Dungeons and Dragons Satanic Panic

***Dungeons & Dragons***, a fantasy roleplaying game, was the subject of a **Satanic panic** during the 1980s. During this time, *Dungeons & Dragons* (D&D) was repeatedly attacked with accusations that it supported Satanism and led people to commit suicide. 

Eventually, these claims were proven false.  

A number of other McMartin parents soon made similar accusations. At the time, daycare centers were very new, and parents worried for their children's safety. Parents around the country started to worry that their children might also be experiencing Satanic abuse. 

Initially none of the McMartin preschoolers reported any abuse. However, they began to tell wild tales of Satanic abuse after being questioned by parents, police, and others using suggestion and/or coercion. These tales fueled even more accusations, which began to spread across the country.  

When all charges were finally dropped (with no convictions), the McMartin case was the longest and most expensive series of criminal trials in American history. This meant it had gotten an enormous amount of attention and that its allegations had been repeated numerous times. 

Fueled by the McMartin case, fears and accusations continued to spread around the country about Satanism in various places, from schools to rock music and card games - like *Dungeons & Dragons*. 

## Suicides and harm 
### James Dallas Egbert III 
In 1979, a Michican State University student named James Dallas Egbert III tried to kill himself. Two days after he initially disappeared, a private investigator found him alive in the university's utility tunnels. James's mother had hired the investigator after finding her son's suicide note, which said James's character in D&D needed to die because a demon told him to kill himself.  

James's mother blamed D&D for his suicide attempt. James suffered from several mental illnesses that were poorly researched and poorly understood at the time, including depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety. Still, the private investigator (a man named William Dear) suspected that the game had caused James' actions. 

Police found Irving and his brother dead from gunshot wounds beneath a railroad trestle. Because Irving had a gun in hand, police thought there had been a murder-suicide. However, classmates pointed out that the boys frequently played D&D around that railroad trestle. Investigators found that earlier that day, Irving’s character had a curse cast upon him. The curse was supposed to cause his character “emotional pain and damage.” 

Based on this information, the boys' mother Patricia blamed D&D for Irving's death, suggesting that the curse was real and caused his suicide. It suggests that teenagers cannot see the difference between fiction and reality. 

Pulling argued that D&D's manuals were so detailed that they could only have been written by people with a vast knowledge of the occult. (In the original Advanced D&D, some monsters were demons with varying degrees of power over the characters.)  

Believing the game was Satanic, Patricia sued her son Irving's school for allowing students to play D&D there. The principal argued that the game was not part of the school's official curriculum, and the lawsuit was dropped. 

## Research and opposition 
Some people still defended D&D and opposed the Satanic panic. Michael Stackpole published articles like *The Pulling Report* and *The Truth About Role-Playing Games* to discredit Pulling's claims about the game. Stackpole studied people who played role-playing games, and found they had a lower suicide rate than the general population.

Research eventually showed that there is no link between D&D and violence or suicide. However, their statements were not enough to make the D&D Satanic panic vanish.

## Game changes 
Eventually D&D's maker, TSR Inc., made changes to the game as a result of the panic. James Ward, an executive at TSR, had demons and devils removed from the Monster Manual and Assassins. He also had some spells removed from the Player's Handbook. 

Ward explained his actions in an article in *Dragon*, a magazine about fantasy role-playing games, saying that "avoiding the Angry Mother Syndrome has become a good, basic guideline, for all of the designers and editors at TSR, Inc.". 

In later editions, TSR re-added some of the removed features in a separate manual intended for mature readers.

Today, the game is played around the world.

## References