DnD...

[ktm]

linkskywalker:

I am too doomed to endless nerd-dom/geek-ish-ness! And proud of it! However, there are a lot of geek/nerd girls that I know that are possibilities if I ever decide to end my relationship strike. I often wish there were less of them…chosing which one to pursue would make my head hurt (thus the relationship strike X’D)

Nerd powah, nerd powah!

Right on, my pocket-protector-wearing brother!

I played D&D when I was in high school too, and it never even occurred to me that it was anything more than an entertaining game. I did hear of a few people who did LARP (live action role playing) and I always thought that was extremely weird. There is a nerd, I mean science fiction convention every year near my house called I-CON. Evidently this is a big deal. I understand it’s one of the biggest sci fi conventions in the northeast US. Klingons and Vulcans of every stripe descend on my poor little town for that weekend. I went once. It was kind of interesting, but too nerdy even for me.

 

[Thomas2]

Okay, so you found me out!

I admit it - I play games on my computer. However, DnD wouldn’t be one of them - not by a long shot! Try chess - its fun when you beat the puter!

Peace and all good,

Thomas2

 

[Della]

There are official Lord of the Rings computer games out there that are probably safer and more fun. How about trying some of them, instead of D&D?

 

[Faustina]

T.A.Stobie:

Roleplaying is neutral in itself and can be used for both good and bad purposes.

For instance, in many religion classes, students are asked to roleplay situations so that they can examine the morality within it. Here they are learning how to better interact with people and live a more moral life.

Roleplaying is a good place to improve your social interaction skills. It is helpful to focus playing non-evil characters so that their evil tendencies do not creep into your own life. Often it is a good place to safely let go on many of the stresses within your life.

This is what I wondering. There was so much mentioning of role-playing and how bad it is. I cannot help but thing of the many part time actors that are out there. The ones that act in community theatre and such. That takes a lot of time, sometimes the role is the bad guy and others it is the good guy.
I cannot see the harm in role playing as long as you are aware you are role-playing.

 

[DominvsVobiscvm]

Noticeably (how do you spell that??) absent from the Book of Deities in DnD is any mention whatsoever of God the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, though nearly every single other religious figure from history in almost every culture is included.

If anything, I would say that this makes the game far less offensieve. By not including the true God in a pantheon of deities, the fictional character of the game is brought more clearly to the fore. That is why there is no problem with Catholic actors performing in a play written by Sophocles or any other ancient playwright that features pagan gods. They are so obviously fictitious to modern viewers (most of them anyway) that there is no harm to the faith in portraying them on stage. (2000 years ago this would not have been the case).

I’d be far more offended if someone included the Holy Trinity as one deity amongst many in a board game, wouldn’t you?

You mentioned you liked the “Age of Empires” computer game. How about the game by the same people: “Age of Mythology”?

 

[T.A.Stobie_SFO]

DominvsVobiscvm:

If anything, I would say that this makes the game far less offensieve. By not including the true God in a pantheon of deities, the fictional character of the game is brought more clearly to the fore. …I’d be far more offended if someone included the Holy Trinity as one deity amongst many in a board game, wouldn’t you?

Definitely. I would not want to play in a game that put true God on the same level as a fictional one. Either it is all fictional deities, or based on the true God (and the conflict against the evil one) and no fictional ones. For the second category, care needs to be taken that a true view of God is used and not a distorted one. Some gaming systems present a distorted view of God so they should be avoided.

 

[linkskywalker]

T.A.Stobie, SFO & DominvsVobiscvm - I was going to say that same thing in my last post, but had trouble putting it into convincing words. Fantasy must exist within God, God cannot exist within fantasy.

Della & Thomas2 - DnD is in no way a computer game. It has been adapted into a few video games throughout time…but the true game of DnD is a pencil and paper RPG, and really, the only good one. As for playing other games such as LotR…well in my oppinion LotR is wayy overdone. It is a masterpiece…but quite frankly I’m sick of it’s existance. Since the movie’s came out it’s imposible for me to get away from it.

Brian - Amen.

ktm - That’s 73h 1337 dude! I’m not much of a sci-fi fan anymore…but I always enjoy environments like that. There’s this whole feeling of belonging that we nerds don’t feel often, and while we do enjoy our solitude, it’s nice to be around others like us every so often. Why do you think there are always so many of us in card/game/etc stores? LMAO

Faustina - This also, is somthing that I was thinking about saying, but couldn’t put into the right words. Sombody does have to play the bad guy, what is a story without conflict? Nothing but a log book!

I myself haven’t Rped an evil charachter for over 2 years now, as I discovered I much prefer the holy neutral type charachter. I do have a friend, however, who RPs evil-doers all the time. Him and I created a history for our two charachters that went back to their childhood, where he was kidnapped by an evil lord and brainwashed. years later, he came back, destroyed my village, and we’ve been rivals since then. It makes for some good RPs

 

[kjvail]

I’ve played Dungeons & Dragons since I was about 8 years old (33 now), obviously my understanding of the game has changed a bit in that time . The game has changed alot too. I’ve played every version since the original except for the new version 3.5. I’ve attended conventions, renassiance faires (which don’t necessarily have anything to do with D&D, but similiar themes), I’ve been a player and a Dungeon Master (the referee and primary storyteller) I’ve also played and refereed a handful of other Role Playing Games. I’ve also been into Everquest for about 4 years now. EQ is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) designed and administered by Sony, it borrows heavily from the “Forgotten Realms” world of Dungeons & Dragons.

I see no conflict with Catholicism, there are certainly misinformed people out there that think its ‘devil worship’ or whatever - often these same people put dancing in the same category

In any case, D&D is very eclectic, there are guidelines and templates you can use to get started but many experienced DMs create their own house rules and custom designed game worlds. You could easily adapt the D&D rules to a campaign (long running game with a coherent story line) set in 11th Century Europe or similiar, play out the Crusades! (That’d be fun, maybe I’ll work on that ) Use any God, gods or combination. It’s your world. Nothing more Catholic than roleplaying a Paladin (holy warrior) on a quest to recover the true cross!
You can have as much magic as you want - or none if you prefer.
It can be very violent and I’ve been in adult games that had fairly gratitutious sexual content, but of course you are free to leave that out too. You could reduce the inherent violence to a few dice rolls instead of vivid descriptions or simply design a game that is more orientated to roleplay, problem solving and politics than combat.
It can be obsessive, I have hundred of books probably amounting to several thousands of dollars worth of stuff, including some very rare books that cost me a pretty penny in and of themselves. But like anything else, just keep your priorities straight.
I can’t put the time into it (or money) that I used to since I have a family now.

 

[theMutant]

linkskywalker:

theMutant - I agree on pretty much all of that, except the parents part. I know that coming from sombody still under the controle of his parents, this sounds like it should be dismissed, but hear me out here =P

As the oldsets of six children, my parents usualy leave me to myself meerly for lack of time. I do my own school, drive myself and my brother to TKD and walk myself to fencing, or drive myself to work. I help them out when I can, but they don’t have much time to bother about MY life. I’m perfectly fine with that, I have nothing to hide from them. Occasionaly I’ll drag them over to check out some cutscene in a game or somthing like that, but for the most part they trust me to do what’s right, and I do my best to do that.

If however, I were to - for example - bring my PS2 out of the basement and play onimusha or tenchu: wrath of heaven up there, it would probably scar my younger siblings for the rest of their lives. In trying to watch over me, my parents would be exposing their younger children to things that might be suitable for a 17 year old, but not for a 2,5,7,and 10 year old. The same could be said of DnD. I might be able to see the difference between fantasy and reality. I might be mature enough to realise that the occult is wrong. My 7 year old brother that worships the ground I walk on? Probably not.

It sounds to me like your parents are pretty much doing what I suggested. They have taught you right from wrong, including that the occult is wrong. They are aware of what you are doing in terms of entertaining yourself but are giving you the room to be mature and act responsibly. I did not intend that they should necessarily attend all of your gaming activities and that they should know all of the exact details, but that they should keep aware what kinds of things in which you involve yourself so that they can discern if there is a problem that they should deal with. This is essentially the same way my parents dealt with me.

It seems to me that both you and your parents are taking responsible steps to shield the younger children from things that they don’t understand and might cause problems for them. I am the youngest of six so that was not an issue for my parents for my entertainment choices; although it must have been for my older siblings.

 

[Ghosty]

I think the best way to think of RPGs is that they are free-formed plays. So long as the player understands that they are acting as a character in a story, then there is no problem ( DominvsVobiscvm took the words right from my mouth in mentioning Greek plays!)

In fact, my favorite games are the ones with a lot of moral grey area, specifically games by the company White Wolf. In the World of Darkness setting of White Wolf’s, you play as various types of “monsters” (Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, and even Fallen Angels) who must deal with the world as we can perceive it in real life, as well as the moral questions that arise by default in such a setting. In the case of Demon: The Fallen, which is my favorite modern setting game of White Wolf’s, you take the role of a Fallen Angel who has taken a human body, but is now wracked with human emotions. Where once the Fallen Angel was purely evil, they now must incorporate the human spirit into their existance, and many of them begin to question their stance against God. The point of the game isn’t to make us believe that Fallen Angels are redeemable, but rather to provide a setting for moral questions to be dealt with, including the role of Salvation and Redemption. The game is, at it’s heart, about exploring humanity’s relationship with God and itself, with Demons merely used as lense for viewing these relationships (not entirely unlike The Screwtape Letters, really). Of course, used by immature people such games become extremely blasphemous opportunities to rail against God, and I’ve seen this happen, but the game was actually written by strong believers in God and Christ, one of the main writers being a practicing Catholic. My favorite character I devised, but never played, was a Demon who came to see God’s greatness and love on a personal level after unrighteously stealing a human’s body. This demon sought to become what it once was, an angel, precisely because of the depth faith of the person it has “become”. The point of the character wasn’t to present some faulty theology about real demons, but rather to tell of the beauty and power of humanity’s relationship with God, and to represent the changing effects of true faith; the demon was merely a set-piece.

Of course, sometimes a game is merely a game, and has no intent with theological or moral teaching whatsoever. I’m also a huge fan of Call of Cthulhu, a game based on H.P. Lovecraft’s writings. Lovecraft wrote in an essay that “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown,” and his stories are based on this psychological premise. The Christian God is not depicted at all, but rather countless cults and bizarre, alien deities. Characters never play as these things, however, but rather stand against them as they try to avoid the insanity that Lovecraft believed comes from the unraveling of what we think we know to be true about the universe. The saving power of faith is not discussed because the point of the game is deep, psychological horror, and in the face of an infinately merciful and loving God, such “alien horrors” become impotent, demonic puppets, not unlike the reality of the demonic in our world.

The true danger comes from people believing too deeply in these games, or letting them take away from their true lives, as others have stated quite well. Certain games, such as F.A.T.A.L. (do yourself a favor and DO NOT look it up!) have NO redeeming qualities that I can see, and are designed only for people to indulge in depraved fantasies. Games like that I simply can’t condone on either moral OR entertainment grounds.

 

[Melissa]

I am a player and DM of AD&D games, as well of a member of the board of directors of an NPO running an on-line play-by-post RPG site. (Anyone interested, PM me for a link to the site–it’s free.) I do not, however, have any experience with LARPs.

While there are some people within the Catholic Church (as well as outside) who have a problem w/ D&D and/or other RPGs, there is no official Church condemnation of participation.

If there are problems with participation, they would come under these categories:

• 
  *]participation in the RPG consumes so much time that there is none left for prayer and/or other obligatory tasks
  *]participation in the RPG results in expenditure of money (magazines, supplements, figurines, etc.) which rightfully should have been spent on necessities
  *]participation in the RPG results in confusion regarding fantasy and real life

 

[Keith_Strohm]

I just want to say that I am so happy to find gamers and non-gaming catholics who take such a balanced and knowledgeable approach to D&D.

I have been gaming since I was 10 (I’m 34 now), and I am also active as a Retreat Director and youth minister in the Life Teen program at my parish (more controversial, I’m sure than my gaming).

I was also the Brand Manager for Dungeons & Dragons and headed up the team that launched the 3rd Edition of the D&D game. I am currently employed in the gaming industry as the Vice President of Paizo Publishing–we publish gaming mags, including Dragon and Dungeon.

Anyway, I wanted to say how heartened I am by the posts answering the original question! So often I encounter uninformed negativity regarding D&D and roleplaying.

In Him,

Keith Strohm

 

[Makerteacher]

DominvsVobiscvm:

If anything, I would say that this makes the game far less offensieve. By not including the true God in a pantheon of deities, the fictional character of the game is brought more clearly to the fore. That is why there is no problem with Catholic actors performing in a play written by Sophocles or any other ancient playwright that features pagan gods. They are so obviously fictitious to modern viewers (most of them anyway) that there is no harm to the faith in portraying them on stage. (2000 years ago this would not have been the case).

I’d be far more offended if someone included the Holy Trinity as one deity amongst many in a board game, wouldn’t you?

Honestly I had not thought of that point. I believe that I agree with you there!

DominvsVobiscvm:

You mentioned you liked the “Age of Empires” computer game. How about the game by the same people: “Age of Mythology”?

I have seen demos of it but do not own it and have not played it, so I cannot comment. Did you have a thought about it? If so, please share!

I’d be interested to hear more from anyone involved in the live action role playing games. (LARP’s) (learning this new vocab…)

 

[Count_Chocula]

I played D&D for a while then some one cast a lvl 4 spell of realization on me and I realized I was wasting a LOT of time. Satanic or not it’s a very dull game. Avoid at all costs. Unless you LOVE random incessant dice throwing.

 

[linkskywalker]

Count Chocula:

I played D&D for a while then some one cast a lvl 4 spell of realization on me and I realized I was wasting a LOT of time. Satanic or not it’s a very dull game. Avoid at all costs. Unless you LOVE random incessant dice throwing.

That’s your oppinion, and that’s fine. You might find it to be nothing more than rolling dice, but I find role playing quite entertaining. I’ve done freeform RPing for well over 2 years, and in my groupe am considered an expert. Often I am given the task of teaching others and making sure n00bs don’t mess up the game. (Meaning I reluctantly must become a mod >.<) So I’m no stranger to this, I just wanted to know if I could take up another form of RPing without it conflicting with my religion.

 

[Count_Chocula]

linkskywalker:

That’s your oppinion, and that’s fine. You might find it to be nothing more than rolling dice, but I find role playing quite entertaining. I’ve done freeform RPing for well over 2 years, and in my groupe am considered an expert. Often I am given the task of teaching others and making sure n00bs don’t mess up the game. (Meaning I reluctantly must become a mod >.<) So I’m no stranger to this, I just wanted to know if I could take up another form of RPing without it conflicting with my religion.

Actually to be honest I really did like the actual role playing aspects of it but as soon as swords were drawn… so dull.

 

[linkskywalker]

I must repeat though, that’s your personal oppinion and not really relevant to the topic at hand, which is “is it moral or not”

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

I played D&D when I was younger, and would sometimes be told to watch out for the demonic aspects of it…only I didn’t see any of the demonic aspects. That doesn’t necessarily ensure there were none, but like many have said, there is no need to recite an actual prayer to another god or anything like that. I do see that many RPGers are also dabblers in the occult, but then it comes down to a choice of friends/fellow players.