Where things really that bad for DnD players in the 80s and 90s?

[Trunkage]

I was never into DnD. But I was into Magic. That was banned from my school as it clearly promotes Satanism. Though my dad was cool with ut despite being a creationist and strictly religious

 

[wings012]

The school I was at wasn't really discriminatory of any nerd culture. If anything it kinda just became a guy fad. If you were picked on, it was more for other reasons and not because you liked a certain thing. But well, it was a somewhat expensive private school and they took bullying quite seriously.

There was some typical friction between the different cliques but they all played videogames anyway. Cliques generally stuck together and to my knowledge, violence hardly ever happened. A few people that lets just say 'stood out' might have had it worse than others, but I don't recall any full on beatings.

DnD wasn't really a thing for me, the boys in my brother's year were quite into PnP stuff. He'd rope me into some of his attempts at DMing, but I was young and didn't really understand what the hell was going on. Not sure if it was even DnD. He used to play some of the Fighting Fantasy books. He definitely wasn't ostracized or a loner in school.

Magic the Gathering was pretty popular for a while. Digimon became a thing for a few years. Pokemon largely took over for a long time. Most people played Counter-Strike. It was kinda ritual for many boys to hit up cybercafes after school.

 

[Nielas]

Even Tom Hanks made a movie about how D&D is bad for kids: Mazes & Monsters (get it?)

That one is a weird one. Unless you already know that the movie was meant to be anti-D&D, you really do not get that message from it. The characters have issues that clearly were not caused by the Mazes & Monsters game and the game only becomes an issue when one character has a mental breakdown and has problems telling reality from fiction. Overall the movie seems more about how people do not know how deal with friends and family with mental issues and how ignoring mental issues can lead to tragedy. Some reviewers theorize that the movie's writers subverted it's intended message because they knew it was BS.

 

[the December King]

I got bullied for being a nerd, and for looking the part, sure. The D&D playing part was a factor, but not the sole reason. I started really playing/DMing in grade 5. Bullying was bad in grade 8 - 9 especially, but got waay easier by grade 12, when I became largely known as 'the drawer', and any physical bullying mostly gave way to malicious comments/ verbal abuse.

 

[sanquin]

Same as was said before. It wasn't specifically D&D. It was because I was a nerd. It's just that a lot of nerds seem to play the game or at least have played it at some point. So D&D got associated with nerds.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

It wasn't demonized in any way that I remember, and I've been roleplaying in various groups since the late 80s. There was even a kids cartoon about D&D, and although it was corny as hell it didn't make D&D out to be anything other than a game that kids play.