The 1980s D&D Panic (BBC)

Pookie Bear · 11 Apr 2014 at 08:37

I saw this article on the BBC today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26328105

I played D&D in the 1980s (yes, I'm that old!) and I still play it now (well, it's Pathfinder, but close enough) as well as a dozen other P&P RPGs (played Call of Cthulhu for the first time in nigh on twenty years last night!). Of course, now I use virtual tabletops, visual aids via tablet and loads of other technological shortcuts, but it's basically still the same game - still being played by the same guys - although nearly all of us are married, have kids, etc...

Now if all that rubbish thirty years ago (BADD being the prime example) can be shown to be an absolute load of tosh, it makes you wonder which of today's witchhunts is going to be proven to be unfounded in the future.

Of course, I realise I'm in a biased room

but I thought others might find the article interesting.

noj · 11 Apr 2014 at 12:33

yeah funny read. I remember some of that nonsense from first time round.

I wonder what groups like that thought of LARP when it started up! There's a number of times in my LARP career I've taken part in "occult rituals" that make tabletop look very, very tame.

wasn't rock n roll music the root of all evil once as well though

Pookie Bear · 11 Apr 2014 at 13:18

Well, I think a lot of LARP'ing is quite heavily stereotyped

The boots of escaping video, for example

(which I admit, cracks me up!)

The closest we come to any rituals is one particular player who likes to announce what he's doing rather flamboyantly - like requesting the assistance of his deity when he casts heals and things

ttaskmaster · 11 Apr 2014 at 13:19

I only got into RPGs later on.
In the 80s I was too busy playing playing Whitesnake albums backwards to hear Satanic messages... and playing Debbie Gibson albums backwards, because they sounded better!!

Battery! · 11 Apr 2014 at 21:11

I loved D&D as a kid, then AD&D and even did lots of LARP too, complete with latex weapons

EddScott · 14 Apr 2014 at 14:00

Pulling described 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"

When asked what her favorite TV Show was, the reporter was surprised to hear "Game of Thrones"