To fight?

O.K., I can't tell you whether to fight it or not. That's something you're going to have to work out from what you know of him. But I can tell you that there are a lot of good resources available, and many of them are from Christian gamers.

I think I would probably ask him what he thinks role playing is; whatever he says, you might want to go ahead and laugh before explaining that it's really just make-believe with rules. There are probably scores of pages that say this; mine is http://members.aol.com/MarkJYoung/Multiverse.html">What Is an RPG?, but you probably don't need one to reference.

The Christian Gamers Guild is building a growing list of resources for this sort of thing. I'm afraid that two of the best tools, an FAQ on games for Christians and a list of game designers and publishers who profess faith (of any denomination), are not yet complete. However, there are a list of articles linked from http://www.geocities.com/christian_gamers_guild/chaplain/index.html">http://www.geocities.com/christian_gamers_guild/chaplain/index.html which you might find useful, and more coming out every month. (At this moment, both Cornerstone Magazine and The Expositor are considering publishing an article in defense of role playing games; quite a few of the links are to e-zines defending fantasy from a Christian perspective.)

As I say, I don't know whether you want to fight this, whether you think showing him that what he's heard is mistaken, or not; but if you do, there are resources to help.

--M. J. Young

(P.S.--if you think it would help, I can get you a copy of the Cornerstone/Expositor article in advance of publication, as long as you don't spread it around.)