Tuesday, November 11, 2025
The 3 Waves of the RPG Moral Panic
I've mentioned many times on this blog that, to a great extent, I owe my introduction into the hobby of roleplaying to the furor surrounding the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III in August 1979. Consequently, I've always had a deep interest in the history of the moral panics surrounding D&D and RPGs more generally. That's why I was intrigued when I saw that Seth Skorkowsky had released a lengthy video essay about this very topic. It's a well-presented and informative video and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this subject. Thanks to Loren Rosson for recommending it to me.
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He has most of this right, with one glaring oversight (that most of us still make to this day.) The McMartin Preschool case was not, contrary to popular and media belief, a hoax. It was instead a crime that employed the double cover of the satanic panic and a false hoax (complete with patsies), according to the FBI records. In other words, children did get hurt. Their reports of tunnels and satanic symbols were honest (if not perfectly clear-minded) reflections of what they witnessed. Yes 5 of the workers tried were very likely the victims of horrific injustice, but 2 of them, plus the media and political bodies, used the "witch hunt narrative" to cover up serious criminal allegations involving the abuse and trafficking of children.
ReplyDeleteMcMartin had more in common with the Penn State, Franklin Bank, or Roman Catholic Church scandal than it did with a wave of hysteria inspired by pop-satanism, and the actual perpetrators likely used the nonsense inspired by BADD and Dark Dungeons and related "moral entrepreneurs" (great epithet, by the way!) as distraction and cover for their actual unspeakable crimes.
Honestly, that's the worst association of all for D&D and T&T and the rest of the gang: the fact that the very libel against TSR et. al, was stripped bare, but only for nefarious purposes.
The upshot was: "See, you are being hysterical about D&D, you are falsely accusing innocent people and therefore, stop scrutinizing criminal networks involved in human trafficking."
By dismissing the satanic panic as mere hysteria ginned up by moralists with books to sell, we incapacitate ourselves from scrutinizing the complexities of strategic feints, false flags, and real crimes.
So what? Well, for the Game, this had serious long-term ramifications. TSR implemented a moral directive for 2ed, a sort of unpublicized "Comics Code" style guardrails that remains embedded to this day. This exacerbated railroading. Because instead of being encouraged to imagine things on your own, you were now overtly discouraged from imagining Evil at play. Choices were cut (potentially) by 1/3rd (LE, CE, NE).
Because it is fundamentally not true that the hysteria that consumed (and fueled) the Game fads of the 80s is the ONLY component of the Satanic Panic, we don't even have a vocabulary today to recognize how real evil did exploit the hysteria. Instead, the Game was changed, the hysteria against the Game died away, along with the international zeal for the Game. And in the dark, in real tunnels overlooked by courts and media alike, real people who had nothing to do with D&D or TSR, got hurt, and nobody knows about it, even though the facts are not in dispute.
The McMartin pre-school trials should not be casually lumped in with the Egbert nonsense or the cartoonishly blasphemous (against, somehow miraculously, _both_ D&D and faith in Jesus Christ!) Dark Dungeons heresy. After all, just because there are charlatan cult-hunters does not mean there are no harmful cults.
If I had one wish for "our people" it would be that we were better equipped to address the complex nuances on the fringes of the Satanic Panic. I think we'd make better games and worry less about appeasing those dark agents who might seek to exploit our reputation for their own gain, while keeping us "in line."
Apologies for arguing on here, but you're wrong. Unless you have further evidence, I have no idea where you're getting this idea that it wasn't a hoax. The wikipedia article and discussions are very clear. Go in there and change it if you have new info.
DeleteYeah. If you want me to think Goody Simpson really *was* cursing people's cattle, you're going to have to bring a better argument than "nuh-uh!".
DeleteAs for the playing group at the time, we learned our response from Gygax himself. Honestly, his most public defenses were actually pretty good, but without a robust follow-up. TSR had a golden opportunity to simultaneously profit off the Satanic Panic while distancing themselves from it. A very simple 16 or 32 page supplement, divided in half to open with an "Apologetics for the Player" section and then a nice little semi-tame, straightforward solo module or setting that the player could run his parents through in an hour or two would have sold massively. We were desperate for guidance and reasonable retorts and clarifications.
ReplyDeleteTo my knowledge, such a thing never crossed TSR's mind at the time, even though my playing group wondered if we might get one in maybe 1985. After all, we were playing a game obsessed with AC, yet the company was leaving its biggest proselytes naked in the face of the onslaught. "Use what you do," is the start-up mantra, but Gary and the rest were too busy to think clearly I guess.
As a teenage D&D player at that time, I have to say us nerds weren't entirely unhappy that for once people thought we might be a little dangerous.
ReplyDeleteDaniels version of the McMartin trial is different from my memory (and wikipediia, which is not entirely trustworthy but...). I remember it being a case of well-meaning people leading the witnesses to say what they believed happened. The witnesses were young kids who wanted to please and were easily led to say what was necessary for conviction. Eventually everyone was acquitted. It was a massive injustice.
ReplyDeleteYes, another Salem witch trial.
DeleteYes, and the crime and trial has been revisited by sociologists at Oxford. In 2016 with the publication of the extensive research of _The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children_, Dr. Ross E. Cheit has exposed a lot of the popular concepts of modern "witch hunt" hysteria and, yes, the Salem witch trials themselves are grossly oversimplified and misunderstood popularly.
DeleteFor example, most people don't understand that the "witch trials" were predicated on evidence of felonious physical harm, and were tried entirely civilly, with absolutely zero appeal to the supernatural. Clergymen like Cotton Mather provided ecclesiastical support - not to the the criminal trials - but to both victims and the accused. In fact, it was the Church leader who dismissed many of the popular hysterical charges thusly:
"Warning: take heed that you do not wrongfully accuse any person of this horrible and monstrous evil. An ill look, or a cross word will make a witch of many people. There has been a fearful deal of injury done in this way in this town."
In other words, the Salem Witch trials, much like the Satanic Panic and the McMartin trials were at the time, rightly condemned in large part by serious Christians and secular experts alike, BUT this unfortunately allowed actual bad actors to get away with horrific crimes.
Cheit puts it this way:
The McMartin Preschool case, for example, involved a significant injustice to five defendants, but the picture is much murkier for two others. The claim that there were hundreds of these cases across the country is even more misplaced. Indeed, there is an untold history of child sexual abuse that involves minimization and denial, where the witch-hunt narrative claims there was only “hysteria” about the issue. The Kelly Michaels case became a turning point. Academic psychologists helped persuade the court that problems involving “child suggestibility” undermined the entire case. __This book argues that this conventional wisdom is incorrect.__ The final chapter considers recent developments, including Megan’s Law and scandals connected to Penn State and the Roman Catholic Church. The book ends with concerns about expansive views of child suggestibility and the attack on frontline professions providing services to sexually abused children."
In short, believing Wikipedia, and feeding only the popular "correct" narrative about moral panics is a dangerous exercise in willing ignorance. Yes there were innocents (from TSR to some McMartin employees) who were shamefully drawn into accusations of satanic abuses against the public. This is not in dispute. However those false accusations also provided cover for really bad actors to pretend as if they too were falsely accused as well (Just as Joe Paterno's sterling reputation + his inaction in the face of the crimes provided dastardly cover for Jerry Sandusky and Graham Spanier for far, far too long).
My version of the trial is expressly different than our pop culture memory of it, because my point is that our pop culture memory has gone completely unscrutinized since the media fixed the "double-false" narrative in our minds. We now know this occurs all the time: Epstein, Amber's Law, heck, even in current immigration politics. If you really want to counter the Narrative (or in this case, truly and honestly "clear" TSR and Gygax), you also have to be willing to counter the counternarrative, because only the whole truth will ensure that the bad actors don't get away with it.
After all, I'd argue that the initial wave case against D&D was not a mere accident of bad journalism and a zealous, incompetent PI. I think the Satanic Panic was _engineered_ specifically to provide cover for real human traffickers. After all, if all the Milk Carton Kids of the 80s could be - at least temporarily - linked to the innocent distractions of D&D, Tunnels and Trolls, and Heavy Metal, et al, then no one would notice that Boys Town, Gary Glitter, Vice President Bush (whose "live boy" scandal was effectively buried beneath the noise of the moral panics) and Jimmy Saville were getting away with it in plain sight. The Satanic Panic did not merely provide profit-taking hysteria for the moral entrepreneurs: it provided false suspects and red herrings to distract us from the real horrors of what was going on.
DeleteThere is a huge difference between zealously arguing that Gygax was clearly no monster, and convincing ourselves that therefore monsters did not exist, and therefore couldn't possibly exploit the moral panics. Until we understand the more uncomfortable intricacies of the Panics, we'll never be able to provide a full defense of our Game.
A book argues is not proof. Are those two McMartin employees in jail? Preparing for trial? They go unnamed so I assume they have not. Just because there might be greater horrors out there doesn't mean they occurred in this case and I'll have to see some links and trial information before I believe your version of events.
DeleteThis is the sort of blind and uniformed defense out of ignorance is what I am trying to illustrate. OJ Simpson was likewise found not guilty.
DeleteFact: Pediatrician Dr. Astrid Heger testified, using her now famous but groundbreaking-at-the-time photographic forensic examination method, that 10 of the 13 victims were, in fact molested. Further, she examined 150 of the alleged victims, finding that 80% had indeed were likely victims of abuse. Today, she is a renowned expert in the field. Back then, she was much more easily dismissed by an incredulous jury and a well-heeled defense.
You must recall that modern child trafficking and sex abuse was new at the time, a shock to the system, and, almost entirely met with disbelief. The investigation and prosecution made many egregious mistakes, clouding the issue. This doesn't mean I think anyone on trial was guilty, but it also doesn't mean that everyone involved was innocent.
In 2020, the FBI partially declassified the Finders and McMartin cases, where photos of the tunnels, ritual symbols and confirmation of "strange" child testimony had come from. It is also what connects the two incidents, tangentially to the CIA.
My point is not that the moral panics weren't annoying hysterias that swept up a lot of innocent people into reputation-harming nonsense. My point is that if that's all you think they were, you are really kidding yourself.
The powerful players in the McMartin preschool saga got what they needed out of it. It was a controlled burn for a lot of factions. And most of us swallow it hole like it is just some sort of cautionary tale about hype and opportunism.
Daniel, it’s time to take your meds….
DeleteI don't think the role of media can be overstated when it comes to such panics. That was the age of them it seemed. The Satanic Panic being one. And without the media, it wouldn't have been a panic at all, that being long before the Internet or social media. I recall that time, and it seemed everyone from every quarter came after the game. When I first heard about it around 1981, I'd wager about 40% of the guys in my high school were playing this (or some version of it). By 1985, I doubt I could find 5%. Much of it was the widespread attacks on it from all sides, including pop culture itself turning on it.
ReplyDeleteMy memory is roughly the same, although it must be said that TSR had used the Panic as a driver for sales. Some of the fad wearing off was just the fad wearing off - I remember some of the guys who surged to the game in '83 or so: they were NEVER going to last. On the other hand, I do think the phony stigma did leave a lot of players looking for something less toxic.
DeleteI think that's one of the reasons we who stayed didn't at the time scrutinize the origin of the moral panics, or the real agenda behind them. We were too busy desperately defending our hobby to ask why anyone would want to do that to something so purely good.
That's probably right. Though one thing I remember wasn't just that a lot of the guys had stopped playing. I remember some denied ever having heard of the game. That always stuck with me. Fads come and go, and people change and develop new interests. But usually you just say you did play once but don't anymore. Yet I recall a couple I knew who had at least dabbled with it back in the heyday of the whole fad era who tried to insist there was no way they ever got near it. That was something I had to assume came from the stigmatizing the media was able to impose upon the game. After all, for those who blame the religious element and that element alone, I have it on the best of authority that those same religious elements were against other things young people were doing and yet the young people seldom appeared to care. So why did they suddenly care this time, but that there were other factors behind the push against it?
DeleteIf you haven't already checked it out, I recommend the podcast, "The Devil You Know", by Sarah Marshall. She has been writing and podcasting about moral panics for quite a few years, and she brings both a depth of knowledge and a depth of compassion to this topic.
ReplyDelete