Wednesday, April 21, 2021

B.A.D.D. Arguments

My own introduction to Dungeons & Dragons and the wider hobby of roleplaying occurred in late 1979, a few months after the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III in August of that same year. In a very real sense, the media frenzy surrounding the Egbert investigation and the supposed (but false) role that D&D played in it set off a chain of events that would eventually lead to my cracking open the copy of the Holmes Basic Set my mother had bought for my father. She mistook his interest in the news story for interest in D&D itself, an error that would result in the game being passed on to me. I imagine this wasn't a completely unusual experience. In fact, Moira Johnston's article quotes Gary Gygax as admitting that the media uproar "was immeasurably helpful to us in terms of name recognition. We ran out of stock!" 

Despite this, I experienced almost no significant opposition to my involvement in roleplaying, nor did any of my neighborhood friends. If anything, we were encouraged to play D&D and RPGs, in the belief that it was a thoughtful, creative hobby that fostered good habits like reading, writing, and social engagement. That's why it was something of a shock to me when I learned, through news stories, that, in some places, there were serious – or at least seriously held – questions about the game and its purported effects on young people.

Though I was aware of Patricia Pulling and her organization, Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (B.A.D.D.), I never gave either much thought until I saw that infamous 60 Minutes segment from 1985 that interviewed her and others who were attempting to lay the blame for teenage suicides on the game. Even after that, I never saw any of the literature B.A.D.D. produced to advance their cause until comparatively recently. When I did, I was (mostly) terribly disappointed. The little booklet depicted above is little more than a collection of quotes and excerpts taken out of context in an effort to paint D&D as dangerous, immoral, and unhealthy. It's riddled with spelling errors and possesses a layout that makes the Little Brown Books of OD&D look professional. Worse yet, they're not even fun to read in the way that Jack Chick's Dark Dungeons is.

Having said that, there's a part of the booklet I find rather interesting. Here's the relevant page:
The text argues that D&D is bad because it "teaches occult forms of religion," specifically witchcraft. According to the booklet, the state of California has recognized covens of witches as "bonified [sic] religions and …[has] given [them] tax exempt status as churches," facts that prepare us for the absolutely amazing bit of rhetorical jiu-jitsu that's to come. The argument goes like this:
  1. Dungeons & Dragons teaches witchcraft.
  2. California recognizes witchcraft as a religion.
  3. The "Supreme Court has ruled that religion is not to be taught in schools." 
  4. Therefore, D&D should not be allowed in schools.
I can't help but admire the chutzpah on display here. The argument is as specious and disingenuous as it is bold. Claiming that D&D is religious in nature and, therefore, disallowed in public schools is patently absurd, but, as a line of argument, it's imaginative. Unfortunately for B.A.D.D., I don't think anyone not already convinced of D&D's supposed danger could possibly have been swayed by it. 

16 comments:

  1. You've doubtless seen them already, but Michael Stackpole debunked BADD and Pulling quite thoroughly in 1990 with "Game Hysteria and the Truth" and again in "The Pulling Report" in 1990. Darling Patty parted ways with BADD after the latter was published, moving on to scam her way into a living acting a professional "expert witness" on gaming, Satanism and the occult, as well as acting as a police consultant.

    A sad excuse for a human being who spent the last 15 years of her sorry life trying to assign blame for her son's suicide to absolutely anything but her own influence and the twisted religious beliefs she no doubt foisted on him.

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    1. I probably read Stackpole's takedown of B.A.D.D. before I'd ever seen any of their own materials. Stackpole was, to borrow a phrase, doing God's work with his essays.

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  2. The "Supreme Court has ruled that religion is not to be taught in schools." - yeah, if only that was true.

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  3. I went to a religious school. I was a troublesome though bright student. From Yr10 on we had dispensation to go to back of room and quietly play D&D so we didn't disrupt the class. We also got up D&D as an alternative to the weekly double class of Physical Education. No teachers played, at least one was concerned about our souls. All these years later, I wonder what debates went on in the staff room that allowed us these proselytising opportunities?

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  4. Ha, I always wanted to run a game at DunDraCon using only the rules as listed in B.A.D.D. pamphlet. Of course the name of the game would have to be "Witchcraft Suicide Violence" so I don't know if that would get past the games scheduler, Mark Schynert (of "Compleat Arduin" fame).

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  5. My intro to D&D was Freshman year (Fall 1977) of Catholic high school through the school's newly-formed, officially-sanctioned, afterschool D&D club. The religious staff found the game to be an interesting form of impromptu theater. Not a hint of fire and brimstone in the air.

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    1. Our public school (one of those 7-12 Jr-Sr Highs - never knew how weird that was till I went to college) started a gaming club around the same time, but it was like pulling teeth to get it approved. We were explicitly forbidden by the school administration to use the words D&D, roleplaying, or wargaming to describe the activities for fear of some uptight twit deciding we were worshipping Satan or something. Pretty sure the one seriously deranged god-botherer in our grade kept leaving Chick tracts in the room we met in, too.

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  6. "Here's a book. Should I ban it?"

    The correct answer is always "No."

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    1. Don't ban the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

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    2. Nope. But only print it with the original text on every other page, with the facing page debunking its hateful BS point by point and explaining its origin as a deliberate and cynical fabrication and its historical role in enabling antisemitism and the Holocaust.

      If you just try to ban or burn this kind of garbage you give it a mystique for some people. Putting the claims right out there with commentary that shows it for the gibbering insanity it is works better, and helps everyone remember how awful human beings can be to each other.

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    3. "Putting the claims right out there with commentary that shows it for the gibbering insanity it is works better"

      For some it apparently can (but it's an open question just how prepared/open they were to believing what the commentary wanted to show in the first place), but there's literally too much evidence that just showing someone how an idea is "gibbering insanity" does much of anything but getting them to double down. It's a matter of trust (and that trust can get eroded in bad directions), ideology, and simple belief, not just intelligence or reasoning.

      AFAIC, depending on the book, banning it, either provisionally eg can't get access to the book until a certain grade or completely could be a good idea to hobble or even prevent the perpetuation of something best gotten rid of.

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  7. This has probably already been observed at some point in the past 40 years, but that dragon on the cover looked familiar to me, and way too cool to be pasted onto such an amateurish publication. It gave me a strong "Flight of Dragons" vibe, and sure enough, it seems to be a paste/trace/repro of one of Wayne Anderson's illustrations from Peter Dickinson's book! (I confess I've never had access to the book, but the animated film from the 80s was extremely formative to my young imagination.)

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    1. I thought that looked familiar. Had the book as a kid and was actually able to talk my 9th grade biology teacher into letting me do a paper on it looking at whether the speculative biology holds up (it doesn't, but it's not wholly nonsense either). If you've only seen the movie, the book is a bit of a surprise - it's much more of a naturalist's field guide looking at dragon physiology than a story of any kind. They're both enjoyable, but in very different ways.

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  8. This seems (I think?) to be based on the same Jack Chick Christian logic that basically anything that glorifies ‘magic power’ (including The Force in Star Wars) is ungodly and Satanic, or as the booklet puts it, witchcraft. Though it’s less well explained than in the writings of Chick and his disciples.

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