(Contrary to what you may have been told....)
There was an awful lot of fuss about RPGs, especially in the eighties when they really took off. Most of it centred around TSR’s Dungeons and Dragons, mention of which can still get you concerned looks from certain quarters.
So what did people get worried about?
| Magic | |
| The Myth RPGs are full of Magic. Players cast spells. We all know magic is a terrible evil thing condemned throughout the Bible.... | The Truth(are you listening, Jack Chick?) - players in an RPG do not cast spells! They do not recite incantations, call on mystical powers or anything else. They generally say to the GM (referee, the person what controls the process) something like "OK - my wizard casts a sleep spell". The rest is up to dice and rulebooks, not demonic forces man was not meant to mess with. If you think that imagining that the character you control has lobbed a fireball at a bunch of orcs will somehow cause your soul to be seduced to ritual magic by Satan, then I think it’s time for a reality check |
| Demons | |
| The Myth Players worship Demons in RPGs | The Truth - Players don’t worship anything in RPGs - well, if they want they can, but it’s nothing to do with the game. If they play evil characters those characters might summon demons or worship them, but it’s like with the magic above - nothing really happens - no-one draws magic circles, or calls on demons, or does anything like that. And the creatures called ’demons’ in RPGs bear little relation to those that may or may not exist in real life. Even if they did (and some do in my pseudo-historical RPGs), please remember that these ones are not real! |
| The Mind | |
| The Myth - RPGs cause people to dwell on dark things, magic, demons, violence and fantasy rather than on God and on the real world. | The Truth - if they do, so do books, TV, the movies...let’s face it, not many Christians would slag off C S Lewis, but the fact is that Narnia doesn’t exist either. The reality is that the imaginary fantasy worlds in which RPGs occur are morally and ethically neutral of themselves. Heroic themes or mundane ones can be explored. It is up to the participants to use the experience to stretch their imagination, to address issues that real life has not yet thrown at them, to learn to see with different eyes to their own. |
This is only a brief few thoughts on the subject; Email me if you want to ask something, but, as ever, if you just want to tell me I’m on my way to hell please feel free to sod off - in love, of course. On second thoughts, Email me anyway. I enjoy a good laugh as well as the next man.