(ominous music)
(screams)
- That's Tom Hanks flipping out in a cave
from the 1982 made-for-TV movie Mazes and Monsters.
- It's a glimpse into the moral panic
surrounding the Dungeons and Dragons
role-playing game of the 1980s,
so let's roll for initiative.
- [Robert] Mazes and Monsters is just one
of a handful of films that sought to capitalize
on the fears that the Dungeons and Dragons
role-playing game was a gateway to madness,
occult violence and suicide.
- [Julie] Hanks' character winds up insane at the end,
completely detached from reality.
All thanks to his obsessive gaming.
- [Robert] Also consider the 1983 horror film Skullduggery,
in which a group of adults
clearly engaged in the most joyless game night of all time,
play a little Dungeons and Dragons
and descend into a world of supernatural murder.
- [Julie] Of course, these films were just
the tip of the exploitation iceberg here.
The real heat came from the fundamentalist Christians groups
and the advocacy group BADD.
- [Robert] All the hoopla largely stemmed
from two tragic incidents.
The first being the 1979 disappearance
of Michigan State University student
James Dallas Egbert III.
Suffering from depression and drug addiction,
Egbert took to the University utility tunnels
and there, attempted suicide.
- [Julie] Oblivious to this,
Egbert's family hired a private investigator
to find their son and the investigator
erroneously singled out the Dungeons and Dragons
role-playing game as a likely cause
of the young man's disappearance.
- [Robert] The second episode of note
was the 1982 suicide of high school student
Irving Lee Pulling.
Pulling's mother, Patricia,
sued both the high school principal
and the publishers of Dungeons and Dragons,
claiming that Irving's death
stemmed from a curse placed on her son
in a D&D game run by the principal.
Both suits were dismissed,
but Patricia Pulling continued her crusade
against the demonic soul-rotting power
of the game through the formation
of Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons, or BADD.
- [Robert] BADD's message found an audience
through conservative Christian groups and ultimately,
through the mainstream media as well,
which was revving up into a moral panic
over the perceived but equally erroneous threat
of satanic ritual abuse.
- [Julie] A moral panic is a viral, widespread unrest
sparked by our collective fears about society's direction
and fueled by a variety of cultural influences.
- [Robert] It never takes much for the flames
of such fears to burn out of control,
especially when the fires are stoked by trusted voices
in the media or the words of experts.
- [Julie] One such expert was Thomas Radecki
who argued that just as role-playing
serves as a powerful psycho-therapy tool,
role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons
misuse that very power.
- [Robert] Like an abused medication,
role-playing corrupted impressionable young minds
with a world of fantasy, violence, sex and sorcery,
or that was the accusation at any rate.
- [Julie] Luckily for dice-rolling gamers worldwide,
the moral panic subsided in the wake of reason.
Subsequent studies
by the American Association of Suicidology,
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Health and Welfare Canada
all found no causal link between D&D and suicide.
- [Robert] In reality, Dungeons and Dragons
has actually proven itself a psychiatric aid of sorts.
Sure you're taking imagined adventurers
on a fantastic quest.
Yes, there's some violence
and the female monsters have a tendency
to look a little sexy in the monster manual,
but to play D&D is to engage
in a communal cooperative, creative experience.
- [Julie] Psychotherapist Dr. Wayne Blackmon
even offered an account
in the American Journal of Psychotherapy
detailing his use of Dungeons and Dragons
to help a 19 year old with an obsessive,
schizoid personality gain better control
of his emotional states.
- [Robert] So don't be afraid to roll that d20.
Watch our for umber hulks,
but don't fret over the occult,
psychological dangers of a good game with friends.
Hey, if you enjoyed this video,
be sure to check out these three videos as well.
- [Julie] And don't forget to visit us
at stufftoblowyourmind.com.
(upbeat rock music)
- What do you think it is
about conspiracy theories that gamers love?
- This is a question that has,
it's plagued me.
And every since I started
kinda doing more Internet than television,
that level of interaction with the audience
has become so much greater.
I've really noticed it.
- [Narrator] Behold, the video game console.
Where did it come from?
Meet Ralph Baer, born in Germany in 1922.