Jack Chick Passed Away

by Dawn

Jack Chick passed away this week. He went quietly compared to the impact he had in our community. By “our community,” I really mean the overall Gaming Community. So who was Jack Chick? He was a cartoonist, the creator of “Chick Tracts.” If you aren’t familiar with Chick Tracts, they were generally small, 20 panel comics about his Christian viewpoints about various topics. I think it’s important to note that his viewpoint was against many established churches as well, but one topic that he regularly took on was Dungeons & Dragons. He promoted the concept that D&D was a tool to introduce people to the Occult. By making it seem as a game, innocent souls would find themselves inducted in to actual covens and demon worship. His tract, Dark Dungeons, featured the D&D player Debbie being introduced into the occult, casting spells, but losing a friend over a character death, had her seeking help and finding God. 

Gamers have been fighting the concerns of well intentioned people for decades.  They have continually made this same link, fired by these tracts, that players don’t even realize that they are slipping in to the occult, that they think they are actually casting spells. Jack promoted the use of bible passages and warned parents and teens of the dangers of playing D&D. It was further fueled by the real life story turned movie “Mazes and Monsters,” starring Tom Hanks. If you’re not familiar with that one, it’s the story of JamesDallas Egbert III. He was a student at Michigan State University that disappeared from his dorm room on an August evening in 1979. If you read the related book, “Dungeon Master,” you may notice a few things. Egbert was a child prodigy and under incredible pressure as a 16 year old freshman with few friends. He was routinely depressed and became addicted to drugs. That night he disappeared was the first of 3 suicide attempts, the third one being successful. He ran away from school and his parents after his first attempt. His relationship with his parents did not appear to be close, but out of all the things going on in his life, his parents latched on to Dungeons & Dragons as the reason their son attempted suicide. Rumor said that live action games of Dungeons & Dragons were played in the steam tunnels under campus. Before he was eventually found, there were rumors that he had disappeared during a live action session incident. The media picked up on that and ran with it. In reality, Egbert had failed to commit suicide and was hiding out in a friend’s apartment.

Society was fired up about them. There were protests. Even right here in St Cloud, there were picketers at the old Bakers Craft and Hobby store because they sold the game. Parents of friends were approached and asked how they could handle their children playing “that evil game.” Personally, I was asked to burn my books, by the person that gave them to me, as he was feeling guilty about leading me away from God by giving me the option to play.

It’s hard to say which event had the most influence on the perception of being a gamer and what that meant. How many people were denied the opportunity to make friends with shared interests? How many were routinely told that they were going to burn in Hell? How many were forbidden to enter other friend’s houses because the parents “knew” they were going to seduce their child away to that “evil” game? Even within the broader circle of games, board games are far more acceptable, still, than role playing. Mostly because of the fear and outright fiction of Jack Chick’s Tracts, and the hype around the Egbert case. 

It’s been almost 40 years since Dark Dungeon came out and Egbert disappeared. In that time, Dungeons and Dragons has gone through several incarnations: Dungeons & Dragons, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2^nd Edition, 3^rd Edition, 3.5 Edition, 4^th Edition, Essentials and the current 5^th Edition.  We have a strong Encounters session every Wednesday. We routinely host 20-25 role players on Wednesday nights. They range in age from 12 – 65. They role dice, they have some snacks, they fight monsters, bargain for information and mostly, they socialize with each other. They leave with a smile. No one casts any spells that actually influence others, beyond the spell of a good story well played. 

RIP Jack Chick. Long Live Dungeons & Dragons!

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