So Gary Gygax has died

[Emily~Anne]

What you describe seems like it could be harmless if its a game that one plays on a board...but when it's a role playing game it creates an alternate reality that someone lives for the duration of the game. My friend, for example, would live an alternate reality for weeks (if not months?) at a time.

Of the millions of people who play this particular game, how many enter a reality that isn't based on the spiritual reality of the Kingdom of God? Anything other than that is consulting mediums, imo. It opens the player up to a world of spirits and magic that isn't an accurate biblical reality. Over time this could seriously lead them astray as it did with my friend.

So what it "could" be doesn't matter....what it "is" does.

It's a game. It's not real. Millions play it every day and suffer no ill-effects. Just like Harry Potter, horror films and Star Wars. They're not sitting playing with a Ouija Board or chanting Satanic hymns. It's totally, completely benign.

Harry Potter glorifies sorcery, horror films glorify evil, and I havent looked into Star Wars. I am deaf and never watched TV till I was almost an adult and got my first Closed Caption machine. By then Star Wars was pretty rare. I know the movie came out. I'm into girly flicks, not sci-fi. Were pretty conservative with what we watch/read at our house. No video games at all in this house.

[Emily~Anne]

Those of you parents who are ultra choosy like me, here's a link that has some good suggestions on what to look for in books and I feel this can be applied to movies as well. http://www.keepersofthefaith.com/Articles/Howdowepick.asp

[nebula]

Think of it this way - would you want your girlfriend/wife to create a fantasy boyfriend/husband that her fantasy self trusts in?

why not? it's not real. like I said, it's fantasy.

There's a difference between lusting after a woman and pretending in a game. When you lust after a woman, you actually want to...do things with her. When you're playing a game, it's just that, it's a game. It doesn't mean you want to go out and use your level 3 fire spell on a goblin, or dress up like a barbarian and go around attacking people. It's like playing cowboys and indans: just because you're pretending to be a cowboy doesn't mean you really want to go and kill some Native Americans.

WTG - You have completely missed the point of what I was saying.

I was talking about creating a fantasy character that you take the role of who worships a false god.

The Lord compares the worship of false gods to adultery . . . and with good reason.

Do you love the Lord? Do you not believe He cares that you are treating His deity so lightly?

Let me try this:

Imagine you got a hold of some letters your mother had written. In them she had created a fantasy character with which she takes a break from reality. In her imagination, she is making love to an imaginary husband - who is not you father.

Or you discover your father is having fantasy romance with a fantasy woman - who is not your mother.

Are you comfortable with this?

Do you believe Jesus, who died on the cross for your sin, is comfortable and OK with your fantasy gods?

Your friend is a special case. Some people don't like their lives, ans therefore use their hobbies as a means of escape. Sometimes, if that hobby happens to be roleplaying, they allow themselves to be absorbed into that world. Again, that is a special case. Like I said, i had many friends in High School who played D&D and its derivatives, and none of them were ever "drawn into an alternate reality". It was jut a game to them.

Russian roulette is "just a game," too you know.

[nebula]

In America we have a severe problem with idolatry so please don't just attack RPGs for this alone and only (I can think of alot of other things we make our idols).

True, but this thread is about D&D, no? So this is what we are discussing.

but if I may pose a question is it just D&D all of you are opossed to? (I agree with you there) or Role-playing in general?

For me - it's D&D mostly.

[XianGothDude]

Well atleast we're on the same page; I've only played one game of D&D and found it horriblely boring, character creation was a snore fest, however I do play other RPGs mainly those focused around telling a story etc.

Edited March 9, 2008 by XianGothDude

[WillingToDie]

Think of it this way - would you want your girlfriend/wife to create a fantasy boyfriend/husband that her fantasy self trusts in?

why not? it's not real. like I said, it's fantasy.

There's a difference between lusting after a woman and pretending in a game. When you lust after a woman, you actually want to...do things with her. When you're playing a game, it's just that, it's a game. It doesn't mean you want to go out and use your level 3 fire spell on a goblin, or dress up like a barbarian and go around attacking people. It's like playing cowboys and indans: just because you're pretending to be a cowboy doesn't mean you really want to go and kill some Native Americans.

WTG - You have completely missed the point of what I was saying.

I was talking about creating a fantasy character that you take the role of who worships a false god.

The Lord compares the worship of false gods to adultery . . . and with good reason.

Do you love the Lord? Do you not believe He cares that you are treating His deity so lightly?

Let me try this:

Imagine you got a hold of some letters your mother had written. In them she had created a fantasy character with which she takes a break from reality. In her imagination, she is making love to an imaginary husband - who is not you father.

Or you discover your father is having fantasy romance with a fantasy woman - who is not your mother.

Are you comfortable with this?

Do you believe Jesus, who died on the cross for your sin, is comfortable and OK with your fantasy gods?

Your friend is a special case. Some people don't like their lives, ans therefore use their hobbies as a means of escape. Sometimes, if that hobby happens to be roleplaying, they allow themselves to be absorbed into that world. Again, that is a special case. Like I said, i had many friends in High School who played D&D and its derivatives, and none of them were ever "drawn into an alternate reality". It was jut a game to them.

Russian roulette is "just a game," too you know.

It's only Idolatry if you actually worship something other than God. If I do not actually worship these other "gods", they are merely a device of the game. If my father were to play a RPG game (not likely) and have a romance with an in-game character, it wouldn't bother me. It's not real life, not in the least. It doesn't even accurately portray real desires.

This is all beside the point, as I understand it, the only ones who must "worship" some deity are those who play as a Cleric. If you were to play a D&D game and felt convicted to not play a Cleric character, you are free to do so. Granted, gods may be used as plot devices, but this is encountered within nearly all fantasy settings. Even Middle Earth had its gods.

And D&D and Russian Roulette are not comparable in the least.

[Burning_Ember]

I think I died a little inside when I saw some of the responses to this thread. A little preface to the rest of my post, first.

I'm what they call a Dungeon Master, or DM. I make up the world, I set the motivations for the bad guys, I make up the history of the world, and I do all the deep scary voices for the boss characters the players encounter. If I say Goblins attack a town, they attack a town. What I saw is what happens in the fantasy world. This world is of course non-existant, fantiscal, and is only existant as a concept in peoples minds.

There are a few rules when it comes to D&D. The most basic, being Rule 0 and Rule -1.

Rule 0 (Zero) means that what the Dungeon Master says, goes, he decides what happens in the campaign, he can simply veto anything the players want to do, and revoke rights to treasure, experience, or even snacks. An example of Rule 0 is as follows. Also, anything the DM says happens, happens.

DM: "Ok, the goblin lunges at you with a lust for blood in its eyes."

Player: "I grab it and throw it fifty feet into the air, jump up after it, than kirk punch him back into the ground." (Kirk Punching is when you raise both your arms above your head, clasp your hands together, and bring down the resulting double fist.)

DM: "No, you can't do that. You only have a strength of 16, and you are in Full Plate. I doubt you could jump 2 feet, let alone 50. However, I will allow you to Kirk Punch him."

In this, case, the player wanted to do something that was clearly beyond the limits of his character. If an action is too innappropriate/distateful for the campaign, it can be disallowed, and if the player is continually belligerent, he would likely be banned from the Mountain Dew. A lesson in tough love. Another example, is in my campaigns, I use Rule 0 to state that if you say an action, you do it. That is, unless you say you are joking preceding the action. As the instance of "I try to take the magic spinning crystal that sustains the flying castle we are in" proved, the players think about what they say a bit more, or at least specify they are joking beforehand.

If the players do not want to play after being banned from the Mountain Dew, or are dissappointed they cannot be the omnipotent kobold of infinite divine power (you'd be surprised how broken the rules can get, at least in Edition 3.5) then they can decide to not play. That is Rule -1.

D&D to me is like several people getting together and acting out a private improv play that has some rules and limits on what you do. It is no more sinful than acting a part in a play, a movie, TV show, or even acting out (a) character(s) in a book you read to your children at bedtime. Making comparisons to wives pretending they are committing adultery in letters with someone is not analagous whatsoever, because I have yet to see a session where somebody who was married declared that as an action for their character. Come to think of it, I haven't played D&D with anybody who was married, either. (Ba dum ching.)

The rules and content provided are just like one person described earlier here, a toolbox full of neat little cut and paste stickers you lay out on a scrapbook. (Metaphorically speaking.)

If anybody would like to do direct any questions towards me, feel free to do so. D&D does not effect my relationship with Christ.

[patricia1]

http://www.johnankerberg.org/ankerberg-art...s/dungeons.html

Well i guess a little bit of poison is okay? There are spirits behind some of these Characters. You guys who play wanna take that chance be forewarned.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Dungeons_and_Dragons

[WillingToDie]

http://www.johnankerberg.org/ankerberg-art...s/dungeons.html

Well i guess a little bit of poison is okay? There are spirits behind some of these Characters. You guys who play wanna take that chance be forewarned.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Dungeons_and_Dragons

Yes, because those are clearly unbiased sources.

Why not present the Chick tract as well?

[XianGothDude]

I think GURPS would burn a hole in my pocket LOL, there's so many books I saw that (idk if you NEED but when I was looking at the GURPS books, I was just trying to find "Rulebook" LOL)