thoughts out !oud

a Christian’s news, views, opinions and occasional poetry …

Last Roll of the Dice for Gary Gygax

Posted by Mathew | 14 March 08

Mr Gary Gygax died on Tuesday morning, 2nd March 2008.

My high-school friends (who are also my old Dungeons & Dragons playing co-horts) may know who Gary Gygax is. My church-going friends might not - though I know the odd one or two who may be able to cast their memory back to younger days. For those of you playing at home, Gary Gygax was the co-founder of the tabletop, paper-and-dice fantasy game called Dungeons & Dragons - a game of imagination and an assortment of oddly-shapped dice, of wizards, trolls, dwarves and, of course, dungeons and dragons.

Founded in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fuelled the imaginations of many a young mind, propelling them into mysterious worlds the likes of which could only be read in the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table or Conan the Barbarian. It is purely a ’sword and scorcery’ genre; when I think of D&D, I conceive of medieval settings with rolling grassy hills, stone castles, fog-laden plains and lush green and dark forests, whinnying horses, plated armour and Lady of the Lakes and that type of thing. It brings to mind all manner of vile humanoid creatures, the likes of which you would seen storming the silver screen in Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. For some Christians, however, it also conjours up (pardon the pun) practices of witchcraft, daemonology, black magic and ouiji boards. In other words, for them, D&D = occult.

At least, that was certainly the impression one minister’s wife had. Dungeons & Dragons is ‘of the devil’ she would say, referencing to Old Testament passages like Leviticus 19:26b,31 or Deuteronomy 18:10-11, both of which prohibit the practice of witchcraft and wizardry and otherwise damning anything of the occult. She wasn’t the only Christian that I found that carried that or a similar view.

In response, I would have to say that Dungeons & Dragons is only play. I know of some Christians who define acting as a series of deliberate lies (and lying is sin, to be sure; it is one of seven things that is despised by the Lord God (Prov 6:16-19)) - and to their credit they follow the conclusions of their logic and do not watch movies or TV serials or read fictional novels. Their media diet seems to consist largely of documentaries (at which point I’ve asked if they switch off when the narrator starts talking about the earth being a gazillion years old or that fish grew legs and jumped out of the sea to walk on the land); they devoid themselves from fictional stories. The main challenge to them, of course, is that Jesus himself told stories that were not true, but which illustrated great truths - I speak of course about the many parables he told.

As children in play, we learn many important life skills and values - who hasn’t played cops and robbers as a child, or taken up a light-sabre as a Jeddi to fight the goons of the evil Empire (ie. the boys next door)? In play, we can learn about good and evil, about heroism and cowardice; about truth and justice and integrity and honour and co-operation and loyalty and friendship. Stories have a profound impact on our learning of values. So the contention I make here is that, in its purest form, even D&D is about play - fictional play - and is an environment in which we can learn skills that would be an advantage in real-life circumstances (excluding actual wizardry ;)).

Such skills would be: problem solving and strategical thinking; co-operation and team-work; creativity; role-play; even planning and mathematics. These skills can be learned in other pursuits and are by no means limited to role-playing games or their online gaming counterparts (like World of Warcraft, for instance). But we all learn by differing methods and variety is that ’spice of life’ after all.

In case you’re not aware, D&D is a role-playing game in which you take on the persona of an adventurer: a mighty warrior, a playful thief, a magic-wielding wizard or a priest calling upon his god for the power to heal others. Your imagination can run wild. You can cohort as an estranged elf, a stoic dwarf, or an enterprising halfling (think of The Lord of the Ring’s Hobbits) or a capitalistic, hum-drum human. These are all tools and vehicles in which to enact out your imagination - the more involved players play in character, acting out and speaking as they picture their characters to act and speak; the more low key simply announce that their character does this or that, etc. You act. That’s the whole point of role-play.

Now the difference between lying and acting (either as a character in a session of D&D or as an actor in a play) is that the former is being deceptive, while the latter is assisting your own (free-will) suspension of belief. In other words, there’s an unspoken agreement between you and the actor that you will allow him to pretend to be something that he is not - and there’s no deception. I can’t see the problem there.

In my D&D playing days, I have played a cleric (a priest) and I have played a wizard. I would then go to church the next Sunday morning and worship and praise my Lord and my Saviour. And I see no disconnect. I do, however, see an alleged difficulty for some - to worship the one true God and then to play a character who, in effect, worships a god that is real to him, but which in reality is simply an imagined god. In my early days as a Christian, I did tussle with that notion for a while; but I know that God knows the state of my heart and it’s true desires; and I am not about tricking myself into believing that what my character believes is real, either.

Common sense ought to prevail (though the irony about ‘common sense’ is that it doesn’t seem all that common). To paraphrase Jesus, it’s not what a fellow stuffs into his mouth that makes him uncouth, but the stuff he spews out that shows the state of his heart (Matthew 15:18-20).

In all that I do I must live for Jesus, I must show my love for Jesus as I am commanded. If I am play acting, I’m going to do a good job of it, for Jesus. If I am role-playing, I will do so in character, and out of character for the mechanics of play, I will enjoy the fellowship of my friends and fellow players. In my mind, that is what role-playing is chiefly about - a great day of fellowship and friendship with good friends. An opportunity to joke and create and imagine - a good, fun-filled day.

And, as in all pursuits, and as I am part of that Great Commission, it is a day of witness; when you are a Christian, Christ pervades every aspect of your life and every activity of your life. And an activity that a true Christian concerns himself with (as opposed to an ‘un-practicing Christian’ - itself a contradictory term) must reasonably include a faithful witness.

I know that I haven’t convinced some - to be truthful, I’m not out to convince. I do draw attention, though, to the works of some of our great Christian literary minds, such as Tolkien’s (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) and Lewis’s (The Narnia Chronicles) works of fantasy involving talking creatures, magicians and a large burly, white-bearded character who drives a sleigh with large sacks of presents in the back. Even in a purely created world of make-believe you can interject a whole gambit of Christian doctrine that is both practical and appealing to the characters who walk those worlds - notions of sacrifice, loyalty, heroism, risk; of co-dependency on others; justice, honour, sin, redemption and forgiveness. There is nothing that cannot be inputted into such a created world. And henceforth, very little that cannot be used to God’s glory and the telling of the Good News.

So what about the extremes? That’s what one typically thinks of, if they have inhibitions about something like Dungeons & Dragons. Yes, extremes do exist in the role-playing arena. You will have groups of role-players who do research the occult outside of the game and bring some elements of the occult back into it as well (which is where the Harry Potter novels came under attack - attacks which I also think have little basis). You will have players who behave in ways contrary to the Christian gospel and who play blasphemous, unrighteous and merciless characters. But you get those characteristics in every scheme of life, not excluding, dare I say it, in our very own Christian churches as well.

The thing about extremes is that you need to relegate them to the small percentage that they are. In many examples, you need to simply take the rotten apple and toss it aside and that’s what I believe most need to do here with players of D&D.

It is not for me to judge Gary Gygax’s life; by the account of his wife in the article of the following link, his contribution to the role-playing industry has taught a great many players the tenets of discipline and people skills to make successful careers in a variety of fields. He has indirectly empowered the lives of many a young geek - helping them to overcome whatever inhibitions and insecurities they have struggled with in their day to day lives, helping them develop into people’s who make positive contributions to society as a whole. And that, surely is a good and honourable thing.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. (Phil 4:8)

Gary Gygax, Dungeons & Dragons creator, dies

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Technorati
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • StumbleUpon
  • Google
  • E-mail this story to a friend!

Related Thoughts out !oud posts

Tags: > > > > > > > > >

Filed Under Opinion |

Comments