February 17, 2014

40th D&D - D&D is Evil?

Day 17: First time you heard that D&D was somehow "evil".

The early 80s. I was highly religious as a youth and while my church leaders never out and out said that D&D was evil they were cautious on the concept. This actually caused my group to stop playing D&D and instead move onto other rpgs such as Top Secret and Marvel Superheroes. We decided to make the move before we told we could no longer play any rpgs.

I understood where they were coming from. D&D did have demons and devils in it. The religion I was in was fairly fundamental so "consorting" with such creatures was frowned upon. It is better to avoid such things than toy with them. They understood it was only a game but it still made them nervous.

The situation actually got a lot more difficult near the end. We had slowed down our play and, while I didn't know it at the time, I was on my way out from that faith and community. Near the end, one of my players attempted to rape his cousin. One of his defenses was that rpgs had something to do with it; perhaps desensitizing him to such actions. To me it was plainly an excuse mechanism and an attempt to shift blame, but I never got any fallout from it. However, it did put a taint on everything. I ended up leaving that church for non-rpg related reasons so I didn't hear much of what happened thereafter.


No comments: