Laycock notes:Ĭonservative evangelical critics. 4 Joseph Laycock, a Religious Studies professor at Texas State University, has authored a book-length study of this phenomenon. In 1985, 60 Minutes ran an anti- D&D story. with some accusing the game of being “nothing less than an occult tool that opens up young people to influence or possession by demons.” 2 Perhaps most famously, in 1984, Jack Chick released Dark Dungeons, one of his infamous religious comic series Chick Tracks, a hilariously overwrought and sensationalistic story of two young college students drawn into demon-worship through D&D. Other criticisms had a more religious character, accusing D&D and similar games of not simply warping vulnerable young minds, but of actually promoting Satanism, human sacrifice, and all manner of demonic practices. In 1985 BADD petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to require warning labels on roleplaying games, citing nine allegedly RPG-inspired suicides (though this was comparable or lower than the rate of suicides in general). His mother unsuccessfully sued TSR 1, D&D’s publisher, and founded the advocacy group Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (BADD). In 1982, the suicide of another young gamer, Irving Pulling of Virginia, prompted similar speculations. Novelist Rona Jaffe's Mazes and Monsters (1981) inspired by the Egbert case. Though D&D was actually a pastime for Egbert and played no role in his mental illness, wild speculations spread. ![]() Oddly, these two films have a cast member in common: Canadian actress Wendy Crewson. The tragic Egbert case left a long and twisted trail, and this article will discuss some some strange filmic offshoots of that hysteria: the obscure Canadian film Skullduggery (1983) and the better known made-for-TV movie Mazes and Monsters (1982).
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