Dungeons & Dragons, the Satanic Panic, and the Kids Who Wouldn’t Behave
The first time I saw the Efreet on the cover of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, something opened up in my imagination.
It was 1983, the Satanic Panic was in full swing, and Dungeons & Dragons was about the worst hobby a kid in a small town could admit to having. My cousin’s friend Brett introduced me to the game and eventually left me his Dungeon Master’s Guide and several modules—in exchange for a nudie magazine I’d stolen from my uncle. Possibly the best trade I ever made.
Soon a group of us were playing whenever we could. Then we made the mistake of playing at school.
D&D was banned. Books disappeared from the library. Adults were genuinely frightened that fantasy games were gateways to Satanism. So naturally, we went underground.
Years later I looked up some of those supposedly endangered D&D kids. They hadn't lost touch with reality. Many of them had gone into computers, technology, science and other fields that helped build the strange new reality everybody inhabits now.
Two of them, Brett and David, never made it this far with us.
This is partly a story about Dungeons & Dragons and the Satanic Panic, but mostly it's about friendship, memory, growing up different, and the people who showed me there were other worlds available when the one immediately around me seemed awfully small.
Read the complete essay at Zombie Logic Blog:
Growing up with Dungeons & Dragons during the 1980s Satanic Panic, when a forbidden game opened new worlds, forged friendships, frightened a
