The History and Humanities of Dungeons and Dragons

Introduction

Hello everyone! The Magical Mythtress is back once again, this time with a deep dive into one of my most special interests—Dungeons & Dragons. This game has grown and developed significantly since its first edition release in the mid-1970s, all the way to today’s 5.5th edition. Over fifty years of gaming have had the worlds of the Dungeons & Dragons universe as their backdrop. But this game almost died out in the 1980s, thanks to concerned parents, politicians, and religious leaders who were convinced that the game was the work of Satan himself and tried to keep it out of the hands of youths. Fortunately, we can all see just how well that worked for them (spoilers: not at all), and Dungeons & Dragons continues to delight players and storytellers across the world.

Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons has a long, storied history going back to the mid-1970s. It has not always been viewed favorably—in fact, D&D was viewed unfavorably from the late 1970s until the early 1990s thanks to the Satanic Panic and other religious propaganda. However, the exponential growth of its player base from a few hundred in North America to millions across the globe, as well as its presence in modern media, has cemented its place in popular culture. Today, we’re examining Dungeons & Dragons through the lenses of history and the humanities to show how it has affected each aspect of popular culture. Be sure to come back next week for a look into how Dungeons & Dragons affected natural and social sciences!

History

In 1974, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson collaborated to bring Gygax’s earlier medieval wargame, Chainmail, into a format where players controlled individual characters rather than army factions, as had been the case with such wargames that were gaining in popularity during the late 1960s–early 1970s (Laycock, 2019). This became Dungeons & Dragons, which was published through Tactical Studies Rules, Inc., from 1974–1997, when the rights were sold to Wizards of the Coast.

The wargames that Dungeons & Dragons originated from go back beyond the 1960s. During the nineteenth century, they were used by Prussian generals to develop strategies and tactics for warfare. This practice dates as far back as the early dynasties of Egypt and Mesopotamia, showing that wargames have existed for nearly as long as warfare itself. (Laycock, 2015)

Dungeons & Dragons was developed to bring a group of players around a table for collaborative storytelling, with the Dungeon Master, or DM, having full knowledge over the rules and setting, and players having a general knowledge. As later editions of the game came out, players were also given access to the knowledge of the rules, and were able to have the information necessary to create their own characters independently of the DM. (Hall, 2015) The rules were also simplified from the original rule set, which was described as “only marginally less complicated than a Ptolemaic analysis of planetary motion.” (Laycock, 2015) By simplifying the rules over the editions, and providing access to these rules to players as well as DMs, Dungeons & Dragons became more accessible as the years progressed, allowing for it to experience an increasing presence in popular culture.

Despite the long history of wargaming, the addition of magic led to controversy during the early years of Dungeons & Dragons, and it played a large role in the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s. The pantheon of gods in the world of Dungeons & Dragons drew the ire of fundamentalist religious groups, who took this as demon worship. Combined with the presumed correlation between heavy metal music, Dungeons & Dragons, and Satanic practices, the 1980s saw the formation of groups like Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (B.A.D.D.) to protest the game. B.A.D.D. was formed by Patricia Pulling after her son, Irving, committed suicide, which she blamed on his participation in Dungeons & Dragons. She believed that his death was the result of a curse placed upon him by his high school principal, who acted as his DM, and formed B.A.D.D. after all her wrongful death suits, ranging from the principal to Tactical Studies Rules, Inc., failed. (Waldron, 2005) These fundamentalists also believed that those who played Dungeons & Dragons, as well as those who listened to heavy metal music or viewed pornographic materials, would be more prone to having premarital sex, acting out violently, and devil worship (Riismandel, 2019).

Humanities

During the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, Dungeons & Dragons was considered a “dangerous religious movement masquerading as entertainment” (Laycock, 2015). However, this opinion dissipated throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, as Dungeons & Dragons became more of a fixture in popular culture. It is present in multiple areas of the humanities, including education, gaming, film and television, and, with the advent of the internet, has found a major following down that avenue as well.

The concepts found in Dungeons & Dragons can be brought through in education. Creating stories and writing adventures supplement written communication and reading comprehension, as well as socialization from the collaborative nature of this storytelling, and the focus on mathematics and logic aid in the development of problem solving skills. (Fitzpatrick, 2019) These education practices aren’t limited to the classroom, and those who are well-versed in Dungeons & Dragons can make a comfortable living using it to tutor younger students with these educational practices (Greene, 2019). These skills are also some of the most sought-after for employers, and, as Dungeons & Dragons has gotten more popular, the knowledge that a potential employee plays this game indicates that they likely have said skills.

As the most popular pioneer of tabletop role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons has inspired multiple other games of this type, including Blackmoor and Greyhawk from the creators of Dungeons & Dragons, Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, respectively, in the years since its first publication. It also inspired a campaign game, Mistigar, which had approximately 30 players nationwide in the late 1970s who all either participated in the games in person or called and wrote in to the game’s creator, Deanna Sue White, with their character’s actions. (Laycock, 2015) This method has also been used in live-action role-play (LARP) groups, such as those centered around the World of Darkness system, as a way to maintain character continuity. It also still finds use in the Dungeons & Dragons communities, where it is known as “downtime,” and allows for individual character development and one-on-one interaction with the DM. Over the coming years, other games would spring up as well, including Deadlands, which was heavily inspired by Dungeons & Dragons and set in the American Civil War era, hearkening back to the earlier days of tabletop gaming, with the focus more heavily present on tactics and wargaming (Moll, 2020).

Dungeons & Dragons has also been present across films and television. In 1982, the Steven Spielberg film E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial featured the main character’s older brother, Michael, playing Wizards & Warlocks with his friends. Originally, they were meant to be playing Dungeons & Dragons directly; however, because the set included money on the table for the pizza the group had ordered, Gygax insisted that the name be changed away from his IP in order to prevent misunderstandings around a perceived gambling element. A film based on the game was released in 2000 with the blessings of Tactical Studies Rules, though this was panned by most viewers and currently holds an IMDb rating of 3.6 out of 10 stars (IMDb.com). Dungeons & Dragons also plays a supporting role for the main characters of The Big Bang Theory, who are all avid players.With the advent of the internet and social media, Dungeons & Dragons is able to find a wider fanbase, and become a staple in modern gaming society. Sites like DNDBeyond, which offers digital copies of all the sourcebooks in 5th edition and a place to store character sheets utilizing these sources, and social applications like Discord, with servers dedicated to finding players for online groups and playing over voice and video chat, offer the ability for further distribution to increase the number of players.

This Week’s Conclusion

Examining popular culture artifacts such as Dungeons & Dragons through the lenses of history, the humanities, as well as natural and social sciences aids in understanding  the impact of popular culture on personal and professional experiences. On a personal level, as Lapointe said in her article, studying popular culture through the social science lens allows for reflection on subconscious prejudices, such as the racial issues found with the orcs and drow (Lapointe, 2020). Professionally, examining these artifacts shows skills that can be developed by participating in the artifact. For instance, as Fitzpatrick wrote in her article, Dungeons & Dragons builds and reinforces basic math skills like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division (Fitzpatrick, 2019). Studying popular culture artifacts also allows us to examine our own histories. For example, looking back on the uproar around Dungeons & Dragons during the years of the Satanic Panic allows most of society—fundamentalist religious practitioners often excluded—to recognize the dangers of allowing religion to impose their morals onto the whole population.

When examining popular culture artifacts with scholarly research, it’s tempting to find texts that glorify the artifact you’re studying. However, that method does not allow for a critical examination. It’s important to realize that nothing in popular culture is infallible. Dungeons & Dragons is no different, with controversy upon controversy dating back to its earliest days. In the Satanic Panic, this included the idea that Dungeons & Dragons players were led astray into devil worship and would be more inclined to violent behavior—a claim that was never proven (Laycock, 2015). Today, those controversies include the lack of diversity and the implicit racism in Dungeons & Dragons races, with the typically dark-skinned orcs and Drow being coded as evil and the lighter-skinned elves and dwarves being coded as good. By acknowledging these types of responses to popular culture, we are able to create change, as with the re-coding of these races in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, released in 2020. (Lapointe, 2020)

Join me next week as we journey further into the history and cultural relevance of Dungeons & Dragons, this time with a focus on the social and natural sciences!

Works Cited

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Greene, T. (2019). This teacher earns six figures teaching Dungeons & Dragons classes online. Retrieved 15 March 2021, from https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2019/05/21/this-teacher-earns-six-figures-teaching-dungeons-dragons-classes-online/

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