The Perils and Pleasures of Dungeons and Dragons

I tell this story often, so, if you're a regular reader of this blog, you've probably heard it before: I first learned about the existence of Dungeons & Dragons due the media hoopla surrounding the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III in August 1979. My father was quite intrigued by the story and read everything he could about it in newspapers and magazines. I remember his asking me if I knew anything about D&D and, at the time, I hadn't. His interest is what prompted my mother to buy him a copy of the Holmes Basic Set, which I later "inherited" when it turned out he had no real interest in the game itself, only the story of Egbert's disappearance. 

A consequence of this is that, once I did start playing RPGs, I would instinctively clip out any articles I came across that talked about the hobby and put them into a huge binder. I left the binder at my parents' home when I went away to college and, over the years, it disappeared. I regret that, because it contained a large number of interesting articles from various early 1980s sources, articles I've been unable to find again, even in library archives. 

Once I started taking a more serious interest in the history of roleplaying games, I again started collecting contemporary articles that talked about them. An excellent early article is "It's Only A Game – Or Is It?" by Moira Johnston, which appeared in the August 25, 1980 issue of New West. New West, for those who don't know, was a sister periodical to New York magazine, focusing on the life and culture of the American southwest (which generally meant California, though not always). It's on this basis that Johnston's article appears, since it opens with a recounting of the time she and her thirteen year-old son played RuneQuest at the Berkeley home of its creator, Greg Stafford. "It's a bit like being invited to play piano with Mozart," she explains.

Despite its somewhat sensationalistic title, which I assume was a copy editor's idea, the eight-page article is evenhanded and surprisingly full of factual information. Unlike so many articles about roleplaying, whether written then or now, Johnston took time to get the details right. For example, in recounting her adventure in Glorantha, she talks about "the Lunars, the despotic empire to the north" and Snakepipe Hollow, "one of the worst stinkpots of chaos in the whole of Dragon Pass." This might seem like a small thing, but it's not. Johnston not only played a session of RuneQuest, she seems to have understood what was happening in the session and retained it, which is more than many journalists assigned a story about roleplaying back in the day did. 

Johnston also gets kudos from me for interviewing lots of people and listening to them talk about the games they played and why they enjoyed them. In addition to Stafford, she talked to Gary Gygax, Lee Gold, Dave Hargrave, Clint Bigglestone, Steve Perrin, and numerous players of the game, most notably a young woman named Deanna Sue White, whose campaign setting of Mistigar gets quite a few paragraphs devoted to it. The article is not a hit piece but rather a sober examination of the phenomenon of roleplaying games from a variety of perspectives, most of which quite positive, even celebratory, about the fundamental goodness of this new hobby. 

All that said, Johnston also gives space to criticisms of roleplaying and its supposed dangers, particularly from a psychological/psychiatric point of view. Mention is made, too, of Heber City, Utah, whose school board banned the playing of D&D as part of after-school clubs (mentioned in an issue of Different Worlds), but it's quickly followed up by criticism of its own. Likewise, though the disappearance and later suicide of Egbert is also mentioned, but it's neither dwelt upon nor is it implied to be indicative of any inherent danger in roleplaying. If anything, the article suggests that roleplaying – or FRP, in the parlance of the time – is a "blessed sanctuary for the fragile egos of the shy, sensitive, and cerebral." Greg Stafford and Steve Perrin are both quoted as agreeing with this assessment.

If I have a complaint about the article, it's that Johnston occasionally come across as dismissive of the people involved in creating RPG materials for publication. For instance, she introduces Gygax to her readers as "a former shoe-repairman, insurance underwriter, unpublished novelist, and unemployed gaming enthusiast," while she describes Dave Hargrave as "a shuffling, black-bearded bear of a man whose 250-pound body is archetype of the physically passive fantasy gamer." It's hard to say whether Johnston was genuinely disdainful or if it was simply a way to flatter her readers with the assurance that the middle-aged men who like this kind of thing are weirdos unlike themselves. Whatever her motivation, I find it mars what is largely a decent examination of the nascent hobby from the point of view of an interested outsider.

Early on in the article, Johnston describes roleplaying thusly:

There's an intriguing mishmash of ideas there and many of them get explored throughout the article, particularly those of a psychological bent, as I mentioned earlier. This seems to have been a common theme in early articles about RPGs. It's a reminder, I think, of just how innovative the concept of roleplaying as a form of entertainment was – so innovative that many people at the time genuinely had a difficult time viewing it as anything but evidence of mental instability. The story of James Dallas Egbert simultaneously birthed and fed off of these ideas, creating a lasting impression of roleplayers that survived well into the 21st century. 

The criticisms and negative comments Johnston reports from various sources are counter-balanced by those with positive experiences and perceptions of RPGs. That's why I generally look on the article as balanced, especially when compared to other articles published around the same time. That said, I understand that, when it was published, opinion of it was quite divided within the roleplaying world, with some seeing it as painting the hobby in a bad light. Perhaps my admiration for Johnston's willingness to play RuneQuest and talk to a diverse group of people is blinding me to the shortcomings of her article, I don't know. If nothing else, this is probably the longest article on the subject from the time period I've ever read and that alone made it worthwhile.