Jesus and D&D

Every once in a while someone in my extended circle puts together the idea that I'm a Christian and a professional D&D writer and asks my advice on how I resolve conflict in those two things. The true, but uninformative answer is that there is no conflict, and now would you like some pie?

I don't usually give that answer, because it's not really the question being asked. The real question is, "I'm intellectually stuck between my religion and my joy. Can you get me unstuck?"

I usually can't, because that's between you and God, friend. But sometimes I can offer some helpful ideas the person hasn't come up with on his own. (It's always a dude.) Here are anonymized excerpts from what I wrote the other night to a friend who asked me that question:

Whenever I've talked with people about this kind of stuff, one of the primary things I try to get across is that God is the main thing. There's nothing particularly satanic about D&D/fantasy/speculative thinking, but if it's getting in the way of God, then God gets to win. I've talked to people who have a lot personally invested in D&D, and who, in conversations with family members, try to "win" their point. That's a tenuous place to even start, much less finish. God must be the main thing you're trying to get to, or else you're going to spin out on some useless tangent.

I find this to be true for me, and I suspect for you as well: There is something true and deep that fantasy sparks in you. Like pretty much everything in a world bent with original sin, it isn't inherently evil. Football, sailing, welding, D&D -- anything can be twisted toward evil if you go that way with it. It can also be straightened to bring out love and truth.

But since fantasy has particular meaning to you, it's more likely to do you good or ill than say, welding. Especially if it's affected you deeply enough that you've ever struggled with it.

Therefore, removing it from your life might protect you from harm. But it also walls off the potential good that could come. Which is more important to you? To God?

These are not rhetorical questions, and you might find they have different answers at different times. God might want you to back off from something at some point to protect you, but that doesn't mean God always wants that. That's why we have a new covenant. Jesus lets us replace law with relationship.

As a result, categorically eliminating things that have potential to be spiritually destructive becomes problematic. It creates a religion that forces you into a tiny, contorted shape.

Instead, look to a living, interactive God for answers, rather than a set of principles designed to protect you from evil. From this perspective, the way forward becomes: Spend as much time as you can going toward God, and as little time as you can trying to get away from evil.

The essential problem I have with the sorts of ideas concerned Christians typically espouse here is that they focus on the evil. That's not an inherently bad goal, but evil is a vanishingly small blot in the infinite light of God. If you're spending much energy on evil -- sensing it, fighting it, escaping it, protecting others from it -- you've started in the wrong place. You start from God. Then you depend on God to tell you if evil is going to be a problem. You don't need to suss it out yourself. God is the one in charge. Your job is to love on God.

God makes all things good. God will pull truth and love out of whatever you're in. There is nothing too "evil" for God to redeem; even genuinely evil things (without the irony quotes) can be redeemed.

If what you're doing wanders into sin territory, the Spirit will convict you about that. In the meantime, ferreting out sin is not your job.Your job is to love on God. Wherever you are, whatever you're into, count on God to make it good. Because He will. He does. All the time.

I'll end with scripture, since that's one of the means we're supposed to use to make sure we're not kidding ourselves with trumped up ideas. Philippians 4:8 says, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

If D&D points you toward true, noble, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy things, then think about D&D. If it does not, follow the thing that does point you toward those. Do not spend any more time on Satan than you must. God is sovereign, and knows what you need. Pay attention to God, and you will be steered well.

Interestingly, the real problem between Jesus and D&D -- which no one has ever asked me about -- is the idea that you solve problems and advance in the world by slaying your opposition. That methodology is wildly unChristlike. Killing your enemy is exactly the opposite of what Jesus said to do. It has no place in the Kingdom of Heaven. A major premise of the game is a lie.

But it's a fun lie, so I keep playing.

Ever dream this man?

I don't know if this man is real or fake or both, but I want it to be real.

Supposedly, this man has appeared in over 2000 peoples' dreams.

There's no attribution on the site, and no facts to be checked. Smells like it might be part of an ARG.

But I'd like it to be real.

D&D: New campaign kickoff

Started my brand new D&D campaign tonight. If you've been following my blog spoor for the last year, you might have noticed I've been screwing around with a wiki for this thing. Now, open for business!

I've spent a hella lot of time laying groundwork and spelling out rules, and it's still not done.

Important Lesson: You're never really done.

But it was surprisingly thorough. I'm methodical as a tornado when I write. I blow through town and look back once I'm done. Sometimes I've hit everything, and other times I've left whole blocks mysteriously untouched. I don't have a system. I just make up stuff until some outside constraint makes me stop.

So going in, I didn't know whether I'd written enough to make tonight work. But then I said, "Well, in the wiki..." about a dozen times in answer to questions. So I think I got all the vital stuff in.

Important Lesson: Don't worry about getting it all right. It's a game you're playing with friends.

Important Lesson: Just because it's in the text doesn't mean anyone else knows it's there.

I made the experience point totals for level gain a little higher, using a conglomeration of different Pathfinder experience gain rates. Then I told them that I'd award extra XP for people who enable group enjoyment by doing out-of-game things to make things more fun. The player who takes notes or handles mapping or draws a group shot or takes pics of minis gets an XP bonus. I hoped to encourage players to be creative and contribute on their own terms instead of doing all the work solo. This idea was poo-pooed, so it might not last.

Instead, I might use a variation on Sean Reynolds's Alternative Level Advancement System. I like Sean's idea, but changing your character every single session is too much paperwork in an already paperwork-heavy game.

Important Lesson: Adults with kids don't necessarily have the giveadamn to write character journals. In the long run, a bennie meant to encourage participation could begin to feel like a penalty on people who don't want to participate.

I thought having the rules online would be a good way to get everything out to the players so I wouldn't have to be the sole source of information. Also I hoped it would require me to lug fewer books to the game.

But the concept is a little ahead of the group's hardware capacity. Nobody brought a laptop or usable wireless device to let them look up stuff. We wound up using books anyway, which don't quite mesh with the fifty-'leben ways I've tweaked the d20/Pathfinder rules sets.

Important Lesson: Oops.

After a lot of shuffling papers and answering questions, characters were done, except for the niggling details that no one ever firms up until the third game anyway. I thought that'd be it. Good work everybody, see you in two weeks.

No! They demanded we play tonight! Begin tonight! Begin fighting! Tonight!

Since one of our regulars was absent, I didn't want to get too deep into the first adventure. So I used the time-tested, beloved pacing device DMs and comic book writers have used for decades. I threw in a combat. It wasn't meaningless, but it was off the cuff.

Important Lesson: Come more prepared than you think you'll need. And come prepared to improvise.

Kids these days: any other quests?

Ran an intro game of D&D for a couple of boys tonight, ages 12 and 10. I enjoy presenting D&D to brand new players, because they haven't been trained in roleplaying game-think yet.

When you've played enough of these demanding, complex games, you learn to see the game system first, and think in its framework. It's like learning art on a computer. Fantastically versatile programs exist to help you, but you wind up imagining inside the program's technical limitations.

So the D&D naif brings a jarringly unexpected set of assumptions to the table. (One woman I played with, who had a perfectly competent character, spent an entire session hiding in a cabinet. Because holy crap, people are shooting guns and fire blasts outside! Better to just stay safe.)

This has been my standard thinking for a long time about new players. But tonight, these kids tricked me by bringing a different jarringly unexpected set of assumptions to the table. Having already played the crap out of Final Fantasy and half a dozen other console RPGs, these kids were not D&D naifs. They were tabletop naifs. Drawing on unmediated experience to inform their behavior was strange territory.

Excerpts:

Me: If you run out of hit points you fall unconscious.
Kid: What's that?
Me: You fall unconscious every day. What's it like then?

Kid: How much does a backpack hold?
Me: You've got a backpack at home, right? It holds that much.

The standout of the evening came after presenting entirely unsubtle clues that the Mad Alchemist's cave awaited exploration, and that there might be treasure. The boys then decided to ask around town to see if there were "any other quests." Thanks to computer games, they (quite reasonably) assumed there would be a handful of townsfolk loitering, with various problems to be solved. They would get to pick the most appealing one.

Also in a paean to overcaution:

• Long minutes were spent on Hide skill practice, followed by confirming Spot checks to see how well hidden they were.
• Rabbinical attention was paid to the number of arrows carried, and recovered, after combat.
• The sorcerer brought 20 torches, and the dwarf purchased flint and tinder for firestarting, despite the fact that he can see in the dark.
• They purchased a 10-foot pole and a mirror, and used them frequently, in ways that would make Gary Gygax proud.
  

I enjoy attempting this sort of thing, but every time, I am humbled. Improvisation is a hard skill, and understanding your own expectations is at least half the experience.

The taste for magic

Read this moderately involved essay about Christianity and fantasy and magic.

Why do we hanker for magic? That is a question that the large-C Catholic fantasy writer must squarely face, and the small-c catholic reader ought at any rate to find interesting. The practice of magic as such, whether effective or not, is explicitly forbidden by scripture and canon law, and even too strong a theoretical interest is rather frowned upon.

...the same problem faces every fantasy writer in a more or less Christian or post-Christian society, regardless of denomination; it is only that Catholic writers, if they take either their writing or their religion seriously, have less room to shirk the issue.

Talk Shop

D&D last night was hilarious, as usual. We’re playing through the Red Hand of Doom adventure Wizards of the Coast published a couple of years ago. It’s a satisfyingly thorough module by Rich Baker and James Jacobs, skilled pros both, doing an uncommonly good job of adventure writing, a task so difficult and arcane and niche, I think it can probably only be done out of love, like building a ship in a bottle.

Despite all this craftsmanship, the players spent probably the first 90 minutes of the session walking their characters around town, visiting different merchants, selling stuff they found, or trading up for better stuff.

A dwarf smith, a human cleric, a halfling wizard. In every case, I put on a different funny voice and acted like the halfling or smith or town official. Ninety minutes of this. Every player taking his turn talking to the same person (me), saying things like, “Will you lower the price if I throw in a second masterwork scimitar?”

They asked with a post-modern, self-conscious veneer, but underneath it, barely hidden, was a genuine desire to get a pretend magic sword for 300 pretend gold pieces cheaper.

Later that night, it seemed faintly ridiculous—it’s just my friends talking to me in a funny voice. (My wife readily agreed.)

But it was still hella fun. It still held the attention of a room full of savvy entertainment consumers for much longer than I would have bet money on.

When I worked at Wizards, I was playing with a group of friends once, and was derided for trying to talk through a haggling session with the DM playing a merchant. Not the friendly razzing you get sometimes for inadvertent failure, but an angry, passive-aggressive disdain for wasting time dickering for 1 or 2 gold pieces, which only one person can do at a time, and which does not involve any actual “adventuring.”

“This is boring and slows down the game. That’s why we didn’t write rules for that,” was the message. It might even be a direct quote.

That was a bunch of years ago, and everyone is probably wiser. I, specifically, am wiser because I’ve learned that talking to your friend who’s adopted a funny voice, trying to tease out knowledge of an item that makes your character a little better, or saves you a few gold pieces, is the game just as much as trying to kill a hydra in a swamp. In console game terminology, it would be called a mini-game. Not a major part of the experience, certainly not the reason you drive half an hour out of your way. But it is clear fun, and as a designer, you succeed when you remember to account for this way of having fun.

I wonder if the pros remember that? I wonder if some of them have ever really known it? Rich and James provided for it, by taking the time to craft one-adjective personalities and one-sentence back stories for a dozen townsfolk. The players did not spend 90 minutes in town despite craftsmanship, but because of it.

Reviewing the material beforehand, I thought it was a designers' conceit, an extravagant use of creative resources. After last night I’ve decided it’s actually part of the job done well.