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5 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2008 - 8:08PM
#41
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Date Joined:
Aug 23, 2007
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As a Christian, I view playing D&D as glorifying the imagination and creativity that God has given me.
Also, from the direction the players seem to be making their characters, my new campaign has a good chance of being a villains' campaign. :D
I tried running a one-shot at one of our Church game nights and the only reason it didn't start was nobody thought we had enough time, so I went on to play a game of slaughter, brutal and merciless war and putting down all who would oppose you.
Otherwise known as Risk. :D
Srsly, they're games. At the end of the game, everybody had had so much fun, we all spontaneously shook hands. As for harm? To what? The plastic pieces?
Seems to me this 'Christian hysteria' thing may well now be mostly rumor and bad luck with the occasional crazy.
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5 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2008 - 9:00PM
#42
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I'm a Christian, been one all my life. I'm old enough to have been there for the original wave of hysteria in the 80's...and it sucked.
I first learned about D&D from a fellow pastor's kid (my father being a minister, too). The old basic blue book - to a 12-year old, it was the coolest thing ever. I asked my mom and dad to get it for my birthday, but one week before my birthday, they hysteria hits the news and my holy-roller aunt calls our house and warns us about "that satanic Dungeons and Demons" game. That was it - no D&D for me. Looking back on it now, I don't think that my parents were really opposed to it from a theological perspective, but with my father being a minister and all, it wouldn't look good to the more fanatic members of the congregation if I was playing, what with all the stupid news stories about D&D that were flying around. Same thing for fantasy novels, movies, etc. - if it had magic in it, forget it.
You know how some kids hid their dirty magazines under their beds? I had my D&D books under there...until my parents found 'em. In fact, no other issue caused more fights between my parents and I than D&D. I moved out at 18, and have been a gamer ever since.
I love my parents, but it was just the one thing I thought we'd never see eye-to-eye on. Twenty-some years later, I convinced my mom and dad to see "Fellowship of the Ring". After the movie, my dad calls me up and when I ask him what he thought of the movie, he says in a quiet thoughtful voice "I can see why you liked that stuff." A few weeks later, I learn from my mom that the old man went out and bought all three LOTR books and had read them. I was stunned (thank you, Peter Jackson!) We still don't really talk about it, but I think that there's now an acceptance on their part, and a peace between us regarding fantasy gaming and fantasy in general that was never there before.
I'm still a believing Christian, I'm raising my children in the faith, and I even lead Bible study courses at church on Sunday. Yet every Wednesday night, me and my friends of many years still get together, strap on our imaginary swords, and carve a path to treasure and glory playing D&D. My greatest recent joy is to see the looks of wonder and amazement on my oldest daughter's face as she played in her first D&D adventure ever on the worldwide D&D day. On the way home, she could barely contain her excitement "That is the coolest game EVER, dad!"
I know, kid, I know.
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5 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2008 - 9:02PM
#43
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one of my players is a Jehovah's witness. He will get offended at alot of things, but funnily enough, he treats D&D as a "religion neutral zone". He argues that since its a fantasy game and not real, that the issues of things like the various in-game religions and whatever else opposes his views is perfectly fine.
He has only played a Paladin once, and thats the pregen Dragonborn Paladin in Keep on the Shadowfell. He has happily jumped in to the role of a pious warrior of a dragon-god without batting an eyelid. He has never once been offended by the usage of gods, presence of demons/devils, evil cults, etc etc in the game. He understands that its all just to make a story and none of it is meant to be offensive to his real world views.
EDIT: actually, I tell a lie. He is also currently playing a Dwarven Cleric of Gond, with a view to becoming a Techsmith. Again, he has happily embraced worshipping an imaginary god. One of that players most memorable quotes from that game was "I thought the whole point of playing a Cleric was so that I could have a flamethrower!"
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5 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2008 - 9:09PM
#44
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Date Joined:
Aug 21, 2007
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What a wonderful story egarvue! Very lovely to hear how it can be passed down 
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5 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2008 - 9:11PM
#45
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Date Joined:
Nov 30, 2004
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I know a certain Lutheran pastor who was ****** two weeks ago at the DM of my group...... Because his rogue fell off a freaking cliff to his death.......he got over it, eventually.
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5 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2008 - 9:17PM
#46
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2008
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My gaming group is made up of 8 guys. 4 are uber-devoit Catholics (me included), 2 are average good Catholics, 2 are trying to be good Catholics. I've also known seminarian and priests who play.
We have all faced the D and D is of satan nonsense at some point but like so many others have said, simple explanation of the game usually clears that up.
At some level, D and D kept us Catholic through the wishy-washy years (15-25ish). Won't go into how, it would take too long. Certainly now, we can't have a gaming session that isn't interupted by some discussion of theology, scripture, or Church history (it helps that we are also all very well educated in these matters.)
I will say that our beliefs most certainly influence the way we game in subtle ways. (Certainly in moral issues; we tend to take our sense of moral absolutism into the game. "No, your lawful good paladin can't murder that guy"). You might not notice at first but a trained eye would detect our Christian perspective running through everything. It is a lot like the Lord of the Rings that way. Most folk don't see that LotR is dripping with Christian imagery, but it is. As Tolkein said, "The Lord of the Rings was unconciously Catholic in its edition, consciously so in its revision". Same with our game.
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5 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2008 - 9:23PM
#47
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2008
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My greatest recent joy is to see the looks of wonder and amazement on my oldest daughter's face as she played in her first D&D adventure ever on the worldwide D&D day. On the way home, she could barely contain her excitement "That is the coolest game EVER, dad!"
I know, kid, I know.
Nice. My oldest is 7 (of 7,5,3). I just can't wait for that moment.
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5 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2008 - 9:52PM
#48
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2005
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In my group one member is Catholic (former seminarian) and has asked that we not use the Warlock class. He has no problem with Clerics, Wizards, Demons, Devils ect. but he drew the line at having a character that according to the fluff has literally made a Faustian pact with 'something'...
He's talking about re-fluffing it as a battle wizard or somesuch though so it's all good..
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5 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2008 - 10:01PM
#49
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It comes down to a (mis)perception that D&D is somehow tied up in the occult, that's all. I suppose D&D players might be marginally more likely to end up doing occult-like...things...but that's a chicken-or-egg argument. A Christian is prohibited from practicing magic and the like.
If D&D were really tied up in the practice of "real" magic (whatever that's supposed to be), Christians would be completely correct to avoid it. I suppose some of the old mischaracterizations are still floating around.
Actually, knowing quite a few occulty people myself, I can tell you that a LOT of them do play various RPG's. Most of them, however, started -afterwards-.
Thats all Im going to say on that else I start ranting though.
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5 years ago ::
Jun 17, 2008 - 10:22PM
#50
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Neither does Monopoly, but few would argue that playing the Classic Parker Bros game would be an affront to religion.
Excellent point. As a matter of fact, the sole purpose in Monopoly is the acquisition of money. The Bible has many strong warnings concerning the pursuit of money. Off the cuff (and to the best of my recollection), I'd say that the Bible features more warnings about money than it does about witchcraft.
I'm a Christian, my family is Christian, many people I know are Christians and I have never once heard any of them decry the evils of Monopoly. In fact, the church I grew up in would sometimes have family game nights where folks brought all manner of board games to play together. There were numerous games of Monopoly going on right there in the church!
Clearly, the fact that Monopoly is played with pretend money and playing it does not lead one to pursue a life of greed as a real estate tycoon is what makes it ok. I wonder, then, why so many people get hung up on pretend people casting pretend spells in a pretend world.
Still, no matter how unreasonable an anti-D&D Christian might be with regard to your pastime, don't be too hard on them. We're all human, we all have areas in which we need improvement.
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