I wasn't part of DnD during the histeria but, I have heard those stories. As I became interested in tabletop gaming and researching it, I found those "reports" to be bogus. After years of searching I'm now part of a tabletop group having fun.
The moment I saw this video years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-leYc4oC83E I knew I wanted to play.

To be honest, I recall a roleplay game where three of the players (they called themselves the "violent dwarf association") kept looking for churches to desecrate and burn. They were really enthusiastic about it, too.

Then again, it was a LOTR game, so nothing to do with this, right?

Well, there was the Book of Erotic Fantasy for D&D 3.0. Despite it's shoddy presentation, it was a decent book for introducing mature themes into a game. I reference it once in a while for a Pathfinder PbP I run. Nothing like Cursed Orgasm to stop your horndog players.

It's tempting to conflate cause and correlation. I seriously doubt that D&D or fantasy in general inspired that behaviour. It seems more sensible that people with violent pseudo-pagan tendencies would also be drawn to a violent pseudo-pagan fantasy world. In the same way that judgemental pseudo-moral folks are drawn to judgemental pseudo-moral religions. :)

That gives a whole new meaning to a potion of +1. Which seems to be the same one those spam emails are selling. :D

Oh, I didn't mean anything with that other than trying to have a laugh at it.

And if there is anybody offended by it, know that the desecration pissed off some little "sorcerer of Angmar" guy, who then came after the whole party. A severe failure on my part made me ran over one of the dwarfs when I tried some acrobatics to get him on my horse on the run, but we were saved by one of those epic criticals that nailed the sorcerer to the ground with a sword. We managed to get away before he got back up :)

Oh yeah, I remember that. I had a couple friends that weren't allowed to play due to the hysteria. Thankfully, my parents didn't buy into it.

Some kids killed themselves (not en masse, but a couple separate incidents). They had psychological and emotional issues, but that was handwaved away because they also played D&D, so it was obvious that D*D was the culprit.

Ah yes the whole D&D and heavy metal stupidity back then. Good thing people are so much smarter now ;)

I figured as much. Just wanted to be clear for folks in general. :)

Ahh yes, good old "Mazes and Monsters." I read the book multiple times as a youngster. Haven't seen the movie in ages. Funny. Now I want to read it again.

In these enlightened times we know that it's computer games which cause the issue :)

Actually D&D hysteria could be the poster child for how we should take a long look at the way we interpret studies. Correlation does not equal causation. I'm sure a lot of people with a lot of mental issues played D&D, but I have no doubts their mental issues existed long before they started playing the game and no one seemed to look at the multitude of gamers who didn't do anything wrong before and after D&D (in fact writers of your favorite tv shows were probably "dungeon masters" before they got big)