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''The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III'' is a 1984 book by
private investigator A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI; also known as a private detective, an inquiry agent or informally a wikt:private eye, private eye) is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. ...
William Dear William Dear (born November 30, 1943) is a Canadian actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He is known for directing the films ''Harry and the Hendersons'', ''If Looks Could Kill (film), If Looks Could Kill'', ''Angels in the Outfield (1994 ...
. It relates Dear's explanation of the 1979 "steam tunnel incident" in which
James Dallas Egbert III James Dallas Egbert III (October 29, 1962 – August 16, 1980) was a student at Michigan State University who disappeared for about a month from his dormitory room on August 15, 1979. The disappearance was widely reported by newspapers and possi ...
, a student at
Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...
, disappeared. In Dear's opinion, what occurred was misrepresented by the
news media The news media or news industry are forms of mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public. These include News agency, news agencies, newspapers, news magazines, News broadcasting, news channels etc. History Some of the fir ...
.


Summary

Egbert was a 16-year-old
child prodigy A child prodigy is, technically, a child under the age of 10 who produces meaningful work in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to describe young people who are extraordinarily talented in some f ...
who was battling intense academic pressure, drug addiction, and personal issues. He had entered the school's
utility tunnels A utility tunnel, utility corridor, or utilidor is a passage built underground or above ground to carry utility lines such as electricity, steam, water supply pipes, and sewer pipes. Communications utilities like fiber optics, cable television, ...
with the intent of committing suicide and went into hiding after that attempt. After learning that Egbert had played ''
Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical ...
'', Dear, who was unfamiliar with the game, suggested that Egbert may have entered the tunnels to play a live-action version of the game. This theory was taken as fact by the media and caused intense controversy over the psychological effects of role playing games. After several weeks, Egbert gave himself up to Dear. In 1980, less than a year after the incident, Egbert committed suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound. Dear kept the true circumstances of the disappearance a secret until four years after Egbert's death, due to a promise he made to the boy not to reveal them.


See also

*
History of role-playing games The history of role-playing games began when disparate traditions of historical reenactment, improvisational theatre, and parlour games combined with the rulesets of fantasy wargames in the 1970s to give rise to tabletop role-playing games (TTR ...
* ''
Mazes and Monsters ''Mazes and Monsters'', also known as ''Rona Jaffe's Mazes and Monsters'', is a 1982 American made-for-television film directed by Steven Hilliard Stern about a group of college students and their interest in a fictitious role-playing game (R ...
'' *
Media circus Media circus is a colloquial metaphor or idiom describing a news event for which the level of media coverage—measured by such factors as the number of reporters at the scene and the amount of material broadcast or published—is perceived to b ...
*
Moral panic A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usually perpetuated by moral e ...


References

* Dear, William C. ''The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III'',
Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...
, 1984. (U.S. Hardcover ed.) * Dear, William C. ''The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III'',
Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
, 1985. (U.S. paperback ed.)


External links


"The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III"
by Shaun Hately

by Paul Cardwell, Jr. 1984 books History of role-playing games Houghton Mifflin books Michigan State University {{crime-book-stub