Patricia Pulling
Encyclopedia
Patricia A. Pulling was an anti-occult campaigner from Richmond
, Virginia, and the founder of Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons (BADD), an advocacy group that was dedicated to the regulation of the role-playing game
Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and other such games.
by shooting himself in the chest on 9 June 1982. Irving was an active D&D player, and she believed his suicide was directly related to the game. The grieving mother first filed a wrongful death lawsuit against her son's high school principal, Robert A. Bracey III, holding him as responsible for what she claimed was a Dungeons & Dragons curse placed upon her son shortly before his death. She also filed suit against TSR, Inc.
, D&D' s publishers. She appeared on an episode of 60 Minutes
which also featured Gary Gygax
, creator of Dungeons & Dragons, and which aired in 1985.
When all of her lawsuits were dismissed, she founded BADD and began publishing information circulating her belief that D&D encouraged devil worship and suicide. BADD 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."
BADD achieved some success in airing its views in the press, both through conservative Christian media properties as well as mainstream outlets. The organization distributed its materials in Australia
through conservative advocacy groups affiliated with the Reverend Fred Nile
, such as the Australian Federation for Decency. In addition, Pulling obtained a private investigator
's license, became a consultant to law enforcement, and was an expert witness in several gaming-related lawsuits. All of these suits lost in court. Ms. Pulling was also the author of a book, The Devil's Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan? published by Vital Issues Press in August 1989 (ISBN 0-910311-59-5). The book revealed that Pulling had, at best, only a basic working knowledge of the alleged occult activities she was crusading against. The book not only treats the Necronomicon
as a real publication, but refers to it as if it is widely available for reading and used regularly by teenagers; one portion of the book urges police officers to open interrogations of suspected teenage occultists with the question, "Have you read the Necronomicon, or are you familiar with it?"
As the popularity of D&D and other role-playing games increased, Pulling's more extreme views and statements were increasingly called into question. For example, she once told a newspaper reporter that eight percent of the people living in Richmond
, Virginia were Satanists
. She had arrived at that figure, she explained, by estimating four percent of adults and four percent of teens to be involved with Satanism, and adding them to get eight percent. When the reporter informed her that mathematically that was four percent, not eight percent, she claimed that it did not matter because even eight percent was a "conservative" figure.
In 1989 game player and designer Michael A. Stackpole
wrote Game Hysteria and the Truth which went into all the flaws, misconceptions, inaccuracies, omission of relevant details, and questionable practices (going as far as to call her editing of newspaper accounts not only illegitimate but since newspapers are copyrighted material and the owners were not contacted about the use of these articles illegal) regarding Pulling's claims regarding RPGs in general and D&D in particular concluding "If the suicide statistics for the 14 years since D&D's introduction show anything at all, gamers kill themselves at a rate that is a fraction of that of their peers." A year later the main points of Game Hysteria and the Truth regarding Pulling were reiterated in The Pulling Report.
The American Association of Suicidology, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
, and Health & Welfare (Canada) all eventually concluded that there was no causal link between fantasy gaming and suicide. In 1990, the writer Michael Stackpole authored The Pulling Report, a review highly critical of BADD's methods of data collection, analysis and reporting.
BADD effectively ceased to exist when Pulling died of cancer in 1997.
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, Virginia, and the founder of Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons (BADD), an advocacy group that was dedicated to the regulation of the role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and other such games.
Biography
Pulling formed the organization after her son Irving committed suicideSuicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
by shooting himself in the chest on 9 June 1982. Irving was an active D&D player, and she believed his suicide was directly related to the game. The grieving mother first filed a wrongful death lawsuit against her son's high school principal, Robert A. Bracey III, holding him as responsible for what she claimed was a Dungeons & Dragons curse placed upon her son shortly before his death. She also filed suit against TSR, Inc.
TSR, Inc.
Blume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....
, D&D
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
which also featured Gary Gygax
Gary Gygax
Ernest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of role-playing games....
, creator of Dungeons & Dragons, and which aired in 1985.
When all of her lawsuits were dismissed, she founded BADD and began publishing information circulating her belief that D&D encouraged devil worship and suicide. BADD described D&D as "a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology
Demonology
Demonology is the systematic study of demons or beliefs about demons. It is the branch of theology relating to superhuman beings who are not gods. It deals both with benevolent beings that have no circle of worshippers or so limited a circle as to be below the rank of gods, and with malevolent...
, witchcraft
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy
Blasphemy
Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...
, suicide, assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
, insanity, sex perversion
Perversion
Perversion is a concept describing those types of human behavior that are a serious deviation from what is considered to be orthodox or normal. Although it can refer to varying forms of deviation, it is most often used to describe sexual behaviors that are seen by an individual as abnormal,...
, homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism
Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
, cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
, sadism
Sadism and masochism
Sadomasochism broadly refers to the receiving of pleasure—often sexual—from acts involving the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation. The name originates from two authors on the subject, Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch...
, desecration
Desecration
Desecration is the act of depriving something of its sacred character, or the disrespectful or contemptuous treatment of that which is held to be sacred or holy by a group or individual.-Detail:...
, demon summoning
Conjuration
Conjuration is used in many video games, mainly RPGs, where it is usually referred to as summoning.* A notable example is the Final Fantasy franchise which incorporates summoning of monsters to fight alongside the characters....
, necromantics
Necromancy
Necromancy is a claimed form of magic that involves communication with the deceased, either by summoning their spirit in the form of an apparition or raising them bodily, for the purpose of divination, imparting the ability to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge...
, divination
Divination
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...
and other teachings."
BADD achieved some success in airing its views in the press, both through conservative Christian media properties as well as mainstream outlets. The organization distributed its materials in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
through conservative advocacy groups affiliated with the Reverend Fred Nile
Fred Nile
Frederick John "Fred" Nile is an Australian politician and clergyman. Nile has been a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since 1981, except for a period in 2004 when he resigned to contest the Australian Senate at the 2004 federal election...
, such as the Australian Federation for Decency. In addition, Pulling obtained a private investigator
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
's license, became a consultant to law enforcement, and was an expert witness in several gaming-related lawsuits. All of these suits lost in court. Ms. Pulling was also the author of a book, The Devil's Web: Who Is Stalking Your Children For Satan? published by Vital Issues Press in August 1989 (ISBN 0-910311-59-5). The book revealed that Pulling had, at best, only a basic working knowledge of the alleged occult activities she was crusading against. The book not only treats the Necronomicon
Necronomicon
The Necronomicon is a fictional grimoire appearing in the stories by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound", written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in...
as a real publication, but refers to it as if it is widely available for reading and used regularly by teenagers; one portion of the book urges police officers to open interrogations of suspected teenage occultists with the question, "Have you read the Necronomicon, or are you familiar with it?"
As the popularity of D&D and other role-playing games increased, Pulling's more extreme views and statements were increasingly called into question. For example, she once told a newspaper reporter that eight percent of the people living in Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, Virginia were Satanists
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
. She had arrived at that figure, she explained, by estimating four percent of adults and four percent of teens to be involved with Satanism, and adding them to get eight percent. When the reporter informed her that mathematically that was four percent, not eight percent, she claimed that it did not matter because even eight percent was a "conservative" figure.
In 1989 game player and designer Michael A. Stackpole
Michael A. Stackpole
Michael A. Stackpole is a science fiction and fantasy author best known for his Star Wars and Battletech books. He was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, but raised in Vermont...
wrote Game Hysteria and the Truth which went into all the flaws, misconceptions, inaccuracies, omission of relevant details, and questionable practices (going as far as to call her editing of newspaper accounts not only illegitimate but since newspapers are copyrighted material and the owners were not contacted about the use of these articles illegal) regarding Pulling's claims regarding RPGs in general and D&D in particular concluding "If the suicide statistics for the 14 years since D&D's introduction show anything at all, gamers kill themselves at a rate that is a fraction of that of their peers." A year later the main points of Game Hysteria and the Truth regarding Pulling were reiterated in The Pulling Report.
The American Association of Suicidology, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta...
, and Health & Welfare (Canada) all eventually concluded that there was no causal link between fantasy gaming and suicide. In 1990, the writer Michael Stackpole authored The Pulling Report, a review highly critical of BADD's methods of data collection, analysis and reporting.
BADD effectively ceased to exist when Pulling died of cancer in 1997.
See also
- Dungeons & Dragons controversiesDungeons & Dragons controversiesDungeons & Dragons controversies concern the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons , which has received significant attention in the media and in popular culture. The game has received some negative coverage, especially during the game's early years in the early 1980s...
- History of role-playing gamesHistory of role-playing gamesThe history of role-playing games begins with an earlier tradition of role-playing, which combined with the rulesets of fantasy wargames in the 1970s to give rise to the modern role-playing game. A role-playing game is a type of game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and...
- Moral panicMoral panicA moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics and credited creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of...
- Innumeracy