I was brought as a kid to fear D&D. It was evil, of the devil, and made you do things that weren’t very nice.
I was told that someone playing D&D ended up killing his family, although I was never given a source.
I figure that last story was urban myth but have not been able to find any sites to support my conclusion.
LOL…guess I was supposed to ask a question.
So anyone hear this story or is it just indigenous to my small town? Any sites confirming this as an urban myth are also welcome.
RPGers are no more likely to kill their families than compulsive gamblers, church goin folks, or veteranarians. D&D gets a lot of crap from people who are too afraid to really check out what it is really about.
Go here to find out what D&D players have to say on the matter: » Christians and D&D
http://boards.wizards.com/rpg/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=135;t=014405
Christianity and stuff.
http://boards.wizards.com/rpg/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=222;t=000864
and finally,
» Run for the hills! It’s a philosophical question!
http://boards.wizards.com/rpg/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=165;t=001737
These should help you out.
When I lived in Boulder in the 1980’s, and played D&D, I recall some role playing two teenagers (brothers?) had a murder-suicide pact. Being afraid of D&D for this kind of thing makes less sense than blaming love for murder-suicide pacts.
You were tought to hate and feer D&D because of the crazy RW Fundies who believe that anything remotly involving mythical beasts, demons,gods and other typical non-biblcal ideas would put your mortal soul in danger. I guess knowing the enemy is not a prority…
However a vast majority of geeks have taken that chance, and enjoyed the whole notion of Roll-Playing Games. (I myself plan on burning in hell for playing Mage:The Ascention)
I can’t help you on the Q, but it sure sounds like a myth.It can’t be any less believable than Judas Priest or Ozzy Osbourne getting sued for causing suicides.
Even if the assertion is true (i.e. that a D&D player did murder his family), it hardly proves the causation that all D&D players are more likely to commit such heinous acts. You may as well also state that all wearers of blue shirts (or whatever color shirt the murder was wearing that day) are more likely to murder their families.
Zev Steinhardt
Y’know, it’s not even on Snopes…
For the record, I played D&D all the time when I was a kid, and I have never yet killed myself or anyone else. But who knows what tomorrow may bring?
In my experience, if you play D&D you run the serious risk of becoming a creative person with good spatial memory, problem-solving skills, and a decided lack of free time in which to cause trouble.
The story you heard is not limited to your small town and I’ve heard it a lot. There was even a TV movie back in the 80s about a D&D player who went off the deep end. However, I don’t think anyone can show that D&D had any causal effect and most of these stories are just knee-jerk allegations from people who fear anything they don’t understand. The same people are now condemning Harry Potter, as if getting kids to read long novels was the work of the devil.
I suggest you put down that +2 long sword before you get any crazy ideas 
I used to tell people that very few people played D&D, & very many played baseball. Therefore, baseball drove people crazy. When they told me “that doesn’t make any sense” I said that the claims about D&D didn’t either.
A game can’t drive anybody crazy. Mental Health problems are brought about by–
[list=1]
[li]Genetics[/li][li]Extreme, long-term stress, such as bankruptcy, war, etc.[/li][li]Child Abuse[/li][li]Sexual Abuse, often when the victim was a child[/li][li]Substance abuse, like booze or drugs[/li][li]Neurological illness, like certain brain tumors.[/li][li]Possibly neuroviruses.[/li][/list=1]
:eek: Tom Hanks was in that movie!
I believe this covers the case you are thinking about . 16 year old Irving Pulling killed himself in June of 1982, apparenly as the result of being “cursed” in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. His mother later started a campaign against the game though it appears that Pulling was fairly mentally unstable anyway. The article I reference above gives a good examination of the subject.
Greg Stafford, Loren Wiseman and Michael Stackpole wrote an extremely good article titled Games Don’t Kill which also covered the Pulling case and similar incidents. Unfortunately, I have just spent the past half hour on Google and can’t find a copy on-line. I’ll keep trying to find it as I thought it was extremely well done.
The real danger of D&D:
Paper cuts.
–Cliffy
Mazes and Monsters is the movie with Tom Hanks.
The biggest danger is that the game can be expensive as hell, with all the add ons and rule supplements.
Actually, I always thought the biggest danger was back strain from lugging around all the books. 
Although I suppose now that we’re in the digital age and you can put the books on CD-ROMs and PDAs that it’s not nearly as great a danger anymore.
Zev Steinhardt
A favorite foil of ours in Great Debates, tract writer Jack Chick, wrote a tract on D&D like games nearly 20 years ago. I’m sure it perpetuates the UL you may have heard.
Well, once I killed a guy for touching my dice. Does that count?
Didn’t find the article I was looking for but I did find this one. The Pulling Report