I can vouch for the accuracy of that statement, some Gamer Geeks having apparently taken a vow against using the combination of water and soap. (I am also going to steal that phrase every chance I get.) The only mob I was ever personally part of was in my all male undergrad dorm when we would occasionally toss into the showers gentlemen who obviously had never been taught that while cleanliness may not be next to Godliness, it certainly makes life more pleasant.
More Offended by the Smell Than the Theology
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I remember a rudimentary DnD Intellivision game from the 1980s. Magic books, evil doors, wraiths, etc.
If DnD was Satanic, what about Doom, Doom 2, etc? You can be only one character, Doomguy. Your mission is to lay waste to every possessed zombie, imp, floating cacodemon, flaming skull, Baron of Hell and destroy the Cyberdemon. Use a double barrel shotgun, a rocket launcher, the BFG 9000 or even a chain saw (my favorite) to fight evil.
Doomguy has reached such levels in the world of Pop Culture that demons, horror movie antagonists, SCP (Secure, Contain and Protect) inmates and Hell itself fears Doomguy. He is literally too angry to die.
I still get a kick out of the idea that the problem was that Satanic Panic and those rascally fundamentalists. Fact is, those fundamentalists and parents were telling kids not to do a whole boatload of things that the kids happily ignored. So why would it work with this, as it did work so well? Because it wasn’t the fundamentalists. It was the media that launched an assault on the game, hitting it from every angle it could. Why, I’ll never know. But it did, and it worked. And the press left the fundamentalists holding the bag, which is the part you have to give the media credit for.
Dave G
Maybe pen and paper RPGs were eating into the screen time (and ad time) of the 80s – TV.
Games that rely on imagination and minimal amounts of action figures etc are not friends of the media ad machine.
Now that RPGs are mostly computer based with infinite upgrades and the ability to place ads within or adjacent, things are different.
The only ad in my gaming sessions was the menu for the local pizza joint!
Its assault on the game has stayed with me over the years, and I’ve kicked it around more than once. That the media could orchestrate an assault on something that should have been exactly what pop culture and the media were promoting at the time – buck the system, imagination and creativity and outside the box thinking. And it worked, which also taught me that the media, when it sets its mind to it, can inform behavior, especially among kids. But your reason is probably not too far from the target. I find, in looking back with the benefit of hindsight, much of our corporate based industries take a dim view on people finding ways to live that can’t be capitalized on by our various corporate based industries.
Oh….. spent too much time in the military, I suppose.
Gaming with friends is not the first thing that RPG brings to mind….
Yeah, Rocket Propelled Grenade still first comes to mind for me too!