Cheerleader, 17, reveals what it is prefer to be in recreation that sparked Satanic panic
After joining a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-themed Dungeons & Dragons session at RPG Taverns in Elephant & Castle, south London, I discovered it once fuelled the 1980s ‘Satanic Panic’
Daphne George was a cheerleader in Sunnydale
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dungeons and Dragons, and Pride. What do all of these things have in common?
At some point or another, they were synonymous with anti-Christian values, sparking even a Satanic panic. Last weekend, I had the pleasure of participating in this unholy trinity of sinful activities
I had never played Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) before, but as a 1990s baby, the iconic TV character Buffy was one of my idols. So when the opportunity presented itself to spend my Friday night immersing myself in the monstrous world of Sunnydale, California, where the show was set, I couldn’t resist.
RPG Taverns, in Elephant and Castle, south London hosted a Pride Night launch event last Friday (May 29). While I spent three hours pretending to be a 17-year-old American high school student named Daphne George (yes, we had to come up with our own names and backstories), other players were divided in different rooms dedicated to different themed games. From Heated Rivalry and Xenia the Warrior Princess, to RuPaul’s Drag race and Glee, there was something for everyone.
I knew D&D was an elaborate and lengthy game (minimum three hours!), involving various rules, points systems, and even differently shaped dice with very specific systems. But what I didn’t know was that a big and important portion of D&D was the theatrical element of it all.
For three hours, my co-players and I lived and breathed characters we made up. My Daphne, for instance, was a cheerleader who was kicked out of her squad for making too many gory jokes.
She loved wearing black and carried a switch-blade everywhere she went. Another important part is the class you are playing in.
In D&D, a character’s class is the main thing that defines what they can do, effectively setting their “job” and role in the adventuring party, from how they fight and what magic they can use, to how tough they are and what equipment they’re likely to carry. The classes are Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Bard, Rogue, Artificer.
I chose to be a Rogue, meaning I relied on stealth and skill to slip past threats, pick locks and disable traps, before striking hard with a Sneak Attack when enemies least expected it. D&D became one of the main targets of the 1980s “Satanic Panic” because it mixed an unfamiliar, immersive roleplaying format with fantasy elements, magic, demons and pagan-style gods, that critics claimed amounted to a gateway to the occult.
Now that I’ve experienced the game from the inside, I can tell it’s quite the opposite of anything sinister. D&D is friends, or strangers becoming friends, making stories together, playing pretend with rules, and finding a kind of community in shared imagination.
If anything, that old panic says less about what D&D is, and more about what happens when people fear what they don’t understand. Throughout June, RPG Taverns will be running a mini-story arc run by its own group of LQBTQIA+ game masters.
The arc will consist of 10 games in June running on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.
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