My Generation’s Great Moral Panic: The 1980s D&D “Satanic Panic”

gregorymaness
5 hours ago
3 min read

It’s almost surreal to think that I lived through the moral panic that was the 1980s “Satanic Panic” surrounding the tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG), Dungeons & Dragons or D&D, and to a lesser degree other TTRPGs. My first exposure to TTRPGs was through a new friend that lived across the street that summer while his family was on vacation. He introduced me and my brothers to Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller. As the moral panic unfolded, I had trouble reconciling my own experience with D&D and what I was hearing about the game from concerned parents, religious leaders, and the media. My brothers and friends were not dabbling in the occult, we were not worshipping Satan, we were not digging through ancient tomes in an insatiable lust for dark, arcane powers and reality-warping spells, nor were we entertaining the idea that the world of D&D was the real world or a shadow world that we could access through the game. It was simply that. It was a game.

Could someone with an interest in the occult, Satan worship, and witchcraft find the game and play a cruel, self-centered, malevolent player-character pursuing a dark, evil agenda. Yes, I suppose that he or she could. After all, the player-characters can make practically limitless actions, choices, and decisions (limited only by the rules of the game and the ultimate authority and fiat of the dungeon master or DM). Could someone suffering from mental illness find himself or herself unable to distinguish between the game and reality? I’m not a mental health professional, but I suppose that is possible. Could a teenager feeling the need to tweak the noses of his parents, religious leaders, and others in authority take great delight in the dark imagery within the game books and playing the role of an outsider rebelling against the social norms? Undoubtedly.

My earliest educational experiences were in small, private, Christian schools. I didn’t attend public school until I entered the seventh grade. I was almost certainly sensitive to the idea of the dangers of the occult, Satanism, and witchcraft. To this day, I refuse to play with a OUIJA® board. While I enjoy occasionally reading my horoscope and the contents of my fortune cookies when I get Chinese food, asking questions of the Magic 8 Ball®, and going on walking tours and reading, watching, and listening to fiction pertaining to ghosts and the supernatural, I do not seek the advice and counsel of clairvoyants, fortune-tellers, psychics, or witches. I was arguably open to the idea of the supernatural becoming intertwined with the mundane world, but the wild claims just didn’t pass the smell test. I even remember reading Dark Dungeons, a religious tract critical of D&D, and wondering about what else the author might be mistaken.

As with other moral panics, the “Satanic Panic” of my youth eventually lost steam and petered out entirely. But not before the publicity, disinformation, and misinformation surrounding the game shaped and warped the perception of the game in the eyes of many in the public sphere with no firsthand experience and knowledge of the game.

Below I have provided a handful of links (one is an archive link) to articles on this unique moment in the history of games. Feel free to click on the links below and enjoy a look at a time that does indeed feel almost surreal to me in hindsight.