showed a 20% increase
in D&D as a search term
between the first and second seasons of Stranger Things
and an additional 50% in the two years
between the second and third seasons.
Demand for old-school D&D books
has driven prices to an all-time high.
Now, perhaps the uplift
isn't just because of Stranger Things.
The likes of Critical Role, Adventure Zone
and the release of D&D's fifth edition all helps,
but whatever the reason, pen-and-paper roleplay
is no longer a guilty secret…
If I play, do I get one of those cool T-shirts?
Yes.
…no matter what Max says.
Are you being sarcastic?
She's being sarcastic.