# The Tabletop Golden Age & the Satanic Panic

*Hardcover rules, red boxes, and a nation's moral fright*

- Chapter: Chapter VIII
- Date: 1977 – 1990
- Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/chronicle/tabletop-golden-age/

> From the first AD&D hardcover in 1977 to Second Edition in 1989, roleplaying games became a mass hobby, a publishing empire, a Saturday-morning cartoon, and the target of a moral panic.

**Why it matters:** These thirteen years turned a Midwestern wargamers' pastime into a global industry and a shared cultural vocabulary, and the backlash they provoked shaped how games, and the people who played them, were seen for a generation.

## Quick answers

**What happened in the era of The Tabletop Golden Age & the Satanic Panic (1977 – 1990)?**
From the first AD&D hardcover in 1977 to Second Edition in 1989, roleplaying games became a mass hobby, a publishing empire, a Saturday-morning cartoon, and the target of a moral panic.

**What are the key works of this period (1977 – 1990)?**
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, Tomb of Horrors, The Keep on the Borderlands, World of Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu.

**Why does this period matter?**
These thirteen years turned a Midwestern wargamers' pastime into a global industry and a shared cultural vocabulary, and the backlash they provoked shaped how games, and the people who played them, were seen for a generation.

In December 1977 a slim hardcover arrived in hobby shops across America. Inside, one creature to a column, were the [Beholder](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/beholder/), the [Owlbear](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/owlbear/), the [Gelatinous Cube](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/gelatinous-cube/), the [Rust Monster](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/rust-monster/), and hundreds more. It was the *Monster Manual*, the first volume of [Advanced Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/advanced-dungeons-and-dragons/), and it arrived in a hobby that barely existed three years earlier. A few months before, TSR had shipped a boxed *Basic Set*, and that year *[The Sword of Shannara](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-sword-of-shannara/)* and, in the autumn, *[The Silmarillion](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-silmarillion/)* reached the bookshops. On November 27, NBC aired Rankin/Bass's animated *[The Hobbit](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-hobbit-1977-film/)*. The small, homemade world of [Chainmail](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/chainmail/) and the [white box](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/original-dungeons-and-dragons/), told in the previous chapter, [From Kriegsspiel to Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/chronicle/from-wargames-to-roleplay/), was about to become an industry. It would also become a folk devil.

## The rules harden: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

The original 1974 rules had been a set of thin booklets that assumed readers already knew wargaming and would fill the gaps themselves. By 1977 thousands of new players knew nothing of miniatures or [wargames](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/wargame/), and every table played differently. [Gary Gygax](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/gary-gygax/) answered with two parallel products. For newcomers there was the *Basic Set* of July 1977, edited by [J. Eric Holmes](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/john-eric-holmes/). It was the first of the [Basic Set lineage](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dnd-basic-set/) that [Tom Moldvay](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/tom-moldvay/) revised in 1981 and [Frank Mentzer](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/frank-mentzer/) repackaged in 1983 as the famous "Red Box." For committed players there was *Advanced* D&D, a codified system in hardcover, written largely by Gygax alone. The *Monster Manual* came in December 1977, the *Players Handbook* in June 1978, and the *Dungeon Masters Guide* in August 1979.

The *Dungeon Masters Guide* was the most revealing of the three. It was dense and opinionated, and in places it read like a lecture. It fixed the combat tables that later produced the notorious [THAC0](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/thac0/) shorthand, and it treated [Alignment](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/alignment/), [character classes](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/character-class/), and [experience](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/experience-points/) as law rather than suggestion. Tucked near the back was [Appendix N](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/appendix-n/), Gygax's list of "inspirational and educational reading." It named [Robert E. Howard](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/robert-e-howard/), [Fritz Leiber](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/fritz-leiber/), [Jack Vance](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/jack-vance/), [H. P. Lovecraft](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/h-p-lovecraft/), [Poul Anderson](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/poul-anderson/), [Michael Moorcock](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/michael-moorcock/), and [Tolkien](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/j-r-r-tolkien/), and it amounted to a map of where the game's DNA came from. [Vancian magic](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/vancian-magic/), the [Troll](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/troll/) that regenerates, the paladin, and the chaotic-lawful axis all had literary fathers, and Appendix N named them.

TSR also began publishing the dungeons themselves. *[Tomb of Horrors](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/tomb-of-horrors/)*, a lethal puzzle-tomb Gygax had run at Origins in 1975, appeared as module S1 in 1978. *[The Keep on the Borderlands](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-keep-on-the-borderlands/)* (1979), soon packed into the Basic Set, taught a generation of first-time referees how an [adventure module](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/adventure-module/) worked: a safe base, a wilderness, and caves full of kobolds and goblins. In 1980 the *[World of Greyhawk](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/world-of-greyhawk/)* folio published Gygax's home [campaign setting](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/campaign-setting/) and began the long business of selling worlds as well as rules. That same year *Deities & Demigods* ran into rights trouble. Its Cthulhu and Melnibonéan pantheons were removed from later printings after disputes over the rights. The first was drawn from Lovecraft by way of [Chaosium](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/chaosium/), the second from Moorcock's *[Elric](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/elric-of-melnibone/)*.

The codification had a cost. [Dave Arneson](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/dave-arneson/), co-creator of the original game, received no credit or royalties on the new "Advanced" line, and he sued in 1979. The [resulting dispute](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/the-gygax-arneson-dispute/) was settled out of court in 1981, but it left a lasting rift, and a lasting argument about who invented what, at the heart of the hobby.

## A crowded table

AD&D dominated the market but never had it to itself. Chaosium's *[RuneQuest](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/runequest/)* (1978), set in [Greg Stafford](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/greg-stafford/)'s Bronze Age world of Glorantha, replaced classes and levels with percentile skills that improved through use. It was designed chiefly by [Steve Perrin](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/steve-perrin/) and colleagues. Chaosium followed with [Sandy Petersen](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/sandy-petersen/)'s *[Call of Cthulhu](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/call-of-cthulhu-rpg/)* (1981), in which investigators went mad rather than up in level, and with Stafford's *[King Arthur Pendragon](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/king-arthur-pendragon/)* (1985), which measured knights by their passions and traits and followed their families across generations. In 1981 Chaosium also boxed *[Thieves' World](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/thieves-world/)*, the shared-world city anthologized by [Robert Asprin](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/robert-asprin/), as a supplement for several game systems at once. Fiction and games were already trading places.

Others competed on complexity. [Iron Crown Enterprises](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/iron-crown-enterprises/) launched *[Rolemaster](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/rolemaster/)* in 1980, famous for its critical-hit tables, and in 1984 secured a Tolkien license for *[Middle-earth Role Playing](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/middle-earth-role-playing/)*. Game Designers' Workshop's *Traveller* (1977) took the form to the stars. [Steve Jackson](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/steve-jackson-us/)'s small-box *[Melee](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-fantasy-trip/)* and *Wizard* led to his own company, [Steve Jackson Games](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/steve-jackson-games/), and eventually to *[GURPS](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/gurps/)* (1986), a "generic universal" system built on the belief that one rulebook could run any genre. Smaller houses pursued stranger visions. [Bard Games](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bard-games/) published [Stephan Michael Sechi](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/stephan-michael-sechi/)'s *[Atlantean Trilogy](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-atlantean-trilogy/)* and later *[Talislanta](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/talislanta/)* (1987), sold on the slogan "No elves." At Judges Guild, [Jennell Jaquays](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/jennell-jaquays/) built sprawling non-linear dungeons such as *Caverns of Thracia* (1979), which designers still study. At TSR, [Jean Wells](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/jean-wells/) became the company's first woman designer, though her module *Palace of the Silver Princess* (1981) was recalled soon after printing, reportedly over some of its illustrations.

In Britain the hobby grew up around a shop and a magazine. [Games Workshop](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/games-workshop/), founded in 1975 by [Ian Livingstone](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/ian-livingstone/), [Steve Jackson](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/steve-jackson-uk/), and John Peake, launched *[White Dwarf](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/white-dwarf/)* in June 1977 and set up Citadel Miniatures in 1978. Material flowed across the Atlantic: TSR's *Fiend Folio* (1981) collected monsters from White Dwarf's "Fiend Factory" column. In 1983 the company released *[Warhammer Fantasy Battle](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/warhammer-fantasy-battle/)*, a miniatures game that sold figures by the regiment, and the board game *[Talisman](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/talisman/)*, designed by [Robert Harris](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/robert-j-harris/). *[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay/)* followed in 1986 with its grim, mud-spattered Old World of rat-catchers and plague. Livingstone and Jackson also wrote *The Warlock of Firetop Mountain*, published by [Puffin](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/puffin-books/) in August 1982. It began the *[Fighting Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/fighting-fantasy/)* series of [gamebooks](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/gamebook/), which put dice and a pencil into the hands of children who had never seen a rulebook. [Joe Dever](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/joe-dever/)'s *[Lone Wolf](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/lone-wolf/)* (1984) added a continuing hero across volumes. In America, [Bantam](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bantam-books/) had already found a similar market with [Edward Packard](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/edward-packard/)'s *[Choose Your Own Adventure](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/choose-your-own-adventure/)* (1979). Gamebooks became a gateway for a generation of players.

## Steam tunnels and a moral panic

On August 15, 1979, a sixteen-year-old Michigan State University student named James Dallas Egbert III left his dormitory and disappeared. His family hired a Texas private investigator, William Dear, who learned that Egbert played D&D and had explored the steam tunnels beneath the campus. Dear speculated publicly that the game might explain the disappearance. Reporters took the idea and ran with it, and for weeks the national press described a live-action dungeon crawl gone wrong. The truth was sadder and had little to do with games. Egbert was a gifted, isolated teenager struggling with depression and drug use, and he had gone into hiding after a suicide attempt. He was found in Louisiana that September. He died on August 16, 1980, after shooting himself five days earlier. Dear's 1984 book, *The Dungeon Master*, made clear that D&D had not been the cause, but by then the story had spread much further than the correction ever would.

Fiction then turned the story into a template. Rona Jaffe's novel *[Mazes and Monsters](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/mazes-and-monsters/)* (1981) imagined a student who loses his grip on reality during a game in caverns, and CBS broadcast the film version on December 28, 1982, with a young Tom Hanks in the lead. In June 1982 a Virginia teenager, Irving "Bink" Pulling, died by suicide. His mother, Patricia Pulling, blamed the D&D game played at his school and in 1983 founded Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons, or BADD. Her lawsuit against TSR was dismissed, but BADD's pamphlets and media appearances were effective. Jack Chick's 1984 tract *Dark Dungeons* reached churches nationwide, and in 1985 *60 Minutes* aired a segment on the game that included an interview with Gygax.

The [Satanic Panic](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/satanic-panic/) was bigger than any game. It drew on fears about heavy metal music, daycare abuse allegations, and backmasked records, and investigators eventually found no organized satanic network behind any of it. Roleplaying games made an easy target all the same, because they were new, they were played by teenagers behind closed doors, and their books were full of demons, devils, and spells. In 1990 the game designer Michael A. Stackpole published *The Pulling Report*, a detailed critique of BADD's statistics and methods. By then the accusations were fading, but the panic left its mark on TSR. The company removed much of the demonic material from later editions, and the image of the socially maladjusted gamer persisted in popular culture for decades.

## Red boxes and Saturday mornings

Controversy didn't stop sales; if anything the publicity helped. Mentzer's Red Box of 1983, with [Larry Elmore](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/larry-elmore/)'s painting of a warrior facing a red dragon, opened a series of five boxed sets (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortals) that ran to 1986 and let characters rise from dungeon crawlers to gods. On September 17, 1983, CBS premiered the *[Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dungeons-and-dragons-cartoon/)* animated series, in which six children are swept through an amusement-park ride into the Realm. It ran for three seasons and twenty-seven episodes, and pressure groups watched every one for signs of violence and occultism.

At TSR the growth concealed a mess. The company had expanded fast, into toys, needlecraft kits, and a Hollywood division, and it carried more staff and debt than its sales could support. Around 1983 Gygax moved to Los Angeles to head Dungeons & Dragons Entertainment and pursue film and television deals. The Lake Geneva office stayed under the control of the brothers Kevin and Brian Blume. Gygax returned to fight over the company's finances, and his late-period hardcovers, *Unearthed Arcana* and *Oriental Adventures* (both 1985), sold strongly. But in October 1985 the Blumes sold their controlling stake to [Lorraine Williams](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/lorraine-williams/), a businesswoman Gygax himself had brought in to manage the company. Left with a minority position, Gygax resigned all his posts in October 1986 and sold his remaining shares. He founded New Infinities Productions, which failed by 1989. The man most identified with D&D would never again work on its official rules.

Under Williams, TSR became less a game company than a publisher of intellectual property. Its business increasingly rested on novels, settings, and licenses.

## Stories between covers

The change had begun in 1981, when TSR hired a young Utah designer named [Tracy Hickman](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/tracy-hickman/). He and his wife, Laura, had already written *[Ravenloft](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ravenloft/)* (module I6, 1983), which gave a dungeon a tragic villain in the vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich and a gothic atmosphere. Hickman's larger idea was a world whose adventures would be released alongside novels telling the same story. The first module, *Dragons of Despair* (DL1), appeared in March 1984. *Dragons of Autumn Twilight*, written by Hickman and the TSR editor [Margaret Weis](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/margaret-weis/), followed in November 1984, beginning the *[Dragonlance Chronicles](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragonlance-chronicles/)*. With [Elmore](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/larry-elmore/)'s cover art, the novels became bestsellers. *[Dragonlance](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragonlance/)* proved that roleplaying games could generate [tie-in fiction](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/shared-world-fiction/), and the books reached many readers who had never played the game.

TSR repeated the formula. In 1987 it published the *[Forgotten Realms](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/forgotten-realms/)* campaign set, based on the world [Ed Greenwood](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/ed-greenwood/) had been developing since childhood and describing in *[Dragon](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/dragon-magazine/)* magazine since 1979. The following year [R. A. Salvatore](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/r-a-salvatore/)'s *The Crystal Shard* introduced the dark-elf ranger Drizzt Do'Urden in what became *[The Icewind Dale Trilogy](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-icewind-dale-trilogy/)*. For many readers of the 1990s, the Realms would be their first and main fantasy world.

Outside the game companies, fantasy publishing was booming. *[The Sword of Shannara](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-sword-of-shannara/)*, published by [Terry Brooks](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/terry-brooks/) with the new [Del Rey](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/del-rey-books/) imprint in 1977 and illustrated by [the Brothers Hildebrandt](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/the-brothers-hildebrandt/), showed that there was a mass market for large, Tolkien-like quest novels. [Stephen R. Donaldson](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/stephen-r-donaldson/)'s *[Thomas Covenant](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-chronicles-of-thomas-covenant/)* books (1977) gave the form a leper antihero. [David Eddings](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/david-eddings/)'s *[Belgariad](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-belgariad/)* (1982–84) polished the farm-boy prophecy plot until it read easily. [Michael Ende](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/michael-ende/)'s *[The Neverending Story](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-neverending-story/)* (1979) made reading itself the portal. [Tor Books](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/tor-books/), founded in 1980, would soon publish much of the genre. In November 1983 [Terry Pratchett](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/terry-pratchett/)'s *The Colour of Magic* began *[Discworld](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/discworld/)* by lampooning exactly these conventions, including a tourist and a wizard who can't do magic. In December 1986 the Polish magazine *Fantastyka* printed [Andrzej Sapkowski](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/andrzej-sapkowski/)'s story "The Witcher," the seed of *[a saga](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-witcher-saga/)* that would reach games decades later. [Tad Williams](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/tad-williams/)'s *[Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/memory-sorrow-and-thorn/)* (1988) completed the decade's epic cycles and influenced a younger writer named [George R. R. Martin](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/george-r-r-martin/).

Film and television told the same story. [Ralph Bakshi](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/ralph-bakshi/)'s rotoscoped *[The Lord of the Rings](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-lord-of-the-rings-1978-film/)* (November 1978) stopped halfway through the story. John Boorman's *[Excalibur](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/excalibur-film/)* (1981) retold [Malory](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/le-morte-darthur/) in chrome armor. John Milius's *[Conan the Barbarian](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/conan-the-barbarian-film/)* (1982) made [Howard](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/robert-e-howard/)'s hero a box-office star, fifty years after *[Weird Tales](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/weird-tales/)*. Jim Henson's *[Labyrinth](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/labyrinth-film/)* (1986) and Ron Howard's *[Willow](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/willow-film/)* (1988), produced by George Lucas, closed the decade with family fantasy of mixed commercial fortune. The hobby's social life grew too. [Gen Con](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/gen-con/) outgrew Lake Geneva, [Dagorhir](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/dagorhir/) (founded 1977) took foam-weapon battles into parks, and [Dragon Con](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/dragon-con/) opened in Atlanta in 1987.

## Second edition

By the end of the 1980s AD&D's rules were buried under a decade of supplements, errata, and magazine variants, and TSR commissioned a revision. *[AD&D 2nd Edition](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dnd-2nd-edition/)*, led by David "Zeb" Cook, appeared in 1989. It was cleaner and better organized, and it had been shaped by the moral panic. The assassin class and the half-orc were gone, and demons and devils were renamed *tanar'ri* and *baatezu*. Cook's design pushed a "heroic" tone and relied on campaign settings and optional "kits" rather than rule changes. It was a reasonable response to a market that wanted worlds more than tables, and it set up TSR's setting-heavy strategy in the next decade.

The competition also changed shape. [FASA](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/fasa/)'s *[Shadowrun](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/shadowrun/)* (1989) put [elves](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/elf/), [orcs](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/orc/), and [dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/dragon/) into a cyberpunk near future, a [science-fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/science-fantasy/) mix that sold well. [Milton Bradley](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/milton-bradley/) and Games Workshop released [Stephen Baker](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/stephen-baker/)'s *[HeroQuest](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/heroquest/)* (1989), which put a plastic dungeon on toy-store shelves and created the [dungeon-crawler board game](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/dungeon-crawler-board-game/) for a family audience. [Ars Magica](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ars-magica/) (1987), from the small studio Lion Rampant, experimented with troupe play and shared authorship. Its designers, [Jonathan Tweet](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/jonathan-tweet/) and [Mark Rein·Hagen](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/mark-rein-hagen/), would soon matter a great deal. On March 1, 1990, the U.S. Secret Service raided Steve Jackson Games over the manuscript of *GURPS Cyberpunk*, which agents appear to have mistaken for a hacking manual. The company later won a federal lawsuit over the raid, and the case helped launch the Electronic Frontier Foundation. By then games, computers, and civil liberties were closely tied.

## What came next

Throughout these years, the same rules were being copied onto another kind of machine. Students on university terminals had been turning Gygax's dungeons into software since the mid-1970s. By the early 1980s the home computer had put [Wizardry](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/wizardry/) and [Ultima](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-i/) on bedroom desks, and in 1988 TSR licensed its own game to [SSI](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/strategic-simulations-inc/) for *[Pool of Radiance](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/pool-of-radiance/)*. The tabletop boom had spread D&D's vocabulary of [hit points](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/hit-points/), [armor class](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/armor-class/), and [experience](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/experience-points/), along with the adventuring [The party](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/party/). Computers would make those numbers count themselves. That parallel story is told in [Mainframes to Microcomputers: the First Computer RPGs](https://www.lanternhall.org/chronicle/mainframes-to-micros/).

## Facts

- The first Advanced Dungeons & Dragons hardcover was the Monster Manual (December 1977), published before the Players Handbook (June 1978) and Dungeon Masters Guide (August 1979).
- In 1979 newspapers blamed D&D for student James Dallas Egbert III's disappearance at Michigan State. The investigator on the case later wrote that the game had not caused it.
- The 1983 Basic Set, the famous 'Red Box' edited by [Frank Mentzer](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/frank-mentzer/), carried a cover painting by [Larry Elmore](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/larry-elmore/).
- Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (BADD), founded in 1983 by Patricia Pulling, campaigned for years to link the game to suicide and the occult; her lawsuit against TSR was dismissed.
- The Fiend Folio (1981) drew many of its monsters from the 'Fiend Factory' column in the British magazine [White Dwarf](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/white-dwarf/).
- Lorraine Williams took control of TSR in October 1985 after buying the Blume brothers' shares, and Gary Gygax left the company he had co-founded in October 1986.
- AD&D 2nd Edition (1989) removed the assassin class and half-orcs and renamed demons and devils as tanar'ri and baatezu.

## Sources and further reading

- [Wikipedia: Dungeons & Dragons controversies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controversies)
- [Wikipedia: TSR, Inc.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSR,_Inc.)
- [Designers & Dragons (Shannon Appelcline)](https://www.designers-and-dragons.com/)

---
From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.