Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Survey of the moral panic over D&D is like reading horror fiction

One of my hot-buttons is people linking D&D and other games to Satanism. I was completely caught up in this survey of the topic by Allen Varney, published on The Escapist....but I also found that reading this stuff depressed me as a review of people's stupidity. Still, I retain a morbid fascination with the topic, and Varney's a great writer. I was particularly taken with one item he mentions, The Pulling Report, a careful analysis of one mother who made herself into a game-Satanism expert for the courts, crusading against a problem that didn't exist, spreading lies as far as she could, apparently in an attempt to explain her own son's suicide, against all the available facts. That this woman was accepted by anyone as a credible expert is painful to read.

I don't remember that my Mom ever had any serious worries about D&D. Sometimes lurid pictures would bother her, perhaps. I can't see her ever taking any Satanist ideas seriously, and this from a seriously religious woman. Maybe she's always had too much faith in me to worry about such things. This is a nice thought actually. Good on you, Mom.

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