Gamer Jargon Wiki
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Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons, B.A.D.D., p.n. organization founded in 1982 by Mrs. Pat Pulling, whose son allegedly committed suicide after being "cursed" by a fellow D&D player. See Bink. [GJ1]


Addendum: Some details about the Pulling suicide, from a fundie web site. Young Irving "Bink" Pulling was indeed a D&D-player. He was also a white supremacist, and his mother said he had "lycanthropic tendencies," whatever the hell that means (this was years before W:TA). He killed himself two weeks after a failed bid for school president, with his mother's own gun.

Anyway, after the suicide, Pat Pulling founded her organization and got herself a private investigator's license. Lying to the press about her credentials, Pulling researched a list of over 50 D&D-related suicides. Responsible researchers checked her facts -- only a quarter of the deaths were actually suicides, and one was the suicide of a character in a novel. Of the real suicides, all had other, more compelling associate causes. Once her list was discredited, she teamed up with a psychiatrist (who had his license revoked) to claim that RPGs were an "occult indoctrination tool." [GJ1]
Addendum #2: Though the 80s' wave of fundamentalist furor over D&D died out fairly quickly, there is still the occasional flareup every now and then, as D&D is often referred to in the same breath of violent video games as a potential "influence" whenever another school shooting happens, such as in the Columbine tragedy.

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