In the wake of the Egbert case, two novels appeared in 1981 seeking to capitalize on its tragedy.
Most famous is Rona Jaffe’s Mazes and Monsters. You can tell from the romance novel-style cover that the marketing targeted those who would be most disturbed by rumors D&D’s danger: mothers.
Most famous is Rona Jaffe’s Mazes and Monsters. The original hardcover’s graph paper design is a little on the nose. You can tell from the romance novel-style cover of the paperback, though, that the marketing targeted those who would be most disturbed by rumors D&D’s danger: mothers.
By 1981, the Egbert case was a full-blown urban legend featuring impressionable children sneaking into subterranean places to play a game that, by the public standards of the day, was strange. Though a novel, many read it is an accurate portrayal of the effects of D&D on players, fueling religious and anti-TV violence activists. This was part of a widespread American moral panic in the 80s, often called the Satanic Panic, which alleged that dark forces were secretly corrupting young people through the culture they consumed.
The second novel is horror writer John Coyne’s Hobgoblin, which features much better cover art (I love it those die-cut windows). Coyne denies that the Egbert case influenced his writing (I don’t believe him), but the book’s plot, which involves a roleplaying game called Hobgoblin, Irish mythology and an apparently schizophrenic protagonist, comes together more organically than Jaffe’s. It is the better of the two books, which isn’t saying much. Coyne seems to believe that players of RPGs are deeply messed up and have dangerous impulses that compel them to play a game he views with suspicion (and doesn’t come close to understanding – his fictional game doesn’t make a lick of sense from the explanations we get in the text).
They’re both garbage books, but they caught a zeitgeist that troubled D&D specifically and RPGs in general for years to come. The awful made-for-TV movie adaptation of Mazes and Monsters – Tom Hanks’ first role – was a big factor. Despite being only a step above an After School Special in terms of quality, it marked the first exposure of the hobby for many households.
