How things went B.A.D.D. (mostly by Pulling)

To most people today (and most people reading this), the acronym B.A.D.D. means nothing, and even on Google the first search result actually relating to what I'm about today is halfway down the page. The B.A.D.D. I'm talking about is Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons, and how it still affects our modern culture, almost 30 years later.

Now, B.A.D.D. was started in 1984, in response to two suicides that the media, in their infinite stupidity, attributed to the up-and-rising Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying system. None of this was studied, credited or any of the sort in any way: it just seemed like a nice touch. Now, the mother of one of the suicidees, one Patricia Pulling, tied her conservative knickers in a bunch faster than you can say "one-dee-twelve-damage". With the help of an Illinois psychiatrist, Thomas Radecki, they started up Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons, a bunch of conservatist puritans and fundamentalist crazies that were, well, bothered about Dungeons & Dragons.

Mme. Pulling made a list, dubbed by right about everybody as the Pulling List, that underlined that practically every suicide, murder and act of violence in the US after the publication of D&D was due to D&D. If you had ever seen an RPG rulebook, it had caused every disfunction from thereon in. Satanistic ritual abuse equaled heavy metal music equaled roleplaying games. Some of you might remember this hypothesis from it's effect on popular culture in the nineties, especially in heavier music and any and/or all roleplaying and fantasy related. As a few examples, Black Sabbath would be the biggest on the music front and all those "larpers/rpgers are crazy cultists" rolled into a huge ball on the rpg front.

Here's an excerpt from B.A.D.D.'s manifesto on roleplaying (courtesy of Pulling). I'll let it speak for itself.

A fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings.  There have been a number of deaths nationwide where games like Dungeons and Dragons were either the decisive factor in adolescent suicide and murder, or played a major factor in the violent behaviour of such tragedies.  Since role-playing is typically used for behaviour modification, it has become apparent nationwide (with the increased homicide and suicide rates in adolescents) that there is a great need to investigate every aspect of a youngster’s environment, [sic] including their method of entertainment, in reaching a responsible conclusion for their violent actions.

Now, this should be a familiar argument, one that the "morally concerned" like to throw about that has very little backing: the hobbies of a person decide how the person turns out. I'm not even going to go into how morbid a point of view that is, it's also wrong. With music, it's been pretty fully debunked that "hard" music has pretty much any adverse effects or is in any way related to satanism or whatnot, but for some reason the feeling, when associated with roleplaying, stuck.

B.A.D.D., and especially Pulling, kept on their misguided crusade as long as it was possible. I'm unsure if they're still at it, but it is possible. When the first big trading card game, Magic: the Gathering hit the shelves, guess who was the first to cry foul about it being linked to satanism? And, as media goes, it seemed like it might sell, so it spread like wildfire. I heard a query about this very subject the last time I think two years ago. Our friends weren't allowed to play with us, because it would lead to devil worship (this, we debunked quickly, thank the lords).

Most of the misconceptions about roleplaying originate from the aforementioned group of nutjobs, and for some reason the media picked up on this every time the kid cried wolf. On to this day, roleplayers are viewed as a bit off, maybe a bit crazy, and from time to time you get the off-handed comment about satanism or whatnot when you tell people you're a roleplayer. Most people don't remember that specific argument, and most of those who do don't care about it, but the stigma remains.  

Somewhere in the back of people's minds, roleplaying remains something that creepy kids do in dark cellars, a way for the crazy nerds to be even crazier. As modern society takes hold, as more and more information becomes available, the odd, biased opinions are disappearing and people are seeing for themselves instead of just believing what they're told. But we still have some ways to go.