by Adam Delligatti

Created on: January 12, 2011   Last Updated: January 13, 2011

In 1979, child prodigy, James Dallas Egbert III faked his death in the Michigan State University steam tunnels.  His parents hired private investigator William Dear to find out what exactly happened to their son.  The investigation led Dear to study Dungeons & Dragons which was a game that he had previously known nothing about.  He believed that Egbert had killed himself in an incident that related to the game, because Egbert had played a live action version of D&D in the tunnels before the suicide.

It was later revealed that Egbert was still alive and living in Lousiana, and Dear traveled there to retrieve him.  Egbert had faked his death because he was in a state of depression caused from the pressures of life.  Yet he did reveal that the suicide incident did not have anything to do with D&D, but it was just something that he played for fun.

A year after the tunnel incident Egbert finally committed suicide.  Two years later the ordeal was turned into a fictionalized book and movie called Monsters and Maze.  Four years later Dear published a book called The Dungeon Master, which was an account of Egbert’s story that blamed Dungeons & Dragons.  At this point the game continued to gain negative publicity and religious groups began to look at the evil.

The religious groups studied the game and realized that it incorporated evil beings such as the succubus, and more importantly the Devil.  The Devil, a being in Christian religion, is known as a being of ultimate evil.  When groups found out that a game would be played using this being of evil they began to associate D&D with Devil worshipping.  It became a game of evil.  This type of game was not the type of game that children should be playing.  A type of game that no one should be playing.

The churches then began to advise their parishioners not to let their children to play the game.  They felt the evil would lead the children into worshipping the Devil.  Yet there was also the lingering incident of Egbert to support their cause.  Parents wanted to protect their children.  Therefore the game of Dungeons and Dragons was going to be known as a forbidden game.  A game that was just evil.

The DM (Dungeon Master) or GM (Game Master) is the person who controls the world of D&D in a godlike manner.  This person watches over the game and creates the storyline for the characters to follow.  If

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