Editing Satanic Panic (section)

==Meet Patricia Pulling==
When her son Irving killed himself in 1982, Patricia Pulling (also writer of the book "The Devil's Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan?") claimed it was because he had been placed under a "D&D curse".  Not totally in her right mind, she first tried to sue Irving's principal, and then [[TSR]] itself. Naturally, the legal system threw her out on her ear, noting that this made absolutely no sense and that the more logical answer had to do with pre-existing social and psychological problems, such as being bullied at school. But the damage was done in giving her a public appearance to begin with.

Inspired by the two-year legal battle, some fucktards in Canada produced the 1983 film "Skullduggery", which went a step beyond its equivalents from before; a roleplaying game explicitly identified as D&D ultimately turned a player into a serial-killing lunatic. ''Hobgoblin'' had titled itself after a fictitious Celtic-themed RPG, whilst ''Mazes & Monsters'' had used its same-name D&D pastiche, but here the real game was explicitly named, and thus came the shame.

Furthermore, by 1983 Mrs. Pulling was making connection with a bunch of fundy Christian groups, along with one Illinois psychiatrist by the name of Thomas Radecki, director of the National Coalition on Television Violence. Together, they founded Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons - a collection of religious bigots, bullies, jerks, clueless parents and assorted well-meaning but ignorant folks out to stop the depredation of "evil D&D". When Pulling's case was finally dismissed in 1984, BADD (a name that implies someone on the marketing team was phenomenally self-aware ''or'' unaware) went into full attack mode. Naturally, the infamous [[Dark Dungeons]] tract by [[Jack Chick]] was written during that same year.

It must be repeated that BADD '''lost''' every single attempt at litigation they ever attempted, but the credulous public ate up their bullshit and responded by shitting on D&D players everywhere. Teachers, parents, Christian pastors and even on occasion the police tried to stomp on those who liked to roleplay; they used everything from verbal and emotional harassment to seizing and destroying roleplaying materials, blocking RPG groups from using public spaces to socialize and even sabotaging groups by planting false evidence of satanic rituals and/or possession of drugs and/or pornographic material before calling the police.