The Satanic Panic

[Ironnerd]

I remember the Satanic Panic of the 1980's. Specifically, I remember one kid in my class. He asked his mom if he could get a Dungeons & Dragons boxed set. She went to the book store, but when she went to buy it, God spoke to her and told her not to. I felt this was rather lame, but he was not alone. A lot of moms had serious misgivings about D&D. Even my mom asked me about it. I told it was pretty simple; I played a Cleric (a kind of priest) who served God and fought Demons and the undead. She seemed cool with that.

I remember the news stories about how D&D was a gateway to witchcraft and the like. It was hard to take them seriously, unless you were my grandmother. Somehow she found I was into D&D, and one day, at a family dinner, she slapped this down and made me read it. The infamous Chick Tract DARK DUNGEONS.



I promised her I would never play D&D (or cards) ever again. Then played again the next Friday... We were both happy.

[Ironnerd]

I also found this on the Internet Archive. These nice people actually documented all of the ways AD&D tries to get you to side with Satan.




This one is a bit higher quality.

[The Semi-Retired Gamer]

Oh yes, what a magical time! If D&D wasn't enough to steal your teenage soul, there was heavy metal music or horror movies. Fortunately, I never had to directly deal with that nonsense.

[Ironnerd]

My mom asked me about D&D. I told her I played a cleric; a kind of warrior priest (like on Kung-Fu), and I fought demons and monsters. She was okay with that.

To this day, I have never played a Cleric... dunno why.

Oddly enough, my friends and I would explore the storm sewers under my home town. I grew up about 90 miles from the infamous "Steam Tunnels" from the Satanic Panic. Must be a Michigan thing.