- Title
- Role-playing games and the christian right
- Creator
- Waldron, David
- Date
- 2003
- Type
- Text; Journal article
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/60907
- Identifier
- vital:1769
- Identifier
- ISSN:0011-4444
- Abstract
- Abstract: During the 1980's the newly established industry and youth sub-culture associated with Role-playing games came under sustained attack from schools, churches, parents and governments instigated by the Christian Right via organizations such as B.A.D.D. (Bothered About Dungeon's and Dragons). Whilst B.A.D.D and the claims linking Role-playing games to youth suicide, drug use and Satanism were eventually discredited the impact of these accusations lingers to the present and is still a source of hostility and resentment by gamers and a point of contention for those members of the gaming community who identify themselves as Christian. This article examines the impact of the role-playing game "moral panic" on the role-playing game community and investigates the responses and coping mechanisms utilised by those directly targeted and harassed by churches, the police, school and government during the height of the "moral panic" in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The article also investigates the effect which the shared experience of being targeted by a "moral panic" had on the formation of a Role-playing counter culture and community.
- Publisher
- Places to Go, People to Be
- Relation
- Places to Go People to Be Vol. 25, no. (2003), p. 20-36
- Rights
- Open Access
- Rights
- Copyright The Author
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Subject
- Role playing games; Dungeons and Dragons
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