I always found it weird that D&D was maligned as witchcraft, satanism, and anti-social. From what I can tell, TTRPGs just increase sociability, problem solving, conscientiousness, and probably improves self-concept through skills and self-esteem. Did any anons here live through Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons or the Satanic Panic? Sorry if this is boring or repetitive to others, but I want to study the social aspects of TTRPGs and how it exists as a subculture. I think, by and large, this is the best board on 4chan because people really care about this hobby and want to help others get into it. Despite the shitposting, I think the community is vibrant and the games I played through Find a Game threads were all filled with genuine, nice people. So it irks me that the Satanic Panic tried to paint subcultures as evil. Maybe it's because people think TTRPGs overlap with extreme music or just teenage entertainment in general.
>>97176699where the hell did you get the impression any of us care about the hobby?
I just like buying Dice dude.
>>97176699>So it irks me that the Satanic Panic tried to paint subcultures as evil.There are more contemporary and irksom witchhunts and cancel culture that have infested the ttrpg community over the last decade. Satanic panic is a curiosity and best not forgotten, but the new puritans have done just as much damage in more insidious ways.
>>97176699Anon, it had books and books detailing the names and powers of various devils and demons and includes descriptions of how they might be summoned. Yes, we know it's fictional and we know that the purpose of those rules was so that the DM could set up scenarios in which players could thwart and destroy evildoers, but that material exists. You're thinking too hard about the role of the hobby in society and assuming that they were doing the same.
>>97176722The best argument I heard against cancel culture is it stifles creativity and open thinking, which inadvertently causes mental disquiet. Therapists in cognitive behavioural therapy actually say that cancel culture is the opposite of how they function, because they want you to be open minded and think through bad or uncomfortable things and improve how you think. So I agree with you. I think cancelling Zak Smith, using X cards, and trying to shoehorn representation into every sourcebook is hamfisted and suffocating.>>97176738I guess you're right about it not being about the subculture. But I just find moralising over a fantasy TTRPG absurdly funny. If you're going to go after a game, go after the horror ones. As a response, the TTRPG community inverted it and satirised it. Look at later editions of Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green. They did begin as horror games that the fundamental Christians should have seen as the evil game they wanted to find in D&D. But CoC and Delta Green, while having roots in Sandy Petersen's design (who was blamed for all sorts of things like the Columbine shootings because of DOOM, or whatever, but who was nonetheless a Christian), also poke fun at the idea you are divining monstrosities and aberrations through dice rolls. They also have mechanics for mental illness and insanity, which D&D never did. But people nonetheless went after D&D for absolutely no reason. I think God's Teeth definitely nodded at the period and was trying to make fun of Satanic Ritual Abuse claims by including it in the first scenario.
>>97176722Ah, it only took three posts for the revisionists to pop in the chat.
>>97176722>>97176749>When you don't realize you're the modern equivalent of Satan panickers, and you project it onto the people that are enjoying the game and gatekeeping you out without realizing it.
>>97176749Anon, you could have a game that is literally about summoning Satan, where the rules all talk as if everything is real and you really are summoning Satan, and no one would care.It's a different time. This is like being shocked that people were so hellbent on banning Doom and Manhunt back in the day but now no one cares about Ultrakill.
>>97176775I don't care about culture wars, I just say this as someone who has diagnosed anxiety. It feels like I'm walking on eggshells around my friends or sibling who are GNC, trans, or gay. They take offence at the most mundane shit. It's like they're just preempting rejection.
>>97176788Yeah, you're right. I just think it's a good theme for a scenario: your character is forced into summoning demonic entities or part of satanic ritual abuse. I was going to run that for a friend but got sidetracked. I always feel like I'm going to fuck up and need to prep more.
>>97176699The religious 'Satanic Panic' development was fairly late in the controversy and ended up overshadowing most of the original origins of it. It really grew out of a highly publicized attempted suicide at Gen Con 12 and a rash of pop psychologists in the aftermath trying to claim that it was spurred by roleplaying and that RP could worsen or even cause schizophrenia. The religious spin came much later and was kind of a side thing spawned from the day care child abuse scandals. It's complicated.
>>97176797Honestly, anon, that's completely fair and I relate. Hell, I bet the trannies do too.This is just an evolved form of the hedgehog dilemma.But either ways, that anon you're replying to that is comparing developers and gamers changing their hobby from within out of their own self volition to outsiders that wanted to eliminate it back in the 80s is fucking pathetic.In the 80s, boys were playing with their toybox and annoying adults came in and tried to take the toybox away.Now, boys are mad when they see other boys that look weird to them playing in the same toybox as them. This is not comparable.
>>97176699Good times when only the right-wingers were moralists.
>>97176816>the day care child abuse scandals99% of this shit turned out to be fake, by the way.Boomers really thought that schools had deep satanic undergrounds lolAnd let's not even get started on the fucking barcodes. Why were boomers so retarded? The COVID anti-jabbers from today are a million times less retarded. Their paranoia has some actual fundament behind it.
>>97176827The satanic angle actually originated as a defense ploy used to muddy the waters around a handful of genuine ordinary kiddie fucker cases. Like I said, it's complicated.
>>97176835If it was a defense ploy, then it worked perfectly and boomers should have known better than to fall for it.The equivalent of if people managed to equate Jeffrey Epstein files to flat earth. Or if the Jews actually succeeded at making it seem like anyone that is against Israel is a nazi. God knows that psyop of theirs failed hard in the past two years.It's not as complicated as you make it seem. Boomers were stupid, one way or another.
>>97176816So it began as discrimination against people with disabilities? That's honestly worse than just religious nutjobs. Psychology and psychiatry aren't perfect sciences, and they have improved over time, but it seems absurd that a medical professional wouldn't know that schizophrenics have issues with reality testing, not general intelligence. I am diagnosed with psychotic spectrum disorder and just feel like it's a constant stigma used against me or to undermine my humanity. But the games I've had with diverse people, like an autistic guy with a speech impediment, or a Vietnam vet with PTSD, were all great. I just don't get why the world has to hate us for playing games, like we can't enjoy fucking anything.
>>97176816FWIW there's an editorial about it from the time in issue 30 of Dragon.
>>97176699It was part of the tail end of the cold war, when conservatives were desperate to find or invent enemies anywhere and everywhere and anything that wasn't 100% lockstep with their own lived experiences was seen as evil and wrong and a danger to the society they thought they lived in (conservatives have always lived a delusional half-life where they unironically play out versions of reality that never existed). They raged against DnD. They raged against rap. They raged against Heavy Metal. They raged against rock and roll, do-wop, and even country music until country sold out in the 90's. They hated cars. They threatened to burn down government buildings when laws passed mandating seatbelt usage. Sure, they tried to murder wiccans and asatru and muslims, but they tried to riot in protest to a catholic being elected president instead of a protestant. Conservatives have always been small-minded cowards terrified of having their illusions and delusions shattered, and willing to violently defend them.Then there was the fact that the government had spent a third of a century fear-mongering about 'hidden dangers of foreign influence' and when none was ever found, panicking cowards started inventing threats. People under pressure go nuts. That's just the way it works.
what's with faggot redditors and STILL caring about the satanic panic?Holy shit nobody cares anymore boomers.
>>97176866>it seems absurd that a medical professional wouldn't know that schizophrenics have issues with reality testingUS psychiatrists were still performing lobotomies into the 70s. Psychology and psychiatry have absolutely horrific track records, and not all that much progress to show for it.
>>97176990I don't know, I think it builds credibility. It shows the community has something going for them if role play, ambiguity, spontaneity, and autonomy, causes people to seethe, especially the establishment. It's like how we still care about how Tipper Gore and Moms Against Metal campaigned against Twisted Sister, because we like genuine music.If we were making bland crap, no one would try to demonise us. You probably think punk and metal and subcultures are Reddit because it has the tinge of ambiguity you hate.>>97176942True, true. I think it's because conservatives need to box everything or control everything, and the powers that be fear the spectre of communism even if there's nothing fucking there.
>>97176990>that didn't happen>actually it happened but noone caresFaggot.
The nogames believes that there is no connection between tabletop RPGs and the occult.The hasgames is a stones throw away from actual occultists either at the table or as authors of their favourite RPGs or RPG supplements.If you are hasgames and somehow don't know about the actual tabletop RPGs->Occultism pipeline, you're either playing beer and pretzels(congrats on remaining a normie) or Dragqueens & Dildos.Literally all of the best and most insightful players I have ever played with or spoken to have been unironic occultists who went through the TTRPG->Occultist pipeline, and I used to talk occultist shop with them when we weren't talking about the games. There was obviously a falling out when I became a Christian and stopped the occultism. The details of the satanic panic in the 80s may have been overblown, but the sentiment gained a life of its own and it has an active force (see:egregores in occultist theory).Yes, occultism is satanic, but occultism usually not overtly satanic and it's several layers removed from outright devil worship, which is usually only reserved for those hermetic/wannabe hermetic orders, or edgelords playing pretend occultism.
>>97177048>congrats on remaining a normieeveryone is and always has been a normie.
>>97176749>people nonetheless went after D&D for absolutely no reasonThat's not true. Some stupid woman went after D&D because she blamed it for the suicide of her son. Before that some stupid private investigator went after it because he was as stupid as the woman and claimed that some guy died in steam tunnels because that's where you had to go to play it, this is before he found the guy alive. (That guy made another unsuccessful attempt, nothing to do with D&D, then shot himself in the head nearly a year later and that one worked.)Other writers and journalists jumped on board for the sensationalistic stories that would sell papers and drive audience viewing figures.It's not a good reason, but it's not absolutely no reason.
The satanic panic starts with the presupposition that there are real Satanists (and not those pussy 1st ammendment "we're going to call ourselves something that will annoy the people trying to push their religion and then push back" types, but real actual sacrifices in the basement to literal satan for the express purpose of opposing god himself) and those real actual Satanists are trying to compromise the souls of YOUR children. They're doing that by teaching them how to do real magic (or at least phoney ritual occultism that's secretly a gateway to drugs and AIDS-riddled gay sex) and are real sneaky about it.So when your targeted children bring home a book that purports to teach them how to play a game, but has descriptions of things it calls magic that is directly used by the players, plus information about some things it says are demons and devils, that's the only context the panickers need to know.
>>97177048>The hasgames is a stones throw away from actual occultistsYes, but you have it backwards: "actual occultists" are basically just larpers in denial.
>>97177120>"actual occultists" are basically just larpers in denial.You legitimately have zero idea about the sincerity and depth of these people, what they believe, why they believe it, and how their thought process is occultism-native, not materialist-but-just-pretending.Next time you play in a more roleplay oriented game, try to play a character who has a legitimately different metaphysical perspective than yours, without reducing their beliefs to "and they believe in this because they're a retard in denial about objective reality which is hard materialism."
>>97176699>satanic panicOverblown sensationalized ancient history. The moral busybodies of today are much worse, since they're competent enough to worm their way in and change things piecemeal rather than wail impotently at whole hobbies.
>>97176942This is simply a natural response to community cohesion falling apart. They could detect, intuitively, that negative change was occurring and they lashed out in a disorganized way at enemies they couldn't identify.At the core they were right about where things were going, and the fate of their descendants is fucking grim.
>>97176699Sanctimonious self-righteous people are always evil without exception
>>97176841>boomers should have known better than to fall for it.The entire century summarized in one post
Important to remember it wasn't just D&D. There were also accusations of Satanic rituals that turned out to be cops and psychologists coaching children to give desired responses so the scary uniformed adult went away.
>>97176699>looks at D&D nowThey were 100% right.
>>97177048>The hasgames is a stones throw away from actual occultists
>>97176841>boomers should have known better than to fall for it.Too much lead in the gasoline
>>97177286>zoomers should have known better than to fall for it.The next few decades summarized in one post.The boomer generation fucked up hard in some aspects, but hindsight is 20/20.
>>97176749No, absolutely fuck Zak Smith. Shitstain is a cancer on a level that only modern jannies have managed to foster. Otherwise, yeah
>>97176751Its because the resident conservative posters dont want anyone to remember what happened the last time they had cultural relevance and the ability to really push witchhunts like the satanic panic. You could see faint echos of it with things like pizza gate, but after the satanic panic proved to be a nothing burger they never quite could rally the public against that particular boogeyman again.
>>97177617A painful reminder that they're just as bad as lefties. And why direction-brains are loathed by everyone who actually plays games for fun
>>97176699I know the type of religious people that would freak out about DnD. Anything with any kind of magic could be "satanic".No joke, I've been told that My Little Pony was satanic.
>>97176699Have you ever heard of a man named Jack Chick, OP? Did you ever hear of a comic named Dark Dungeons?Genuinely, look it up. Soak in the fact that there were people who legitimately think this comic is what D&D is like, and there are still people who think that comic is representative of reality. Let your faith in humanity drop further.>Despite the shitposting, I think the community is vibrant and the games I played through Find a Game threads were all filled with genuine, nice people. ...On second thought, forget what I said about getting more cynical. Keep your faith in humanity strong. You're a good egg, don't let the world crack you, OP.
Tabletop nerds love their Warhammer Psycho Warrior/Lawful Good Fanatic Cleric until they meet them in real life.
>>97177344>get_a_load_of_this_guy.pngNTA, (you) are a faggot. Based former occultist anon is better than you.
