There are 2 sorts of ignorance. Incidental and willful. Incidental can be fixed easily, with more information. Willful only look to support their pre-decided views, and so are far harder to change.

Before the internet became a big thing, both were common on topics. We were forced to rely on what we were told. This lead to a lot of incidental ignorance. The internet made it easy to fix this.

The end result is the ratio has changed. It used to be, say 80% incidental, and 20% willful. Now 90% of the incidental is mostly fixed. So it’s 29% incidental, 71% willful. And so looks a lot worse to casual observation.

The Grandma seems the incidental type. Going to a game gave her the information to update her views.

Also to note, the numbers here were pulled from my arse for example purposes only. Actual ratios may vary.

My husband’s parents apparently believed the satanic panic bullshit

My parents use to play dnd in high school. Mother was a custom classed healer/oracle. Dad was a very bad thief.

She was religious and this is from the early 80s. It’s not even in the top ten most batshit things she said or wrote. From an early 80s Christian conservative standpoint homosexuality is basically just a more narrow category or sex perversion. She was also one of the big voices in the Satanic Panic in general and considered a subject matter expert, including writing things like interrogation guides for law enforcement.

Here’s a couple of examples of her lunacy:

THE WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE AND HOW OF TEEN SATANISM

WHO
1. Adolescents from all walks of life.
2. Many from middle to upper middle class families
3. Intelligent
Over or Under Achievers
Creative/Curious
Some are Rebellious
Some have low self esteem and are loners
Some children have been abused (physically or sexually)

WHEN does this occur?
It appears the ages most vulnerable are 11-17

WHERE?
1. Public places such as rock concerts, game clubs in communities or at school.
2. Private parties at a friend’s home.

HOW?
1. Through Black Heavy Metal Music
2. Through fantasy role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons (R)
3. Obsession with movies, videos, which have occult themes
4. Collecting and reading/researching occult books
5. Involvement with “Satanic Cults”, through recruitment
6. Some are born into families who pratice “satanic cult rituals”

TWO BASIC PRINCIPLES APPLY HERE “Law of Attraction” and the “Law of Invitation”

WHAT can be expected?
1. Obsession with occult entertainment
2. Minor to major behavior disorders
3. Committing crimes and status offenses such as:
A. Running away
B. Graverobbing (such as bones)
C. Breaking and entering to steal religious artifacts or sometimes stealing small items to prove loyalty to the group
D. Defacing public or private property using “Satanic Graffetti” or related Graffetti 
E. Threatening to kill (self or others, self mutilation is very common)
F. Aggression directed towards family, teachers and authority figures
G. Contempt for organized religion
H. Supremist attitudes
I. Kidnapping or assistance in kidnapping
J. Murder
K. Suicide pacts among members of the group

WHAT can we do?
1. Document all information relating to occult involvement (even if it does not appear relevant at the time)
2. Keep an open mind
3. Stay objective
4. Never assume that an individual is acting along until all other information surrounding the case and individual has been fully investigated.
5. If individual is involved in “satanic activity,” he/she will deny a great deal to protect other members of the group as well as the “satanic philosophy”.
6. Have a team approach, work with a therapist, a clergymen and other helping professionals.
7. Educate the community so that potential tragedies might be avoided.

Her group described D&D as “a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings.”

checks notes so… the same as the bible?

I think the Bible fails on the role-playing game front and I don’t remember any voodoo, but otherwise yeah?

But math is satanism

Yep! That’s the entire appeal of the system! And I want to make absolutely sure that anyone picking up the game knows that they are getting into, because I am well aware that the fact this is my favorite game system says a lot about me as a person

You don’t even need the dice! I was definitely gambling last session when I attuned to a prosthetic eye filled with the trapped souls of everyone that’s ever used it. It gives me 60 feet of Truesight though!

Sadly, no. It was quite real. I was given some while trick or treating as a kid.

Gygax really overcomplicated 2.5

How dare you!

<I use an attack of opportunity and I throw my carrot-and-coke cocktail to Squaresinger’s face>

Here I go down the oglaf hole again

I hope not people are like that. I have a coworker insists Harry Potter is “Satan”. She has never read it watch a single book or movie.

At least not coke and buthane. That would have been worse.

Pearl-clutching “christians” used to be deathly afraid of anything

Used to be? Harry Potter was 30 years after DnD started and you had jesus jizzers freaking the fuck out about witchcraft. Nowadays some of them believe democrats are literal demons from biblical hell bringing about the end times.

Can’t fix stupid.

I bet she’d like it if you told her it was racist and anti-trans…

Truly The Greatest Country In The World !

I knew a guy who got into d&d in middle school and it drastically improved his grades.

The fact is that gaming is reading, writing, math, make believe, structured socializing, and sometimes history and sometimes art. It’s exactly like school, except fun.

No you’re thinking paleobiology.

It was a real moral panic in the 80s or 90s. To be fair, it’s one of the less deadly moral panics of the 90s. It got a lot of steam when a private detective was hired to find or investigate a troubled teen and found he had committed suicide, and he wrote a book about it and instead said he had become delusional after playing D&D, thought he was the fictional character of RPd and tried to do things his character could do, but killed him. Eventually enough people pointed out the absurdity of the story and people who knew the kid had grown up and made it very clear he committed suicide intentionally and was never delusional, the author then acknowledged he made up the story, but even more perplexing, claimed the teen met him before the suicide, he made it sounds like mere moments before, confessed to drug abuse, and said he didn’t want his parents to find out, so asked him kindly to make up a cover story for his actual actions and motives to protect his family from, or maybe just his mom. Anyway. A lot of people took this seriously, but if you’re even slightly aware of what tabletop rpgs are like is like claiming a high schooler who played too much soccer became delusional and thought he was a soccer ball, and kept trying to inflate himself until he died. I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m just saying if that did happen, playing too much soccer wasn’t related to the delusional mental health disorder.