D&D?

ajmucha said:
it's getting a little off topic here...so I'll ask it this way...D&D evil? yay or nay?
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I don't believe that it is inherently evil. I do believe that it can be taken to far...and can become evil/harmful. (i.e. the kid that got lost in some steam tunnels while LARPing D&D.)
 
D&D is NOT evil.

D&D IS nerdy.

LONG LIVE THE NERDS! :)

I must, however, disagree with claiming that the origin of D&D is steeped in satanism and all that nonsense. It simply isn't true.

I think you would have a hard time equating satanism & occultism with magic & evil. If so, that makes the majority of this board hypocrites. You can't say D&D is evil, but WoW is ok. Nor can you say the magic in LoTR is ok because it's supposedly based on Christianity. A rose by any other name...
 
[toj.cc]phantom;192278 said:
I don't believe that it is inherently evil. I do believe that it can be taken to far...and can become evil/harmful. (i.e. the kid that got lost in some steam tunnels while LARPing D&D.)
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What's LARPing?

D&D is NOT evil.

D&D IS nerdy.

LONG LIVE THE NERDS! :)
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AMEN!
 
as was said before, it depends upon if you can separate fantasy from reality. i play D&D every other week with two of the pastors of my church. another friend does have trouble with keeping fantasy & reality separate. it is all up to you, and whether you think that it will not be a hindrance for you.

there is an article that a Christian lawyer wrote (i cannot remember his name right now) that defends playing D&D as a Christian that i will post a link to as soon as i remember it.
 
I would say that my views on the subject have been told on this thread a good number of times already, that is that if you end up finding yourself when you are alone attempting to cast spells or something then you should not be playing games at all. The game D&D itself is not evil, but it can be harmful when one takes it to far. I am going to do something I have never done now, admit that I have a video game addition *GASP* probably not that big a news flash. but one thing I do find is that I am not addicted to the point that I think that any given game is real. So once again I am going to say that D&D itself isn't evil, but taking it to far can be very harmful to anyone. so if you find that you are the kind of person who takes a game way to far, to the point of forgetting the fact that it is just a game, then you should stay away from ALL games. I bet most of us can agree that almost any game played today, if someone thought that it was reality could be very harmful.
 
[toj.cc]phantom;192258 said:
Gandalf used magic.
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Was it really "magic," though?

If you haven't read the books, I advise against clicking the following spoiler tag:
Remember that Gandalf wasn't human, he was Istari. I don't believe that Tolkien intended for readers to identify with Gandalf; after all, we don't identify with angels when reading the Bible.
 
now, apart from the flingin around the term "nerd". this is what i was hoping for the thread to go like before
 
I both play and run (GM) D&D, though I'm still relatively new to the game (played only sporadically back in the 2nd edition days). To quickly sum up my opinion: D&D is exactly what the playgroup makes of it, just as with any similar "tabletop" RPG. Will it focus on demonology and compel players to incorporate real-life elements of satanism and pagan religious practice? Almost never, but it could go in that direction if the playgroup tries to take it there. Will it focus instead on virtuous action, strategy and teamwork? And will players build real-life friendships in the process of sharing fellowship and fun? That's much more likely in my opinion...but once again, only as long as that's where the playgroup goes with it.

My own approach is to run D&D as generic fantasy and focus much more on story and action rather than setting. I allow magic, monsters, gods, extra-planar beings and travel through other planes to remain shrouded in mystery, even when doing so requires bending the rules a bit. And I let players (and characters) reach their own conclusions about the role and significance of those things. Keep in mind I'm a 33 year old adult running the game in an adult playgroup and occasionally playing it at various scifi/fantasy conventions.

Spiritually, I've never had a strong conviction to avoid D&D or any other fantasy fiction for that matter. But I do acknowledge that the fantasy genre in general, and D&D in specific, can tend to make many aspects of paganism more palatable and appealing. Considering that paganism is so very popular today (fastest growing religion folks, WAKE UP!) and that D&D could be a first step down this very dark road for some, I have to temper my otherwise unrestrained enthusiasm for D&D with that note of caution, particularly for teens.

Paul
 
dorkelf said:
Considering that paganism is so very popular today (fastest growing religion folks, WAKE UP!)
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Just curious...do you have any stats to back this statement up with, or was this just an opinion?

I'm not bagging on you, I'm curious as to if this is actually true. Of course, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "pagan" either.
 
I'll mention what I mentioned about a year ago in response to a post on our forums about "Is WoW evil?"

D&D is evil as far as it:
1. Interferes with your Christian walk -- ANYTHING is evil if it interferes with your Christian walk.

2. Interferes with your family -- see above note.

3. Passes falsehood and untruth into your way of thinking -- This is a hard one, but it is really really important, specially when it comes to D&D. So, as I don't really play D&D (my mom would KILL me) and I don't wanna sound like a know-it-all talking about what I don't know, I'll talk about what I DO know: WoW. In WoW, much of the lore and history is based on (specific names here) Animism, Panatheism, and Paganism (I may have the names wrong so I will specify: Belief in Elemental Spirits, Belief in Over-Arching World Spirits, and Belief in Animal & Plant Spirits.) Oh, and you could throw in the non-functional impersonal "Light" belief.
I still play WoW, but I am careful to notice and catalog as untrue all of the "Belief in Spirits" stuff that WoW has in it. I don't ignore it, but instead I avoid allowing it to impact my way of thinking/worldview.

4. Goes against what your concience says -- Your concience, if you are a believer, should be attuned to the will of the Holy Spirit, and therefore should be a guidepost telling you what is bad or good for you in light of God's plans for you. If you are worried that your concience could just be a "guilt-reaction" caused by years of bad teaching on the subject of D&D, pray and ask God to clarify for you whether it is Him speaking or just an ingrained reaction.

5. Interferes with the spiritual lives of those around you -- This is what Paul is talking about when he talks about "Meat offered to Idols." The meat was not in itself evil in any way, but it was causing serious stumblage to those around the Christians who had no problem eating it. If your playing of D&D would cause major issue in your family or church, avoid it!

<<<And now a brief note: If you haven't had issue playing games like "Neverwinter Nights" or "Baldur's Gate" bear in mind that there are ports of D&D... if the Holy Spirit hasn't warned you about those, chances are that if you plug into a good D&D group, then you shouldn't have much of a problem>>>

<<Oh, and there are many good Christian D&D groups out there>>
<and many bad Christian D&D groups>
 
Dark Virtue said:
Just curious...do you have any stats to back this statement up with, or was this just an opinion?

I'm not bagging on you, I'm curious as to if this is actually true. Of course, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "pagan" either.
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Fair enough. :) By 'paganism' I'm referring more specifically to neo-paganism (which is the term I should have used), and by 'fastest growing' I'm referring to the growth of neo-paganism in the United States. Here's some further information as well as statistics for ya:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_nbr1.htm

As the above page states, gathering statistics on neo-paganism is difficult. But both pagan and Christian sources seem to be in complete agreement that neo-paganism is growing more quickly than any other religion in the U.S., and I haven't yet come across any dissenting opinions. If anyone has statistics that show otherwise I hope they'll share them. I certainly don't WANT to believe that its true, because at the very least it sours my enjoyment of fantasy fiction and forces me to temper my otherwise strong advocacy for the genre with a serious note of reserve.

Paul
 
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Honestly, I wouldn't be too worried about neopaganism. I think it saw it's heyday in the nineties when it was "cool" to experiment with touchy feely feel good new age stuff. I don't see that gaining any more momentum.

According to adherants.com, neopaganism ranks at about 1 million followers, which is VERY low on the scale (compare this to 2.1 billion Christians or 1.1 billion nontheists).
 
Dark Virtue said:
Honestly, I wouldn't be too worried about neopaganism. I think it saw it's heyday in the nineties when it was "cool" to experiment with touchy feely feel good new age stuff. I don't see that gaining any more momentum.

According to adherants.com, neopaganism ranks at about 1 million followers, which is VERY low on the scale (compare this to 2.1 billion Christians or 1.1 billion nontheists).
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Thanks for that statistic DV, definitely food for thought. Truthfully I'm more concerned with how things are going than where they are now. I see neo-paganism as an early example of a new type of religion which I believe (admittedly without concrete statistics) to be gaining tremendous momentum even well beyond the goth-tastic 90's. Specifically, the type of religion I'm concerned about is that which has at its core only a general theism, and which picks and chooses from a smattering of pre-existing religious teachings as well as a healthy dose of 'fakelore' to fill itself out. Personally I know several people who subscribe to that type of religion...in most cases they are not affiliated with any specific organized religion, so I imagine it would be hard for anybody to 'count' them as subscribing to their particular religion unless they were asked directly. My concern about that type of religion is that it can delude its adherents into believing that they are actually creating their own reality - that once they choose to believe certain things, even self-manufactured things, those things actually become true FOR THEM. I trust that the correlation between this type of religion and fantasy (particularly, fantasy roleplaying) is self-evident.

Paul
 
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