The Social Acceptance of Gaming

by Gino

If you’ve been reading our blog, you know that we recently blogged about the passing of Jack Chick. A notorious anti-gamer, anti-a-whole-bunch-of-other-things, and creator of “Chick Tracts.” His outspokenness on gaming, and especially Dungeons & Dragons, was one of the reasons that gaming and D&D have been seen is such a bad light. His publication of the tract Dark Dungeons made D&D out to look like a gateway into actual spell-casting and devil worship. Complete fiction, of course. His influence, along with some others, made quite a few people afraid of D&D. A game. People who played D&D, and just about any other board game, were ostracized. As a gamer in college, I learned to not admit to playing D&D and other games to people. Even some people that I knew fairly well, didn’t know I was a gamer. It makes it a bit difficult to find other gamers when they’re afraid to admit it.

As the years have passed, the general societal attitude toward gamers has changed. Gaming is much more accepted that it was, even just a few years ago, let alone a few decades ago. Yea, you still get ignorant people who think that all gamers fall into that silly stereotype of some 20 or 30 year old guy living in their parents’ basement, no job, bathing every month whether they need it or not, never kissed a girl, etc.  But, the fact is, most have jobs, many have families. There are a healthy number of women who game, too. So, the passing of Jack Chick, makes me think about the change in the social acceptance of gaming. What’s changed in that I once wouldn’t readily admit to being a gamer to having no less than a half dozen gaming stores in the St. Cloud area, alone? I think there are a few reasons. Here’s a completely unscientific, totally speculative look at what I think.

I think one of the main reasons for the softening of people’s opinions on gaming and gamers is that most of the people and organizations that have attacked the hobby have been exposed as fanatical, or having an ulterior motive. Taking Chick Publications as an example, they have publications that attack a large number of topics. Some you would expect, non-Christian religions, the occult, Halloween, etc. But they also attack all the other Christian religions that aren’t their narrow, King James, version of Christianity. Funny side note, I remember one of my Catechism teachers using one of the Chick Tracts, while they have some tracts that attack Catholics specifically. I think this helped make them look like religious fanatics, and people didn’t take them as seriously as they might have otherwise. 

Another factor in the growing acceptance if gaming is the early gamers have grown up, had kids of their own, and have introduced them to gaming. So, not only do you have the gamers that come by it on their own, you’ve got families playing together. Gaming is great family time. You can bond with your family, enjoying some really great games, communicating, and not having an electronic device to mediate your game, or just watching a show or movie. Board games get you used to talking with your kids, and your kids used to talking with you. This can only help to facilitate other conversations. You can play competitive games, or cooperative games. Coop games are a really fun time with the younger kids. 

The media has changed their coverage of games over the years. It’ gone from a critical 60 Minutes story in 1985, to ESPN covering a Magic: The Gathering  World Championships in 1997. That tournament wasn’t a magical end to the stigma of gaming, but it went a long way to legitimizing a rather geeky card game. The Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour, yes, there really is a pro tour for a card game, is played all over the world, with real cash prizes. Now today, if you watch Big Bang Theory, one of the most popular sitcoms on TV, they are playing games quite often. Yes, they make fun out them playing games, but games are supposed to be fun!

If you were to ask me what the biggest impact on the growing popularity and acceptance of gaming is, I’d say it’s the number of highly successful celebrities that have admitted to playing Dungeons & Dragons, and/or a number of other board games. If you were to google “celebrity D&D players,” or “celebrity board gamers,” you’ll find countless famous people who admit to playing games. Some of which will really surprise you. Vin Diesel might be the best well known D&D player. He even wrote a forward to one of the D&D books. Wil Wheaton hosts his own web series, TableTop, where he plays a variety of games with other famous people in his circle. The late Robin Williams reportedly played miniature wargames with Billy Crystal, and others. CNN’s Anderson Cooper talked about his obsession with D&D on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, who also played. “I Hit It With My Axe” is a web series of a group of mostly strippers, porn performers, and pin-up models, who have playing Dungeons & Dragons every week for 8 years. The list goes on.

So, things have changed in the hobby of board games. More and more people play every year, and those changes have happened for good reasons. If you don't play now, you might want to consider trying a game or two. They really are fun and challenging. 

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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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