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I'm sure as you all know, during the 80s and beginning of the 90s, there were certain groups, many of them parents and religious groups, who were convinced that tabletop roleplaying was luring people, particularly kids, to engaging in deviant behavior and possibly getting involved in Satanism and various other largely-imagined cults. D&D took the brunt of this due to being the most popular, but I'm curious, did the original Warhammer and/or its 40K split-off come under noticeable attack as well? Were there any 'scandals' connected with GW/Citadel, or any events of note, or did the hoopla largely just pass it by? Warhammer was birthed during this period, and I'm just curious if it fell under the scopes of anybody who thought that tabletop roleplay, with or without models, was corrupting the youth and/or leading them to eternal damnation.

Almost any thing that has skulls or horns etc have out outcries from certain people...Like i remember when i was a kid Pokemon being a big deal to certain people because of the demonic looking monsters like ( gengar). Tomorrow if some thing is released and becomes popular;ar that has some thing that a certain person would think is promoting evil because of the skulls or demon looking creatures will have certain people upset about it always.

You can go back 1000's of years and some one might have made a statue of some scary demon or some thing, there would be mass hysteria then as well, the person would probably be accused of witchcraft or some gak and yeah.

Considering that Games Workshop at that time was still a very small UK company with limited if any US presence, I doubt so.

Also keep in mind the fear of satanism is largely something you see among US fundamentalists. You still see it today, there where fundies protesting a new netflix show not too long ago.

Google "Mary Whitehouse" in reference to the "satanic outcries" of the 80s. This is the main name for the UK side of things.

GW may have been small (and mostly a publisher of other people's games at the time) but they DID have the UK/Europe publishing rights for D&D, so they would have been on the radar of those shrieking harridans.

The UK reaction wasn't as bad, but the UK wasn't "founded" by a bunch of lunatic ultraconservative religious nutters who'd been kicked out of most of europe and took their sense of righteous indignation with them.

I watched a VICE doc on MTG and they had lots of bad rep because of some of their artwork Pentagrams demons etc around that time.

So would not surprise me that GW, especially the earlier art would be target by these same elements of society.

However UK being more secular than the US, especially in the 80s, probably had a lesser problem and that would have been GW primary market at the time I believe.

I'm just glad that these days there are eneugh big gaming companies that any of these small minded fools need to at least CONSIDER that they could get hammered with a lawsuit for spewing blatent laws about a hobby. Try claiming D&D is satanitc these days and WOTC has the money nesscary to sue if it became required

For better or worse, "small minded fools" are allowed to have opinions. You are free to disagree with those opinions.

I think its fun to discuss the history of the industry but views on religion and politics will lead to the thread being locked...

Locked threads = :(

I agree. Thus why I didn't respond to Chromedog. I'd rather just discuss the history of it.

No, Warhammer didn't really hit until the late 80's and early 90's. By that time the 'satanic panic' had largely burned itself out. The heyday of the period was somewhere between '83 through '85. It was on the decline by '87. By 1990 people started figuring out that all the things they thought were, actually weren't and no amount of protesting or book banning was going to stop anything. Then they realized that KISS wasn't Knights In Satan's Service, backwards masking didn't exist, and D&D was just a game of make-believe.

I lived in the center of the Bible belt, and I don't recall 40k ever being brought up. D&D definitely, Call of Cthulu (or, Lovecraft in general, and the Cthulu RPG tangentially), and I'm pretty sure I remember MtG getting some backlash as well (although by then the Satanic panic was beginning to die down even where I grew up). I don't remember 40k ever being mentioned, though. Or wargaming at all.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I lived in the center of the Bible belt, and I don't recall 40k ever being brought up. D&D definitely, Call of Cthulu (or, Lovecraft in general, and the Cthulu RPG tangentially), and I'm pretty sure I remember MtG getting some backlash as well (although by then the Satanic panic was beginning to die down even where I grew up). I don't remember 40k ever being mentioned, though. Or wargaming at all.

I don't recall 40k but I remember Battletech getting brought up breifly around the time of the Columbine incident. the papers reported that the killers played it and seemed to take it very seriously. suddenly fearing a "80s style backlash" against Battletech, which I was big into at the time (that thankfully never materialized) I made a point to head it off at the pass, I sat my parents down and offered to explain to them what the game was about.

The whole ‘gaming is Satanism’ thing did nothing up here in the ‘wastelands of the North’. Did get some ‘glorifying war’, and ‘making our children violent’, but that was mainly from the ‘chattering classes’.

Nothing specific to GW.

In general the UK's "moral panics" have been based on Victorian values about what is right and proper so most of our "outrages" have been over what some people would view as sexualised content and bad language. The US, on the other hand, seems to be more based on religious grounds, so are more concerned with Satanism, witchcraft and the like. I don't think WH and 40k were anywhere near big enough to be noticed at the time of the D&D hysteria and even though GW distributed D&D in the UK, the scare never really made it over here due to the different vectors these moral outrages tended to take in each country.

I remember in the 90s UK when I played 2nd edition as a teen there were certain christian kids who were told by their parents not to engage with some of the parts... specifically I remember it being "pretending" that you're one of the characters (either evil or good) and playing in their style and saying things like "For the Emperor!" when making charges or rolling dice. It didn't bother me until one of two of them refused to play against me because I'd be like "blood for the blood god!".
It was all a bit silly really - it didn't exclude me from any games as there were plenty of other games and people to play. I don't remember any people with any other denominations who played - it was mainly a white middle class thing... and where I was from that also meant christian, agnostic or athiest in most cases.

I wasn't playing at that point. My mom did read all the D&D panic stories (about that kid who stabbed his friends or whatever) and said she was concerned I would get carried away playing the Robotech RPG. I kindly informed her it was impossible for me to become or act like a 50' tall robotic war machine. That was the end of that concern.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I lived in the center of the Bible belt, and I don't recall 40k ever being brought up. D&D definitely, Call of Cthulu (or, Lovecraft in general, and the Cthulu RPG tangentially), and I'm pretty sure I remember MtG getting some backlash as well (although by then the Satanic panic was beginning to die down even where I grew up). I don't remember 40k ever being mentioned, though. Or wargaming at all.

Another Bible belter, and yeah it was strange that 40K was ignored when I got sooooo much flak over D&D. At one point, because my rebelling cousin did something really, really stupid (cutting a pentagram into himself), my dad was ready to take my D&D stuff away from me and have it burned. Luckily, reason eventually won out, but it’s one of the main reasons I refuse to buy any of 40Ks daemon stuff - just don’t want to be associated with kind of stuff.

What’s even more humorous is that 40K’s greater demons (keeper of secrets, changer of ways, bloodthirster) were D&Ds old type I-VII Demons (Glabrizu, Vrock, Baylor) - at least until the latest visual redesigns.

Whilst it's not 'satanic panic hysteria' gw did get caught in PETA's crosshairs a little while ago, who were essentially protesting the fact that some gw figures wear fur.

It was certainly treated with equal amount of scorn and amusement by the community. And it was quite amusing at the time to see even the blackest of black knights coming round to gw's defence for one brief, glorious moment.

Here's a link to an 'ahem' more-or-less legitimate news source - the bbc. You can find more sensationalist (yet amusing) sources with a quick google.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38802938/animal-rights-group-peta-calls-for-warhammer-fur-ban

xraytango wrote:
No, Warhammer didn't really hit until the late 80's and early 90's. By that time the 'satanic panic' had largely burned itself out. The heyday of the period was somewhere between '83 through '85. It was on the decline by '87. By 1990 people started figuring out that all the things they thought were, actually weren't and no amount of protesting or book banning was going to stop anything. Then they realized that KISS wasn't Knights In Satan's Service, backwards masking didn't exist, and D&D was just a game of make-believe.

Pretty much this. In addition to the fact that pretty much anything Games Workshop save Hero Quest wasn't even a blip on the radar even among geeks/nerds at least in my area. In high school, I remember seeing what was probably a single Warhammer Fantasy Battles Table at a local gaming shop, though; it could have been any other medieval wargame fantasy or not. I don't even remember the shop actually selling miniatures there. At that time, Magic: The Gathering was picking up steam. Even Magic wasn't seen as bad D&D by parents. I grew up in Utah and D&D was something, I kinda had to hide (or at least not talk about in front of parents) where as Magic seemed to have far less of an issue. I can't say why that was, but that was how it felt.

I imagine at that time panic, historicals were far more common in miniatures war gaming and nothing there to get panicked over (even certain German WWII armies wouldn't have people bat an eye) in the minds of parents there. So the untrained eye, many times the armies probably looked much like some historical one as even fantasy armies didn't have as much crazy monsters or other stuff then and didn't stand out nearly enough from all the foot solders and cavalry.

I remember a concerned citizen talking to us as kids about D&D . Thankfully one of my friends parents jumped in for us. As for GW, there wasn't much of it around. I never had to explain it to anyone, and I grew up in the suburbs so I'd say GW was pretty well outta the picture.

used to visit the Derby store in this period, yes, they got Christian nut jobs outside every so often. usually they were there for about as long as it took the local paper to take pictures then cleared off.

did ask one of them what they were protesting about, they didn't seem entirely clear

Not to my knowledge. As an avid young gamer in the US, I was vaguely aware of them as one of many ads in Dragon magazine, like this



Yes, at one time WD covered other games!

By the time GW started making a splash around here with Blood Bowl and 40k 2nd, the panic was long gone and the gaming stuff was sold in specialist stores rather than being everywhere.

 Argive wrote:
For better or worse, "small minded fools" are allowed to have opinions.

Ah, yes. "Allowed". And then you wake up with anti-vaxxers, birthers, ultra-fundie churches, or, to look for EU side things, stuff like Brexsh*t, pegida or league.

It would be one thing if the sewage at least stayed in host country, but unfortunately, it spills everywhere and you end up with stuff like US bible belt nonsense influencing priests of mainstream church right in the middle of Europe to burn Harry Potter, Twilight, and a few assorted RPG and wargames for SATANISM, this very year:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/01/harry-potter-among-books-burned-by-priests-in-poland

The only reason you don't see 40K there was probably it was too expensive for the kids in that rural town to buy and people who could afford it are among these sick of the church and already bailed.

I wish such stupidity was either punishable or met with reeducation to modern standards

 Irbis wrote:

 Argive wrote:
For better or worse, "small minded fools" are allowed to have opinions.

Ah, yes. "Allowed". And then you wake up with anti-vaxxers, birthers, ultra-fundie churches, or, to look for EU side things, stuff like Brexsh*t, pegida or league.

It would be one thing if the sewage at least stayed in host country, but unfortunately, it spills everywhere and you end up with stuff like US bible belt nonsense influencing priests of mainstream church right in the middle of Europe to burn Harry Potter, Twilight, and a few assorted RPG and wargames for SATANISM, this very year:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/01/harry-potter-among-books-burned-by-priests-in-poland

The only reason you don't see 40K there was probably it was too expensive for the kids in that rural town to buy and people who could afford it are among these sick of the church and already bailed.

I wish such stupidity was either punishable or met with reeducation to modern standards

Ok...I hear where you are coming from. But the problem lies in where you draw the line? Who decides who get punished?

You?
You get to say whose allowed to have an opinion and who isn't? Which opinion is good and which isn't? Who is stupid and who isin't?
If not you, then who? Politicians and Officials? That will work splendidly and has never been abused or corrupted...

I'm of the opinion that collective cross pollination of ideas will yield a net positive betterment of humanity in the long run if freedom is allowed. Idiocy gets weeded out. It just happening slowly... Unfortunately that means that some saps will end up freaking out over teletubbies having a purse, burning harry potter books and such. Having an overreaction the other way doesn't solve anything either as it further polarizes and entrenches them if you are calling them stupid.

I feel bad for the person that says he's not willing to get any demon models where he lives because he doesn't want anyone to freak out. If people don't get it, and ostracize you because of the type of plastic toys you choose to paint, do you want to be friends with them anyway? WHats the worse that can happen.. its not like anyone is going to burn you at the stake.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
I'm sure as you all know, during the 80s and beginning of the 90s, there were certain groups, many of them parents and religious groups, who were convinced that tabletop roleplaying was luring people, particularly kids, to engaging in deviant behavior and possibly getting involved in Satanism and various other largely-imagined cults. D&D took the brunt of this due to being the most popular, but I'm curious, did the original Warhammer and/or its 40K split-off come under noticeable attack as well? Were there any 'scandals' connected with GW/Citadel, or any events of note, or did the hoopla largely just pass it by? Warhammer was birthed during this period, and I'm just curious if it fell under the scopes of anybody who thought that tabletop roleplay, with or without models, was corrupting the youth and/or leading them to eternal damnation.

90s it was largely gone. Even the late 80s when 40k arrived was rather late for the Chick Tracts and similar. I did see some in neighbor's house at one point- this would have been about 89, but it was my only contact with the 'Satanic Panic' at all, but then, up until that point I'd lived mostly in suburbs/military bases, which didn't care much about the 'Moral Majority' minority and even more obscure subgroups, which is where Jack Chick and company fell. The 'panic' frankly wasn't as widespread as adherents at the time liked to pretend, or how the horror stories like to portray it now. Even in the 80s, there were just more important topics for people to get worked up about.

40k also wasn't widespread once it arrived, stateside- it took a while to grow, and was a bit obscure compared to the more obvious targets

So 40k and most of Warhammer missed it.

 chromedog wrote:


The UK reaction wasn't as bad, but the UK wasn't "founded" by a bunch of lunatic ultraconservative religious nutters who'd been kicked out of most of europe and took their sense of righteous indignation with them.

Wow...

Yup. Thus why I didn't engage.

I can see why.

As someone who grew up through the satanic panic in the US, I thought Chromedog's characterization was pretty accurate. Have you seen the US on the news recently?

I don't have my books handy, but I could have sworn that Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness in the US had an advisory label on it.

Just Playing 'Devils Advocate' Here.

But we are oddly placed to actually appreciate where these concerned religious individuals were and are coming from.

Picture if you will, a universe in which evil forces exist, with godlike power, and seductive corrupting influence. Picture in this world that humanity protected itself against such very real corruption with empowered individuals who would hunt down such avenues of evil into society and destroy it, in whatever form it came in. In such a universe, destroying a game for the mere inclusion of symbolism of the great enemy, would not only be reasonable, but an entirely good idea.

Back to the real world... If you happen to believe that such a powerful entity as the devil exists, and concerns themselves with the corruption of humanity, protecting our children through removal of their taint from children's games, is a perfectly reasonable and sensible precaution to take. regardless of the 'its just a game' defence.