by Roy Malton

Created on: November 03, 2008   Last Updated: March 13, 2012

I still don't understand why people are still on this debate. I wish someone could shed some light as to how the game is satanic. Now, I'm relatively new to the game, as I have only played for about eight years out of the game's thirty-four years tenure, so perhaps I still have a few years to go before being possessed with the urge to seek out occult grimoires.

I am too young to remember all the static the game got in the 80's from various church groups, but I have looked into it to a decent extent. The opposing standpoint essentially says that D&D draws a person's focus on life from the important things like friends and family and redirects it to performing witchcraft and devil worship. People have cited incidents where people who have played D&D have performed violent acts, the most notable about a boy who killed his brother, then himself with a shotgun, supposedly because the game drove him to it.

Isn't this the same argument that there is against heavy metal music? It doesn't seem so long ago that the PMRC (Parent's Music Resource Center) crusaded against popular music saying that it skews the perspective of those who listen to it, making them more prone to violence and devil worship. It seems no different than Joe Lieberman and his crusade against violence in video games because they cause people to become violent. It is the same argument against violence in movies and television.

It makes me think that these people want everyone to just put away their dice, video games and televisions and just sit and read the bible.

There has been multiple (supposed) instances of correlation between D&D and satanism. Even if someone was able to determine that out of X amount of people, Y amount played D&D and Z amount worshipped the devil, it would mean nothing, because correlation is not causation. I could go right now and search on Google for occultist tomes simply to prove my point, and because I play D&D, there would be a correlation, but the game did not draw me into the occult, my interest in the occult would be driven by my want to make a point.

This is really a matter of people trying to create a psychological profile for someone to explain why they might have done something. Case in point: I have a few medieval weapons, because I am very fascinated with medieval warfare and the medeival times in general. This is probably why D&D is such a fun pasttime for me. If someone slighted me in such a terrible way that I decided to kill them, I

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