D&D is mostly harmless. I say mostly because it depends on the individual playing it. It’s no different than playing dress up or cowboys & indians as long the players don’t take it any more seriously than that. It’s imaginative play and people who object to it usually have no idea what playing it is actually like (but they’ve heard terrible stories, most of which aren’t true, or they’ve seen that idiotic Tom Hanks movie, Mazes & Monsters).
If an individual has a history of dissociative tendencies, then playing D&D may be a bad idea, but then they really should be seeing a therapist or Psychologist regardless of what they’re doing in their spare time. So yeah, people with mental illness should be careful with Role Playing Games (RPG) and they should be careful with video games and they should be careful with books and lot of other things that can lead them further into their dissociative disorders and away from reality.
People who are healthy, mentally, should be able to play D&D with no ill effects.
And no, it’s not occultish. It’s fantasy, like Lord of the Rings or the Narnia Chronicles. If you don’t object to CS Lewis and Tolkien then there’s no inherent reason to object to D&D.
Be warned that some D&D material could be considered a little risque and is certainly not for kids, but it’s got nothing to do with it being D&D. Most D&D material is on the same level as Lord of the Rings as far as objectionable material is concerned. If your kids are old enough for Frodo, they should be fine with most of D&D and since their dad is going to be overseeing the games, that should help keep the objectionable material out of the equation.
It’s sad that this is interfering with your marriage, but really, most people’s objections to D&D and similar games are based on total ignorance of what these games actually are. Don’t let the Jack Chicks of the world scare you into thinking that your kids are channeling the devil or something.
I played RPGs when I was a kid (never D&D specifically, but same difference) and it never had any adverse effect on me. I don’t play anymore because I find playing pretend to be kind of boring (my real life has gotten interesting enough thank you), but for some people it’s a fun escape, like reading a fantasy novel but a much less passive and much more imaginative experience. I do think that playing RPGs as a kid has given me the ability to remember encyclopedic amounts of subject-specific knowledge and I put that to great use as a software developer (I lost count of how many machine languages I’ve learned, as well as enough technical miscellany to choke a moose with, and two foreign languages (espanol and nihongo)).
Really, playing a good RPG exercises a lot of different cognitive and creative skills. I’d say it’s downright healthy as long as you can remember that it’s all make believe and not get too caught up in it (which is easy for most people so long as they don’t have dissociative disorder).
I’d say let your kids play, but keep an eye on them. Don’t look for occult like behavior because that’s mostly a red herring. Look for the signs of dissociation, like increased day dreaming and decreased motivation and things like that. Kids who play RPGs may start to get emotionally caught up in the fantasy of the game (like kids who develop really complex imaginary friends and then can’t let go of them as they get older), but that’s usually pretty easy to prevent if you limit the time they get to play (treat it like you would a video game).
Only worry about your husband/kids if you think they suffer from mental illness or have a propensity toward it. Otherwise, D&D should be very family friendly, more so than most forms of entertainment in our society. You might want to jump in yourself.
