I grew up atheist in a not very religious town, so no direct encounters for me. But my brother once found a copy of Dark Dungeons inside an AD&D module -- apparently somebody had cut a slit in the shrinkwrap and shoved it in there.

I just picked up a copy of Dark Dungeons on ebay last week, actually.  Seemed like something I should have in my collection for historical purposes.  I think I'll hide in a boxed set somewhere, so when I die and my family sells off my collection, somebody else can be surprised and confused.

penetrate, "thru the backdoor'"

Paging Dr Freud.  

My grandmother found out I was playing D&D and she gave me the "Dark Dungeons" tract to read.  She also gave me some magazine articles about how rock and roll was the Devil's music and if I listened to it I would be bound to him for eternity.  It had the typical bands listed that you might expect to worship Satan:  AC/DC, Blue Oyster Cult, Motely Crue, KISS, and Black Sabbath.  If she only knew that my DM had just made me a tape with a bunch of metal bands.  Metallica, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Celtic Frost, and Dio....just to name a few.     My mom once asked me if there was any devil worship in D&D.  I told her that there wasn't and she was ok with that answer.  She only told me I couldnt play when I wasnt getting my homework done first.  If she only knew that my DM was reading books on the occult and once had us sit in a dark room filled with candles and started reading the Bible backwards.  He also tried to hypnotize a girl at a party just so he could touch her breasts.  She was so drunk and stupid that she let him think that he actually hypnotized her.  He just did stuff like that for the shock factor.  He tried it again a month or so later and a different girl slapped the crap out of him.  

Dungeons & Dragons was never brought up in my church, and I have no idea if it was ever brought up in any of the other churches in my extremely small town of only 2000 people.

Only ever had it brought up in 7th grade I believe by my science teacher, don't remember what she said exactly, but very few in the class even had it register (either not knowing the game or not caring).
Only seen it mentioned in print a couple years later when a reporter in a small newspaper mentioned a few kids that played it (same kids killed an elderly woman and her middle aged son) as if that was what drew them to the acts of violence.

ShaneG.

In 1981, I just happened to catch a late-night version of The 700 Club as I was flipping channels, and some guy was talking about "back masking" in heavy metal.  Since I was looking for some laughs, I stuck with the program for awhile.  After the back masking segment, they promised to blow the lid off of Dungeons & Dragons with an "Expert" in Satanism.

Ok, so this expert gets up there and proceeds to throw out a bunch of nonsense about role playing games, and the high point is when he holds up a 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide and points to the Efreeti, saying "And here you see one of the demons you can summon when you play the game."   So at that point I figured he wasn't much of an expert if he didn't even know what was on the cover was NOT a demon.....what a FRAUD!

Mike B.

The dumb thing is - all the people that play DnD know the difference between fantasy and reality - and RPGs are great for developing imagination and creativity.

All the religious nuts that think it is evil actually believe in demons and devils and for the most part 'magic' which permeates any fundamental religious belief.

Actually travelling DnD players should go round preaching 'hey dudes, its not real....' rather than the other way round  

Here is the church answer to RPGs --- Roll a Role.




** expired/removed eBay auction **




"Ha Ha Jimmy you rolled a 9"



"Aw do I have to be the page boy again!"

I remember the anti D&D hysteria all too well.

I lost two people from my gaming group due to thier being "saved" and suddenly finding Satan in a game they had played for years without loping off into the darkness to commit heinous crimes.  I had nemerous discussions/debates with them and some of thier new spiritual guidance counselors.  None went very well, usually ending with me laughing at some ignorant, illogical argument passed off as spiritual insight.

I still have a collection of newspaper and magazine articles that warned people of the nefarious influence of D&D, blamed the game for mysterious crimes, and had all manner of stupid, ignorant commentary from "experts" who had NEVER PLAYED THE GAME!

It was an interesting thing to live through.  There are still many religious people who consider D&D Satan's little Amway scheme, but the mass hysteria has passed.

By the way, I am still friends with the people who left my group.  They still think I emperil my soul by having the books.  We have agreed to disagree, and I haven't yet become a raving occultist.  I suppose the utter corruption toward evil takes a little longer with some.

I remeber having "discussions" when I was about 12-13 years old with an adult and again when I was 16-17 with my friends parents, they both went sorta like this.

Adult: "You play D&D! Oh my God, thats devil worship stuff!"

Me: "No its not."

Adult: "Yes it is!"

Me: "Who told you that?"

Adult: "Blah, blah"

Me: "So just because someone tells you something, it automatically makes it true?"

Adult: (getting frustrated) "Yes it does."

Me: "OK, then I'm telling you it doesn't have anything to do with cults or Satan, or anything like that. Its just a game! There I just said it is not cult related, so that makes it true right?"

Adult: "No."

Me: "If you needed your car fixed, would get advice from someone who has fixed cars before, or someone who hasn't?"

Adult: "Well from someone who has fixed cars of course."

Me: "Well I have played D&D, and those people who say its about devil worship have not played D&D. So what makes more sense? Listening to someone who has never played the game or listening to someone who has?"

Adult: "Arrrgh!"

You can actually prove that D&D has nothing to do with satan worship, but a religous freak will still ignore the facts and try to "save you"