Living through the Satanic Panic was… a hell of a thing.
I was an insanely prodigious reader as a kid. At some point, my mom plunked me down in front of Sesame Street and The Electric Company and apparently the phonics lessons took hard. I started reading when I was about two and a half years old, and soon my dad was showing me off to his friends, having me read articles out of the newspaper and not just sound them out, but explain them.
When my parents saw my love of reading, the balloon went up, and my extended family had a whip-round to find whatever reading material they could come up with. My earliest memories were a collection of Tom Swift, Hardy Boys, and even Nancy Drew books when I’d burned through the rest. And somewhere they dug up a vintage 1964 set of World Book encyclopedias, which I would read articles from. For fun.
One day I’d burned through all the reading material I could find—I also read insanely fast—so I was digging through the spare room looking for anything that piqued my interest. I found a box of old paperbacks and dug three of them out. They were The Hobbit, Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny, and Firestarter by Stephen King. I eagerly devoured all three.
I was like seven years old. The chances of me ever being normal went right out the fuckin’ window right there. (I would later get in trouble for bringing H.P. Lovecraft books to grade school.)
So, I was always interested in literary pursuits, and fantasy and science fiction had me in their grip at a very young age. One Friday evening, my dad took me to the local toy and hobby shop to spend my allowance, and I’d picked out a couple of GI Joe figures when I spotted and was mesmerized by a very famous piece of art by a man named Erol Otus. I immediately dropped the plastic figures and grabbed the box, and that evening I came home with… the Expert rules of the BECMI edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Whoops. (I had to wheedle an advance to pick up the Basic set the next week, so I could actually play it.)
At the time, the Satanic Panic hadn’t set in yet. Dungeons and Dragons was a curiosity, and there wasn’t yet a stigma attached. For a time, you could buy adventure modules at Toys ‘R’ Us, alongside the LJN D&D action figures. I started to amass a collection, and found a host of nerd friends at school to introduce the game to. I was the primary dungeonmaster, and we played at lunch. After a while the school got kind of nervous, but one of the gifted counselors went to bat for us, pointing out how we were reading and telling stories and doing math, so they let us continue.
(There was an added bonus when the Panic really hit; the bullies actually thought we could hex them, so they mostly left us alone.)
However, eventually a bunch of televangelists needed another bogeyman to scare people into sending more donations, and they settled on my hobby. And living in Alabama, the Panic was everywhere. You couldn’t swing a glaive-guisarme without hitting a story about how D&D would corrupt young minds. (I actually had an original copy of the Dark Dungeons Chick tract back in the day, which unfortunately I lost in a move.)
My mom’s side of the family took it seriously. My cousin also had a D&D collection, one that rivaled mine, and the grandparents we didn’t share laid down an edict and the books ended up burned. Our shared grandparents were pushing really hard for my mom to do the same, and eventually I videotaped one of the local televangelist shitbags doing his “Demons and Devils” segment where he’d dress up in black robes and read passages ostensibly from the Dungeon Master’s Guide to demonstrate the horrors that lay within. I sat my mom down with the tape and the book and conclusively proved the fucker was lying through his teeth, and in doing so earned my reprieve.
My paternal grandmother was the exception to the rule. After my mom and dad split up, I was staying over at her house on a weekend, and she woke me up on Saturday morning after returning from her garage sales. She said, “I know you like that game with the monsters and the dragons,” and presented me with a white-box sixth edition Original Dungeons and Dragons set, complete with the original dice. I’d had no idea that version even existed at that point. It still holds a place of honor on my bookshelf, and I still miss the old bird.
I later got a job selling comics and games, and though it was past the height of the Panic, we still had to deal with it. There was an industry group that did the Lord’s work fighting back against the nonsense, and so whenever a concerned parent came in the shop with their urban legends, we could debunk the stories, with receipts. We could also show statistics that proved kids who played tabletop RPGs were more social, more intellectual, and statistically less likely to harm themselves or fall into addiction. Over the years, I calmed down at least three dozen anxious parents, and more than a few fellow proto-nerdlingers thanked me for my support.
The hobby taught me the confidence to tell stories in front of people, and it’s how I eventually parlayed an overactive imagination into actual writing. I definitely wouldn’t be stacking these words on top of each other right now if I hadn’t picked up that box set all those years ago. It played a very big part in making me who I am today.
And it was this hobby where I met the friends I treasured the most throughout my life.
It is, after all, how I met Sid.
Sometimes I think it’s a shame when I get feelin’ better, when I’m feelin’ no pain