Christian gamers revisited (split)

[simon_templar96]

Hey guys, I'm new to the forums, thought I'd weigh in on this conversation, sorry if its resurecting an ancient thread :)

I actually came across this thread because I was doing a google search for "christian gamers". I'm a christian, was raised (and still am) extremely conservative.

  I remember, way back in the day, one of my older brothers was given an early copy of D&D (we're talking early 80's, maybe even late 70's, I was very young at the time). My family's hobby (among the males) was historical miniatures wargaming, so D&D seemed interesting. I remember shortly after that we "found out" that D&D was demonic and occult in nature and the game was taken back to the store unplayed. Through out my youth I heard many stories (and believed them) about kids going insane from playing D&D and committing suicide when their characters died etc.
  I always loved games and was raised on fairy tales, Lord of the Rings, Knights in shining armor and what not. Thus for many years I basicly made my own little RPG's that me and my christian friends played, all the while believing that D&D and similar games were the equivalent of 'gateway' drugs, hooks designed to lead unsuspecting people into the occult.
  My first actuall experience with D&D came when I was in college and a christian friend of mine invited me to play with his friends and him. I was skeptical but thought I'd check it out if all these christian guys were playing.

  Once I had played and read the basic books, PHB, DMG etc, I was trying to figure out what the big deal was. At that point I started doing a bunch of my own research on the topic. I read everything I could find from both christian and non christian sources.

 What I found out was this, 90% of the christians who wrote, spoke, and taught about D&D and similar games, knew absolutely nothing about them, they had never seen them, played them, or read any of the books involved with them. These people are relying on what others tell them. For example, james dobson, pat robertson (both men I respect) do not have the time to research everything like that, they are busy keeping up with politics, and theology etc, plus running huge organizations, thus they have staff that give them information on topics like this. So very likely the case is for these guys, they have to adress the topic on a show or something so the staff says "these games are occult in nature, characters murder people, cast spells, commune with the dead, summon demons". So thats what they present on their shows. In addition to that, as with any group of people, including gamers, there are christians who are off the wall, I've read some wild wacked out things such as one author who claimed that she had interviewd many DM's who told her, without exception, that they got their campaign ideas from demonic inspiration in dreams etc. So this is the kind of crap that most anti-gaming christians have been fed.

 Now, having said that about christians, The same things are true in reverse about gamers. Most gamers have a completely skewed image of christians and christianity. Someone mentioned pagans earlier and this is especially true of pagans. I've talked with alot of pagans and most of them view christians the same way that some christians view gamers.

  Now, speaking about D&D from a christian perspective. I've been in alot of debates about D&D with christians, and with christian gamers. My position is that there are somethings in D&D that are not good for christians. This stems from the belief that as a christian every area of my life must be conformed to God and Christ. Many non christians don't understand that which leads to alot of the skewed views that gamers have about christians. D&D is just a game, but for me, even my imagination and liesure/enjoyment should be conformed to Godliness and should reinforce goodness in me. Not all christians feel this way either. I've had lots of discussions with fellow christians about role playing evil. Some feel that it is a way for them to vent their evil, as it were. It does bother me a little bit when people role play completely vile evil things and get enjoyment from it. I'm not out right condemning it, but it raises questions for me. Also there is a difference between enjoying doing a good job of roleplaying, and enjoying the chance to enact evil deeds. I've seen both.

 In addition to that, most christians (myself included) do believe much more in the supernatural than most people. If you actively believe that angels and demons exist, summoning them, even in a game, takes on a new level of caution.

 I guess the short version is that most antigaming christians have simply been fed a great deal of grossly distorted information about RPG's. Most gamers (especially those with a pagan bent) have just as a distorted image of christians, and even though most RPGing is benign and just a game and can even be good, there are some things that christians should be concerned about.


Edit Addition:

 I almost forgot, I mentioned that when I was younger I heard stories about kids killing themselves after playing RPG's. I don't know how many of you heard these same stories, but in my research I did find the origin for them. It was a case in the early days of the RPG scare.
 There was a young boy who moved to a new school. He was having trouble making friends and not fitting in and was generaly depressed. He got involved in two activaties at school one was a RPG club run by a teacher and the other was he started running for class president. He was basicly shunned at school other than the gaming club, no one would even help him run his campaign for class president and he was showing signs at home and in his diaries etc of severe depression.
 In he course of the gaming club his character at one point suffered the effects of a "curse" spell, and shortly after this he killed himself. His mother, obviously grief stricken started looking for reasons why he might have done this. She eventually concluded that it was because the teacher running his gaming group had "cursed" him via his d&d character. The mother tried to sue the teacher and the school and tried to get the police involved etc. The case was summarily thrown out of court because the mountain of evidence was that the kid had shown signs of severe depression before ever joining the gaming group. The mother simply could not accept, however, that her son had shown all these signs and she hadn't seen them, or that her son simply hadn't fit in and it was his social problems that drove him to suicide. She had to find another reason so she started a crusade against RPG's. She started basicly her own anti-RPG version of MADD and started distributing all sorts of anti-RPG literature.
  This case is, probably more than any other single factor, what lead to the anti-RPG craze/scare among christians. Most of the information that many christian organizations originaly recieved came from this woman and her group.
    I found and read some of the information she distributed. One of the things was a list of "warning signs" to tell if your kid was involved with RPG's. The list was so vague and broad that literaly any kid could qualify. It was funny reading it just because it was so stupid.

[M. J. Young]

Hi, Simon, and welcome to the Forge.

Yes, resurrecting old threads is a definite breach of local etiquette here; hopefully our moderator will come split this off to something new, like "Christian Gamers Revisited", and include a link back to this thread--which is the way we prefer to do it.

You've probably found it already, but if not be sure to check out the http://www.geocities.com/christian_gamers_guild/">Christian Gamers Guild, and particularly the http://www.geocities.com/christian_gamers_guild/chaplain/">Chaplain's Corner, in which many of these questions are discussed in great detail. You might find http://www.geocities.com/christian_gamers_guild/chaplain/cfaq.html">Frequently Asked Questions by Christians About Role-playing Games particularly useful.

--M. J. Young

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

The above two posts were originally posted to Christian gamers and self esteem, itself one of the many daughter threads within the Infamous Five (see Site Discussion sticky about the Infamous Five).

Please feel free to continue!

The best website I know of which presents issues about D&D and its negative image from the late 70s and early 80s is The Escapist, managed by Mike Stackpole.

Best,
Ron

[ErrathofKosh]

Good stuff, Simon!

In general I find the Christian reaction to fantasy puzzling.  Many churches, including the one I attend, were excited by the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.  However, on the other hand, they denounced Harry Potter.  Why?  Because Harry attends a school for witchcraft and wizardy.  This is a bad word for almost all Christians.  It matters little what the content of the movie is, Christian leaders will warn folks away and they will listen. (at least some of the will anyway)  Like you pointed out, those leaders have many demands on their time and have to rely on snap judgments when gauging the moral value of something as trivial (compared with the real life issues they deal with day to day) as a movie.  And unfortunately, they will often stand by those judgments even after someone who has evaluated the specific case tells them otherwise.

I used to work at a church bookstore.  An author of many great devotions and bible studies had just written a book of fiction and the entire women's ministry was delighted and anxious for it's arrival.  As a voracious reader, I too was anticipating the debut.  When it came, I bought and read it that night.  The next day I returned it and recommended to my manager that we pull it from the shelves.  The author had attempted analogy and had done it poorly.  It inferred some non-biblical views, was poorly organized, made little logical sense and contained many type-o's.  However, he could not pull the book because the head pastor's wife insisted that the author couldn't have written something like that.  She found out later that she was wrong, but still didn't pull it.

One last point...  Christians attended The Passion in droves when it came out in theater.  It was advertised, and rightly so, as the last moments of Jesus prior to his crucifixion.  But, what if it was advertised like this:

Come see a movie about a man betrayed by his friends, one who is possessed by the devil himself, taken to a corrupt priesthood, and condemned for speaking lies.  The politician in charge is blackmailed by these evil priests, who have incited a mob, into torturing this man brutually and killing him in a way reserved for the worst of criminals.  His mother witnesses it all.  Meanwhile, many evil men are allowed to live because of this event.  This movie contains some incredible violence, graphic, gruesome scenes, and demons.  

Sounds like something out of a Sorceror game...  (Disclaimer:  I have never played Sorceror, only read second-hand accounts of games.  However, I think the story-line is feasible, correct me if I'm wrong...)

Christians were willing to accept the above storyline because it told a story they were interested in, not because it adhered to some moral guidlines.  (The same could be said for the story of David and Bathsheba and most of the other stories throughout the Old Testament.)

As for the issue of playing evil characters, I'd have to write another post...  But I won't.   :}

Cheers
Jonathan

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

To extend the discussion out from D&D a little, which may or may not be desirable to you, Simon, so let me know ...

The following games are all, in my view, fertile ground for the expression of Christian* values.

Sorcerer
kill puppies for satan
Obsidian

All of these games are potentially graphic, and characters in them potentially perform horrific acts. However, when you examine the reward systems (the most important aspect of a game's system, the place where Creative Agenda is realized most clearly), a surprising picture emerges - the characters' most crucial decisions, and what happens to them, tend to affirm the basic values of most human interaction, including and sometimes even emphasizing those most associated with Christ's words.

Sorcerer does not necessarily go in this direction, although it easily can, because "Humanity" gets customized by the group. M.J. has written on this topic fairly extensively, so I'll do some thread-hunting if anyone is interested.

kill puppies for satan presents a fascinating case because the characters are ultimately very scummy and unredeemable via the character-centered reward system, yet the players often tend to find themselves forgiving them, semi-reluctantly. (My review of the game presents this idea in detail.)

Obsidian is a far more complex game than it appears, in terms of values, as characters are overtly "aligned" in a very black-and-white way into plain good and plain bad categories ... but then the issue of customizable personal character goals comes in (and is key to the reward system), which overrides the in-game, essentially alignment-based designations.

Best,
Ron

* I should specify "Christian of the evangelical American tradition" to be absolutely clear

[Kubasik]

This was a thread about using Sorcerer with a Catholic flavor. I never ended up using the material, but really cool ideas got tossed around.

Sorcerer: A Catholic Roleplaying Game.

I'll just add that I think the aesthetics of Sorcerer are very Catholic -- the demons, the bloody choices.  Someone commented that Gibson's Passion of the Christ was "Protestant in it's theology, Catholic in it iconograpy," and that makes perfect sense to me.  I think, as a Catholic, I tend to confuse aesthetics with theology (!) -- but that's what you get when your worship god surrounded by so much art!

I bring this up because I think part of the Christian reaction against rolepaying games is the Protestant mistrust of mixing religion and art and storytelling (storytelling outside of the bible).  I know that might seem weird now -- what witih the Left Behind series and the popularity of Christian Rock.  But remember that this stuff is all new -- and even twenty years ago would have been considered improbable.

Christopher

[DannyK]

I'm not competent to comment on "Christianity and RPG's" in that sense, but I'd like to second the notion that Biblical Sorcerer is a cool idea.  

But that's "Christianity in RPG's, which probably deserves a thread of its own.  

And heck, Dogs in the Vineyard sounds as if it could be used in Sunday schools.

[Irmo]

Hello,

To extend the discussion out from D&D a little, which may or may not be desirable to you, Simon, so let me know ...

The following games are all, in my view, fertile ground for the expression of Christian* values.

....

* I should specify "Christian of the evangelical American tradition" to be absolutely clear

An important caveat, since there are huge differences between it and even superficially similar traditions elsewhere. I hear that churches in Scandinavia are even using the medium RPG to raise interest for the church and the bible with younger generations. By and large, here in the "old world", especially protestant churches are quite liberal, occassionally even providing space in community centers for gaminbg groups. While US-style "conservative" groups exist, their influence seems next to negligible, though the catholic church certainly is a lot more conservative than major protestant groups on most issues you can think of. That, however, in many cases, is due to the occassional yanking of the leash by Rome when local groups are more liberal than the Vatican likes.

[Vaxalon]

Many churches, including the one I attend, were excited by the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. However, on the other hand, they denounced Harry Potter.

I'm reminded of the scene where Saruman has discovered that Gandalf has gone from "the grey" to "the white" just after King Theoden is disenchanted.

Does he think to humble me with his new-found piety?

Magic, in Middle Earth, is part and parcel of religion; magical power proceeds from spiritual sources.

Magic, in Harry Potter books, proceeds from entirely earthly sources, that is, wands, magic words, innate talent, etc.

As such, Christians and Pagans (some of them anyways) alike cry foul at Harry Potter because its miracles are systematized, categorized, classified, folded, boxed, and warehoused.

That's not to say that ALL of the Christian voices against Harry Potter are using this kind of thoughtful theological discernment, but some of them are.

[Christopher Weeks]

Most gamers have a completely skewed image of christians and christianity.

I would love to hear elaboration on this point.

The degree to which gamers (in America) are surrounded by Christian lore is very, very different from the degree to which Christians are surrounded by gamer lore.  So offhand, I'm not seeing why your claim would be true, but I'm also not discounting your assertion.  But I'd like to know what you mean and what experiences you (or others) have had that make you think so.

Chris (a gamer who doesn't think he has a skewed image of Christianity...)

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Simon, I'd like to define Chris' question a little more tightly: instead of "gamers," please specify which gamers or what manifestation of their outlooks (e.g. setting texts come to mind) have the skewed vision you're talking about, and describe that vision, please.

That's kind of important, because as Chris' post demonstrates, when you write "gamers" it forces the reader to self-identify with your claim about them, and if the claim doesn't match, the reader feels jarred or misunderstood. Which is a lousy foundation for further discussion.

Best,
Ron

[Irmo]

Good stuff, Simon!

In general I find the Christian reaction to fantasy puzzling.  Many churches, including the one I attend, were excited by the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.  However, on the other hand, they denounced Harry Potter.  Why?  Because Harry attends a school for witchcraft and wizardy.  This is a bad word for almost all Christians.  

As pointed out, it's imperative you qualify this. The US might be a pretty big country, but as far as christianity goes, it in no way qualifies as representing anyone or anything, not the least because a lot of the movements characteristic for the US are next to insignificant for Christianity anwhere else.

That being said, I've seen US style conservative Christians denounce the Lord of the Rings as just as occult and satanic as Harry Potter. Then again, that was by movements who had little better to say about Catholicism, and as such would probably have denounced Tolkien no matter what he had written.

[M. J. Young]

I actually didn't expect this thread to do much, given how much had been done on the parent thread; I've got a couple of stray thoughts relevant here, so I'll try to be brief.

Although there are still many Christians who are persuaded that fantasy is inherently evil, the links on the Chaplain's Corner cited above demonstrate a growing recognition of fantasy as a particularly Christian mode of expression--something C. S. Lewis argued half a century ago (there's a link to an article of his in the New York Times Book Review, but it's a paid PDF and I haven't downloaded it). Links to pro-fantasy articles there take you to Christianity Today, The (Wittenburg) Door, Credenda Agenda, Cornerstone Magazine, and other well-known and respected Christian voices. Yes, for any major cultural influence there will be some Christians who are dramatically against it; but they never represent all of us and often don't represent more than a vocal minority. Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Lord of the Rings have certainly brought such discussions to the fore, and there are a lot of favorable voices heard.

Regarding my comments on Sorcerer as a Christian game, I'm sure that most of those made here were in http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4905&highlight=">Sorcerer without "demons", on the Adept Press forum in January 2003. There's also an article at the Christian Gamers Guild, http://www.geocities.com/christian_gamers_guild/chaplain/faga028.html">Faith and Gaming: Deals, which addresses Sorcerer as a vehicle for telling the particularly Christian story Faust, in part with a rewrite of some of my posts from that thread.

There are quite a few churches in America, even conservative ones, using game nights to bring people to the church; role playing games are appearing in such contexts without too much trouble (although many of those who run such games avoid D&D specifically because there are a lot of uninformed people who would be outraged that D&D was being played in the church who wouldn't think twice about other role playing games). Yes, there is still a lot of opposition out there, but it's losing ground, I think.

I had an article at Nathan's Mystic Ages site entitled ...And I'm a Gamer, which recounted some of the hate mail I've received from gamers (obviously only some gamers, because most of you didn't write to me) because I dare to be a Christian. (Nathan keeps revamping his site; I don't know if the article still exists, as my hard drive ate my copy of it and I don't know how to search his site.) The problem is that a lot of gamers identify Christianity with the pointy-headed condemnation crowd. I point out in response that munchkins, rules lawyers, and power gamers may be the most visible players out there, but they hardly represent the norm for the hobby. Many Christian gamers get a lot flack from other gamers because of their faith.

At the same time, I think a lot of people think they understand what Christianity is all about, and actually don't. That doesn't surprise me in the least, because there are a lot of Christians who don't understand what Christianity is about, really (including many of those who are the leading critics of role playing games, in my assessment), so a lot of wrong ideas get promoted. C. S. Lewis once wrote that a lot of very intelligent men over the centuries have wasted a lot of excellent thought and ink attacking something that they thought was Christianity that wasn't terribly relevant to the real message of the faith, so this is not a new situation either.

Thanks for the thoughts, everyone.

--M. J. Young

[Doctor Xero]

Simon,

Two other considerations apropos Christian gaming.

First, take a look at the anti-gaming work Playing with Fire.  It is actually a surprisingly sophisticated analysis of both gaming culture and fantasy literature from a conservative Christian perspective.  The authors expend at least a chapter explaining why The Professor's work in Lord of the Rings is NOT contrary to general Christian beliefs, and they even include their description of the traits a Christian-compatible fantasy game might possess.  Although as a Christian I find conservative Christianity and people like Dobbs to be spiritually barren, I still found  Playing with Fire to be useful as a gamer in general and specifically when running a game for my minister's son.

Second, the other cause of the rumors about AD-&-D-caused insanity (and the inspiration for the Mazes and Monsters book and film) was a young genius who played the prank of pretending to go insane and become lost and die in the steam tunnels or sewers of his university.  Many newspapers across the country carried the story of his madness and death.  Only a small handful carried the later story when he revealed it was all an elaborate prank.

Remember: not all gaming groups allow players to play evil alignments, assassins, rapists, or murderers.  Gaming is just like every other part of life -- if you wish to avoid being around people who praise rape, you don't socialize with rapists.

Doctor Xero

[jdagna]

I'm not sure how much I can add to this discussion except to draw on some of my journalism background (four years of high school news in a school that took it very seriously).

One of the things we discussed was the fact that the news has to engage people.  This means you have to pick topics that create emotional responses, and present them in the most engaging way possible.  Taken a step further, there are two basic approaches for this: the conservative way and the liberal way.

Conservatives are all about preserving the traditional, so the best way to create interest there is to show something new as an attack aganst the establishment.   It's just good business, even if it's lousy journalism.  Dobson and others have to keep viewers engaged, and it's much easier to do that by saying "D&D promotes Satanism, suicide and drug use!" than with an article like "Children still play imaginative games - headlines at 11."

Since American Christianity is almost across the board conservative, these same techniques show up again and again.  It's a really sad state of affairs - people listen to the news sources that excite them so the successful news stories are the ones who create excitement.

(This happens in a liberal sense too - they're just about change and new things.  So instead of saying "Government isn't perfect, but it does its best," they'll report "Government corruption and conspiracies abound! Headlines at 11."  Howard Stern is another perfect example.  It kind of puts it all in perspective when you realize that Stern and Limbaugh are just opposite sides of the same coin).

Anyway, back to gaming and Christianity...

In my discussions with people at my churches, I've always made the point that RPGs are a tool.  Like any tool, they can be used for both bad and good purposes.  Even a hammer can be used to kill someone - and far more easily than it can be used to build a new church.  The solution is to teach people how to use hammers properly, not to ban them entirely.  And ironically, my father is the only Christian who hasn't heard that, nodded, and then said something like "Well, we should make sure the enemy isn't the only one using them, right?"