Role Playing Games

[scardella]

I was talking to a coworker, and he asked me if I thought role playing games were evil, because he knew I take my faith seriously.

My initial response was that they weren't necessarily bad, but can be problematic. The abuse of something does not invalidate a use.

My thoughts are that it's often associated with the occult or occult practices, depending on the particular RPG, which may open a door to those sorts of spiritualities. Additionally, if used to indulge in sexual fantasy or escapism, then it wouldn't be a good idea.

However, it can be a clean night of fun with your friends. It would stimulate imagination and creative thinking.

What do you think?

[philothea]

I think we had a poll like this earlier, but I can't remember if it was RPGs in general, or computer games? If I can manage to think straight, I will try to find it and post a link.

I hear the "associated with occult practices" thing on occasion... but only from the 700 Club, and similar sources. Does anyone have any personal experience of RPGs leading to the occult?

I just play computer RPGs by myself, which isn't a problem nowadays. In the past I played online RPGs, which turned into a massive irresponsible timesink. However, I don't think that had anything to do with it being a role playing game. I just had poor discipline.

[infinitelord1]

im not sure but i have read things about my the best rpg ever made.....warcraft frozen throne......the article said that the creators of this game are christian (maybe even catholic but i dont remember) and the article also was suggesting that they imposed their christian belief into the game somehow. Hence things in the game like holy aura, ankh of reincarnation (a cross that brings u back to life if u die), resurrection, etc.

[scardella]

[quote name='philothea' date='Jul 6 2005, 04:43 PM']I think we had a poll like this earlier, but I can't remember if it was RPGs in general, or computer games?  If I can manage to think straight, I will try to find it and post a link.

I hear the "associated with occult practices" thing on occasion... but only from the 700 Club, and similar sources.  Does anyone have any personal experience of RPGs leading to the occult?

I just play computer RPGs by myself, which isn't a problem nowadays.  In the past I played online RPGs, which turned into a massive irresponsible timesink.  However, I don't think that had anything to do with it being a role playing game.  I just had poor discipline.
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I was thinking more about pen-and-paper type RPG's. Many of the more fantasy oriented ones have cleric type characters who are tied to the world's mythos. So, it's plausible that one might experiment with occult practices via their character.

[philothea]

[quote name='scardella' date='Jul 6 2005, 04:53 PM']I was thinking more about pen-and-paper type RPG's.  Many of the more fantasy oriented ones have cleric type characters who are tied to the world's mythos.  So, it's plausible that one might experiment with occult practices via their character.
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Okay. I am still interested to know if anyone has any actual experience with RPGs leading to the occult.

I know some pagans, but they didn't get that way from playing RPGs. I know lots of RPG players... and all it did to them was make them geeks.

[Cathurian]

RPGs and the occult? The ones I play probably have as much to do with it as Harry Potter.

Most of them usually involve mages of some sort, but not actual occult stuff. The RPG I'm most familiar with, Ragnarok Online, has ones that cast fire bolt, frost diver, jupitel thunder...elemental "spells". It's not much different than that in the other RPGS that I've played. There's also Alchemists in RO that make health-restoring potions, and have a pet creature called a homunculus that they can make and it will fight for them.

In RO, the priest/priestess class casts Magnificat, Gloria, Kyrie Eleison, Blessing, Impositio Manus, Sanctuary, Angelus...I'm probably forgetting a few. These skills temporarily boost the stats of the player they're casted on. That's one thing I found a bit odd: I don't know whether to be pleased or offended.

In FFXI, you can be a "summoner" and bring various creatures to fight for you, and it has mages, like 99% of all RPGs. That's about all I know.

In Dungeons and Dragons -- the one that always seems to be targeted -- the Game Master can make up whatever rules he wants. If he wanted to put a spaceship in, he could. If he wanted to put Phatmass or William Shakespeare or a barbecued chicken enemy that shoots laser beams out of its eyes, he could do that. and technically, if he wanted to put occult junk in there, he could, with the consent of all the players. It's open-ended: whatever the players want to put in can go in. So, someone could possibly abuse it by putting in occult stuff.

Have I ever heard of this happening for real? No. It's much like little children playing pretend. They could pretend the treehouse was the Evil Hideout and pretend to cast spells in there, but they don't have to do this by any means, and neither do they have any reason or encouragement to.

[philothea]

[quote name='Cathurian' date='Jul 6 2005, 05:07 PM']RPGs and the occult? The ones I play probably have as much to do with it as Harry Potter.
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Of course, the same people who get all excited about D&D think that Harry Potter is evil too.

[quote name='Cathurian' date='Jul 6 2005, 05:07 PM']In RO, the priest/priestess class casts Magnificat, Gloria, Kyrie Eleison, Blessing, Impositio Manus, Sanctuary, Angelus...I'm probably forgetting a few. These skills temporarily boost the stats of the player they're casted on. That's one thing I found a bit odd: I don't know whether to be pleased or offended.
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Yeah, I don't know either. It's funny, though!

[Guest JeffCR07]

I know of very orthodox catholics who play roleplaying games.

While I don't play D&D, I play a lot of RPG videogames (japanimation rpgs are my guilty pleasure )

Perhaps that makes me biased, but in as much honesty as I can offer (and I feel that is a lot), I have never noticed anything in videogame rpgs that is substantially worse than things in books or on tv, and there is quite a bit that is significantly better.

Moreover, I would argue that, at least in the videogame realm, rpgs are a much more morally healthy genre than say, your typical fighting or action game, as the focus is on a developing storyline and characters viewed as persons rather than in the former, in which the focus is on killing and fighting with no consideration for human personhood.

On a final note, while I am certainly speaking outside of my realm of expertise, it seems to me that the danger of pencil and paper rpgs is dependent on the persons playing. Unlike books and movies, where external sources are exerting negative influence on the individual, in pencil/paper rpgs the danger (if any exists) is generated by the player.

So it seems to me, sure, games like D&D might be a bad influence, but only if the kid lets his imagination go to far and loses touch with reality. Moreover, it seems like there is no reason whatsoever why you would be forced to play in an immoral way

[Socrates]

I'm not a D&D gamer, so I don't know anything from personal experience, but I remember in the 80's there was a huge controversy over this. The charges are that D&D involves casting spells, controlling demons, and other such "magical" practices. It was said that while this was under the guise of fantasy, this opened the door for real demonic activity.

(However, if Don John says D&D is fine, I guess it's fine)

[KizlarAgha]

RPGs are fine. The danger most often cited is that people have a hard time differentiating fantasy from reality and take them too seriously. The truth is, if you've ever run a D&D campaign it's much harder to get them to settle down and play than it is to keep them from becoming obsessive.

[infinitelord1]

[quote name='JeffCR07' date='Jul 6 2005, 08:33 PM']I know of very orthodox catholics who play roleplaying games.

While I don't play D&D, I play a lot of RPG videogames (japanimation rpgs are my guilty pleasure  )

Perhaps that makes me biased, but in as much honesty as I can offer (and I feel that is a lot), I have never noticed anything in videogame rpgs that is substantially worse than things in books or on tv, and there is quite a bit that is significantly better.

Moreover, I would argue that, at least in the videogame realm, rpgs are a much more morally healthy genre than say, your typical fighting or action game, as the focus is on a developing storyline and characters viewed as persons rather than in the former, in which the focus is on killing and fighting with no consideration for human personhood.

On a final note, while I am certainly speaking outside of my realm of expertise, it seems to me that the danger of pencil and paper rpgs is dependent on the persons playing. Unlike books and movies, where external sources are exerting negative influence on the individual, in pencil/paper rpgs the danger (if any exists) is generated by the player.

So it seems to me, sure, games like D&D might be a bad influence, but only if the kid lets his imagination go to far and loses touch with reality. Moreover, it seems like there is no reason whatsoever why you would be forced to play in an immoral way
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Have you played legend of the dragoon for PS1? i love that game!

[scardella]

Might there be a maturity factor involved here?

About 10 years ago, I actually did know a guy who played D&D (he also read a number of the books as well), and that helped open him up to playing around with some real occult stuff. As I recall, though, when he [b]did[/b] start playing around with it, he got really freaked out by all of it.

Now, that said, I had played it a bit with him back then, and I wasn't really opened up to the occult like that. I had actually just thought he was freaking out about nothing. I didn't believe him at the time. (Of course, I didn't really care about my faith at the time, either.)

By the way, we were about 13 back then.

Edited July 7, 2005 by scardella

[philothea]

[quote name='scardella' date='Jul 7 2005, 08:40 AM']Might there be a maturity factor involved here?

About 10 years ago, I actually did know a guy who played D&D (he also read a number of the books as well), and that helped open him up to playing around with some real occult stuff.  As I recall, though, when he [b]did[/b] start playing around with it, he got really freaked out by all of it.

Now, that said, I had played it a bit with him back then, and I wasn't really opened up to the occult like that.  I had actually just thought he was freaking out about nothing.  I didn't believe him at the time.  (Of course, I didn't really care about my faith at the time, either.)

By the way, we were about 13 back then.
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I think that playing with the occult is pretty common in preteens. At slumber parties we'd get out oujia boards and try to hold seances and such. Now that I think of it, it was all very lame. But we thought we were daring and mature. No one played D&D, though.

(Well, I had a AD&D set, but no one ever played with me.)

[Paladin D]

[quote name='JeffCR07' date='Jul 6 2005, 09:33 PM']I know of very orthodox catholics who play roleplaying games.

While I don't play D&D, I play a lot of RPG videogames (japanimation rpgs are my guilty pleasure  )

Perhaps that makes me biased, but in as much honesty as I can offer (and I feel that is a lot), I have never noticed anything in videogame rpgs that is substantially worse than things in books or on tv, and there is quite a bit that is significantly better.

Moreover, I would argue that, at least in the videogame realm, rpgs are a much more morally healthy genre than say, your typical fighting or action game, as the focus is on a developing storyline and characters viewed as persons rather than in the former, in which the focus is on killing and fighting with no consideration for human personhood.
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I'm a videogame RPGer myself as well, and I couldn't agree with you more.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='scardella' date='Jul 6 2005, 04:53 PM']I was thinking more about pen-and-paper type RPG's.  Many of the more fantasy oriented ones have cleric type characters who are tied to the world's mythos.  So, it's plausible that one might experiment with occult practices via their character.
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I play D&D regularly, I Ran Rifts Campaign for years ( by the way Rifts unlike D&D is not appropriate for Children and cannot without serious work be made so, it is inherently adult in its themes and moral questions.) they are games nothing more I have yet to see anyone get into the occult through D&D although Vampire and Werewolf do seem to be played by a large number of witches and pagans it is ussually that they are already pagans when they start playing the game. There is absolutly nothing wrong with RPG's.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Jul 6 2005, 08:40 PM']I'm not a D&D gamer, so I don't know anything from personal experience, but I remember in the 80's there was a huge controversy over this.  The charges are that D&D involves casting spells, controlling demons, and other such "magical" practices.  It was said that while this was under the guise of fantasy, this opened the door for real demonic activity.

(However, if Don John says D&D is fine, I guess it's fine)
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I'm touched really i am.

[Don John of Austria]

In more than 20 years of playing D&D I have only known one person to become really obsessed with it, and we simply cut him off of the Game-- because of the circumstances of the time he couldn't just go find another game. He got better and later went on to be able to play D&D with out any problems it was just easier at that time in his life to escape into the game, I would say here that RPGs are the best type of escapism because they are social, I have sen people retreat in to the Cyber world and into books and those are much harder to deal with because they are not social activities, those people are harder to reach.


Noone freaks out that when you play monoply you are trying to intentionally bankrupt people or that in risk you are trying to kill the enemies soldiers. D&D is a game nothing more people shouldn't take it too seriously.

Edited July 7, 2005 by Don John of Austria

[Socrates]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' date='Jul 7 2005, 02:38 PM']In more than 20 years of playing D&D I have only known one person to become really obsessed with it, and we simply cut him off of the Game-- because of the circumstances of the time he couldn't just go find another game. He got better and later went on to be able to play D&D with out any problems it was just easier at that time in his life to escape into the game,  I would say here that RPGs are the best type of escapism because they are social, I have sen people retreat in to the Cyber world and into books and those are much harder to deal with because they are not social activities, those people are harder to reach.
Noone freaks out that when you play monoply you are trying to intentionally bankrupt people or that in risk you are trying to kill the enemies soldiers. D&D is a game nothing more people shouldn't take it too seriously.
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Is it true that D&D gameplay involves casting spells and such? The claim is that even if one believes the spell is only "make belieive," the reciting of the "spell" is something demons can take advantage of. Again, I'm not a gamer, so I don't personally know what's involved in the "spell-casting."

Edited July 7, 2005 by Socrates

[philothea]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Jul 7 2005, 02:44 PM']Is it true that D&D gameplay involves casting spells and such?  The claim is that even if one believes the spell is only "make belieive," the reciting of the "spell" is something demons can take advantage of.  Again, I'm not a gamer, so I don't personally know what's involved in the "spell-casting."
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I think people imagine a bit more drama in a D&D game than there is. "I cast a magic missle spell at the skeletons," doesn't seem too likely to be taken advantage of.

There are live action RPGs, and I'm sure some people get more realistic in their games, but as a specific game D&D is pretty um... structured, and not open to much occult influence.

[Kilroy the Ninja]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Jul 7 2005, 02:44 PM']Is it true that D&D gameplay involves casting spells and such?  The claim is that even if one believes the spell is only "make belieive," the reciting of the "spell" is something demons can take advantage of.  Again, I'm not a gamer, so I don't personally know what's involved in the "spell-casting."
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Usually in D&D when you want to "cast a spell" it's a pre-determined thing that your character gets to do and usually you just say something like my character casts blindness, or hypnosis, or fairy fire or fireball and then you roll the dice to determine if your spell worked or not (based on your character's level of existence versus the character who is being casted upon). Most people who run RPG's do not have specific spells that you have to say outload - and certainly Dungeons and Dragons books DO NOT have them - it's just a game. No different really than Monopoly or Life - you don't have to sign paperwork or go through closing procedures to "buy" a house in Monopoly.

There are some DM's who have their characters write out spells (particularly for special "spells" they are allowing their people to use - special meaning spells with BS effects like "I Always Win No Matter What") but usually it all has to do with the mechanics of the game and they are nonsensical and have no basis in reality. They make them write them out to discourage their use really. (Because they're BS spells to begin with.)

That's the real beauty of D&D - it's a [i]fantasy[/i] game - a brief escape from the realities of life. A chance to pretend for a while that you are someone (or something) else. It's no different than games of pretend that little children play, the only exceptions being that there are sets of rules to help the "pretend" to stay within some boundaries - and there is a central person responsible for keeping the play moving along. It is excellent for socialization and for stimulating the imagination (in good ways!).

Can it be abused? Sure. But so can Chutes and Ladders and CandyLand (there are drinking and sex games associated with these two but nobody says these games should be abolished huh)

In the six years I've been playing I have yet to see anyone confuse the fantasy with the reality.