Why Christians can’t play Dungeons and Dragons.
Thursday, October 13th, 2011Liches. Devils. Golems. Vampires. Dragons. Dungeons.
I spent my teen years around some shady characters.
The ritual was regular, although I could not attend as often as church. But sometimes I could grab hold of my sister’s coattails quickly enough to score a ride in her boyfriend’s nicotene-marinated Tercel, across the river and up the windy hill to his house. Once there, we began preparations: The precious books were produced from modern leather satchels; paper, mechanical pencils, dice, and yes, often alcohol bottles would start to decorate the small living room of his parents’ doublewide, until we were ready.
The Gaming Session commenced.
I cannot tell of the awful things witnessed in our minds’ eyes as we wove our illicit stories. Halflings–small human-like creatures with pointed ears–were seized by the hands of minotaurs and flung into piles of manure in a game dubbed “Halfling Toss”. Adventurers were magically seduced by pond nymphs, only to realize, upon an unlucky roll of the dice, that they could not perform. One elf on a stealth mission was brutally cut down by opposing knights after he forgot to activate his perfectly functional invisibility ring. To be fair, he provoked them.
Such are the horrors of life and death in other worlds.
What I did in taking part in The Gaming Sessions was anathema. Christians can’t play Dungeons and Dragons–or Vampire, Mage, Mafia, or other role-playing games–because they are evil. Any Bible-reading believer knows that.
Or do they?
In the Bible, a man is told by God to cook and eat his own excrement.
Samson, a man destined to free Israel’s people from oppression, allows himself in his arrogance to be seduced multiple times, revealing secrets that lead to his downfall.
A corrupt and fat king is killed with a sword driven into his abundant corpulescence. A Roman soldier’s ear is severed. Joshua displays the heads of sinful kings on a pike.
A woman falls out a window, pops, and her innards spill onto the ground. Dogs come and devour her remains. Supernatural boils mar Job’s body. The Ark of the Covenant causes tumors to appear on the genitals of the Philistines.
The Bible is the story of humanity. More accurately, it is the story of one human who is also God: Jesus Christ. But it is uniquely human.
Somewhere in our modern American Christian narrative we have forgotten this. We rightly revere this book as inspired by God Himself, as set apart from others. But we manufactured the idea that its subject matter is “clean”. Infallible, yes, but not clean. It is anything but. Gore, malice, witchcraft, betrayal, prostitution, and all sorts of ugliness are constant themes in this book. The key is why these themes occur.
While his imagery and mythos are not always orthodox, William Blake was right when he spoke of the Bible as the codex for all creativity. More than we know, modern film derives its themes from the Bible, and precisely because the Bible is such an honest and emotional work. What screenwriter could look at the book of Genesis, or Esther, or Acts, without gaining inspiration?
But in order to be an inspiration, the Bible must be above all truthful. The book is truth itself–living word. If it is to be such in a fallen world, it must describe life in that fallen world in full detail, without generalization. I find it an object of endless fascination that here exists such a messy story of dirt and blood and thorns, and yet it is infallible. Its message heals lives. No other book can make that claim.
Now why can’t Christians play Dungeons and Dragons?
It’s a sad answer, really. It’s not because their parents say they can’t. It’s not because they couldn’t learn.
It’s because most couldn’t run a game if their soul depended on it.
When you’re a dungeon master (DM), you create whatever kind of story you want. Want to roam around different dimensions? Grab the Manual of the Planes. Want sand pirates? Peruse the Sandstorm book for some ideas. Want a clean story whose characters are anthropomorphic ferrets who read to little children? Ok, sure…but good luck finding players on a Friday night.
As the DM, you’re a storyteller. There’s a rush and a power about that. You control the tenor and tone of an adventure in an interactive way. It’s fun, and it requires imagination–a commodity so many of us Christians have forfeited for the bland landscape of fundamentalism.
Yet the gaming community can offer so much to Christians to educate them about a supernatural mindset that allows for fantastic events and miracles. Take this recent post on Penny Arcade:
As a setting, we’ve emphasized on multiple occasions that the Bible is woefully underutilized. Once you start looking at the book from a gaming perspective, the genres jump right off the [beep!] page. Obviously, Exodus - the period covered by the game - should be an MMO. Jonah? Adventure. Samson is an Action RPG - he literally equips a weapon mid-narrative. David? JRPG. Armageddon? Tactics. Dead Sea Scrolls? CCG. Song of Solomon? Dating sim.
Revelations? Survival horror.
(See http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/8/30/. The game Tycho refers to is The Bible Online, now called GodStoria [www.godstoria.com].)
Gamers see the Good Book in a whole different light, and one that could revitalize half the Bible studies in this country. C.S. Lewis said through the character of Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader that many of us don’t read the right kinds of books: namely, fairy tales. Fairy tales give us a view of a world where so much more than the mundane is possible. This is a mindset that God can use to great purpose in a Christian life.
The tragedies of the fundamentalist-gamer debate are two: the ignorance on the Christian side, and the dishonesty on the gamer side. Christians who believe in a world that was built in seven days should have respect for geeks who build worlds in their basements: they’re doing so because they’re made in God’s image, with God’s creativity. Geeks who espouse an agnostic stance and believe science is dogma should take a better look at why they enjoy fantasy novels so much.
Here’s an example of how I believe the discussion should really go down:
FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN (FC): I believe God created the world in seven days, and supernaturally put all the animals, plants, and people here during that short time.
GAMER (G): Wow, interesting origin story. So this God can do anything he wants?
FC: Exactly. He could rip a hole in reality and send all sorts of fantastic creatures spilling out onto Earth if he wanted to.
G: Does everyone know about him?
FC: No; early on, humankind turned evil. But God had a plan to reconcile them to himself, so now people can come to him freely.
G: Does he give his followers any sort of powers?
FC: Yep: healing, a spirit of power, and what I believe you’d consider huge ranks in Perception.
G: I believe in a universe that evolved over the course of 13 billion years, but hey, that’s pretty freakin’ cool. Does this God ever visit his world?
FC: He did once, about two thousand years before the present day, in human form. His coming was prophesied about 700 years in advance. Prophecy also says he’s coming back, although it’s a mystery when. After he left, he gave his spirit to his followers. It’s invisible, but everywhere.
G: So what happens at the end?
FC: God judges the entire earth, the good and the evil. The evil, having made their choice to reject him, go away from his presence; and the good get to stay to see the Earth remade into the paradise it was meant to be.
–
I’m no creationist. But if any Christian is honest about his beliefs, he will realize that he’s living in a fantastical world of angels, demons, spirits, souls, miraculous healing, miracles, and yes–even magic.*
This should lead Christians to a greater faith. God really could supernaturally step into your life at any moment–and probably has, without you even knowing it. (God doesn’t suffer from Paradox backlash, for you Mage players.) Prayer works. Miracles abound. The world is built on a family, a lineage–not simply a common ancestry but a story–a story run by God himself, and you are more than a non-playing character in that story. You are royalty.
And that’s where your imagination enters, intertwined with the divine, stamped indelibly–even unto death–with a unique mark that is yours and God’s. You have a role to play. You have God-instilled creativity. Don’t censor yourself because you believe in some trumped-up purity of the central book of your life. Dig in. Create. Get messy.
Now roll for initiative.
[4 Nov 2010 - 13 Oct 2011]
*…And what about magic?
The short of it is, it’s bad. That’s one thing we must be careful about. The Bible talks about magic arts in exclusively negative terms. Will your neighbor’s 14-year-old Wiccan daughter really be able to cast a hex on you after she picks up the necessary supplies at The Gilded Dragonfly paganmart? Probably not. But I believe in demons, and when people start talking about their “spirit guides” and mediums and “The Secret”, I have to believe that it’s demons they’re talking to.
And yes, just like anything, roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons can mutate into unhealthy excesses. Running a world–just like writing a story, or cloning sheep–is akin to playing God, and that can lead to dangerous mindsets. But let’s exercise some moderation here, shall we?