What was the first time you heard that DnD was evil?

Before I’d ever seen the game. Long before. Luckily I didn’t grow up in a household that placed a lot of…restriction on my hobbies. The books I was reading started at Bradbury around kindergarten and only shot up, so my parents largely abandoned trying to track it.

My favorite book by the time I hit 1st grade was Dave Barry’s Guide to Life.

So I knew that DnD was theoretically evil, but I grew up in a town where the dominant faith was pretty well convinced black folk were black due to evil. I was mixed-race, and I married a woman whose grandfather(s) would have been aghast at my existence as well as our relationship.

So DnD being evil, or specifically being considered evil by a combination of hyper-concerned yet ill-informed parents and folks pushing a specific religious agenda that I failed to share, was never especially relevant to me. I’ve also always been very cognizant of, and skill at articulating, the educational benefits of whatever I’m into. I saw what I was getting out of gaming, what my friends were getting from it, and if someone had raised a concern I would have been prepped with justifications.