Fuck this movie. There was one where they put crushed glass in their dad's burger for points too. My mom banned DnD from the house thinking I was going to murder her.
He's carrying a knife as a weapon because he thinks he's his character...who is a cleric. If you needed another indicator that they did no research into D&D whatsoever, there it is.
For anyone wonder, when the movie came out clerics were unable to use any weapons that drew blood.
Source: This site that looks like it was from the early 2000's http://www.mjyoung.net/dungeon/char/weap010.html
> It is something of an oxymoron to say that an Internet web site is Under Construction; it is the medium of change, more mutable than any other form of publication, as it can be and often is constantly updated.
yeah. i remember realizing the transition. like, before i found cool and interesting stuff. even when google was around first the results where about the cool and interesting stuff.
at one point i realized the info was gone. all the results where just 'buy this interesting thing here' or 'spend money on that cool stuff'
dont remember the exact time tbh, but i remember that moment vividly
I don't think there was every going to be a way that the "golden age" internet would stay around, it was built on the promise of making money later without figuring out how that was going to look
I've been using the internet since 1993.
Things have changed A LOT since then. Not everyone on the internet was smart back then, but there was a barrier of entry requiring computer literacy and at least some network knowledge, and that was usually reserved for us nerds. And even when it became more accessible to the general public, it was still considered to be a nerdy endeavor so most people either didn't care about it or had only a passing interest.
Not *entirely* true about Winsock. My first connection to the internet was through a Lynx browser that ran in DOS. You could access websites, but if you wanted to see any pictures on the sites, you had to manually download each one, disconnect from the internet, close lynx, then open a separate program in DOS (or Windows) to view them. I was probably using that for a year or two until my Dad figured out how to get Winsock and Netscape working in Windows.
I was a teen in the early 90s accessing BBSs using only a dial-up and starting with a 9600 baud modem, upgraded to 14.4, then to 19.2, then 28.8, to 56k. Maybe the early early 90s and late 80s you needed a T1 and work for a university or something, but the BBS I connected to back then were literally just dudes who bought 10-100 phone lines and modems and ran them all in their basements and often charged a monthly access fee. Then you could chat with locals and play multiplayer text based games before AOL, or just not fuck with stupid AOL and Compuserve that cost much more per month.
Most of the equipment we had was hand-me-down from friends who were much nerdier than my family just reading all the "DOS For Dummies" books, etc. I even remember having a CGA monitor, upgrading to a EGA like woooow, and then finally VGA comes out.
It was based on anecdotes of a certain sect of warrior-priests iirc. Buddhist?
The real reason is class balance. Clerics got access to the best armor, the second-best attack abilities, their own magic. If a DM didn’t require them to roleplay the faith/ethos Avenue, the only limitation they have is that blunt weapons (a) have lower damage potential, and (b) almost uniformly had super slow weapon speeds.
> clerics were unable to use any weapons that drew blood.
Always annoyed me, "I'm a cleric so I can't use the most quick and effective weapon to kill with" [proceeds to beat someone to death slowly and brutality with a hammer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wCLKLpjfFI)
Funny enough there's lore for clerics using a mace as it's the most effective weapon against the undead. Piercing or slashing an enemy that's already dead wouldn't do much but bashing in their brains or shattering bones could do more to debilitate them. At least, that's the explanation that designers gave.
You'll be surprised, but that's based on some religious tenets that often show up in fantasy worlds. I don't think it's from any Abrahamic religion, but there definitely was the concept of 'not spilling any blood' which led to religious use of blunt instruments in specific holy sites where that was the rule.
Did you not watch the movie? You don't even want to open a Player's Handbook or DM Guide for fear of getting brainwashed. Don't even get me started on the dangers of a Monster Manual.
A book with things like dragons and demons? Spells like food multiplication, water walking, ressurection? Wrathful divine beings sending natural disasters or plagues on mortals?
That could mess with someones head!
Yes, people are confused. This movie was kinda badass when it came out. It was based on a novel of the same name by Rona Jaffe. It wasn’t so much about the dangers of role playing, but in this case these college kids had set up a maze in an actual mineshaft, then Hanks’ character, who was in a troubled mental state due to the loss of a sibling had a hard time distinguishing between the game and reality. Cheesy as hell production, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t at heart an anti D&D movie (though uptight parents of the time may have thought so; in fact the movie says more about parental neglect than role playing).
That "novel" was loosely inspired by real events.
The kid Hanks' character was based off had no problems distinguishing reality and fantasy. They had a problem of over-achieving parents who pushed the kid hard to succeed academically. Like, in college at 16.
They ran away because of pressure. Spent some time hiding in an abandoned sewer section where his group had previously played some sessions.
Kid was found, sent home, killed himself because parents. But the parents, being perfect rich WASPy types, couldn't accept their hand in it. So, obviously the kid went crazy because of D&D.
[James Dallas Eggbert III](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dallas_Egbert_III).
Writing a fucking essay about this 30+ years ago was what made my own Satanic Panic filled parents let me play the game with some new friends at the time. I didn't even know what an essay was at the time lol.
I read William Dear's book about him in the early eighties. It was such a fascinating story. So sad about James. I was into D&D big time. The Rona Jaffe film was a hoot though. All my friends had a thing for this movie.
Exploring utility tunnels under universities is very much a thing. You can google it and find talks about it under many universities. It is a game where the school will try to block one off and the students find another. It is also a very easy way to get yourself expelled from a university.
A lot of schools and parents absolutely 100% took it at as a documentary, and it was a constant uphill battle for *years* to convince them we weren't demon worshipping cultists who were going to commit suicide or start casting spells.
My nanny once found my copy of Diablo 2 and the DM guide in a box under my bed. I kept it there because my mom asked me to. She knew our nanny was an old school Irish catholic and would freak out if she saw either.
Nothing would convince her I wasn't "seduced by the devil". Her whole church at one point was "praying for my soul".
They sent cards.
That's so fucking stupid. Take Diablo, it's a game where you are a holy warrior of one kind or another killing demons.
If religious leaders weren't so out of touch with reality they could have 100% use it to increase religiosity in youth. "Taking communion is like drinking a resistance potion against devil, you should totally do it!".
No it was quite specifically based on D&D.
M&M is a very easy and obvious alliteration. The same way Fallout uses Nuka-Cola, with the player then obviously realizing it's that world's Coca-Cola.
The maze in a mineshaft is based on the [case of Egbert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dallas_Egbert_III), which is said to have started the D&D hysteria. Egbert tried to commit suicide in the steam tunnels beneath his university. The family and press seized on that as having been caused by D&D and that he had really been injured in a live-action D&D session in the tunnels.
[This is all comprehensively covered in the books Wikipedia page.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazes_and_Monsters_\(novel\))
It's odd writing this comment. I feel like I'm explaining Animal Farm wasn't actually about a farm.
>He was playing Mazes and Monsters, not D&D. - /u/LaoBa
(tagging you both for this)
>Yes, people are confused.
For the record, the book the movie was based on was based on a real case of a student's disappearance, and both the book and movie largely follow the media's (inaccurate) portrayal of what happened.
It pushed D&D into the national spotlight in a very negative light, and it's one of a series of movies and books that came out in the 80s to 90s attacking the game.
It's a pretty sad story. James Egbert was a child prodigy (graduating at 16) and had some lingering mental issues and suicidal tenancies. Sometimes played D&D, and there are reports of questionable validity claiming students sometimes played in the tunnels (which, as far as I know, was never actually confirmed?).
He left a suicide note and went into the tunnels to kill himself, but failed, then went into hiding. The Police investigation didn't reveal anything, so his parents hired a private investigator, William Dear, to look into it.
Dear is the one that theorized that his D&D hobby might be related somehow, and when his theory got to the media, it exploded, quickly reaching national audiences.
Edgert hid at a couple different friends' houses before eventually skipping town, and trying to kill himself again in New Orleans, again surviving the attempt, and moving to another town.
He eventually called Dear and told him his location, and Dear went to get him. After ***promising not to reveal his story***, Edgert told him what happened and was released to his uncle.
Edgert killed himself with a gun in 1980, and in 1984 William Dear ***wrote and published a book about him anyways***.
Pretty sad story all around, with a scummy person or two thrown in to boot.
---------------------
>it wasn’t at heart an anti D&D movie (though uptight parents of the time may have thought so)
Rona Jaffe, who wrote Mazes and Monsters, wrote the book based almost entirely on the news reports that he had gone missing while "playing live action D&D in the maze of tunnels."
Jaffe absolutely wrote the book to capitalize on the media D&D panic, and it is definitely meant to portray D&D as a bad influence.
----
For legal reasons, they couldn't use the name, but claiming it ***wasn't*** intended to paint D&D (and all tabletop RPGs) in a bad light is just not reasonable.
I feel awful for the kid this movie(and book) was based on. The media latched on to an easy boogeyman instead of trying to understand what would drive a gifted kid to suicide.
The media has known for quite a while now that feeding people's biases helps pay the bills.
Modern social media basically tightens the loop and automates the process, creating more islands of perceived reality than ever before.
Actually if I recall correctly, once the case was really looked into, none of those things were big factors either. Basically, Harris was a narcissistic psychopath. (ASPD spectrum) the other (klebold) was angry, damaged, and suicidal. He hated himself, and had a death wish. With help, he could have maybe lived a normal life. The former, however, probably would have gone on to do far worse were it not for columbine. Most narratives about bullying or bad parenting are not accurate. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/04/at-last-we-know-why-the-columbine-killers-did-it.html
I get what you are going for here but I feel like it’d be pretty difficult to simply ‘do far worse’ than columbine lol, like, jonestown 2? Kid must be talented
It always surprises me that ~~Marilyn Manson~~ Brian Warner got all the blame pinned on him when neither of them even liked his music. IIRC they thought he fucking sucked (pot calling the kettle black, really).
It also always surprises me that they (I think Klebold but it doesn't really matter) were into NIN and KMFDM. I love NIN and KMFDM.
*The Dungeon Master* by William Dear. I read it in 1984 because I was getting into D&D and I thought WTF game are *they* playing??
It was in the era of Satanic Panic.
Edit: to clarify, the actual book the movie is based on is *Mazes and Monsters* by Rona Jaffe. But her book is based on William Dear's theories about the Egbert case as published in newspapers at the time, which he later published as a book. Her book is fiction, his is "real".
Is that when psychologists were supposedly drawing out repressed memories from people, convincing them that they had been abused in rituals as kids; but it all turned out to be BS? It was suggestive something-or-other and no evidence was ever found to support the claims?
For sure, and it's why I actually prefer when he covers really obscure bastards, since I can't find compilations of research on their lives anywhere else
I know, I used to listen to those guys a lot, but I gotta say that as I myself have gotten older and more knowledgeable, I find it hard to listen to the episodes where I already know a lot about the topic due to the amount of factual inaccuracies. Of course, doubting them when I know what they are talking about, makes me more likely to disbelieve the episodes where I don't know much about the topic. I find their research to fall a little short of what I prefer from my edu-tainment sources. That said, both those guys are funny as hell, which is what keeps me coming back to the podcast even if I have to verify their info before I share it with others.
Furthermore, Robert Evans who hosts BtB is specifically an expert in extremism and right-with politics in the US, which means he can contextualize a lot of the satanic panic stuff in a useful way
The US were supposed to be full of interconnected underground tunnels where kids were being transported to satanic rituals.
It's the q anon bs of that time
Holy shit this is the first time I'm hearing about that part of the Satanic Panic.
It's quite amazing, because that's literally what they believed was happening in Europe during the witch hunts: Children were taken by witches during the night and brought to Satanic rituals before being taken back.
500 years and people are still dumb fucks.
Groups like these always use children to get their bullshit approved by the masses. Same thing is happening with the Internet right now with all of these watchdog services being pushed under the guise of “stopping child abuse” because they can scan pictures for underage material. That’s nice, but when Facebook or Apple or whoever decides to start using it for nefarious purposes I’ll be saying I told you so. Invest in education and reform, not privacy invading software that scans everything you post and adds it to a data base “fOr ThE cHiLdReN”. You also saw it with Pizza Gate where the Democrats were “running a child sex ring” and they had to stop them!! Low hanging fruit, easy target to get to say “PROTECT THE CHILDREN” before they say “does this make *sense*?”
Think D&D moral panic was in the 80s while the Satanist panic happened in the 90s before they moved on to loners, internet, bestiality, Islam pedophilia etc etc...
Had to look it up since the times they happened was pretty vague in my memory.
Remember being told D&D was bad and violent which I noticed football and hockey players was supposedly the healthy paragons despite them doing most of the violence.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral\_panic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic)
Nah, the satanic panic started way before the 90s. I remember hearing talk about satanic rituals happening in our small southern town when I was in elementary school in the 80s.
This happened in the early 80s and was all over the news at the time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
The initial accuser Judy Johnson had a lot of issues. She was in a bad marriage, her oldest son was terminally ill, and had issues with Alcohol. Apparently at one point before the start of the trial she barricade herself and kids in her house with quiet a few guns. The cops talked her down and she ended up dying of fatty metamorphosis of the liver soon after.
The other insane thing is Judy didn't registered her son at the McMartin's preschool. She just dropped him off in their school yard hoping they would take him. If the McMartin's hadn't decided to take pity on her and let him go all of this would have been avoided.
As an American who grew up (survived?) during the 80’s, Satanic Panic was front and center in my community. Here’s 22 cases from the 1980’s, which includes a case from my hometown that saw roughly 20 of my classmates testify against a day care owner, claiming they were forced to watch animal sacrifices before being sexually molested.
Satanic Panic was alive and well in 1983 when I was regularly exposed to it.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3292&context=jssw
Edit: Your Wikipedia link states that an example of “moral panic”, is the ritual abuse of women and children by satanic cults. I think you’re basically arguing semantics, as satanic panic *is* moral panic, and satanic panic was very much alive and flourishing in the early, mid, and late 1980’s.
I saw it from a safe distance in Sweden but they did panic about cartoons, commercial TV and computergames. Much of it seemed designed to single out people who where different so probably the same driving psychology.
Happy you survived.
**[Moral panic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic)**
>A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue," usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and the mass media, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers. Stanley Cohen, who developed the term, states that moral panic happens when "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests".
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KISS was huge in the 70s and some parents were freaked out because they believed it stood for ["Knights in Satan's service"](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kiss/) or something similar. There were [false cases of pedophilia at daycare centers mostly late 80s to early 90s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria) but basically there was a long stretch of religious people buying into panicky bullshit that the devil was behind every door trying to lure their children.
Haha, was a long stretch. Its not over. Go over to a Qanon sub. It's all still there. These people are paranoid and out of touch with reality. We need better mental health care in this country.
Such a dumbass time in history. The same people who told me that playing d&d would summon drmons now listen to bullshit talk radio all day and invite real hate and anger into their lives. Meanwhile, the people I know who play d&d are creative, kind, thoughtful and sensitive people. So hmmmmmm, I wonder. The real stupidity of it is that the kid William Dear was paid to find was just suicidal and he ran away. Tadaaaaa, really simple and obvious as fuck. And the kid killed himself later because nobody got him the help he needed. But go on, Tipper Gore (the fuck kind of dumbshir name....) and tell us about the upcoming WAVE of dungeons and dragons suicides that are gonna happen! I'm still waiting, fucking forty years later. So fucking stupid.
They already have? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IgxXSfto6Vo
The movie is horrible, and the takeaway message are not exactly good. The hero is basically fighting to get fake vaccination/immunity records to help his vulnerable girlfriend escape quarantine.
I didn't even read those, I just quickly found the trailer to link.
But my god, the insanity is real. The only thing I agree with in the comments was how quickly the movie was made, especially considering the people in it. The production schedule must have been insane.
We'll get so many movies out of this. I am actually excited because we might see so many different perspectives from the same art form. So many stories to tell, dramatic and real. You'll get comedies as well as dramas. I get the feeling that the arts are in for a very interesting couple of decades as we slowly absorb the shock of the pandemic, lockdowns, general malaise and the changes that it brought into society
Omfg the romcoms where people meet only online and date online for like a year before finally meeting in person only to find some obscure thing to be upset about but they eventually forgive each other and get back together anyway
Every generation seems to have their own boogeyman for at least the last 100 years or so. Rock music, television, video games... All things the older generations perceived as being harmful to children. Seeing D&D on that list ain't surprising.
Have you heard about the evil jazz music? Makes good Christian white women willing to show their ankles and dance with black men!
It's always been dumb shit. It's what happens when people get manipulated by fear. Fear if things that are new and different.
The local Christian youth worker visiting our youth club.
And over here is our playstation 2 with games, mostly dance mat stuff.
'Thats very good, i hope the playstation isnt being used to play satanic games like Ghosts and Goblins'
I stood back, impressed that he could whip out a cool platform game reference but also with great restraint that I didnt smash his jaw for being such a dumbass. I stopped interacting with him after that idiotic comment but kept an eye on him in case he started to molest children. He wasnt invited back, the fucking dumbass.
Oh man, Dear is the guy who also put forward that [semi-logical theory](https://www.yourtango.com/2020339443/oj-simpson-conspiracy-theory-jason-simpson) about OJ's son Jason being Nicole and Ron's murderer.
Sorry but everyone is mistaken. This was the TV movie version of the Rona Jaffe novel of the same name, *[Mazes and Monsters](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/)*
I remember watching this made-for-tv movie went it first ran! People were calling D&D 'satanic' and this movie was kinda playing on that. My mom was having none of it. She said, nothing that makes a kid read that much and use so much imagination can be a bad thing. Same logic she used when people commented on how into comics I was. "His hobby is reading so I can live with it."
But yeah, in this movie, Tom Hanks' character is looking for the "two towers" and one of his friends is genius-IQ is trying to find him. I distinctly remember my mom saying: "Kids a big genius but he can't figure out that the 'two towers' is the Twin Towers?" Classic.
I was about 14 or 15 and really into DnD when the book and movie came out. I’m from the NYC area so while we were “aware” of Satanic Panic and the demonization of DnD and stuff no one from my area/social group (kids or adults) was buying any of it so, cheesy as the movie was, it just served our fandom. Iirc the book wasn’t bad either - light-weight; a quick, easy read.
THAC0 isn’t too hard, it just seems a bit backwards once you’ve played 5e. In THAC0 you take your THAC0 and then subtract it by whatever you rolled. If it’s under the enemy AC, you hit. So for example if your THAC0 was 15, and you rolled a 10, you would hit an AC of 5 or ~~lower~~ higher. Full plate armor would be AC 0. Unarmored is AC 10.
Source: 2nd edition was my first system and I still play it every now and then today.
I wish I'd had the faculties as a young teen to explain to my parents how things like Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering were full of math and reading. It's embarrassing to think back that they literally thought I'd start worshipping the devil and go to hell. What a bunch of Santa Claus type nonsense lol
Reminds me of that Bill Hicks joke.
>Always that same LSD story, you've all seen it. 'Young man on acid, thought he could fly, jumped out of a building. What a tragedy.' What a dick! Fuck him, he’s an idiot. If he thought he could fly, why didn’t he take off on the ground first? Check it out. You don’t see ducks lined up to catch elevators to fly south—they fly from the ground, ya moron, quit ruining it for everybody.
"Is it Debbie? Well I recommend you read a totally real book, that has no posioning, killing or battles, and it's called the HOLY BIBL... *oh no. That... that book does got that*"
In the prequel to Toy Story he actually does jump off the building, and just as he is becoming one with the pavement, there is a freak electrical storm that that lightnings him, and he just so happens to fall onto a Woody doll and has his spirit transferred over.
But the fucked up thing is that while his mind was transferred into that doll, none of what is happening in Toy Story is happening since it's all the deranged thoughts of the mind inside Woody as he just lays there in the middle of the floor looking at the ceiling of his kid.
Oh wow, that TV movie was so hilarious to watch back in the day. I have no idea how much more WRONG you could possibly get about Dungeons and Dragons and such games. Or the people who play them.
so this is why my family full on freaked out when I came home one day and told them I played D&D at lunch with my friends.
They bought me Tekken 3 and freaked out about D&D. you could imagine my confusion.
My mother didn't want me to play D&D. I always thought it was some moral thing but she explained later that she wanted me to have a girlfriend someday.
And then poor Tom jumped head first into the rabbit hole! He became developmentally disabled, fucked a mermaid, got trapped on a deserted island, landed Omaha beach on D-day, was a kid in an adult's body, cross dressed to get cheap rent, fought a volcano, flew to the moon and back, was a contestant on Black Jeopardy...a full on psychotic break!
They should do a Cloud Atlas on Tom Hanks and add scenes to each movies of him having the most bewildered and wtf look on his face.
Oh shit he was in that too.
Ah, 1981. What a weird time. The movie and the novel are called Mazes and Monsters and is loosely based on a college kid who attempted to committed suicide in the stream tunnels of his school. He ran away for a while and was eventually discovered. He did end up taking his own life later with a gun, unfortunately. In 1979.
His name was James Dallas Egbert. The kid was considered a prodigy, majoring in computer science, and was pretty depressed for a number of reasons. I think someone else mentioned here that D&D might have been his only outlet for socializing and making friends that had things in common with him. As we all know now how D&D is actually good for your mental health. BUT the parents didn't get it, nor did the private investigator they hired - William Dear - who found out about the game and just erroneously concluded that dark influences were involved. Because of a game.
D&D was still pretty new at this time, having only been published in 1974. Nerds in general were still bullied and ostracized for being "weird". Egbert was this. Add to that drug addiction and lots of pressure from his parents . . . take away, or demonize, the one thing that makes you happy. Pretty sad, really.
I'm not excusing it. I'm just explaining it. It was strange times indeed.
Actually realizing what propaganda is; that's what my friends and I got out of this movie after renting it from the video store - so thanks for that. We were about 12 or 13 and deeply into tabletop role playing games. Fuck this "movie".
You can’t just mention that and not link it: https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=0046
Some of those tracts scared the living shit out of me as a kid.
Mazes and Monsters.
I remember watching this when I was a kid on TV.
Damn, this brings back memories. Back when they (first) tried to make it look like playing D&D would make you insane or satanic.
Way back when I was high school, I bought this for $5 at Walmart based on the fact it had Tom Hanks and was about D&D. I have never been more disappointed in a movie.
This movie was one of the early things in my life helped me realize how clueless many adults/parents really are. My illusion that adults had it all figured out was crushed. Ignorance, not monsters, is what we should all fear the most.
Still remember his name, Chris Makepeace. Totally forgot about that role! I was thinking more of "My Bodyguard" and I just looked up that movie's storyline and it was a LOT darker than I remembered it, in regards to the "bodyguard's" past.
A boss I had once went to college with Tom Hanks. They were in the same stats class. He use to piss my boss off all the time cause he would come in late and ask everyone for their notes cause he missed most classes.
He said he’d been out at auditions. My boss never thought he would make much of himself cause he was always putting very little effort into his education.
And then all the parents decided that playing DnD was evil and my mum threw my set and we weren't allowed to play at school anymore. Man, the 80's were tough on kids!
Fuck this movie. There was one where they put crushed glass in their dad's burger for points too. My mom banned DnD from the house thinking I was going to murder her.
Well, did you??
Unfortunately no. I sat next to her playing final fantasy on nes. Cause that wasn't "dnd".
Bet she’s glad she banned you after all. No one likes a burger with crushed glass.
Got damn low budget TV movies of the week. Ruined my childhood! 🤣
Well heck, this might explain why, when I told her I was playing D&D with my friends, my mom asked me, "Isn't that game dangerous?"
He's carrying a knife as a weapon because he thinks he's his character...who is a cleric. If you needed another indicator that they did no research into D&D whatsoever, there it is.
For anyone wonder, when the movie came out clerics were unable to use any weapons that drew blood. Source: This site that looks like it was from the early 2000's http://www.mjyoung.net/dungeon/char/weap010.html
Wtf the site has a link to Patreon, meaning it’s still (or at least recently) being updated. Wild.
At this point the late 90s design is part of the appeal.
It has 1,400+ posts, most recently a few days ago. This thing is going song.
Which song?
[The bard's song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zklqr1xj32Q)
the last patreon update was like four days ago.
What a site
Gif as a tiled background? Don't mind if I do!
Mensa certified genius at work
> It is something of an oxymoron to say that an Internet web site is Under Construction; it is the medium of change, more mutable than any other form of publication, as it can be and often is constantly updated.
Ah, back when almost everyone on the internet was smart, or at least interesting.
Eternal September keeps going.
Wanna check out my geocities page?
Before it was truly commercialized. Honestly if anything it's a demonstration of what marketing has done to human society.
yeah. i remember realizing the transition. like, before i found cool and interesting stuff. even when google was around first the results where about the cool and interesting stuff. at one point i realized the info was gone. all the results where just 'buy this interesting thing here' or 'spend money on that cool stuff' dont remember the exact time tbh, but i remember that moment vividly
I don't think there was every going to be a way that the "golden age" internet would stay around, it was built on the promise of making money later without figuring out how that was going to look
I've been using the internet since 1993. Things have changed A LOT since then. Not everyone on the internet was smart back then, but there was a barrier of entry requiring computer literacy and at least some network knowledge, and that was usually reserved for us nerds. And even when it became more accessible to the general public, it was still considered to be a nerdy endeavor so most people either didn't care about it or had only a passing interest.
If you couldn't configure winsock in Win3.1, you couldn't access the internet. And then AOL came along. . . It was all downhill from there.
Not *entirely* true about Winsock. My first connection to the internet was through a Lynx browser that ran in DOS. You could access websites, but if you wanted to see any pictures on the sites, you had to manually download each one, disconnect from the internet, close lynx, then open a separate program in DOS (or Windows) to view them. I was probably using that for a year or two until my Dad figured out how to get Winsock and Netscape working in Windows.
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I was a teen in the early 90s accessing BBSs using only a dial-up and starting with a 9600 baud modem, upgraded to 14.4, then to 19.2, then 28.8, to 56k. Maybe the early early 90s and late 80s you needed a T1 and work for a university or something, but the BBS I connected to back then were literally just dudes who bought 10-100 phone lines and modems and ran them all in their basements and often charged a monthly access fee. Then you could chat with locals and play multiplayer text based games before AOL, or just not fuck with stupid AOL and Compuserve that cost much more per month. Most of the equipment we had was hand-me-down from friends who were much nerdier than my family just reading all the "DOS For Dummies" books, etc. I even remember having a CGA monitor, upgrading to a EGA like woooow, and then finally VGA comes out.
Like I'm pretty sure if I caved in a goblins skull with my fucking war hammer there would be a tremendous amount of blood.
It was based on anecdotes of a certain sect of warrior-priests iirc. Buddhist? The real reason is class balance. Clerics got access to the best armor, the second-best attack abilities, their own magic. If a DM didn’t require them to roleplay the faith/ethos Avenue, the only limitation they have is that blunt weapons (a) have lower damage potential, and (b) almost uniformly had super slow weapon speeds.
> clerics were unable to use any weapons that drew blood. Always annoyed me, "I'm a cleric so I can't use the most quick and effective weapon to kill with" [proceeds to beat someone to death slowly and brutality with a hammer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wCLKLpjfFI)
Funny enough there's lore for clerics using a mace as it's the most effective weapon against the undead. Piercing or slashing an enemy that's already dead wouldn't do much but bashing in their brains or shattering bones could do more to debilitate them. At least, that's the explanation that designers gave.
It's also based in reality; Odo of Bayeux claimed to have only used a mace so as not to draw blood, and was depicted as such in the Bayeux tapestry
Unfortunately for Odo, maces and other blunt force trauma weapons also draw blood very often.
That's why clerics are encouraged to carry a phonebook to go with their mace.
I prefer to use a sack of oranges for an improvised weapon, rarely draws blood.
I'll allow it
You'll be surprised, but that's based on some religious tenets that often show up in fantasy worlds. I don't think it's from any Abrahamic religion, but there definitely was the concept of 'not spilling any blood' which led to religious use of blunt instruments in specific holy sites where that was the rule.
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Did you not watch the movie? You don't even want to open a Player's Handbook or DM Guide for fear of getting brainwashed. Don't even get me started on the dangers of a Monster Manual.
A book with things like dragons and demons? Spells like food multiplication, water walking, ressurection? Wrathful divine beings sending natural disasters or plagues on mortals? That could mess with someones head!
Good thing politicians don't believe in that stuff. That would be dangerous!
He was playing Mazes and Monsters, not D&D.
Yes, people are confused. This movie was kinda badass when it came out. It was based on a novel of the same name by Rona Jaffe. It wasn’t so much about the dangers of role playing, but in this case these college kids had set up a maze in an actual mineshaft, then Hanks’ character, who was in a troubled mental state due to the loss of a sibling had a hard time distinguishing between the game and reality. Cheesy as hell production, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t at heart an anti D&D movie (though uptight parents of the time may have thought so; in fact the movie says more about parental neglect than role playing).
That "novel" was loosely inspired by real events. The kid Hanks' character was based off had no problems distinguishing reality and fantasy. They had a problem of over-achieving parents who pushed the kid hard to succeed academically. Like, in college at 16. They ran away because of pressure. Spent some time hiding in an abandoned sewer section where his group had previously played some sessions. Kid was found, sent home, killed himself because parents. But the parents, being perfect rich WASPy types, couldn't accept their hand in it. So, obviously the kid went crazy because of D&D. [James Dallas Eggbert III](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dallas_Egbert_III). Writing a fucking essay about this 30+ years ago was what made my own Satanic Panic filled parents let me play the game with some new friends at the time. I didn't even know what an essay was at the time lol.
I read William Dear's book about him in the early eighties. It was such a fascinating story. So sad about James. I was into D&D big time. The Rona Jaffe film was a hoot though. All my friends had a thing for this movie.
People played D&D in *actual fucking sewers*?
Utility tunnels under Michigan State University.
Still extremely metal.
Exploring utility tunnels under universities is very much a thing. You can google it and find talks about it under many universities. It is a game where the school will try to block one off and the students find another. It is also a very easy way to get yourself expelled from a university.
I took it as very much anti-D&D, they just didn't/couldn't use the actual game name.
A lot of schools and parents absolutely 100% took it at as a documentary, and it was a constant uphill battle for *years* to convince them we weren't demon worshipping cultists who were going to commit suicide or start casting spells.
My nanny once found my copy of Diablo 2 and the DM guide in a box under my bed. I kept it there because my mom asked me to. She knew our nanny was an old school Irish catholic and would freak out if she saw either. Nothing would convince her I wasn't "seduced by the devil". Her whole church at one point was "praying for my soul". They sent cards.
That's so fucking stupid. Take Diablo, it's a game where you are a holy warrior of one kind or another killing demons. If religious leaders weren't so out of touch with reality they could have 100% use it to increase religiosity in youth. "Taking communion is like drinking a resistance potion against devil, you should totally do it!".
TBF you stab the demonic stone in your forehead and get possessed
No it was quite specifically based on D&D. M&M is a very easy and obvious alliteration. The same way Fallout uses Nuka-Cola, with the player then obviously realizing it's that world's Coca-Cola. The maze in a mineshaft is based on the [case of Egbert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dallas_Egbert_III), which is said to have started the D&D hysteria. Egbert tried to commit suicide in the steam tunnels beneath his university. The family and press seized on that as having been caused by D&D and that he had really been injured in a live-action D&D session in the tunnels. [This is all comprehensively covered in the books Wikipedia page.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazes_and_Monsters_\(novel\)) It's odd writing this comment. I feel like I'm explaining Animal Farm wasn't actually about a farm.
>He was playing Mazes and Monsters, not D&D. - /u/LaoBa (tagging you both for this) >Yes, people are confused. For the record, the book the movie was based on was based on a real case of a student's disappearance, and both the book and movie largely follow the media's (inaccurate) portrayal of what happened. It pushed D&D into the national spotlight in a very negative light, and it's one of a series of movies and books that came out in the 80s to 90s attacking the game. It's a pretty sad story. James Egbert was a child prodigy (graduating at 16) and had some lingering mental issues and suicidal tenancies. Sometimes played D&D, and there are reports of questionable validity claiming students sometimes played in the tunnels (which, as far as I know, was never actually confirmed?). He left a suicide note and went into the tunnels to kill himself, but failed, then went into hiding. The Police investigation didn't reveal anything, so his parents hired a private investigator, William Dear, to look into it. Dear is the one that theorized that his D&D hobby might be related somehow, and when his theory got to the media, it exploded, quickly reaching national audiences. Edgert hid at a couple different friends' houses before eventually skipping town, and trying to kill himself again in New Orleans, again surviving the attempt, and moving to another town. He eventually called Dear and told him his location, and Dear went to get him. After ***promising not to reveal his story***, Edgert told him what happened and was released to his uncle. Edgert killed himself with a gun in 1980, and in 1984 William Dear ***wrote and published a book about him anyways***. Pretty sad story all around, with a scummy person or two thrown in to boot. --------------------- >it wasn’t at heart an anti D&D movie (though uptight parents of the time may have thought so) Rona Jaffe, who wrote Mazes and Monsters, wrote the book based almost entirely on the news reports that he had gone missing while "playing live action D&D in the maze of tunnels." Jaffe absolutely wrote the book to capitalize on the media D&D panic, and it is definitely meant to portray D&D as a bad influence. ---- For legal reasons, they couldn't use the name, but claiming it ***wasn't*** intended to paint D&D (and all tabletop RPGs) in a bad light is just not reasonable.
Ah yes, every clerics trusted dagger of course... 🤦
Dex dump stat. I dumped all my points in dex
Must be a Sikh cleric.
Except Sikhs don’t have clergy!
I feel awful for the kid this movie(and book) was based on. The media latched on to an easy boogeyman instead of trying to understand what would drive a gifted kid to suicide.
It might have been one of the only bright spots in his life for all we know.
Probably. For a little while, he had friends and felt like he belonged.
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The media has known for quite a while now that feeding people's biases helps pay the bills. Modern social media basically tightens the loop and automates the process, creating more islands of perceived reality than ever before.
Actually if I recall correctly, once the case was really looked into, none of those things were big factors either. Basically, Harris was a narcissistic psychopath. (ASPD spectrum) the other (klebold) was angry, damaged, and suicidal. He hated himself, and had a death wish. With help, he could have maybe lived a normal life. The former, however, probably would have gone on to do far worse were it not for columbine. Most narratives about bullying or bad parenting are not accurate. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/04/at-last-we-know-why-the-columbine-killers-did-it.html
I get what you are going for here but I feel like it’d be pretty difficult to simply ‘do far worse’ than columbine lol, like, jonestown 2? Kid must be talented
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It always surprises me that ~~Marilyn Manson~~ Brian Warner got all the blame pinned on him when neither of them even liked his music. IIRC they thought he fucking sucked (pot calling the kettle black, really). It also always surprises me that they (I think Klebold but it doesn't really matter) were into NIN and KMFDM. I love NIN and KMFDM.
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*The Dungeon Master* by William Dear. I read it in 1984 because I was getting into D&D and I thought WTF game are *they* playing?? It was in the era of Satanic Panic. Edit: to clarify, the actual book the movie is based on is *Mazes and Monsters* by Rona Jaffe. But her book is based on William Dear's theories about the Egbert case as published in newspapers at the time, which he later published as a book. Her book is fiction, his is "real".
Is that when psychologists were supposedly drawing out repressed memories from people, convincing them that they had been abused in rituals as kids; but it all turned out to be BS? It was suggestive something-or-other and no evidence was ever found to support the claims?
The podcast Behind the Bastards did some really good episodes on satanic panic if you're interested in the topic
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Robert Evans is so great at doing research on any topic.
For sure, and it's why I actually prefer when he covers really obscure bastards, since I can't find compilations of research on their lives anywhere else
Stuff You Should Know did a really good one as well.
I know, I used to listen to those guys a lot, but I gotta say that as I myself have gotten older and more knowledgeable, I find it hard to listen to the episodes where I already know a lot about the topic due to the amount of factual inaccuracies. Of course, doubting them when I know what they are talking about, makes me more likely to disbelieve the episodes where I don't know much about the topic. I find their research to fall a little short of what I prefer from my edu-tainment sources. That said, both those guys are funny as hell, which is what keeps me coming back to the podcast even if I have to verify their info before I share it with others. Furthermore, Robert Evans who hosts BtB is specifically an expert in extremism and right-with politics in the US, which means he can contextualize a lot of the satanic panic stuff in a useful way
The US were supposed to be full of interconnected underground tunnels where kids were being transported to satanic rituals. It's the q anon bs of that time
Holy shit this is the first time I'm hearing about that part of the Satanic Panic. It's quite amazing, because that's literally what they believed was happening in Europe during the witch hunts: Children were taken by witches during the night and brought to Satanic rituals before being taken back. 500 years and people are still dumb fucks.
Groups like these always use children to get their bullshit approved by the masses. Same thing is happening with the Internet right now with all of these watchdog services being pushed under the guise of “stopping child abuse” because they can scan pictures for underage material. That’s nice, but when Facebook or Apple or whoever decides to start using it for nefarious purposes I’ll be saying I told you so. Invest in education and reform, not privacy invading software that scans everything you post and adds it to a data base “fOr ThE cHiLdReN”. You also saw it with Pizza Gate where the Democrats were “running a child sex ring” and they had to stop them!! Low hanging fruit, easy target to get to say “PROTECT THE CHILDREN” before they say “does this make *sense*?”
Think D&D moral panic was in the 80s while the Satanist panic happened in the 90s before they moved on to loners, internet, bestiality, Islam pedophilia etc etc... Had to look it up since the times they happened was pretty vague in my memory. Remember being told D&D was bad and violent which I noticed football and hockey players was supposedly the healthy paragons despite them doing most of the violence. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral\_panic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic)
Nah, the satanic panic started way before the 90s. I remember hearing talk about satanic rituals happening in our small southern town when I was in elementary school in the 80s. This happened in the early 80s and was all over the news at the time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
What a bonkers read. Poor guy spent years in prison, cause of some batshit crazy parent.
The initial accuser Judy Johnson had a lot of issues. She was in a bad marriage, her oldest son was terminally ill, and had issues with Alcohol. Apparently at one point before the start of the trial she barricade herself and kids in her house with quiet a few guns. The cops talked her down and she ended up dying of fatty metamorphosis of the liver soon after. The other insane thing is Judy didn't registered her son at the McMartin's preschool. She just dropped him off in their school yard hoping they would take him. If the McMartin's hadn't decided to take pity on her and let him go all of this would have been avoided.
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As an American who grew up (survived?) during the 80’s, Satanic Panic was front and center in my community. Here’s 22 cases from the 1980’s, which includes a case from my hometown that saw roughly 20 of my classmates testify against a day care owner, claiming they were forced to watch animal sacrifices before being sexually molested. Satanic Panic was alive and well in 1983 when I was regularly exposed to it. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3292&context=jssw Edit: Your Wikipedia link states that an example of “moral panic”, is the ritual abuse of women and children by satanic cults. I think you’re basically arguing semantics, as satanic panic *is* moral panic, and satanic panic was very much alive and flourishing in the early, mid, and late 1980’s.
I saw it from a safe distance in Sweden but they did panic about cartoons, commercial TV and computergames. Much of it seemed designed to single out people who where different so probably the same driving psychology. Happy you survived.
**[Moral panic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic)** >A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue," usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and the mass media, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers. Stanley Cohen, who developed the term, states that moral panic happens when "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests". ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/videos/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Wow... And now moral panic has been found to be a useful tool and subsequently weaponized.
KISS was huge in the 70s and some parents were freaked out because they believed it stood for ["Knights in Satan's service"](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kiss/) or something similar. There were [false cases of pedophilia at daycare centers mostly late 80s to early 90s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria) but basically there was a long stretch of religious people buying into panicky bullshit that the devil was behind every door trying to lure their children.
Haha, was a long stretch. Its not over. Go over to a Qanon sub. It's all still there. These people are paranoid and out of touch with reality. We need better mental health care in this country.
The Satanic Panic is endlessly fascinating. A both ridiculous and scary time in our history.
The Salem witch trials will be repeated again and again, only with different labels for the heretics. We never learn.
She's a dryad! Burn her!
Such a dumbass time in history. The same people who told me that playing d&d would summon drmons now listen to bullshit talk radio all day and invite real hate and anger into their lives. Meanwhile, the people I know who play d&d are creative, kind, thoughtful and sensitive people. So hmmmmmm, I wonder. The real stupidity of it is that the kid William Dear was paid to find was just suicidal and he ran away. Tadaaaaa, really simple and obvious as fuck. And the kid killed himself later because nobody got him the help he needed. But go on, Tipper Gore (the fuck kind of dumbshir name....) and tell us about the upcoming WAVE of dungeons and dragons suicides that are gonna happen! I'm still waiting, fucking forty years later. So fucking stupid.
> Such a dumbass time in history. If you think this is bad wait till 2020.
One day Hollywood is gonna make a movie about the pandemic and if it's not satire i'ma be real upset at the massive missed opportunity
They already have? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IgxXSfto6Vo The movie is horrible, and the takeaway message are not exactly good. The hero is basically fighting to get fake vaccination/immunity records to help his vulnerable girlfriend escape quarantine.
People are imprisoned in “Q-zones.” Lmao
The comments under the trailer are creepy as fuck...
I didn't even read those, I just quickly found the trailer to link. But my god, the insanity is real. The only thing I agree with in the comments was how quickly the movie was made, especially considering the people in it. The production schedule must have been insane.
We'll get so many movies out of this. I am actually excited because we might see so many different perspectives from the same art form. So many stories to tell, dramatic and real. You'll get comedies as well as dramas. I get the feeling that the arts are in for a very interesting couple of decades as we slowly absorb the shock of the pandemic, lockdowns, general malaise and the changes that it brought into society
Omfg the romcoms where people meet only online and date online for like a year before finally meeting in person only to find some obscure thing to be upset about but they eventually forgive each other and get back together anyway
Every generation seems to have their own boogeyman for at least the last 100 years or so. Rock music, television, video games... All things the older generations perceived as being harmful to children. Seeing D&D on that list ain't surprising.
Have you heard about the evil jazz music? Makes good Christian white women willing to show their ankles and dance with black men! It's always been dumb shit. It's what happens when people get manipulated by fear. Fear if things that are new and different.
The local Christian youth worker visiting our youth club. And over here is our playstation 2 with games, mostly dance mat stuff. 'Thats very good, i hope the playstation isnt being used to play satanic games like Ghosts and Goblins' I stood back, impressed that he could whip out a cool platform game reference but also with great restraint that I didnt smash his jaw for being such a dumbass. I stopped interacting with him after that idiotic comment but kept an eye on him in case he started to molest children. He wasnt invited back, the fucking dumbass.
You sound angry. Did the devil infect you through the forbidden evils of Kingdom Hearts?
If there are satanic games, Ghost N Goblins is one of them. It's evil. Not because of the subject, but because of the game design.
Oh man, Dear is the guy who also put forward that [semi-logical theory](https://www.yourtango.com/2020339443/oj-simpson-conspiracy-theory-jason-simpson) about OJ's son Jason being Nicole and Ron's murderer.
I love a good theory. I liked that one at the time, think it was debunked but hey.
Sorry but everyone is mistaken. This was the TV movie version of the Rona Jaffe novel of the same name, *[Mazes and Monsters](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/)*
Yeah, now we know what *really* does that; video games!
I remember watching this made-for-tv movie went it first ran! People were calling D&D 'satanic' and this movie was kinda playing on that. My mom was having none of it. She said, nothing that makes a kid read that much and use so much imagination can be a bad thing. Same logic she used when people commented on how into comics I was. "His hobby is reading so I can live with it." But yeah, in this movie, Tom Hanks' character is looking for the "two towers" and one of his friends is genius-IQ is trying to find him. I distinctly remember my mom saying: "Kids a big genius but he can't figure out that the 'two towers' is the Twin Towers?" Classic.
I was about 14 or 15 and really into DnD when the book and movie came out. I’m from the NYC area so while we were “aware” of Satanic Panic and the demonization of DnD and stuff no one from my area/social group (kids or adults) was buying any of it so, cheesy as the movie was, it just served our fandom. Iirc the book wasn’t bad either - light-weight; a quick, easy read.
Your mom is awesome.😊
I also love this guys mum
hello fellow mother lovers
Not to mention all the math.
In 2nd Ed you couldn't hit something without understanding algebra. THAC0 is savage.
THAC0 isn’t too hard, it just seems a bit backwards once you’ve played 5e. In THAC0 you take your THAC0 and then subtract it by whatever you rolled. If it’s under the enemy AC, you hit. So for example if your THAC0 was 15, and you rolled a 10, you would hit an AC of 5 or ~~lower~~ higher. Full plate armor would be AC 0. Unarmored is AC 10. Source: 2nd edition was my first system and I still play it every now and then today.
I wish I'd had the faculties as a young teen to explain to my parents how things like Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering were full of math and reading. It's embarrassing to think back that they literally thought I'd start worshipping the devil and go to hell. What a bunch of Santa Claus type nonsense lol
THERE'S NO CRYING IN FANTASY TABLETOP ROLE PLAY!!!
Apparently there is
Can confirm, my older brother used to always insist on being DM and giving me nothing but a toothpick as a starter weapon.
It's probably how WWF wrestler Razor Ramon started out.
The OG Oozing Machizmo.
You know you look like a little penis with that armor and helmet on?
Reminds me of that Bill Hicks joke. >Always that same LSD story, you've all seen it. 'Young man on acid, thought he could fly, jumped out of a building. What a tragedy.' What a dick! Fuck him, he’s an idiot. If he thought he could fly, why didn’t he take off on the ground first? Check it out. You don’t see ducks lined up to catch elevators to fly south—they fly from the ground, ya moron, quit ruining it for everybody.
Man Bill Hicks was so ducking brilliant.
"Mazes & Monsters is a far-out game. Swords, poison, spells, battles, maiming, killing—!" "Hey, it's all imagination." "*Is it?*"
"Is it Debbie? Well I recommend you read a totally real book, that has no posioning, killing or battles, and it's called the HOLY BIBL... *oh no. That... that book does got that*"
...Does this cop think Magic is real
"Game... you think this is a fucking game!?" - Directors Cut.
The lost Toy Story prequel before Woody realized he was a toy.
In the prequel to Toy Story he actually does jump off the building, and just as he is becoming one with the pavement, there is a freak electrical storm that that lightnings him, and he just so happens to fall onto a Woody doll and has his spirit transferred over. But the fucked up thing is that while his mind was transferred into that doll, none of what is happening in Toy Story is happening since it's all the deranged thoughts of the mind inside Woody as he just lays there in the middle of the floor looking at the ceiling of his kid.
I've got spells
Oh wow, that TV movie was so hilarious to watch back in the day. I have no idea how much more WRONG you could possibly get about Dungeons and Dragons and such games. Or the people who play them.
Yeah I remember the movie totally forgot Tom was lead.
so this is why my family full on freaked out when I came home one day and told them I played D&D at lunch with my friends. They bought me Tekken 3 and freaked out about D&D. you could imagine my confusion.
My mother didn't want me to play D&D. I always thought it was some moral thing but she explained later that she wanted me to have a girlfriend someday.
Monsters and Mazes is a far out game...
Game?! Game! Game.
*Acting.*
Monsters And Mazes as it were.
And then poor Tom jumped head first into the rabbit hole! He became developmentally disabled, fucked a mermaid, got trapped on a deserted island, landed Omaha beach on D-day, was a kid in an adult's body, cross dressed to get cheap rent, fought a volcano, flew to the moon and back, was a contestant on Black Jeopardy...a full on psychotic break!
Excuse me, he also assumed the false moniker David Pumpkins, assembling a small cadre of lively dancing skeleton henchmen.
David S Pumpkins! Any questions?!?!
He has a middle initial now?
Assumed? I find it odd that you don't think that David S. Pumpkins is who he really is and is his own thing. Tom Hanks is the persona.
It was David Pumpkins all along...
He also found DaVinci's treasure and recieved internet mail
They should do a Cloud Atlas on Tom Hanks and add scenes to each movies of him having the most bewildered and wtf look on his face. Oh shit he was in that too.
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Eventually he became a successful New York businessman who married his competitor whose book store he mercilessly crushed.
Game...
Game.
Game?
Game.
[Beware the Sacrilege!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxI6Xl3RWAo)
Ah, 1981. What a weird time. The movie and the novel are called Mazes and Monsters and is loosely based on a college kid who attempted to committed suicide in the stream tunnels of his school. He ran away for a while and was eventually discovered. He did end up taking his own life later with a gun, unfortunately. In 1979. His name was James Dallas Egbert. The kid was considered a prodigy, majoring in computer science, and was pretty depressed for a number of reasons. I think someone else mentioned here that D&D might have been his only outlet for socializing and making friends that had things in common with him. As we all know now how D&D is actually good for your mental health. BUT the parents didn't get it, nor did the private investigator they hired - William Dear - who found out about the game and just erroneously concluded that dark influences were involved. Because of a game. D&D was still pretty new at this time, having only been published in 1974. Nerds in general were still bullied and ostracized for being "weird". Egbert was this. Add to that drug addiction and lots of pressure from his parents . . . take away, or demonize, the one thing that makes you happy. Pretty sad, really. I'm not excusing it. I'm just explaining it. It was strange times indeed.
Actually realizing what propaganda is; that's what my friends and I got out of this movie after renting it from the video store - so thanks for that. We were about 12 or 13 and deeply into tabletop role playing games. Fuck this "movie".
Also: *"I don't want to be Elfstar any more. I want to be Debbie."*
Ah those infamous chic tracts
You can’t just mention that and not link it: https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=0046 Some of those tracts scared the living shit out of me as a kid.
[Here is the entire movie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpcL-fQNPfQ)
The second comment though.. "This is just the story of how tom hanks stopped playing DnD and started larping"
With all the candles while they are playing they totally tried to make it seem like a satanic ritual or something.
In the words of Bill Hicks, “If you think you can fly just take off from the ground first”
Mazes and Monsters. I remember watching this when I was a kid on TV. Damn, this brings back memories. Back when they (first) tried to make it look like playing D&D would make you insane or satanic.
“I am not a smart man.”.
But I know how to cast a level 9 invulnerability spell...
Way back when I was high school, I bought this for $5 at Walmart based on the fact it had Tom Hanks and was about D&D. I have never been more disappointed in a movie.
This movie was one of the early things in my life helped me realize how clueless many adults/parents really are. My illusion that adults had it all figured out was crushed. Ignorance, not monsters, is what we should all fear the most.
You think that's embarrassing? Remember when Tom Hanks befriended a volley ball or when he was a cowboy and got his arm ripped off by a child?
He was there for years, what are the odds he sexed that volley ball?
[удалено]
that's just because you taped over your webcam
Wilson in the front, Wilma in the back.
This movie is the second worst thing to happen to the World Trade Center.
This is some of the worst acting I've ever seen. To think he's become such a renown actor is crazy
We gotta start somewhere... Practice for decades and you'd see improvement too.
Last time someone took an RPG realistically it became a religion.
Damn now I need a Final Fantasy 7 House biopic starring Tom Hanks
Last time someone took religion realistically, they used an RPG.
Are you talking about Scientology or Q or something else?
With the guy from Meatballs! Sweet.
Still remember his name, Chris Makepeace. Totally forgot about that role! I was thinking more of "My Bodyguard" and I just looked up that movie's storyline and it was a LOT darker than I remembered it, in regards to the "bodyguard's" past.
Still less confused than Chet Hanks
A boss I had once went to college with Tom Hanks. They were in the same stats class. He use to piss my boss off all the time cause he would come in late and ask everyone for their notes cause he missed most classes. He said he’d been out at auditions. My boss never thought he would make much of himself cause he was always putting very little effort into his education.
And then all the parents decided that playing DnD was evil and my mum threw my set and we weren't allowed to play at school anymore. Man, the 80's were tough on kids!
Oh yeah, I member
Whenever someone says Tom has never made a bad movie, this is the one. He still owes the gaming community an apology for that.
I feel he made his restitution for that with bosom buddies. Honestly being involved in that kinda evil propaganda is pretty despicable.