Dangerous Games

What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says About Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

By: Joseph P. Laycock

Narrated by: Roman Howell

The 1980s saw the peak of a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. A coalition of moral entrepreneurs that included representatives from the Christian Right, the field of psychology, and law enforcement claimed that these games were not only psychologically dangerous but an occult religion masquerading as a game. Dangerous Games explores both the history and the sociological significance of this panic.

Fantasy role-playing games do share several functions in common with religion. However, religion—as a socially constructed world of shared meaning—can also be compared to a fantasy role-playing game. In fact, the claims of the moral entrepreneurs, in which they presented themselves as heroes battling a dark conspiracy, often resembled the very games of imagination they condemned as evil. By attacking the imagination, they preserved the taken-for-granted status of their own socially constructed reality. Interpreted in this way, the panic over fantasy-role playing games yields new insights about how humans play and together construct and maintain meaningful worlds.

Laycock's clear and accessible writing ensures that Dangerous Games will be required for those with an interest in religion, popular culture, and social behavior, both in the classroom and beyond.

©2015 The Regents of the University of California (P)2023 Tantor

Not what I expcted this to be

I expected this book to be fully about Moral Panics related to RPGs. That is not what this book is.
1/4 of this book is about Satanic Panic. The other 3/4ths of the book are about the history of role playing games, theology, and the psychology of gamers and moral entrepreneurs. I was interested in everything about Satanic Panic and the psychology of moral entrepreneurs and of criminals who used the "D&D made me do it" defense. I struggled through the rest of the book, especially the theology discussions.

This is a well-researched book, and the author makes a lot of good arguments. I just wanted more of a true crime, historical focus and less of a theological focus, I should have looked up the author's bio first. Religion is his interest, so it's on me for not researching the author first, That would have told me what to expect.

The narrator for this book is HORRIBLE. Picture the voice of the most condescending children's program host. That's this guy. He sounded like he was talking down to the reader and not taking the topics discussed in this book seriously,