2 Warps to Neptune

In Mazes and Monsters, four privileged college students get involved in fantasy role-playing as a way to escape painful (for the privileged) personal problems. One of them loses it, has a complete psychotic break, and ends up living with his parents and believing he’s a cleric.

In both the bestselling novel, written by Rona Jaffe, and the TV adaptation, role-playing is presented as addictive, a playground for idle hands, something to be conquered on the journey to mentally healthy adulthood. The ad brilliantly reflects the story’s sensationalistic propaganda. The players’ shadows are nothing less than their inner demons coaxed into the physical world by the game (called Mazes and Monsters). It’s very Freudian.

The ad concept, with a shadow or shadows revealing the underlying nature of the appearing figure or figures, has been used many times before and since. The Changeling (1980) and Warlock (1989) movie posters are a couple of examples.

Here’s an article, written by Jaffe, that appeared in the same TV guide.

It’s mostly about her experience as an associate producer, but she does discuss how she came to write the novel, and what she says about “fantasy games,” specifically D&D, is pretty interesting.

The characters are plunged into adventure in a series of mazes run by another player, the omnipotent referee, who creates monsters, and other frightful dangers, to destroy the players. The point of the game is to amass a fortune and keep from being killed.

The italics are mine. Funny, but I thought the point of the game was to have fun. The characterization of the DM/GM as omnipotent and sinister was and is taken seriously by a number of powerfully ignorant, unsavory collectives.

Jaffe neglects to mention that her novel is also a “strong fantasy,” and that it too might be “taken a step too far,” with pernicious results.