The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), which receives significant attention in the media and in popular culture, has been the subject of numerous controversies. The game sometimes received unfavorable coverage, especially during its early years in the early 1980s. Because the term D&D may be mistakenly used to refer to all types of role-playing games, some controversies regarding D&D mistakenly pertain to role-playing games in general, or to the literary genre of fantasy. Some controversies concern the game and its alleged impact on those who play it, while others concern business issues at the game's original publisher, TSR.
At various times in its history, Dungeons & Dragons has been accused of promoting Satanism, witchcraft, suicide, pornography, and murder. The moral panicsee also: Jones, M, and E. Jones. (1999). Mass Media. London: Macmillan Press about role-playing games peaked in the 1980s. In 2016, The New York Times reported that moral panic over Dungeons & Dragons had subsided.
D&D has been accused of portraying Caucasians, Asians, and Africans in racist ways. This criticism extends to D&D portrayal of racial stereotypes in some of its "monsters", such as orcs and drow elves. Attempts were made to fix some of these issues in the release of certain D&D 5th edition supplemental rulebooks.
D&D is banned by Wisconsin's Waupun Prison for "promoting gang-related activity", and by the Idaho State Correctional Institution as part of its blanket ban on role-playing games. Some have criticized D&D on religious grounds, including Peter Leithart, George Grant, and William Schnoebelen.
D&D has been involved in some licensing and trademark disputes, and some material had to be changed or excised to comply with intellectual property law. For example, hobbits were renamed "halflings" to avoid copyright issues with J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth.
There were internal disputes at D&D parent company, TSR Inc. Some of them involved game creators Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax. There was also a dispute between Gygax and business partner Brian Blume.
Concerns about Satanism and suicide
At various times in its history, Dungeons & Dragons (and fantasy role-playing games in general) has been accused of promoting such practices as Satanism, witchcraft, suicide, pornography, and murder. Especially during the 1980s, certain religious groups accused the game of encouraging sorcery and the veneration of demons.
The concept of Dungeons & Dragons as Satanic was linked to concerns about Satanic ritual abuse, in that both presumed the existence of large, organized Satanic cults and societies. Sources such as the Dark Dungeons tract from Chick Publications portray D&D as a recruitment tool for these organizations.
Mazes and Monsters
As the role-playing game hobby began to grow, it was connected in 1979 of the disappearance of 16-year-old James Dallas Egbert III. Egbert attempted suicide in the utility tunnels beneath the campus of Michigan State University, then went missing for a month. His parents hired private investigator William Dear to find him. Dear discovered that Egbert played Dungeons & Dragons and also heard rumors that students went into the steam tunnels to play a live action version of the game. Dear knew little about the game, and speculated to the press that Egbert had gotten lost in the steam tunnels during one such session. The press largely reported the story as fact, which served as the kernel of a persistent rumor regarding such "steam tunnel incidents". William Dear clarified what he discovered in the 1984 book The Dungeon Master, in which he rejected the link between D&D and Egbert's disappearance. He acknowledged that Egbert's domineering mother and struggles with his sexuality had more to do with his suicide than his interest in role-playing games.
In 1981, Rona Jaffe published Mazes and Monsters, a novel with a plot similar to the Egbert case. The book was adapted into the 1982 made-for-television movie Mazes and Monsters, starring Tom Hanks. In 1983, the Canadian film Skullduggery depicted a role-playing game similar to D&D as tool of the devil to transform a young man into a serial killer. Neal Stephenson's 1984 novel satirizing university life, The Big U, includes a series of similar incidents in which a live-action fantasy role-player dies in a steam tunnel accident.
The publicity surrounding the Mazes and Monsters novel and film heightened the public's unease about role-playing games. But it also increased the sales of D&D game manuals considerably. For example, "sales of the Basic Set rose dramatically. Right before the steam tunnel incident, the Basic Set might have sold 5,000 copies a month. By the end of 1979, it was trading over 30,000 copies per month, and only going up from there".
Patricia Pulling and BADD
Patricia Pulling was an anti-occult campaigner from Richmond, Virginia, and the founder of Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (BADD). This one-person advocacy group was dedicated to the elimination of Dungeons & Dragons and other such games. Pulling founded BADD in 1982 after her son Irving died by suicide; she continued her advocacy until her death in 1997. As her son had played D&D, she filed a wrongful death lawsuit against her son's high school principal, holding him responsible for what she claimed was a D&D curse placed upon her son shortly before his death. She later filed suit against TSR, the game's publisher at the time.
The case against TSR was dismissed in 1984, and reporters disproved most of Pulling's claims. In 1990, science fiction and fantasy author Michael A. Stackpole authored The Pulling Report, a review highly critical of Pulling and BADD's methods of data collection, analysis, and reporting.Game Hysteria and the Truth by Michael A. Stackpole When Pulling's lawsuits were dismissed, she founded BADD and began publishing information to promote her belief that D&D encouraged Satanism, rape, suicide, and many other immoral and illegal practices.
BADD effectively ceased to exist after Pulling died of cancer in 1997.
60 Minutes special In a 1985 segment of 60 Minutes, host Ed Bradley said: "[Dungeons & Dragons] has become popular with children anywhere from grammar school on up. Not so with a lot of adults, who think it's been connected to a number of suicides and murders." It featured interviews with Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons; Thomas Radecki, president of the National Coalition on TV Violence; and Pulling, whose child died by suicide. It also included interviews with parents of players of the game, who had allegedly murdered people and died by suicide in connection with the game. Radecki linked the game to 28 murders and suicides. In response, Gygax said: "This is make-believe. No one is martyred, there is no violence there. To use an analogy with another game, who is bankrupted by a game of Monopoly? Nobody is. The money isn't real. There is no link, except perhaps in the mind of those people who are looking desperately for any other cause than their own failures as a parent".
Lieth Von Stein
A 1988 murder case in Washington, North Carolina, brought Dungeons & Dragons more unfavorable publicity, because members of a Dungeons & Dragons gaming group were involved. Chris Pritchard, a student at North Carolina State University, allegedly masterminded the murder of his stepfather, Lieth Von Stein, for his $2 million fortune. A masked assailant bludgeoned and stabbed Von Stein and his wife, Bonnie (Pritchard's mother), in their bedroom, leaving the husband fatally wounded and the wife gravely injured.
Pritchard had a history of mutual antagonism with Von Stein, and investigators learned that Pritchard had become involved with drugs and alcohol while attending NCSU. But the authorities focused on his role-playing group after a game map depicting the Von Stein house turned up as physical evidence. Pritchard's friends Neal Henderson and James Upchurch were implicated in a plot to help Pritchard kill Von Stein. All three men went to state prison in 1990. Henderson and Pritchard have since been paroled. Upchurch's death sentence was commuted to life in 1992; he is serving his term.
True crime authors Joe McGinniss and Jerry Bledsoe played up the role-playing angle. Much attention was given to Upchurch's influence and power as a Dungeon Master. Bledsoe's book, Blood Games, was made into a TV movie, Honor Thy Mother, in 1992. The same year, McGinniss's book was adapted into a two-part TV miniseries, Cruel Doubt, directed by Yves Simoneau. Both television films depicted Dungeons & Dragons handbooks with artwork doctored to imply that they had inspired the murder.Cruel Doubt on The Escapist's FAQ
TSR removes Satanic monsters The controversy over the game created a boost in sales, from $2.3 million in 1979 to $8.7 million by the end of 1980, but also led TSR to remove references to demons, devils, and other potentially controversial supernatural monsters from the 2nd Edition of AD&D published in 1989. Devils and demons were renamed baatezu and tanar'ri, respectively, and "they were often referred to as fiends within the text, but the 'D' words were never uttered for years within the game, even though many fans still referred to them by their original names at their own tables. The descriptions of each race focused more on the extra-dimensional aspect of their existence [...] The conflict between the two races (known as the Blood War) also became the focus of their actions, which overtook the seduction of mortals".
The moral panic around role-playing games peaked in the 1980s. A 2005 study highlighted that after 1992, it could not find "any letters, articles or editorials on the topic except for several retrospective examinations of the history of gaming between 1997 and 2000 and an article dealing with prejudice against Christians from within the gaming community in [Dungeon, Dragon, Breakout, Critical miss and Places to go People to Be] in 1999".
Wizards of the Coast relaxes restrictions In 1997, Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR. In the late 1990s, Wizards of the Coast started to reintroduce terminology in the 2nd Edition that TSR had removed. This shift was seen in books such as A Paladin in Hell (1998) and Guide to Hell (1999). Wizards of the Coast president Peter Adkison directed Monte Cook to start the reintroduction. "Cook was very happy to bring demons and devils back. He felt that their removal had just been 'lip service' to the people who had complained, that if they picked up a Monster Manual and saw a gargoyle, they'd still think that the game had demons". These later supplements used both styles of terminology interchangeably as the bowdlerized names themselves had been part of the Dungeons & Dragons "mythology for almost a decade". The Guide to Hell added an in-universe explanation on the differing terminology: "Devils are by nature deceptive. One of the most common ways in which they muddy the waters of scholarship is by the use of several different names".
In 2000, the 3rd Edition of the game was released and addressed demonology far more explicitly than materials from previous editions, but relations and interactions with these creatures are explicitly said to be evil. The "fervor surrounding Dungeons & Dragons had died down, which meant that the third edition of the game could experiment with new kinds of content without fear of controversy".
Rulebooks with mature audience label In 2002 and 2003, Wizards of the Coast released two books with a mature audience label: the Book of Vile Darkness (2002) and the Book of Exalted Deeds (2003).