Some of the more strongly anti-2e commenters reminded me that this mildness took the form of eliminating from the game anything might incur the wrath of, in the words of James M. Ward, "angry mothers from heck." Ward used this amusing turn of phrase in an editorial that appeared in issue #154 of Dragon (February 1990). By this point, I was no longer a subscriber to the magazine and only saw issues irregularly. I don't recall seeing this particular piece until years after it was first published and so it made little impression on me at the time.
In that editorial, Ward explained that
Ever since the Monster Manual came out in 1977, TSR has gotten a letter or two of complaint each week. All too often, such letters were from people who objected to the mention of demons and devils in that game book. One letter each week since the late 1970s adds up to a lot of letters, and I thought a lot about those angry moms. When the AD&D 2nd Edition rules came out, I had the designers and editors delete all mention of demons and devils. The game still has lots of tough monsters, but we now have a few more pleased moms as well.
So, if there's anyone to blame for the removal of demons and devils – not to mention assassins and half-orcs, among other things – it's James M. Ward, who, I assume, was in charge of TSR's RPG division at the time (perhaps someone more knowledgeable about the company's inner workings at the time can shed some light on the subject). Based on what he says here, this was a deliberate choice designed to appease a vocal minority that likely consisted of the same people who also thought the Care Bears were Satanic. He goes on to say that
Avoiding the Angry Mother Syndrome has become a good, basic guideline for all of the designers and editors at TSR, Inc.
Ward elaborates on this shortly afterward, in a paragraph that includes some truly frustrating statements.
TSR prides itself on the quality of the covers and interior art presented in every product. The male and female figures shown are heroic and good looking, and would get either G or PG movie ratings. Our artwork serves to promote the image of high adventure in our games, but it doesn't deal in blood and gore. That isn't the image we want to project.
While I might not be entirely behind the idea that D&D should be G or PG-rated, I can understand TSR's desire to aim for the largest possible audience. There is, after all, a good reason why so few lucrative films are rated R. Even so, the idea that all the art in such a version of Dungeons & Dragons should only depict "heroic and good looking" figures seems downright foolish, if not bizarre. Is it any wonder, then, that those of us introduced into the hobby in the late 1970s or early '80s look on 2e as being esthetically banal?
Ward calls these statements, along with several more specific ones he discusses in his editorial, "a policy statement of TSR, Inc." He further explains that the policy he articulates exists because TSR "care[s] about its products and want as few angry moms as possible." I don't begrudge anyone who thinks well of Second Edition, particularly those who are still having fun with it to this day. That's completely laudable in my opinion and, as I feel I must reiterate, my own feelings toward the edition's rules are far from critical. But, when it comes to 2e's overall esthetics, I'm afraid I'm much more negative in my appraisal, all the more so when I take into account the stated reason why the game's art direction changed so drastically in 1989. How cowardly!
It's 200 or so letters, based on Ward's statement. Over a decade plus? Big whoop.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's just the parents who feel strongly enough to write in. It's also them warning other parents about D&D, and although the other parents might not feel strongly enough to write to TSR, they may stop their kids from playing, or at least refuse to buy the books.
Delete1 or 2 letters a week for 13 years (676 weeks) is around 1000 letters, actually.
DeleteWhile the core books were very tame (or lame based on your point of view) 2E included some great art in the settings books. Ravenloft was generally very good and the work from Stephan Fabian is excellent. Brom's work on Dark Sun is essential to the setting, and Tony DiTerlizzi's work on Planescape brought the outer planes to life in a dark and whimsical way. None of these imply the "Old School" setting and in the way that artists like Trampier did, but the they avoided the "generic" feel that better known artists such as Elmore and Easley.
ReplyDeleteI've been waiting my whole life for someone to edit-out all the demons and devils from the Bible. I am sooooo offended.
ReplyDeleteAngels too, don't forget the angels!
DeleteMy problems with the game are MAINLY with regard to the mechanics and the textual instruction in the 2E books. If it was ONLY the aesthetics and removal of "distasteful elements," I would have much less complaint about the edition.
ReplyDeleteOne thing to consider about the "sanitized scrubbing" of 2E...these things are simply cosmetic. 2E DMs are free to add to the game whatever they want...a "demon" or "devil" is nothing but a monster, after all. An assassin is just another subclass; a half-orc is just another PC race. New monsters and PC classes are routinely added by DMs (how many of us used to include "NPC classes" from Dragon magazine as PC playables?).
The 1E group of my youth added all sorts of material that would have made our (rather lenient/understanding) mothers cringe: extensive tables of drugs and alcohol (and their effects), rape and torture and maiming and pregnancy rules. If we had started with 2E we probably would have tarted it up to 1E levels eventually...that's just what teens (male and female) do. The "banal-ness" of 2E is only an issue to folks not already willing to add content. Jeez, wasn't the half-ogre still around in the 2E days?
No, my main problem is with the rules as constructed which, despite some streamlined and better organization, WRECK the D&D game if implemented. It's not as bad for individuals coming to 2E from 1E and importing 1E assumptions (rather than, you know, reading the rules). But for players with no other foundational knowledge? 2E breaks the game.
I do find it rather amusing now when I think back on how unreasonably angry I was when 2e came out. I thought it was a too-slick, too corporate, too watered down version of the game that I loved. Now, of course, I really don't care. I ran 3e for 12 or so years, and 5e for at least two, before I finally couldn't take it anymore, and went back to 1e. I would imagine that 5e is well over halfway through it's lifecycle at this point, so 6e is just around the corner. It's interesting to see the justification for the 'cleansing' of the game though, from a perspective of 30-years on. I wonder what changes the next edition will bring?
ReplyDeleteThe company's attitude toward sanitizing the game, the need to develop a sub-system for every element or style of play, and the fantasy-lite marketing is what drove me away from D&D as a teen in the 80s. It no longer felt arcane and forbidden, but something my angry mom might approve of.
ReplyDeleteSort of what's happening to 5e now...
I have some sympathy for Ward here, and I think your comparison of complainers is wrong. It’s an entirely different thing to complain that Care Bears are satanic than to complain that demons and devils are… demons and devils. One is paranoia, the other addresses different views on what is appropriate for children.
ReplyDeleteWhich includes whether D&D itself was appropriate for children. TSR was in a difficult position, marketing-wise. First edition, I think, was still written for contemporaries. The adults writing the game were writing it for other adults playing the game. Second edition was aimed at a much wider audience that included children.
It’s not hard to look at the reminiscences of people who started first edition as teens or pre-teens to realize that some of the contents of the game (illustrations in the Monster Manual, confrontations with gods and devils) were taken in a completely different manner by non-adults. It’s also evident in some of the markings kids (I hope) added to their Monster Manuals and probably other rulebooks.
The sanitization of images by making everyone attractive is, I think more egregious. Some of the best images in first edition were some very unattractive (presumably player) characters. Unattractive fantasy characters has been a staple of fantasy illustration even for children for over a century at least, and I think TSR lost something important by scrubbing that from their fantasy books.
Re: D&D for kids. I think this is easy to answer, as ADVANCED D&D was for experienced players, while the Basic line(s) were targeted at newer (and probably younger) players.
DeleteI wonder how effective the sanitization campaign ultimately was for TSR? Did the angry letters vanish as America's Angry Mothers returned to dormant slumber? I have a feeling very few burnt and confiscated D&D books were replaced with the "safer" second edition. While having shifting editorial principles is actually perfectly reasonable (e.g., "let's keep it 'PG-13' since 'kids' turn out to be one of our biggest markets"), seeing this kind of gleeful self-censorship and open capitulation is disconcerting, even if the article is over thirty years old. I guess it's because the same process is happening today.
ReplyDeleteIt happened in the past, too. The formation of the Comics Code Authority amounted to self-imposed censorship in the comics industry, based on fear of the government getting involved if the publishers didn't police themselves. That was all based on a panic too, albeit one that reached more of a height than the MADD idiocy every did. If D&D had faced someone like that nest-feathering fraud Wertham things could easily have gone much worse.
DeleteCalling any of it "gleeful" is a bit much, though. I refuse to believe Ward was happy about having to "sanitize" D&D, any more than comic publishers were overjoyed with having to stunt the creativity of generations of creators to cater to the whims of a few uptight religious maniacs.
That's true-- "gleeful" is probably a bit hyperbolic to describe the tone of Ward's article, and other "reformative" statements I've seen over the years have tended to be more penitent than perky. Still, there is a bit of public relations sheen to article. Despite whatever private misgivings Mr. Ward or the creative staff at TSR may have had about being restrained from describing grimy, ichor-coated anti-heroes beheading demons with aplomb, the article does seem to have a positive tone about the new (or rather "it's actually always been there") paradigm of "G or PG" rated heroes embarking on cooperative problem-solving adventures. As James mentions above, the article was explicitly intended "for all readers to be able to point to it as a policy statement of TSR, Inc.," a statement that ultimately gives it the gravitas and formality of a corporate pronouncement.
DeleteNow that I think of it, it's a little funny that this was all transpiring during the heady days of the "Action Movie" era, when violent R-rated movies like RoboCop were being simultaneously marketed to kids via action figures. I guess "Mothers From Heck" would eventually cast their gaze there too, eventually moving on to Mortal Kombat and "Gangster Rap."
Ward actually has an article about this in part of a column he had on ENWorld circa 2019:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.enworld.org/threads/jim-ward-demons-devils-not.666876/
As Ward describes it, even though people were always trying to stage gotcha interviews, or berate people at the GenCon booth, or writing to Sears and Penny's (who stopped carrying any TSR product), the one thing they had in common was that they'd never read or would read a word of the actual books. Stop using the word "devil", and they don't even know you exist. Sounds like that worked.
We see it all the time in other media. Movie studios make PG13 movies and not R movies because (mostly) PG13 sells more tickets. Sure I love nudity in my books, but I get why they took it out.
ReplyDeleteI've always just translated those goofy zzaazzazzu and a'p'o's't'r'o'p'h'e'i words back to devils and demons in my head.
ReplyDeleteAt 15 I met a guy my age from semi-rural California whose mother had gotten remarried to a Southern Baptist minister. The stepfather had forced my friend to burn all his D&D and Elric books in a bonfire. That was in 1985. The problem was real if you weren't an adult and were born in the wrong place.
I don't really hate the 2nd edition. Even more, I think I like it. Here in Spain it was the only D&D we had. We only received the Basic box from BECMI and then AD&D 2nd edition, so curiously for us 3rd edition it's really a 3rd edition haha.
ReplyDeleteThere is a very different remembrance here of those books. And I really like some of the settings (some of them have great art! Birthright or Ravenloft are great examples).
I suppose it's a matter of memories and experiences. The 'you had to be there' factor.
Adult disclaimer about a company making a game more suitable for kids and family friendly is so silly.
ReplyDeleteAs JB apointed, the problem with 2e is the game break from the 1e core.
I’m willing to cut James Ward some slack here. Before condemning his decision, we should remember the historical context in which he made it.
ReplyDeleteAnyone reading this blog will be all-too familiar with the criticism D&D received in the 1980s and early 1990s for its alleged occult and Satanic influences. Patricia Pulling and her B.A.D.D. outfit may have complained the loudest about the demons, devils, and witchcraft in D&D, but they weren’t alone in their belief that D&D would lead innocent children down the primrose path into Satanism, human sacrifice, and EVIL. Growing up as a Southern Baptist, I heard this stuff all the time around my church (although not from my wise pastor, who put no stock at all in this satanic-conspiracy claptrap.) As annoying as it was, this stupidity never prevented me and my friends from playing the game. Still, we were just a bunch of teenagers. The worst that could have happened to us if our parents had swallowed these theories is that they would banned us from playing.
The potential downside for Ward and TSR was much worse. When thinking about their reaction to this kind of criticism, we must acknowledge that this contretemps in our hobby, important as it was to us, was but one, minor manifestation of a much, much larger social and political phenomenon occurring at that time: the Satanic abuse mass hysteria. This collective delusion had seized the U.S. and much of the Western world from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. It’s hard to believe today, but many people really thought that Satanic cults were abusing untold multitudes of children throughout the country. Con-men like Lawrence Pazder of Michelle Remembers infamy traveled the country peddling this nonsense, eventually grabbing the attention of major media platforms like 60 Minutes. Worse yet, unprincipled therapists, “child advocates”, and other so-called experts besotted by these beliefs convinced many in law enforcement and the judiciary to take them and their theories seriously. Terrible injustices like the McMartin Preschool case and the Fells Acre Day Care Center fiasco were the inevitable result. Many defendants (like poor Gerald Amirault in the Fells Acre case) did years of hard prison time based on ridiculous charges stemming from nothing more substantial than paranoid, childish fantasies. This whole period represents a stain on our history.
In this unhinged environment, can we really begrudge James Ward his decision to excise the demons and devils from 2e? I don’t think so. TSR’s financial problems during this time period are well-documented. If sanitizing D&D 2e avoided the stress and legal costs associated with defending frivolous lawsuits (or even criminal cases!) or appearing before hostile legislative committees, then that’s a justifiable call, in my view. It may not reflect a perfect adherence to principle or to creative integrity, but then TSR had a real business to run back then. Sitting here as I am in 2022 and safely removed from that unfortunate historical episode, I refuse to judge Ward (and whoever else made this decision) too harshly for making a tough choice under such difficult circumstances.
James Ward! Glad you could make it! :D
Delete2E never really interested me because of the look of the books. I don't know if it was the design or some of the art, something just didn't appeal to me. Reading this article makes me glad I avoided it. Thanks for the thoughts, James.
ReplyDeleteI'm another old man who remembers WHY they did what they did. I had friends who weren't allowed to play based entirely on the idea that D&D was full of demons. I know guys now that are still dealing with how miserable their lives were made as kids because of the Satanic Panic. Being able to sidestep that and let kids play without their parents freaking out was sort of understandable.
ReplyDeleteThe other issue is that the literature players were reading changed, too. There were less and less reavers and thieves and more and more champions of the good. And D&D reflected that, much in the same way modern D&D is reflecting modern fantasy. It's always been driven by the literature, and the literature changed. More and more people came to the game to play heroes, not skulking grave robbers. And the game changed to give them what they wanted -- less moral ambiguity and more power.