In the mid-90's a friend and I became fascinated by the "Christian adventure game" (similar to a roleplaying game) called DragonRaid, published by Adventures in Christ. (Details can be found at the DragonRaid website.) We never managed to actually play it, largely because we were living in different countries, but we made characters, read through the initial adventure, and discussed it at length by email.
Briefly, DragonRaid is a game in which one participant--the gamemaster--sets up a fantasy scenario and the other participants--the players--take the roles of characters within that scenario. The players choose their characters' actions; the gamemaster adjucates the results of those actions, as well as playing the parts of all other characters in the scenario. In DragonRaid, most adjucation is based on the player's ability to remember and recite Scripture: where a character in a secular game might cast a spell, a DragonRaid character uses specific Scripture quotes.
The adventures of DragonRaid take place in a fantasy realm with echoes of C.S. Lewis. The players' characters are "TwiceBorn" (saved) individuals who are sent out into the unsaved world to accomplish quests and fight for good. DragonRaid characters fight monsters such as trolls and dragons, which allegorically represent spiritual forces, but they are forbidden to harm ordinary "OnceBorn" people. God, under the title "Overlord of Many Names," is an active character in the story.
The expectation for DragonRaid is that the players will be young people and the gamemaster will be an adult. I'm not clear on the intended age group: perhaps tweens to teens. The lengthy scenarios do not suggest younger children.
I have been thinking about DragonRaid lately in the context of the Slacktivist and Slacktiverse discussions on proselytization. DragonRaid is not billed as a proselytization tool, but it is meant to educate young Christians in their faith and morality, a similar motive. Its differences from secular roleplaying games are striking, and can illuminate fundamentalist Christian attitudes toward fiction, roleplaying, and moral learning.
The defining characteristic of roleplaying games is that the player takes the part of one or more characters who exist and act in the fictional game-world. My D&D group has spent the last year playing out the takeover of a city by a Borgia-like noble house, with five distinct character roles played by a single player. While games in which the players play versions of themselves do exist, it is much more common for a player to control a character who is distinct from the player, with his or her own name, history, and personality. (From now on, the player will be "she" and the character and gamemaster will be "he," simply for convenience.)
Secular roleplaying groups vary a great deal in how strong a dividing wall they raise between player and character. Almost all groups hold that the character should not use knowledge which only the player has. Many also hold that the character's morality is not necessarily the player's: the character can hold a different religion or moral code. (This allows Christian players to depict characters of other faiths, for example, and many do.)
Having a strong distinction between player and character allows a wider range of characters, takes some of the sting out of bad in-game events--it is your character who is eaten alive by army ants, not you--and helps reduce conflict within the group. Some groups actively discourage characters who are too similar to the player--I don't play Wiccan characters, for example--for fear of blurring the player/character distinction. A character named after her player will be scorned by many groups.
This disconnect is not absolute. Most gaming groups put limits on how depraved the character can be, and will censure a player who oversteps; very few place no restrictions at all on characters' actions. (As an example, the Borgias game above allows fairly vile behavior, in keeping with its premise, but draws the line at rape.) In most groups, two characters may dislike one another without damaging the players' friendship; but groups vary as to whether the dislike can be expressed with actively harmful in-game actions, as this may be bad for group cohesion.
If I had to make a generalization about a very diverse hobby, I would say "The character is not the player; his actions must be kept within limits to preserve group cohesion and enjoyment, but his decisions should not be taken as a proxy for hers." Some games enforce this in the rules: a Call of Cthulhu character who sees a horror may snap and do something demented quite against the player's will.
Fundamentalist Christian critics of secular roleplaying games tend to deny the player/character distinction, holding that players are always morally culpable for their characters' actions. DragonRaid, intended as a tool of moral education, blurs or even erases the player/character line. This makes sense in terms of DragonRaid's goals, but it has strange and, in my eyes, somewhat self-defeating implications for actual gameplay.
I first encountered this issue when trying to make a DragonRaid character. Characters are described by nine attributes, "gifts of the spirit" including Joy, Hope, Faith, Love, and Peace. (A secular game might have Strength, Intelligence and so forth here.) I was puzzled when the random die rolls gave me a character with high Faith and Love, but low Joy and Peace. My spouse eventually suggested that the character was devout but sufffered from guilt and self-judgement, and I developed a characterization around this. I assumed that that was what I was supposed to do.
The sample adventure, however, immediately punctured this idea. At the beginning of the adventure the character is confronted with a troll tempting him with "gawking at bodies on the beach, buying all the clothes they could ever desire, and going to a music concert where there will be plenty of 'pleasure potions' (drugs)." [1]
As a secular roleplayer I am used to thinking "How would my character react to this?" Well, my character is a TwiceBorn crusader, someone chosen by his god to fight for righteousness, on a holy mission into Dragon country. Would he be tempted? His high Faith suggests that he might not. --Never mind that, would he accept drugs from a troll in a potential combat situation? Isn't this a trap? And incidentally, does my character care about clothes or music concerts? Are those part of his backstory at all?....
It rapidly became apparent that I'm not supposed to be asking those questions. I'm supposed to be asking if I want to gawk, shop, or do drugs. Despite having a named character with randomly determined attributes, I am actually supposed to be playing myself.
(I'm not sure what the attributes are for, frankly, as they do not guide character actions. Maybe they are best thought of as victory conditions: if you get all nine attributes to their maximum, you win.)
But there's a twist. If my character succumbs to the offer, the other characters will have to delay their mission in order to rescue him--he'll be "sin enchanted." Furthermore, my character's moral failing is meant to be seen as mine, and the gamemaster should "provide me with counseling and prayer." In order to lift the "sin enchantment" so that the adventure can proceed, the other players must disenchant my character by quoting Scripture to me until I understand my error.
The impression is that I am not really meant to roleplay myself: I am meant to roleplay a "best self" who always tries to do the right thing.
The adventure synopsis on the web site mentions that the moral challenges can become "much harder." The players are given a bible verse telling them that God is their hope. Their characters are then infected with a fatal disease. They are supposed to show unwavering hope. If they don't, the gamemaster stops the game so that they can think about it; the game can't go on until the players agree that hope is the correct response.[2]
There are two difficulties with DragonRaid's approach. The first is that a temptation isn't very tempting if we know that it's not actually available. A pile of money on the table will tempt a dishonest person. A picture of money generally won't. In DragonRaid, if my character succumbs the gamemaster is not supposed to provide a juicy description of bodies, clothes, or drugs. He just states that the character is "sin enchanted" and I have to sit quietly while the other players practice their Scripture quotes on me. After a few iterations of this, it's not clear why I would feel tempted anymore, as there is no payoff. This is quite different from a real-world temptation. It's also different from the temptations possible in a secular roleplaying game: "If I lie to the guards, we can get into the castle without using up our invisibility potions" represents a temptation with a real in-game payoff.
This is less true for the negative temptation of despair in the poisoning scenario. Despair tempts us because struggling on seems harder than giving up, and this remains true in-game. (I wonder how often DragonRaid groups give up at this point.)
But the more severe difficulty with DragonRaid as a moral learning tool is that the gaming dynamic provides its own temptation, one far more pressing than bodies, clothes, or drugs: the temptation to answer tactically rather than morally, to deduce the "right" answer and tell the gamemaster what he wants to hear. Not only are the players tempted to do this, in some cases they are actually forced to, as with the fatal disease--the game cannot continue until the players say that their characters are hopeful, so eventually they will say it. At worst this may become inducement to lying.
Secular roleplaying, at least in some of its forms, asks the player to build a mental model of her character and then answer truthfully about that model ("would he really do that?"). Some games demand fidelity to the model even if the result is disastrous for the character or the whole group. The player's reward must then be her own satisfaction in a good portrayal, and perhaps the group's admiration for her sportsmanship.
DragonRaid seems actively hostile to the concept of being true to your character model. A DragonRaid character is a puppet, not a person. I'm not sure why they have names, except to lessen the scariness of scenes like the fatal disease by giving a bit more distance. I think the authors and audience of DragonRaid would be very uncomfortable rewarding their young players for depicting a character doing the morally wrong thing, even if that would be a truthful characterization. [3]
You might, I suppose, build a useful moral habit by constantly deducing the right response and then giving it. You will certainly learn to guess what the adult wants to hear. In the sample scenarios it is generally obvious: I don't think even my atheist thirteen-year-old would be in doubt. (He wouldn't play along, though. His tolerance for "tell them what they want to hear" is zilch.)
There are a few reasons, other than not knowing the "right" answer, why a player might give the "wrong" answer. She might feel rebellious toward God, the gamemaster, or the play group.[4] She might enjoy the attention of having her character rescued. She might want to be seen as daringly bad by her peers. Whether the resulting game would encourage the player to be less rebellious or attention-getting is not clear to me; the situation moves away from rules and into group dynamics at that point. It seems unlikely to me, however, that anyone over the age of about eight would say "My character accepts the troll's shopping spree" simply because she wanted a shopping spree--at least, not more than once or twice, given the unpleasant consequences.
The authors of DragonRaid hope that roleplaying through the troll's temptation will reduce the player's desire for shopping sprees, or at least her propensity to go in for shopping sprees. That is a major point of the game. (Its other major point is the memorization of Scripture. From all accounts it is effective at that goal.)
How well will this kind of moral instruction work?
The players are unlikely (unless, again, they are very young) to think that the in-game consequences are any kind of literal representation of real-world consequences. The game outcomes are not "what will happen", they are "what authority wants you to think will happen."[5] A major discovery made by most kids in their teens, if not earlier, is that authorities often want you to think things that are not actually true. It's especially problematic that the game never depicts the positive rewards of bad behavior. In reality, doing bad things often does bring short-term rewards. A scenario that denies this will not stand up to experience for long.
I question, therefore, whether DragonRaid will accomplish its goals of moral education. Is this because roleplaying is simply not a good tool for learning about morality?
That hasn't been my experience. I've been playing (secular) roleplaying games for about 33 years and I've been struck by their power as learning experiences. As one example, in my own games I have explored the dichotomy "An effective leader must admit his doubts or he cuts himself off from essential reality checks" and "An effective leader must conceal his doubts or his troops lose heart." I started out believing the first one, but gaming experiences have convinced me, somewhat painfully, that it's not as simple as that and the second position is sometimes correct.
The key difference from DragonRaid is that I learned this, but the gamemaster did not teach it to me. Instead, he tried to present difficult situations as accurately as possible, depicting realistic human (and alien and monster) reactions to the best of his abilities, as did the other players: and I had the chance to explore the consequences of hiding, or not hiding, my doubts about leadership. I saw followers holding back because they sensed the leader's uncertainty, and this cost us a couple of key battles. I also saw followers' loyalty collapse completely when they learned that a leader was deceiving them, and this cost us as well. I started out with a simplistic view ("always tell the truth") and ended up with a more complex one ("weigh the costs"). My current belief is that in emergencies it is often best to show no doubt, but the longer-term the situation and the more strategic your decisions, the more important it is to acknowledge uncertainty.
I don't know that the gamemaster or other players would agree with my conclusions, but they don't have to. They provided the push-back, the background of realistic reactions against which I could try out different moral theories. I have since had occasion to try some of those theories in real life, and they have stood up pretty well.
The great danger of this approach is that the player may not learn the "right" lesson. My character Markus committed a gross sexual impropriety, by both his society's standards and mine. Markus argued that, due to circumstances, he was justified. The in-game situation was complex and ambiguous: it offered no clear-cut answers. During the game I found myself swayed by Markus' self-justifications to the point that I became personally angry when observers told me Markus was in the wrong. Looking back many years later, I think Markus was wrong. I had a ringside seat in his forays into self-deception, which was a learning experience in itself; but along the way I ended up defending a position on sexual morality that, in retrospect, was more about my own seduction (Markus was a favorite character) than about my core values. I'm still uncomfortable about that game.
This is the risk that DragonRaid won't take. By making the gamemaster the arbiter of moral authority, the game insulates itself against the possibility of players reaching unapproved moral conclusions. But in the process it destroys practically all of its potential for moral improvement. Once you stack the deck, it's not a real game anymore. There's no quasi-real gameworld pushing back; there's only the gamemaster, a fallible mortal just like the rest of us, with his own agenda and his own blind spots. By their teens if not sooner, the players are likely to realize this.
My credo as a gamer and writer is that if you want truth to come from fiction, you must be true to your fiction--never subordinating it to your message, no matter how virtuous. My spouse sometimes comes out of combat-heavy roleplaying scenarios with a moral attitude of "Get them before they get you." I find this deplorable, and we've had nasty real-world quarrels over it. But if I manipulate the gaming scenarios so that "Get them before they get you" is never the right choice, I'm no longer true to my fiction, and its ability to test or explore any moral question will immediately vanish. In a falsified world it's just my word against his, whereas if we both play as truthfully as we can, we may actually learn something neither of us knew before.
I have seen an example of this which truly amazed me. We played a game in which my character Jayhawk was captured by the enemy and held hostage. For various reasons we chose to play out the captivity in day-by-day detail. In the end, Jayhawk ended up siding with her captors against her former friends at the final confrontation. Her motives were complex and not altogether wicked, but it was still a horrifying betrayal.
I was shocked by the way my character behaved. I felt no doubt that I had depicted her accurately, but why had she done it? I did some reading, and encountered descriptions of Stockholm Syndrome that closely matched what we had seen in the game. Apparently we had found this out on our own, simply by following the situation in emotional and psychological detail. I don't think I would have understood those descriptions if I hadn't lived the situation "firsthand."
This is, in my view, one of the things roleplaying is good for. (It is also a lot of fun, intellectually challenging, a good social opportunity--like all forms of art, it has multiple uses.) DragonRaid attempts to use roleplaying as a teaching tool, but by heavy-handedly demanding control over what the student learns, it paradoxically guarantees that, except for the very young and very naive, its lessons aren't likely to be learned at all. In fact, the most likely lesson, the one the game really supports, is "No matter what you think, say what Authority wants to hear."
I sincerely hope that that's not the message the authors intend. But they aren't true to their fictional reality, and in my view there is no substitute.
--MaryKaye
__________
[1] All quotes from the DragonRaid web page. ↩
[2] Peaceful acceptance of death is not an option. Perhaps this is because the DragonRaid world is allegorical, and it would represent spiritual death, damnation. The disease is caused by falling into dirty water, which could symbolize some kind of contamination by worldly wickedness. On the other hand, perhaps death just represents death.
I'm not at all clear which parts of the DragonRaid world are meant to be taken allegorically. As young children tend to be literal-minded, the intended audience is probably likely to take it literally even if that wasn't the intent.
I hope that no kids come away from this with the idea that if you are a good person God won't allow you to die. It is terrible to face a loved one's death from that perspective, because now you must choose between your faith in God and your belief in the loved one's goodness.↩
[3] The DragonRaid gamemaster is allowed to depict evil actions, however. This distinction also appears in secular roleplaying: some groups require that all of the players' characters be good guys, but no one puts this restriction on the gamemaster.↩
[4] I remember a secular roleplaying game where the gamemaster's apparent purpose was to have the players admire and emulate his super-powerful character. What he actually got was a group of adult players bending all their efforts to get a burr under the saddle of Mr. Perfect. Kids can certainly react this way too.↩
[5] Since the consequences come from the gamemaster, he must be willing to claim moral superiority to the players--otherwise speaking for God and rebuking the players' sins will not be viable. It would be difficult for adults to play DragonRaid unless one of them was recognized as the group's authority figure. I certainly couldn't get away with it with any of my gaming groups! I have played gods, though with great trepidation, but only the characters' gods, not the
players'. Even then I try to avoid delivering moral pronouncements in character as a god, lest I show all too clearly that I am only human.↩
The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.
I think part of the reason DragonRaid doesn't make the player/character (or the "meta" distinction, from "metagaming," as my group calls it) distinction is because fundies and the individuals that game is geared towards have a poor understanding of fantasy and would never be able to make the distinction in real life. In a lot of ways, it's the moral substitute for D&D designed by the same crowd who would avidly read Left Behind and believe that it's the truth of what's to come. The ability of your typical fundie to distinguish fantasy from reality is slim to none. At the same time, however, most will never be faced with the temptations that they encounter in that game because they live such secluded lives; which means those paper temptations can carry every bit the weight as the real world temptations do. Now, that's not always true - I've know some christian fundamentalists who are gamers. I was introduced to a very fun science fiction RPG named "Alternity" (which, sadly, is no longer published) by a more moderate fundamentalist.
My characters, I find, almost never mirror my own morality. Even though it'd watering it down, I talk in terms of alignment - my person alignment would be "Chaotic Good" in terms of 3.Xe, according to my friends. This is an individual who is "good above all else", i.e., the law is useful only when the law is useful and not actively hurting people. Robin Hood is often cited as an example of a chaotic good character, and given my desire to redistribute wealth and the fact I'm a socialist, I think it fits very well. My characters alignments whiplash between chaotic good to the far more common chaotic neutral, which is no regard for law or regard for good or evil - I do what I want, when I want to, but I'm not actively trying to hurt or help you. While that's not antithetical to my personality, I pretty much know my morality and my outlook on life, and the ability to play different moralities (I almost never play evil characters. This should probably be telling. I have done evil ACTIONS, however. But I never play paladins or clerics, so I don't have to worry about that).
Posted by: Josh (Enigma32) | Jul 06, 2011 at 11:25 AM
Interesting post! It seems like DragonRaid doesn't teach good behaviour but instead teaches the performance of good behaviour. I wonder how much this attitude is reflected in the wider evangelical community? In my experience, when talking to a pastor or very religious person there's always the temptation to give the obvious 'right' answer rather than what you believe to be the truth. (The same, of course, holds true of many non-religious people, although I'd argue to a lesser extent.)
Posted by: Philboyd | Jul 06, 2011 at 11:30 AM
It is a problem with the RTC subculture that they have difficulty with ambiguity and imagination. They really don't like metaphorical fiction unless it's crashingly obvious. I suspect that had C.S. Lewis only written the Narnia Chronicles, they would be suspicious of them especially the Caspian-era books. Since Lewis wrote Mere Christianity (and has really obvious sexist attitudes), they know he's on their side. But Tolkien and Rowling are as likely to be attacked as witchcraft writers in the RTC community as they are to be acknowledged for Christian metaphor and moral teaching.
And it is long known that cross-over between the "Chrisitan music" world and the popular music world is impossible. Amy Grant was practically excommunicated from that scene when she dared to make a secular album. U2 is lumped with the general horde.
I do have a small amount of sympathy for the DragonRaid designers. When I was a history teacher, I created a few role-playing/simulation games to teach about specific eras and concepts. It's a delicate balance between game play (simple instructions), truth to the scenario (letting students act as they see fit), and the educational objectives (mainly in U.S. education, getting the right answer on the test). However, I tended to fall in the truth to the scenario camp. Any deviation from the actual events or the accepted concept (mainly in economics) would be covered in post-game lessons. The DragonRaid designers come from, or are marketing to, a culture that abhors dialogue on religious or moral principles. So they get way more ham-fisted than I would.
Posted by: histrogeek | Jul 06, 2011 at 11:31 AM
DragonRaid illustrates something I have repeatedly told acquaintances who think that my D&D hobby is going to make me "do things": You get out what you put in. Put a bunch of stoners around the table and you'll get a game that is only fun when you're so high that everything is funny. (Been there, done that, never went back.) Game with a bunch of uptight people who think that D&D makes you "do things" and you'll get, well, DragonRaid. I will not discuss the type of person who would come up with FATAL. Anyway, our usual group is made up of people who want to tell a story about heroes solving mysteries, rescuing captives, defeating monsters, and exploring mysterious ruins, while incidentally getting a lot of gold. Plus we like to know the details of the game world our characters inhabit, such as what their parents do for a living. So we do a kind of episodic comedy-drama with character and plot arcs. The DM likes to shake things up occasionally by introducing a natural disaster or a civil war, to which we can react in character.
A good game is one that everybody at the table enjoys, however. (Situational ethics! Oh noooo!) I personally don't like the kind of game where the characters get to rampage through the game world like a bunch of bikers in Mayberry and my usual DM doesn't either, so when we get a player who wants to do that, his character gets to know the city guard really well and the player usually doesn't come back. But if the whole group ever wants to play bikers in Mayberry, more power to 'em. I just won't be there.
Posted by: Jenny Islander | Jul 06, 2011 at 12:13 PM
The ability of your typical fundie to distinguish fantasy from reality is slim to none.
Bit sweeping and rude there! What's a 'typical fundie'? What are you basing this on? I find it hard to believe that your average hard-line religious person is that incapable of distinguishing fantasy from reality. Let's be fair here.
If we're going to make generalisations about persons not present to defend themselves, I for one would like to see them backed up with citations.
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | Jul 06, 2011 at 12:16 PM
Hrm. This dragon raid sounds like a shit game. But the moral instruction seems pretty straightforwardly aristotelian: morality is a habit. Therefore, the "game" is really about making approved behaviors habitual. The troll's offers of gawking and shopping and drugs aren't tempting to the player and they aren't tempting to the character, because you're *never* supposed to yeidl to them. You're supposed to *mechanically* reject them, without any thought, so that when you are offered temptation, you have a knee-jerk response (Admittedly, my response is to want to knee the jerk who suggested we play this shit game) to reject it, on the assumption that by the time some *actual* temptation comes along, you'll reject it reflexively before you even think to be tempted.
Also, when the GM rings his bell, you're supposed to salivate.
But this:
Was a pleasant surprise to me. My roleplaying friends in high school only ever put minimums on how depraved the player charachters had to be. I mean this literally. Every character was required to have an "insanity" (their word). "Psychopath" was the most popular one, but "Womanizer" came up a few times. There were more mundane ones like "Drug addict" and "prone to fits of berzerker rage".
I didn't much like to play with them, now that I think about it.
Posted by: Ross | Jul 06, 2011 at 12:36 PM
In fact, the most likely lesson, the one the game really supports, is "No matter what you think, say what Authority wants to hear."
I have zero experience with RPG, so with that caveat, I could see where MaryKaye was going about halfway through her article. From her description, the game's idea of "morality" is following rules for their own sake, which is really the opposite of morality. Before MaryKaye mentioned it, I hadn't realized that such a game could lead to players telling the game-authority what it wanted to hear as an evasion tactic. I would have expected players, if they played long enough, to learn not to question the game-authority or form their own judgments about it.
That phrase confounded me. I've never found alcohol to be pleasurable for anything other than the taste. I've never tried illegal drugs, and my sole experience with Valium for minor surgery was a little scary since I could barely walk straight.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 06, 2011 at 12:39 PM
This was a fascinating read, thanks! I've been a role-playing gamer off-and-on (mostly on) since around 1978. But I'd never heard of this game. I've often wondered if the Fundamentalist types would or had ever introduced some kind of Christian substitute.
The bit about quoting Scripture instead of using spells is actually kinda clever (I have often tinkered with the idea of requiring spellcasters to sing a snatch of a song which had something vaguely to do with their spells; e.g., the Doors' "Light My Fire" when you want to throw a Fireball).
But it seems to me -- this may be just a blatant restatement of what's obvious from your description -- the big problem with this game (from the viewpoint of this more 'traditional' RPG-er, myself) is that it seems to be structured to assume there is exactly one and only one solution to every problem. I always thought what separated RPGs from other types of games, e.g. board games, was the way they encourage improvisation. Theoretically, the characters can do anything they want. Much as this aspect can be a pain-in-the-@$$ to referee, when some clever or smart-alecky character blows your carefully crafted scenario wide open by doing sometehing unexpected, it always seemed worth the pain to me. It seemed to me like improvising and encouraging invention and creativity were useful skills which RPGs promoted. But with this game -- presumably reflecting the morality of the people who wrote the game -- as the saying goes, "there's MY way, and then there's the WRONG way."
My players do sometimes complain that my plots are heavy-handed, but even _I_ can't imagine getting a lot of enjoyment out of an RPG where there is exactly one answer to every situation. It's more like a True-or-False test than actually playing a "role" or a "character". Your character doesn't really matter for squat. I often present heavy-handed moral choices in RPG's, but I allow the players to choose the "wrong" choice and sometimes they make it all work out right anyway. I also present them Kobayashi-Maru "no-win scenarios" sometimes, just to see how the characters react to defeat or despair -- and the majority of the time, the characters manage to snatch some sort of unforseen victory from my jaws! That's the sort of thing that makes role-playing appealing to me.
Posted by: Thomas Daulton | Jul 06, 2011 at 12:56 PM
Thanks for posting this - I'd seen mentions of this game before but never such a fascinating analysis.
I wouldn't ascribe the failure here to the fact that's it's fundagelical as much as to the fact that it's meant to be morally educational, and people in general aren't good at figuring out what's actually successful there. My husband took a really interesting class in childhood moral development, and it went through the stages - first the kids behave out of fear of punishment/desire for reward, then out of... I forget the term, but something like blind acceptance of the rules, and eventually because of an internalized and larger feeling of the "rightness/wrongness" of their action. (I think there's another level past that, I don't remember.) Anyway, point being, authority figures don't generally care if you the individual get past stage 2; they just want well-behaved kids, so once they figure out how to get that they don't do the extra work of getting them to stage 3 - the one where kids will actually behave even if nobody's watching/telling them what to do. So if that's all you want - or all you can imagine - then of course a list of rules with helpful examples is going to produce the morality you want.
And of course there's the Johnny With The Beans Up His Nose problem to navigate. (You tell little Johnny, "don't put beans up your nose!" and that's the first thing he does as soon as your back is turned, even though he'd never think to do it in the first place.) This is actually a big problem in a lot of kids' "educational" tv - they show 20 minutes of a character behaving badly, and 2 minutes of resolution - the kids watching remember the 20 and not the 2. (Much like my friend who became terrified of haircuts when he saw Grover being scared of one, totally missing the part where Grover finally gets his hair cut and it doesn't hurt. Poor guy refused to get his hair cut until kindergarten.) So I can understand the thinking of, "well, we don't want to be too tempting in our temptations, because then kids might think this thing they hadn't thought of before is actually something they want to do!"
Personally, I've learned a lot by playing my recent evil character. Her backstory is that she started out bursting with desire to make the world a better place, but got irritated when people were just too stupid to follow the gameplan. So now her goal is to become a goddess of mind-control and make everyone behave. It provides a lot of opportunity to navigate some fine lines that, well, don't generally come up in my everyday life, but are still pretty rich for thinking about. I really doubt this character would be encouraged in a "moral teaching" RPG.
Posted by: Cat Meadors | Jul 06, 2011 at 01:06 PM
You kidding? That character sounds pretty in-line with, say, the Left Behind God.
Posted by: Ross | Jul 06, 2011 at 01:10 PM
@Josh (Enigma32): The ability of your typical fundie to distinguish fantasy from reality is slim to none.
A rather sweeping statement that is actually meaningless unless you can offer proof that "fundies" (and I wish people would avoid using clearly derogatory names for groups they disagree with) are any more or less capable of distinguising fantasy from reality than any other group of people.
I agree that many of the people who enjoy games such as DragonRaid seem rather cutoff from much of modern culture but then so do many other people. Indeed I have met game devotees who seem to have a rather unclear sense of the line between the world of gaming and the "real" world.
Posted by: Mmy | Jul 06, 2011 at 01:17 PM
Thank you for the comparison, Mary Kaye. I would have taken one look at this game, deduced that it's a way for church authorities to tell the youth group that they're going to get to plan an RPG but actually force them to memorize Bible verses and practice repeating them to people (regardless of whether or not the person wants to hear them), which is actually pretty good training for later life, from the authorities' point of view.
I think the interesting part isn't that RTCs are unable to distinguish reality from fantasy, it's that a lot of them and their authorities are resistant to the idea of that distinction. Which is a shame, for the reasons Mary Kaye illustrates so brilliantly. Brava!
I have to wonder if that resistance is due to fear that the idea of fantasy will sow seeds of doubt, or due in part to an idea that there really isn't any such distinction in a spiritual sense - that everything inside your head is real, and something that can lead to damnation, or that is going to attract evil spirits or give them entry or some such.
Posted by: Literata | Jul 06, 2011 at 01:25 PM
Beware: wall-o-text below!
So I watched the Zero Punctuation review of "Infamous 2" last night, and there's a nice bit of crossover between that review and this one, actually.
First point of crossover: Yahtzee says that one of the appeals of the sandbox game is getting to do whatever you want, relatively consequence free. And certainly, part of the fun of an RPG is getting to solve problems with excessive amounts of unbridled violence without the risk of death, legal persecution, injury, or PTSD afterwards. The escapist aspect of the game is basically a safe environment to explore situations that in reality you'd never touch with a 10-foot-pole. So having an RPG where doing the "wrong" thing causes the game to abruptly stop while everyone chants around you seems to be a clear-cut case of missing the point! RPGs are a safe environment to experiment with "bad" choices. (in the same way that BDSM is a safe environment to experience failure, humilitation, and punishment; you'd be surprised how many doctors, lawers, and business executives seek out a safe place to fail)
The second interesting point Yahtzee makes is late in the review, talking about the morality system of "Infamous". If you're going to have a game mechanic of choosing "Good" versus choosing "Evil", there has to be some level of rationality built into the choices, rather than just choosing evil to be a jerk. If the good choice is difficult but rewarding, then the evil really needs to be just as balanced and appealing, like being easier but riskier. (and still evil) Otherwise, you get the problem of "Evil wins, because Good is Stupid". (or vice-versa)
If a character in DragonRaid is "Sin Enhanced", well, that ought to be good for something now, and much worse for something later. ("enhanced" connotates some improvement...) A good game system balances these things in such a way that 'bad' choices are appealing in the short term, unpleasant in the medium term, and absolveable in the long term. So the troll gives you "pleasure potions" that make your social interaction challenges easier, but the Storyteller can decide when the potion ends and the withdrawl kicks in. (like, say, during a difficult encounter) A character who uses a "pleasure potion" and stops suffers withdrawl for a while, and is less effective than other characters, but after a while, just becomes normal again.
Done well, systems like these work as intended without feeling horribly heavy-handed, mostly because players can make "wrong" choices and play through it. (you know... like adults that make wrong choices and work through them...) Anyone who's ever played "Axis and Allies" knows that the game favors Germany in the beginning, and the U.S. in the end, and most games end "correctly" in history.
The DragonRaid gamemaster is allowed to depict evil actions, however. This distinction also appears in secular roleplaying: some groups require that all of the players' characters be good guys, but no one puts this restriction on the gamemaster.
Well, that raises another inherent flaw in DragonRaid. Good storytelling (which is what role-playing games are: collective storytelling) involves confict with an uncertain outcome. The game master is responsible for establishing the foundations for these conflicts, for creating the tension between the heroic and the villanous. If you want to win, you have to be able to fail. Otherwise, what's the point? A lot of game masters sidestep this by having the player-characters be relatively insulated against failure but not non-player characters. If the heroes are on a quest to rescue the kidnapped villagers from the evil cult, the game master may be reluctant to have the heroes die or the cult completely escape with all the villagers, but they will allow for scenarios where not every kidnapped villager lives to come home. This is less satisfying than the risker outcomes (heroes die/are captured/join the cult) but it still keeps some dramatic tension, even as it reduces non-players to "Others" that become increasingly disposable over time. DragonRaid doesn't even do this: the game simply stops until they find the "right" choice, which means there's no tension or drama.
Game theory and game design are a hobby-horse of mine, as some of you know. I don't think the idea of a Christian RPG is inherently a bad one, but I think trying to teach morality through a rules-based game-system is a more complex process than the designers were aware of, at least if you want the end game to be fun and engaging.
Posted by: Rodeobob | Jul 06, 2011 at 01:31 PM
I just want to say I love the links down to the footnotes and, even more so, the links back up to where the reader left off!
Posted by: Andrea | Jul 06, 2011 at 01:34 PM
I'm rather surprised that this was even a "thing."
I've read way too many blogs and heard way too many people complain about the satanic nature of Narnia and DnD to imagine that there haven't been DragonRaid book burnings or something similar (I'm suddenly thinking of Arrested Development's music burning party. . .)
I also remember having to watch a video called "Satanism, Witchcraft and the Occult." Their representative for the occult was a woman rambling on and on about Dungeons and Dragons and how games like this talk about a battle between good and evil but how can that be because Jesus has triumphed over death and evil. There was also something about having to maintain a balance between good and evil (see above rant about Jesus). Of course, this was from the same video that presented "Witchcraft" as a teenaged girl talking about tarot cards while standing in front of a Stairway to Heaven subway poster. . .
I can't remember if it was in the same video, or a 700 club piece that talked about two boys who would go into the woods and play DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, SATAN'S GAME! until they committed suicide. SEE I TOLD YOU! these games are evil, and these boys deaths had nothing to do with their clinical depression or their cocaine habit, which we have to mention, but we're going to do it as fast and as quiet as possible so you don't get the wrong idea that SATAN might not have had something to do with this.
Posted by: Rowen | Jul 06, 2011 at 01:45 PM
Fascinating article. I've definitely found roleplaying games to be wonderful tools for working out my own anxieties and questions and morals, and the best games are the ones where I have to come in conflict with my character, and allow her to do what she needs.
MaryKaye, this might be a little off-topic, but I'm curious. You talk a lot about the sorts of rituals that you do as a pagan, and not knowing all that much about them, they do sound something like roleplaying in themselves. To put a ritual together, to assign roles and to plot out what you're going to do, what dangers or rewards you'll encounter...do you think it's a similar effect? You learn more about the world by engaging in scenerios that (while I don't at all intend to say they're not real) are unlikely to be encountered in day-to-day life without the ritual set-up?
Posted by: Samantha C | Jul 06, 2011 at 01:54 PM
@Andrea: I just want to say I love the links down to the footnotes and, even more so, the links back up to where the reader left off!
MaryKaye suggested that while we were at the format check stage. In fact many of the improvements/changes in the site have been suggested by members of our community.
Posted by: Mmy | Jul 06, 2011 at 02:26 PM
Part of the reason why some people who play DragonRaid might have trouble distinguishing between themselves and fantasy role-playing characters is because they are only encouraged (or sometimes only permitted) to play games like DragonRaid -- where there is no meaningful separation between the in-game character's identity and the player.
It's not really about being able to distinguish fantasy from reality. I'm sure that most of these same people can watch, say, "Transformers 3" and understand that it's not a documentary on modern aerospace engineering. But if your only frame of reference on something like roleplaying games is a game like DragonRaid, when you're having a conversation about something similar, like Dungeons and Dragons, you naturally have a tendency to rely on those old assumptions. It's not really about stupidity, or religious fundamentalism -- that's just how people work.
Posted by: dismayor | Jul 06, 2011 at 02:26 PM
I haven't played D&D in 30 yrs (high school), but I have remained fascinated with role-playing games ever since. This post was fascinating because it revealed all sorts of complexities I didn't realize were part of the experience. Thank you, MaryKaye!
Posted by: Laiima | Jul 06, 2011 at 02:35 PM
I think it's actually "Sin Enchanted", as in, "Your character is now enchanted or seduced by evil".
Posted by: dismayor | Jul 06, 2011 at 02:38 PM
@Andrea: I just want to say I love the links down to the footnotes and, even more so, the links back up to where the reader left off!
MaryKaye suggested that while we were at the format check stage. In fact many of the improvements/changes in the site have been suggested by members of our community.
Thanks, MaryKaye! And thanks TBAT, for including the feature.
Posted by: Mike Timonin | Jul 06, 2011 at 02:39 PM
...as regards the comments that the "fundies" cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality...
In all honesty I must disclose that I enjoy capping on the so-called "fundies" and their fantasies from time to time. However, reading Kit's and Mmy's criticism of the blanket generalization, it occurs to me that I'm hard pressed to name any of my several hundred American compatriots who are not living in some fantasy or other. Economic fantasies -- especially free-market fantasies -- are probably the most common. Followed by Imperialist fantasies, and [domestic] political fantasies. Apocalyptic fantasies are a smaller contingent but they're noticeably growing. For the record, I don't exempt myself from having any of those delusions, from time to time.
So I guess if we're going to make sweeping generalizations, we should just admit that Americans in general aren't good at distinguishing fantasy from reality; it's not something we can pin only on the "fundies"...
Posted by: Thomas Daulton | Jul 06, 2011 at 02:45 PM
We tend to say the RTC subculture has a problem with reality. True in some cases, but here I think the issue is imagination. Imagination seems to be viewed with a good deal of suspicion. Too much allows SATAN to take control I suppose is the logic. The idea of deliberately creating an entirely new world, with its own rules and expectations, is to many in that subculture effectively lying. Or else it's sinning in your heart.
Kurt Cameron is sort of a poster child for this. Once he converted, he wouldn't kiss on camera or do anything "immoral" even in the cause of his art. It was all lying or encouraging immorality. I think there was even a case where he objected to a script to because his character did something naughty, but it was in a dream sequence. Presumably he knew he wasn't his character and that in this case his character wasn't even really his character, but even entertaining naughty thoughts is tantamount to doing them. Needless to say, it's put a crimp in his career as an actor, at least for mainstream entertainment.
Posted by: histrogeek | Jul 06, 2011 at 02:53 PM
This is what I think of when I hear "Sin Enhanced."
Posted by: Rowen | Jul 06, 2011 at 03:13 PM
Great, now you've made me think about Final Fantasy X, temporarily shattering my pretense that Square inexplicably jumped from VI to IX and then never made another FF game ever again.
Thanks.
*grumble mutter razzem frazzem*
Posted by: Froborr | Jul 06, 2011 at 03:17 PM
I've attempted to play it twice. I was confused and MASSIVELY bored, so I googled the plot line. Big mistake. I haven't touched it since.
On a better note, I was cat sitting for a friend, and my ps2 is on the fritz, and she had a ps3, so I started playing FFIX again. I forgot how well done that one was. It's not perfect, but I like the characters, and the storyline and so much about it.
Posted by: Rowen | Jul 06, 2011 at 03:24 PM
Oooh, RPG theory!
Excellent post, MaryKaye.
I tend not to play "evil" characters myself--mostly because I'm a giant wuss and don't do it well, insofar as I get inordinately attached to NPCs*--but I've found that I always need to play characters with some kind of flaws in order to compensate for the excessive genre-savviness that an external perspective can give me. Yes, a good GM will provide a sensible reason to go into the dungeon, open the Necronomicon, and so forth, but this is a cooperative hobby, and it helps if my character's willing to get the ball rolling by tripping over it on occasion.
(Also, I admit to starting a habit of playing impulsive or unwisely knowledge-hungry characters in LARPs after one too many sessions when "Hey, want to go on this module?" was followed by thirty damn minutes of standing around discussing the same three points. I hate kender with the fire of a thousand suns, but there's a valid point buried somewhere in the WHEEE I'M A SIX YEAR OLD ON A SUGAR HIGH crap.)
As Mary Kaye mentions, the difficult or unclear choices are generally the most significant. It's easy for most people to have their characters throw the Rod of Orcus into the void...until the Rod is maybe the only thing that can heal their dying friend, fight off the Far Realm invasion, or counter the plague. Don't get me wrong, getting to do the Clearly Heroic Thing is a lot of fun sometimes, and I need those points of bright light in an otherwise shades-of-gray campaign, but...virtue untested is innocence, as someone said.
From a different angle, playing a character whose inclination is to evil and exploring the things that can make them do good is really interesting: my post-apocalyptic necromancer chick was *totally* willing to torture people and would have cheerfully eaten someone's soul if they were evil enough, but she's recently joined an order that doesn't let her do that, because the order's goals are things that matter way more to her. Maybe she'll eventually come to dislike the prohibited things on her own, maybe not, but the way in which good can restrain evil that way is cool to play out.
@Thomas Daulton: Ooh, yes. One of the things I like most about LARPing is that the spells all require an incant of some variety, which leads to neat atmospheric things: in the post-apocalyptic game I mentioned, for example, someone recited a modified version of the Green Lantern Creed to mass-heal the town. That's an aspect I think I actually would like to bring into tabletops, now that you mention it...
*Not even particularly awesome NPCs. I had to replay significant portions of Dragon Age because I wanted to avoid getting my faceless elf armies killed.
Posted by: Izzy | Jul 06, 2011 at 03:35 PM
Man, this thread is making me really, really want to RP again. I have a concept and most of the first session for a D&D Fourth Ed campaign where the players begin as soldiers, stranded alone in an enemy country the day after their (fully justified according to their leaders) invasion failed. Their pockets are full of currency the use of which will immediately mark them as enemies, they have no food, and the equipment on their backs and nothing else.
I'm assuming, as this is a group that's not gamed with me before and therefore does not know my style, they'll initially treat the NPCs as resources to consume and try to slaughter and pillage their way home. I wonder how long it will take for them to realize this is a Bad Idea.
I'm fine with characters being evil, but callousness and carelessness? Treating the world as less than real? Those'll get you punished. Not killed, because breaking my toys means I don't get to play with them anymore, but I play every NPC as a *person*, and that means they will respond to your treatment as a person naturally would.
Case in point: One campaign, one of the characters was *disgustingly* good at negotiating and lying. He used a combination of haggling and conning to get the party an average 25% discount on everything they bought, and then skimmed 10% for himself off the top. The result was a party *ridiculously* well-equipped for their level, and his character becoming obscenely rich enough to endanger the game balance... and a hit taken out on him by the Merchant's Guild. *evil grin*
Posted by: Froborr | Jul 06, 2011 at 03:53 PM
A fascinating read, MaryKay! Thank you!
I read this part: "[...]they are forbidden to harm ordinary "OnceBorn" people." and I actually thought that was Not Too Bad. A dramatic contrast to the Left Behind video game. The quoting scripture mechanic seemed awkward* but an interesting way to encourage people to remember relevant scripture.** But then I read what it was that the troll was luring people to... a shopping spree, a music concert, and imbibing in 'pleasure potions?' I'm sorry, but as we say in the RPG.net forums, man what. I think 'troll' and I think either "big bad who sits under a bridge and noms travellers" or "fantasy version of a Foglio jaegermonster." ("Hwy hallo dere, laydeez...") (That or a variety of Lesser Yowling Internet F***wad.) Huh. Clearly a definition of 'troll' I am not familiar with!
I think DragonRaid is not a horrible concept but it falls into a variety of traps. For starters, the attributes are generated randomly, but the gameplay requires the player to be an active participant vice the character. That seems to make the attributes rather pants if not useless.
I am not quite so unhappy about the GM being the Voice of Authority. This is true in any game. The GM has to be; it has to be their decision as to what is good and evil in the game world. If a paladin stomping kobold hatchlings is considered a 'good act' then the GM has to interpret that correctly. Likewise, if a paladin is... I don't know, given Paladin Demerits for that same act of kicking kobold hatchlings, then again, the GM has to be the arbiter of that. Especially in games where there IS an *objective* alignment system, where there is a universal definition of 'good' and 'evil.' Granted, in this context, it does turn DragonRaid from a tool for self-exploration into potentially one for indoctrination.
I do wonder if DragonRaid gives that definition for the GM, if there is a direct statement that 'THESE ACTIONS ARE GOOD' and 'THESE ACTIONS ARE EEEEEEEEEEVIL!' from the developers; or if such morality is left up to the GM.
There are interesting questions regarding RPing 'evil' characters. I occasionally play with the idea of a game world where, essentially, LeHaye's TurboJesus is the One True God and morality is as defined by that branch of Christianity. I see it descending -- or rather, ascending? -- into a post-apocalyptic passion play where 'All right, then, I'll GO to hell!' is not merely a statement of morality but a declaration of destination. I don't see it happening, though, for much the same reason that I have trouble seeing a proper Call of Cthulhu campaign being run: At some point, the PCs die, they get sent to Hell, TurboJesus rules with fire and lightning, Hell gets crowded, and the remainder are brainwashed and chant 'holy, holy, holy!' ad aeterniam.*** A game where TurboJesus wins always, all the time, every time, would be no fun for players.
* - And I have known many awkward mechanics in my day!
** - I would dearly love to get LeHaye into one of these games where the correct answer is Timothy's "works not faith alone" verse.
*** - I suspect I just butchered the Latin tongue there. Apologies to any Latin scholars out there!
Posted by: Mink | Jul 06, 2011 at 03:54 PM
I think it's actually "Sin Enchanted", as in, "Your character is now enchanted or seduced by evil".
I've been playing D&D long enough, and with enough game designers, that I automatically parse "enchanted" to Enhanced because "Enchanted sword" actually doesn't make much sense.
We tend to say the RTC subculture has a problem with reality. True in some cases, but here I think the issue is imagination. Imagination seems to be viewed with a good deal of suspicion. Too much allows SATAN to take control I suppose is the logic. The idea of deliberately creating an entirely new world, with its own rules and expectations, is to many in that subculture effectively lying. Or else it's sinning in your heart.
I have to disagree. I mean, I agree that if you asked folks in the RTC subculture why they feel the way they do, they'd give that answer, but that doesn't mean that's really what's going on. They might internalize that rationalization, but that's not why imagination is discouraged.
The real issue is that a lot of RTC-dom already is an imaginary world, where Satan is an active, real force manipulating events on a massive scale by influencing corporations and governments, while simultaneously waging a deeply personal war after each individual soul! If you look at the Satanic Panic of the 90's, the underlying beliefs included massive shadow conspiracies that co-opted local law enforcement, health officials, and government.
If you asked RTCs why imagination is bad, they'd say it's a tool of Satan, but the real reason fantasy escapism is bad is that it offers up an alternative to the already-constructed fantasy world that RTCs are encouraged to subscribe to. If you only ever watched "Two And A Half Men", you might think it's witty, clever comedy, but watch "Arrested Development" and then compare...
RTC fantasy looks painfully silly from the outside, with comparisons, but if you're never allowed to explore any alternatives, and are discouraged from making comparisons to other allegories, then the horrific inhumanity of Rayford Steele and Cameron Williams isn't as evident. "Bible as literal truth" seems nutty if you compare it to "Bible as allegory", so the safest route (from a command-and-control perspective) is to prevent any such comparisons.
Posted by: Rodeobob | Jul 06, 2011 at 03:56 PM
Rodeobob, that's pretty dismissive, and thinking about it "from a command-and-control perspective" implies that the RTCs who do think that way are automatically split into the duped and the puppetmasters. Fred's nuanced discussions of how some people really do drink the Kool-Aid and what that means for personal responsibility give us lots more ways to think about the possibilities, so I wouldn't be so quick to put your money down on the "keep control" perspective.
Posted by: Literata | Jul 06, 2011 at 05:10 PM
Literata - sorry, I tend to approach issues from a game-theory perspective. I don't believe RTC preachers and youth leaders are peering over steepled fingers, plotting how to control the 'flock' and cackling maniacally. The Venn diagram of "duped" and "puppetmasters" has a surprisingly large overlap; remember, the first person we learn to lie to and manipulate is ourselves, and those of us who are good at lying to and manipulating others have a lot of practice on ourselves.
When people say "RTCs have a problem with reality", it's a perspective issue. We can note that human beings enjoy the vicarious excitement of being in an existential struggle against eternal evil. We can also observe that the feeling of vicarious excitement can be derived from movies, books, games, and imagination with the same emotional satisfaction as from sermons about Harry Potter being a recruiting tool of a global coven of witches.
We might not make these observations directly. A church leader might notice that young people, eager to be "spiritual warriors" and ready to "go forth to do battle with Satan" would suddenly be much less involved with the church as they start reading Tolkien or Harry Potter, or start watching movies or playing certain games.
It doesn't require duping or being a puppmaster to observe these things. It doesn't require malice to argue that one approach is healther or better or purer than another. And if you perceieve that for whatever reason these various forms of escapism are in competition with your religious teachings, then it's only reasonable to oppose them.
The youth pastor or evangelist who does oppose these things may not know the underlying cause (substituting one vicarious fantasy for another, or being able to compare fantasies) but the clearly can see the correlation between active imagination and disinterest in RTC mythologies of omnipresent Satanic influence, spiritual warfare and eschatonology.
Posted by: Rodeobob | Jul 06, 2011 at 06:57 PM
We tend to say the RTC subculture has a problem with reality. True in some cases, but here I think the issue is imagination. Imagination seems to be viewed with a good deal of suspicion.
I don't think that has anything to do with a particular religious viewpoint. I see a LOT of that in the library, from people of many different or no (as far as I can tell) faith perspective.
There are plenty of intelligent, well-educated, culturally aware people who dismiss ALL fiction as "lying." If it isn't factual -- more, if it isn't immediately practically USEFUL -- it is a waste of time, "fit for children -- and women -- and dull, ordinary people."
We do, of course, have many Evangelical Christian patrons who stick strictly within the books published by Tyndale, and Bethany House, and the like. I don't think that so much as refusing to deal with imagination OR reality, as the fact that they are reading these materials for relaxation and pleasure. It's not challenging concepts they object to, so much as, well, what they consider "gratuitous" profanity, sexuality, violence, etc.
And I don't have any problem with that. If I found four-letter words distressing, for example, and had to listen to them all day everywhere I went, I think I might enjoy entertainment that I could be sure was free from that.
Of course, there are plenty of people who, hrhm, DO go over the edge a bit. I just had a complaint today about an AMAZING display a staff member set up to celebrate the Harry Potter movie (hundreds of bottles in all sorts of colors and bizarre shapes, from the size of my pinky to a gallon, filled with sparkles and glowsticks and rubber eyeballs and cobwebs and I-don't-know-all-what, beautifully labelled with creative potion names).
In the course of fretting that we were promoting "Witchcraft", the patron said, "You *do* know what the Lord God does to those who call up and consult the dead, don't you?"
I heroically resisted the temptation to say, "Anoint them King of Israel?" and just said I'd pass the complaint on.
Posted by: hapax | Jul 06, 2011 at 06:58 PM
Rodeobob, thanks for that restatement - and your point about deceiving ourselves is a very, very apt observation.
As for a global coven, Pratchett had it right (as usual): The true collective noun for a group of Witches isn't "coven," it's "argument."
hapax, your stifled reply is the most awesome comeback ever. If you don't mind, I will shamelessly steal it and put it on my list right ahead of telling smart-alecks who ask if I'm going to turn them into a newt or toad that I generally find I can't improve on Nature's handiwork.
Posted by: Literata | Jul 06, 2011 at 07:06 PM
I suspect that in many cases, it may not even be that explicit, but more of an instinctive reaction. Assuming that RodeoBob is correct about RTC-dom already being an imaginary world, perhaps living that way would be like living as an RPG character all the time. That would likely involve a large amount of denial and self-deception, which I expect would be psychologically draining. If my supposition is correct, then it may be difficult for anyone in that situation to have the willing suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy fantasy, because all their emotional resources may be invested in maintaining belief in the RTC imaginary world.
Posted by: Tonio | Jul 06, 2011 at 07:15 PM
hapax: you rule. Knowing more about scripture than intolerant fundamentalists FTW. (Actually, I have run across quite a few intolerant fundamentalists whose knowledge of scripture was very limited. Possibly a result of prooftexting vs. actually reading any individual book straight through; or possibly a result of being encouraged to take someone else's word for what it says rather than reading it themselves, which, y'know, could be dangerous. Cf. De heretico comburendo.)
Posted by: Lila | Jul 06, 2011 at 08:03 PM
My most successful character began as evil; in ICE there are classes that even have "Evil" in the name which I thought kind of silly, and he was an evil mage. Really, what made me play him less and less evil over the years is that I couldn't play cocky and overconfident.
The system has a mechanic where you fail around 4% of your spells if you're average. (Roll d100, 01-04 always fails). I failed more around 25% of my spells, and EVERY SINGLE TIME I attempted to overcast or speed-cast.
This seriously cramps your BWAHHAHIHAVEYOUNOW tendencies.
Posted by: Mark Temporis | Jul 06, 2011 at 08:41 PM
@Cat Meadors: That would be Kohlberg's stages of moral development, I think. /triviageek
Posted by: mercredigirl | Jul 06, 2011 at 09:07 PM
@ Kit and mmy - The whole belief that "witchcraft is real! Halloween is the time of the Devil! Both White and Black Magic is the stuff of the Devil! Playing D&D will give you REAL spells!" isn't what seals the deal for me but it certainly helps. Add to it the fact that the Rapturites (Rapturists? Rapturians? I sound like I'm describing a dinosaur breed), as Fred has repeatedly pointed out, believe that the Left Behind books are going to happen, if not exactly as detailed with minor things changed, furthers that. Finally, the sheer number of fundies who believe that they were formally satanists and tell the most fantastic stories - we're talking stuff more fantastic than Children's Fantasy Literature - with a straight face, honestly believing every word and expecting everyone else to believe them, is another thing I point too. These are the same people whose twisted 1984ish world means that if they can't get all the power, they're being persecuted. They're going out and they're saving unborn babies, they're fighting this grand crusade over in Iraq and Iran. They're these great heroes, fighting this mighty battle against progress for the hearts and souls of all of America, and they firmly believe it. If that's not being deluded, and displaying a distinctive inability to tell fantasy from reality, I'm not sure what is. In retrospect, though (and having read Thomas Daulton's comment), I'll expand that generalization to include most Americans as well; the inability to tell reality from fantasy does seem to be a very American thing (I would say "just like fundies," but alas - they've found themselves poisoning Africa rather nicely with their witch hunts, their brutal murder of children and gays, and their toxic interpretation of their book.)
Posted by: Josh (Enigma32) | Jul 06, 2011 at 09:13 PM
Not to self-promote (since I don't make any money from it), but I once did a video review of this game:
http://youtu.be/vNeVuTzHwC8
You can have a look at the components and listen to the instructional audio tape included with the game.
Posted by: Pyat | Jul 06, 2011 at 09:19 PM
I have ranted on my aunt who believed I was going to be lead to the devil via D&D before, because I was a teenager at the time and I had genuinely loved that particular aunt. Her solution to my deviance was for me to read "This Present Darkness," and "Piercing the Darkness." Two more fiction books which were even less grounded in reality than most D&D games. Or they would have made great urban fantasy games, I don't know. I just remember thinking they were creepy as heck. Yet that she would honestly believe they would change my mind continues to baffle me.
I have genuinely enjoyed RPG video games, and table-topping has never been an option (none I can find or get to easily.) Mary Kaye, your conclusions remind me of why stories like "The Water Babies," which are obviously meant to be didactic, are remembered less and gain less fame than stories like, say, "Alice in Wonderland." Both are meant for kids, but in the former children rarely act like children and there is no nuance to be mined from it. DragonRaid will lose it's appeal almost instantly, but D&D or other RPGs can usually find new ways to be parsed.
Posted by: Asha | Jul 06, 2011 at 09:26 PM
@Kit
Oh, to answer that second question I missed (sorry):
[Trigger warning: Just about everything - abortion, rape, homophobia, and others]
[Warning: Wall 'O Text]
A "typical fundie" is any individual who is willing to stand on the street corner with a sign announcing the end of the world. They're the type of individual who is convinced that God is coming back for them while fantasizing that everyone who is different from them will be burned in Hell for imagined sins. They're the individuals who believe that the world is 6,000 years old based off of a "literal" interpretation of the Bible, while ignoring the fact that the very same book promotes a Flat Earth. They're the person who's willing to stand out in front of an abortion clinic holding signs with miscarried children, believing that somehow looks like an aborted collection of cells. They're the kind of people who believe, firmly that gays choose to be gay and that it's somehow a "harmful" lifestyle to themselves (the fundie) first. They believe that playing with a Ouiji board will allow you to be possessed, and that morality needs to be legislated through the Congress. They believe that the United States is somehow a Christian nation, despite there being no proof. They're the ones willing to stand up and shout down rape victims because they were "dressed improperly" and say that forcing women to wear a specific dress code would somehow prevent that, based on their own book. They're the people who believe that, somehow, atheists worship Satan. I can name more than a few typical fundies; I'll start with J.S. Rushdoony and work from there, to the Westboro Baptist Committee, to the kind of people like Scott Roeder (not all fundies are violent; but most of them certainly have those fantasies) to the folks over on the Free Republic (some of them) and the Rapture Ready crowd (again, there are a few that don't fit the definition exactly, but it's a scant few over there), to Jack Chick (assuming he's even real and not some massive poe), and others: Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Tammy Fey Bakker and her husband, Phyllis Schafly and her even more deranged son, Andrew, the LeHayes (with xenophobia and John Bircherism throw in FTW!), Jenkins, Boehner, Bachmann, Palin, and a whole bunch of others that either hit the definition square on or are very much shaded by it. I'm not crafting a strawman to beat here (not that you accused me of doing that). My "typical fundie" is very much a real group of people, who are very much a real danger to western society.
I use the term "fundie" to describe them because it's accurate in my mind. They aren't even adhering to the fundamentals of their own religion. They're something all together different from what they actually claim to be, but they're claiming to be "fundamentalists", so I oblige them to an extent - the same extent to which they're actually practicing their "Bible/other holy book-based beliefs".
Posted by: Josh (Enigma32) | Jul 06, 2011 at 10:59 PM
"not all fundies are violent; but most of them certainly have those fantasies"
That shouldn't be there. "Not all fundies are violent" can stay, because they're not; the vast majority are normal people who avoid violence if at all possible. But the sites that I go on to cite are where most of the inspiration for the rest of that comment came from (especially the Free Republic; it's a rare day when someone doesn't fantasize about killing liberals and atheists over there.) When I started typing that comment, I didn't think I'd end up adding the Free Republic as an example, but I did, and I forgot I had that in there. Mea Culpa (which is Latin for "My bad").
Posted by: Josh (Enigma32) | Jul 06, 2011 at 11:04 PM
I seem to recall that Fred postulated that fundamentalists (and other authoritarians) have trouble with metaphor and other non-literal ways of expressing ideas. This might apply to Dragon Raid's lack of separation between players and characters.
Posted by: P J Evans | Jul 06, 2011 at 11:14 PM
A RPG where the players are expected to win by reciting the most passages of the rule book? Oh Gods, spare me right now. Perhaps they got the inspiration from watching some of the more painful game sessions I've been in.
In any case, I have a hard time seeing the point of this game if the right outcomes are so prescribed. Myself and my friends who roleplay rather like to be able to explore other aspects of ourselves. Be maniacally evil. Be the virtuous defender of the realm. Be the shady thief but have a heart of gold (stolen from the paladin of course...). Slaughter the rampage horde of orcs. Defend the aggrieved orcs from the bloodthirsty peasants. Find there is no one right choice. Find their is NO right choice. Spend a campaign in penance. Cast off your former dogmas and step into a more nuanced view of the world. In a nutshell, to be "different." And a game that doesn't allow that, that doesn't allow a distinction between you and your imaginary counterpart, sounds just wrong on so many levels.
Posted by: albanaeon | Jul 07, 2011 at 01:26 AM
Michael Stackpole relates that he once ran a demo for some concerned parents. As DM, he rolled the dice and announced that a parent's character had been damaged or affected by a spell (can't remember which). He then asked the parent why she, personally, wasn't hurt. The parent said, "Because the Holy Spirit protects me!"
Believing that the elaborate list of rules of fundamentalism will produce perfection requires a lot of magical thinking, or, put another way, deliberately not understanding the difference between your imagination and the evidence of your senses. No wonder they are frightened by RPGs.
Posted by: Jenny Islander | Jul 07, 2011 at 02:06 AM
For a genuinely interesting roleplaying game with a religious (specifically "fantasy Mormon" a la Alvin Maker) background, designed ot highlight moral issues, I heavily recommend checking out Vincent Baker's DOGS IN THE VINEYARD.
Posted by: JamesP | Jul 07, 2011 at 02:13 AM
@Josh: the thing is, you're calling 'typical' the people who are the most visible; generally, the most visible members of any group are not typical of it. You're also assuming that the most visible members are either the same people as designed and/or play this game, or else they're just the same. There's no reason to believe that; it seems more probable that it's played by ordinary members of the church. Associating the two seems unfounded and unfair. If I don't point that out, I've got no right to call out a right-winger if they say unfair things about 'typical liberals.'
--
@hapax: do you know 'In Guilty Night'? I've always loved it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-i2S8ImFj4
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | Jul 07, 2011 at 03:17 AM
Here at last is a subject I feel qualified to pontificate about. :-)
The anti-RPG fundamentalists I've met don't so much deny the player/character distinction exists - as claim that the players are unable to make that distinction, and that this inability is in itself dangerous. A fairly fine point, perhaps, but it's the usual censor's argument ("this won't harm me but it will damage other people") - even when, as we've seen elsewhere (thanks FC), the same people are reacting to loud noises with "maybe it's the Rapture, wa-hey".
I wonder whether perhaps the author(s) were conflating role-playing games with therapeutic role-playing - the "temptation" example you give sounds much more like the sort of approach a psychotherapist might use to talk through hypothetical situations with a patient than like anything I've met in a game. It may be that the author(s) hoped to use this brainwashing-like technique deliberately: if the player learns to parrot "no" every time he perceives a Temptation, maybe she'll find herself doing it in real life too. (Similar to the way that repeating something often enough seems to incline people to believe it, even if they knew up front it was a lie.)
What MaryKaye describes in terms of lessons learned from real RPGs is just the sort of emergent behaviour - something really interesting, but not explicitly planned by any participant - that in my mindscape is one of the major benefits of the games.
Philboyd, on the "performance" question: an interesting aspect of this to me is that the game doesn't have any original or unique correctives to offer, just the usual "you've disappointed your friends" and "we can't go on until you agree". So in terms of putting right people who've gone wrong it's no better than anything else...
Rowen, I assume that this game escaped the burnings by saying "Christian!" all over its cover, just like Angel Boards (which aren't Ouija Boards at all, no no honest guv).
Posted by: Firedrake | Jul 07, 2011 at 03:58 AM
Firedrake, I agree, but I'd add that the old correctives - peer pressure, enforced habit-forming - work just fine when you're trying to make people socially acceptable. On the other hand, if you're trying to 'put people right', they don't work at all.
Also: I just googled 'Angel Boards', and really? I mean, really? Tell me it's all some huge joke.
Posted by: Philboyd | Jul 07, 2011 at 06:51 AM