I'm glad someone mentioned Jack Chick, because he was the originator of the Satanic Panic, and he by far didn't represent all or even the vast majority of Christians.  Jack attacked my church and most other Christian denominations as vehemently as he did D&D players.  So I'm glad that the one poster somewhat backtracked his blanket statement, changing his tune to not blame all of Christianity now.  Most atheists are comfortable enough in their beliefs that they don't have to put down entire religions in broad stereotypes.

I ordered all of the Jack Chick pamphlets so could read them and laugh at them.  I still have my collection.  A relative actually had me a custom-made T-shirt of one of Chick's pamphlet covers.  It got me a lot of nice compliments.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on February 05, 2023, 01:55:26 PM
I'm glad someone mentioned Jack Chick, because he was the originator of the Satanic Panic, and he by far didn't represent all or even the vast majority of Christians.  Jack attacked my church and most other Christian denominations as vehemently as he did D&D players.

And yet it was not uncommon to find Chick Strips in the pamphlet rack at churches that ol' Jackhole probably would himself condemn. Small-minded and ignorant fear and hatred is not logical.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on February 05, 2023, 01:55:26 PMSo I'm glad that the one poster somewhat backtracked his blanket statement, changing his tune to not blame all of Christianity now.  Most atheists are comfortable enough in their beliefs that they don't have to put down entire religions in broad stereotypes.

All I did was reiterate and clarify. My original posts were always about the holier-than-thou and moral-panic Christians. I have slain many a racial stereotype, sorry Orc, with Christian friends.

Quote from: I on February 05, 2023, 01:16:15 PM
The Satanic Panic experience must have just depended on one's personal circle, because even though I grew up in a small town in the Bible Belt, my experience mirrors Chris'.  I remember getting a few asshole comments from kids at school, but no authority figure -- parents, teachers, or preachers -- ever criticized my gaming in any way.  And I didn't hide that I was a gamer, either.  I do feel sorry for those of you who were persecuted for it, though.

Ditto. I am also from the Bible Belt, and my first D&D group was literally a church D-group. After five minutes of reading R.C. Sproul, we got bored and pulled out our RPG books. And we were not trying to be particularly subtle, either. We left RPG books, dice, and character sheets out in the open all the time.

My guess is the Charismatic churches were the pushers of the Satanic Panic, and that is one of the key reason the hobby has a very low Black participation rate (Black churches are overwhelmingly Charismatic). It certainly didn't affect me in my Evangelical "MethoBapTerian" circles.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on January 30, 2023, 02:04:05 PM
The internet of the 90's and early 2000's was awesome. Open, free, like the wild west. But as the libtards continued their slow steady march towards full communism they were ok with the internet being unrestricted until Trump was elected, the first time in their lifetime a US president didn't aid them in their Marxist goals, this completely freaked them out and they've been doing everything in the power to lockdown dissident voices anywhere and everywhere. You are not allowed an opinion that is to the right of Chairman Mao.

We are seeing the internet being closed and locked down all around us. It is horrifying to watch this happen in real time. I used to wonder how an ideology as evil as Communism was able to take over Russia, China, and other countries. Now I wonder no longer.

I think the turn of the corner happened in the later Obama years. I think two things happened at roughly the same time; the Left sensed a chance to win the culture war they were waging by discarding libertarianism in favor of totalitarianism, and Silicon Valley platforms decided that if they wanted to sell more ads, they should put people in echo chambers. It's clear that RPG.Net is intentionally copying Twitter outrage culture. And I understand the decision, too. After all, if you think that men should be allowed in women's locker rooms and compete in women's sports and women who complain need to be re-educated, you neither have a brain nor a sense of morals, so of course you would copy someone else's homework.

Quote from: Fheredin on February 05, 2023, 03:02:00 PM

Ditto. I am also from the Bible Belt, and my first D&D group was literally a church D-group. After five minutes of reading R.C. Sproul, we got bored and pulled out our RPG books. And we were not trying to be particularly subtle, either. We left RPG books, dice, and character sheets out in the open all the time.

My guess is the Charismatic churches were the pushers of the Satanic Panic, and that is one of the key reason the hobby has a very low Black participation rate (Black churches are overwhelmingly Charismatic). It certainly didn't affect me in my Evangelical "MethoBapTerian" circles.

This was more or less my experience.  I had a couple of friends who decided on their own that they weren't comfortable with gaming.  Never gave the rest of us any grief over it, and we didn't them, either.  We continued to do everything else with them, like people do in a rural area/small town. 

The biggest difference between then and now is two things compounding:  Then, the press covered whatever they wanted to cover, and what they wanted was to blow up the Karen's complaining, because it made "Christians" look bad.  Now, the press hides the worst excesses of the Left, makes excuses for them, and goes after anyone that disagrees with them.  And of course the internet makes any thing like that blow up faster and louder. 

Like I said earlier in another way:  These "communities" have always had people that would do exactly what they were doing now, if they could.  The only thing that keeps them in check is people refusing to bow down to them.  I had a close relative that deeply disapproved of fantasy gaming (and for that matter, fantasy literature).  We had a lot of conversations about it.  But she also had a strong belief that people had to live their lives the way they were going to live them.  She didn't let our disagreement color anything else we did.  There were a lot more people like her around me that the Karen's, thankfully.

Also, I kind of hate that "Karen" has been hitched to that kind of person.  All the people I knew with that name for real were very nice.

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 05, 2023, 01:31:17 PM

Quote from: I on February 05, 2023, 01:16:15 PM
The Satanic Panic experience must have just depended on one's personal circle, because even though I grew up in a small town in the Bible Belt, my experience mirrors Chris'.  I remember getting a few asshole comments from kids at school, but no authority figure -- parents, teachers, or preachers -- ever criticized my gaming in any way.  And I didn't hide that I was a gamer, either.  I do feel sorry for those of you who were persecuted for it, though.

So I guess you just had the newspaper and T.V. news hysteria, Mazes and Monsters, police investigations, and a few shows where a police detective or teacher finds a gaming miniature or rulebook and acts like he just found a serial killer confession.

Come on, man.

Yes, that's all I had, and since it stemmed from mass-media I summarily ignored it.  Same as I do now.  If these things had influenced any of the people with authority over me, then yes, the effect would have been bad.  But I didn't give a shit about TV shows or news articles; I dismissed them much as I dismiss Twitter and the like today.  I did read the book and watch the TV movie of "Mazes and Monsters" though, for the laughs and the cringes.  As a "so bad it's good" experience, I recommend both, particularly the awful Tom Hanks movie.

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 05, 2023, 01:31:17 PM

Quote from: I on February 05, 2023, 01:16:15 PM
The Satanic Panic experience must have just depended on one's personal circle, because even though I grew up in a small town in the Bible Belt, my experience mirrors Chris'.  I remember getting a few asshole comments from kids at school, but no authority figure -- parents, teachers, or preachers -- ever criticized my gaming in any way.  And I didn't hide that I was a gamer, either.  I do feel sorry for those of you who were persecuted for it, though.

So I guess you just had the newspaper and T.V. news hysteria, Mazes and Monsters, police investigations, and a few shows where a police detective or teacher finds a gaming miniature or rulebook and acts like he just found a serial killer confession.

Come on, man.

You saw me mention my friend's nutter mom right? How old do you think I was when that was going on? During the height of the Satanic panic I wasn't reading newspapers or watching crime dramas. I doubt my parents have ever even heard of Mazes & Minotaurs and Jack Chick Tracts have never been welcome in the Catholic Church.

I was in Scouts or riding my bike around the neighborhood or watching whatever cartoons, sitcoms and action-comedy or scifi/fantasy shows (there was one fantasy tv show, Wizards & Warriors, my Dad and I particularly liked) or whatever else could be agreed upon by a family with one tv set and five channels... If something I didn't like I was reading or drawing up a map for my next dungeon delve.

One of the guys who games at my store got kicked out of the place he was living for playing D&D this week, no joke.  It's a bit of an odd case, social services foster kid who was living in the bushes of the river valley having turned 18 when he first started coming in to game.  Anyhow, the government agencies got him into university but he bombed out in the first semester due to family problems and turned to religion.  He's had quite the life but lately he was unemployed and living with a family that he met at church but when they found out he was into D&D they threw him out for 'not respecting their values.'  And while that's fine, we certainly shouldn't expect people to provide free room and board for people they don't like after all.  Even so, the Satanic Panic still has deep roots in religious communities.

Greetings!

I've always greatly enjoyed the Jack Chick comics. Fucking hilarious! I've known so many gamers that have enjoyed those comics, the characters, the crazy drama. "Blackleaf? Oh NO!"

As for the "Satanic Panic"--yeah, that whole thing was NOTING like the WOKE bs, insanity, and tyranny going on today.

Some like to sound smug as in "We've seen this all before" blah, blah, blah. No, we haven't. Small groups of church women and a few preachers wasn't wrecking our entire society. The fucking Woketards and Marxists are threatening to corrupt and destroy our entire society. Feminism, Libtards, Wokeism, CRT, they all have their ideological roots in MARXISM. Every fucking one of them.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 05, 2023, 11:24:13 AM

Quote from: Chris24601Blaming actual Christianity and Christian churches for the Satanic Panic from my experience is like blaming a homeowner for the chaos caused by a drunken party crasher at an open house. The Karens behind the Satanic Panic were no more "Christian" than Judas or Simon the Magician.

Sorry but this is pure No True Scotsman. You don't get to excise bad apples from your collective group. Some groups attract/create Karens at a higher than average level.

Not sure the True Scotsman fallacy applies to this situation, because of course Christians are not a monolithic group. My experience with the Satanic Panic (which always struck me as way overblown, I even played D&D with a Baptist minister in the late 80's) was my dad asked me once, fearfully, if I was a Dungeon Master, because my aunt told him some bad things about D&D, and I explained that a DM was like a cross between a sports referee and a storyteller to put it in terms he could understand. And that was the end of it. Maybe there were some places that it got more extreme, I dunno.

Today the Woke are mandating kindergarteners learn Marxist and gender ideology and shutting down people's right to free speech if they disagree, and are advocating for permanent body altering surgery because a tween boy or girl was sad and thinks maybe being a different gender will solve their problems. So I'd say what is happening today is dramatically worse, and Christians (and maybe a few others) seem to be the only ones calling it out.

As the title of this thread says "It's absolutely insane how suppressive most TTRPG communities have become" and this applies as well to the rest of society in the US of Gay.

Quote from: Fheredin on February 05, 2023, 03:02:00 PM

Quote from: I on February 05, 2023, 01:16:15 PM
The Satanic Panic experience must have just depended on one's personal circle, because even though I grew up in a small town in the Bible Belt, my experience mirrors Chris'.  I remember getting a few asshole comments from kids at school, but no authority figure -- parents, teachers, or preachers -- ever criticized my gaming in any way.  And I didn't hide that I was a gamer, either.  I do feel sorry for those of you who were persecuted for it, though.

Ditto. I am also from the Bible Belt, and my first D&D group was literally a church D-group. After five minutes of reading R.C. Sproul, we got bored and pulled out our RPG books. And we were not trying to be particularly subtle, either. We left RPG books, dice, and character sheets out in the open all the time.

My guess is the Charismatic churches were the pushers of the Satanic Panic, and that is one of the key reason the hobby has a very low Black participation rate (Black churches are overwhelmingly Charismatic). It certainly didn't affect me in my Evangelical "MethoBapTerian" circles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial

The origin of the Satanic Panic was the book Michelle Remembers, about "recovered memories" (since debunked), and how media and the public bounced off each other to create a moral panic that impacted thousands of people.

Covid has convinced me that people are panicky animals at the best of times, with the slightest sense of danger able to send them off the edge. Whether it's Covid or Satan or The Commies. People lose their motherfucking minds, and the best any individual can do is try to get the fuck out the way and let them tear the world and each other apart.

We're far past time for a national divorce.

Each side needs to live without the other's presence.

Or we can play Cowboys & Woketards and see how that goes.

Quote from: Spinachcat on February 06, 2023, 02:54:53 AM
We're far past time for a national divorce.

Each side needs to live without the other's presence.

Or we can play Cowboys & Woketards and see how that goes.

I've seen some pretty good maps that give the Left coast and North East to the commies, and the rest of America to the rest of us, and thought you know I'd be fine with this. Alberta can join us.