By the summer of 1983, 15-year-old Hal Pomeranz had seen his share of battle. The rising junior at Yorktown High School sometimes devoted hours to assessing strategies, amassing weapons and responding to attacks. As the leader (aka “dungeon master”) of his Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) group, Pomeranz knew that this was all just part of the game.
But local officials weren’t so sure. That August, Arlington Public Schools banned the game—in which players create fantasy worlds known for their spells, magic, monsters and warfare—in response to growing public concerns about its influence. Based on scant evidence, citizens and organizations nationwide blamed D&D for driving young people to suicide, devil worship and other nefarious behaviors.
In Arlington, parents from what was then Swanson Intermediate School raised alarms when students formed an after-school D&D club.
The school board’s decision to prohibit the game was unanimous. “I can confidently say I don’t want it in the schools,” board member Margaret Bocek said at a hearing.
Pomeranz responded with a letter published in The Washington Post. “Dungeons and Dragons does not promote devil worship!” he wrote. “In fact, in 99 percent of all cases demons and devils are creatures to be destroyed.”
He became the face of local student opposition, and was featured in a cover story in The Northern Virginia Sun. “It was all very sensationalized,” says Pomeranz, who now lives in Florida. “We didn’t play much in school anyway. I was more objecting to the moral panic than I was to not being allowed to play in school.”
Steve Duall, a resident of Arlington’s Williamsburg neighborhood, also remembers the mania. “It wasn’t just D&D,” says Duall, now the dungeon master for an adult D&D group. “There was a lot going on in the culture at the time—the Moral Majority, the parental advisories, hearings on Capitol Hill—where there was concern about young people being led astray by various things. It was not like today, where society is more tolerant of nerds.”
Eventually, the furor abated and Arlington schools lifted the ban. Today, several county schools host D&D clubs. Both Duall and Pomeranz have introduced the game to their kids.
“I’m definitely a card-carrying geek,” Pomeranz says. “If you’re into D&D as hard core as I was, you tend to continue your interest.”
