Dungeons and Dragons

Satanic Panic of the 1980s

Presenter: Cooper J Perry

Presenter Status: Undergraduate student

Academic Year: 20-21

Semester: Fall

Faculty Mentor: Hillary Homzie

Department: Communication & Media Studies

Funding Source/Sponsor: SYRCE Symposium

Screenshot URL: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1oECUecaNGZRtWEdlhQ9mcZjeyq5VX6Gx

Abstract:
This podcast style video was made for my Syrce project on the 1980s. My focus was on the satanic panic that happened around Dungeons and Dragons, pushed by the Christian right-wing. They claimed that the magic in the game cursed the people who played it and caused them to do horrendous acts, such as suicide and murder. This video of my friends and I playing D&D was made to show how inaccurate the claims about the game were. My friends and I played the version of the game that was around in the early '80s to be as true to the time period as possible while playing socially distanced.