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Dungeons and Dragons was demonized during the 1980s by "doomsday" prophets as a satanic, orgiastic board game that led children down the dark path to damnation. Escaping the stresses of home and school, role playing geeks would sit around their hand drawn maps upon graph paper, diving into their roles as rangers, thieves, paladins or wizards. The elf, both surface and drow, were the favorite among player races, with orcs and gnomes teetering on the bottom rung of popularity. Throw a dungeonmaster( the "god" overseer of the D&D universe) into the mix, and what we have is a potato chip and grape soda party being held well into the wee hours of early morning.

Dungeon and Dragons is based loosely on characters that have floated around throughout literature for the last one thousand years or so. The Northern Europeans had dwarves, drow and elves present in the Poetic Eddas of the Scandanavians. Richard Wagner also used dwarves and elves in his epic opera, The Nibelungenlied. J.R.R. Tolkein, the author of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, used elves, dwarves, humans, wizards, wraiths and other mythical characters in his novels. Even C.S. Lewis', The Chronicles of Narnia, had elements akin to what Dungeons and Dragons was based upon.

But what made Christian groups go after a board game?

During the decadence of the 1980s, Christian groups were la driving force behind protecting America's "morals". Not only was Dungeons and Dragons targeted, backward masking of 12" record albums, to find hidden satanic messages, was also a favorite scare tactic of certain groups. Many recording artists were accused of hiding evil messages in their record albums, by recording them in reverse, so that when the record was spun oppositely, the message would play out. Musicians had record labels, money, and lawyers to defend them. The D&D players had no such luxury. They were an easy target, and parents were easily influenced to believe that a young teen playing such a game might actually take on the mentality of the character he was playing. He would become the "evil" dreaded dark elf wizard, hell bent on destroying his school, or getting revenge on the jock that was picking on him daily.

Most people, myself included, played games like D&D to escape from the everyday pressures of life. We could become, if only for a few hours at a time, a hero; a man (or dwarf) with a crusade to fight, a quest to solve; a man who scored the hot human and elvish women; the man who could settle his problems with the tip of his sword, or the power of a magical word. The name Satan never came up during gameplay, and even evil characters had to pay the consequences of their actions. There were moral issues at hand, and every choice was left with uncertainty of the outcome.

If D&D was truly satanic, then the mild mannered kids who played this game would have have become possessed by an evil so strong, that the forces of good would have been left trailing in the dust after a battle of epic proportions. The Lord of the Rings would have been banned by the Christians who thought such settings and characters were associated with Satan, C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia ( a christian favorite), among them.

Instead of perhaps seeing the creativity and ingenuity that many D&D players possessed, parents and focus groups zeroed in on an age old tactic; demonizing that which they do not understand.

Now, grab your helmet, broadsword and platemail. I heard there is a treasure hidden in the Spine of the Earth guarded by a lonely black dragon, who is easily tempted away from his hoarde by the sound of an elvish female's singing voice.

Learn more about this author, Jeff Woodward.
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