Editing Satanic Panic (section)

==Not That BADD==
Ironically, the Satanic Panic had some rather positive effects on the RPG world:

* First and foremost, it was instrumental in forging a shared sense of community amongst roleplayers of all types; they might still bicker and argue over internal minutiae, but now [[Gets shit done|they'll come together in the face of an outside threat]]. Prior to the Panic, RPGers had just been hobbyists; coming together for support under the Panic's suffocating blanket made them a culture in their own right.

* Secondly, it established roots between roleplayers and alternative religious subcultures. Whether this is ''necessarily'' a good thing depends heavily on one's perspective (plenty of D&D players would be happy ''not'' to be associated with "I shall play for you the songs of my people" style neo-Paganism, or [[White Wolf]]'s [[edgy]] takes on religions both past and present.) 
** During the late 80s and the 90s, the roleplaying community became extremely critical if not outright hostile toward Christianity, though that sentiment is generally waning now as the Panic fades from memory.  The years in which the most public face of American Christendom was people preaching hellfire and brimstone sermons on the evil of the largely innocuous pastime of roleplaying bred a strong resentment of Christianity ''as a whole'' into the RPG community, as gamers found themselves shit upon from multiple angles due to the church providing a megaphone for BADD's moronic ideas.
*** [[irony|In a bit of tasty irony for a community that came to despite Christianity for a while, D&D's founding father Gary Gygax was himself Christian]] (albeit of a liberal persuasion). A few other [[Tolkien|foundational]] [[CS Lewis|authors]] of the fantasy genre were also Christian, as was highly-influential D&D contributor Tracy Hickman, a devout Mormon and sometime missionary.
** The only good things to come out of this are an increase in fact-checking among all sides involved and a willingness to branch out in story elements, which led to the rise of franchises like [[Call of Cthulhu]] in the 80s and [[World of Darkness]] in the 90s.