Today’s blog is going to be late, and while I thing about what to write I am watching the latest episode of Critical Role streaming on Youtube.
This current story is the latest part of Exandria Unlimited (EXU) about the ancient past of this world told with gaming, role playing games, with Dungeons & Dragons.
It makes me remember a time in my own ancient past.

Do you know of the Satanic Panic?
At my young age, I had never heard of it, but I had seen it in action.
I had heard about Dungeons and Dragons, and had seen the animated series based on the game. (Years later I would become friends with one of the writers of the series, Christy Marx.) I also saw the original D&D books on well displayed shelves at mall book stores: Walden Books and B Dalton Books. I was curious, though all those mathematical charts were confusing. I WANTED ONE OF THESE. To play this game, to play these stories.
But that wasn’t meant to be.
My parents and grandmother had heard about the Satanic Panic, that D&D was demonic. It might well have been it that kid I was as I was respectful to my Christian family.
This explains why my concern about enjoying super hero comics and writing stories about characters with god-like powers. But my Faith stayed strong, and the Lord showed me it was okay to write those stories. See my previous blog on this.
I love them, but their concern was misdirected. The devil was at work but not in the game. It was in the fear and misunderstanding created by the panic.
To make matters worse, there was:
TOM HANKS
Long before he was Woody and trying to solve The Da Vinci Code.
Long before he was Forest Gump and befriended Wilson the ball.
Long before he was BIG and in a Dragnet.
And while he was Bosom Buddies with Peter Scolari…
HE was in MAZES AND MONSTERS.

A story about friends who take their roll playing to the next level but things don’t go well.
I remember wanting to see this film. I have vague memories of watching it at my grandmother’s home. Why? I’m not really certain. I don’t know if my parents let me watch it, or wanted me to watch it because of the message.
The Intended Message: The game is bad and can cause people to do bad things.
The Resulting Message: This is a very bad movie.
I thought so when I watched it even though I wanted to enjoy it. I didn’t. As one person put, it’s “pure eighties cheese.”
I never read the original Mazes and Monsters novel by author Rona Jaffe so I want give you my opinion it. I’ll leave it to others.
I’ll tell you this, I am certain that the “Satanic Panic” wasn’t really the reason I never got into Dungeons and Dragons back then. The real reason was because I didn’t have any friends to play it with.
My parents did buy me the DC Heroes Role Playing Game – which was a whole lot closer to what I was interested in anyway. Of course, I didn’t have any friends to play this game either.

Today, I do have several of the Dungeon & Dragons books, as well as the D&D Beyond ap.
It’s really been a great tool in helping create characters for gaming and for storytelling.
Someday, I do hope to get into a regular D&D game with local friends. How about you?