Tips for Playing Dungeons and Dragons
90My Background
First my disclaimer. I no longer play Dungeons and Dragons (commonly referred to here as DnD or D&D). I am a "born again" Christian and can no longer rationalize the occult nature and basis of the game with my faith. My first recommendation is that you don't support the megalith corporation Hasbro by playing...
That said, I began playing D&D when it was still a boxed game back in the early '80's, before it was "Advanced". I played through the various editions of the game and watched as countless other games sprang up try and capitalize on the success of the Roleplaying Game genre. I stopped buying materials around 3rd edition because it became so obviously commercially driven - and it was a drain on my limited resources!
My Tips for Play
So, with 20+ years of experience as a player and DM (or GM), I'd like to present the following tips and observations to those who will strive to fantasize while the world around us crumbles in preparation for the soon return of Jesus (what an odd statement?):
First, play a character that you can relate to. If you're into nature, saving the environment, or love animals, a Druid, Ranger, or Cleric type character might fit your persona. If like me you're very good at math and sciences, then a magic user type would be to your liking. If you're not so good in academics but physically gifted, then choose a fighter-type to play. If you feel no loyalty to your friends and are selfishly driven ("more for me!"), then a "fighter in leather armor" (aka Thief) would suit you well. I've played them all over the years but have always found the most personal satisfaction playing magic users with a scientific bent. I enjoy the challenge of keeping them alive when they're low-level and the ability to surpass all other classes in power when they're high level.
Second, this is a GAME. Have fun in character, but enjoy the group you're with more. Most of my life-long friendships were built in high school and college through gaming groups. Don't get upset when the burly fighter-type thumps your pick-pocketing thief to death. Its just a game and not worth holding real-world grudges over in-game insults. Your character stats and abilities are important to strategy, but not to having fun. That's all up to YOU.
Third, if you're like me, you can bend the game to your will with strategy. It is strategically important to begin with the basic character type for the character that you want to develop. Nothing is more frustrating for a gaming group than to have a cleric in the party who won't take healing spells because he's too busy being up front fighting ineffectively in chainmail using a mace! Likewise, the fighter who studies Lore instead of specializing in weapon use is a waste of paper and table space. If you're a fighter-type, focus your characters training on fighting. If you're a magic user, focus it on enhancing the ability of your spells. In so doing, you'll be come a valuable member of the adventuring party and your friends will praise your character development wisdom.
Fourth, play with a group of people you like! This isn't such a problem if you're playing on-line. If you're playing table-top (that is around a table typically), then you should find it within yourself to like everyone present to some degree. Sure, its fun to have a runt in the group to pick on - until you become that runt. Rarely have I seen a group where someone wasn't on the receiving end of practical jokes both in-game and in real-life. If it isn't you now, someday it will be. Keep your sense of humor at all times.
Lastly, remember that this is a game and a game only. The core theology of the gaming system is very close to occult beliefs (paganism) and many unbalanced people have been drawn into that trap because of the game. That is one reason it has always been so controversial in my opinion. I have friends who have had first-hand encounters with demons and/or witnessed supernatural phenomenon during gaming sessions. One friend was deceived by an "angel" and became possessed - fortunately he went through an exorcism and control of his own body was graciously restored by Jesus. Typically these things happened when they were with other people who were already into occult practices and had opened the door to demonic influences.
Final Warning
Gaming, like most fantasy pursuits, is fun! It's designed to be fun and it is a great distraction. In this way the Adversary has a powerful tool at his disposal. I know that I have wasted at least a year of my time (easily over 2000 hours) fantasizing about worlds that will never be. My final advice is don't waste your time with these distractions but rather get ready for the end of this world and the return of Jesus in the clouds (he will not be the one walking on the earth). However, if you're a pagan (a term I use loosely without intending any insult) and you find no other way to spend the precious little time you have on earth, I hope these tips have helped.
Game Artwork
Just a few MUST haves. What a waste of $$$!
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Dungeon Master's Guide 2: A 4th Edition D&D Core Rulebook
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Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Screen
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Comments
The game system can be fashioned to just about anything you can imagine. The Game Master has all the flexibility to make it historical, fantasy, science fiction, or any combination thereof. Typically, if the game played deals with magic, its considered Fantasy roleplay.
Mechanically, the game system could easily be adapted to work as a history lesson. My 7th grade history teacher was a D&D player and he adapted the mechanics into a classroom game of new world settlement. We divided into teams, chose our colony name, and had short daily game sessions of battling Indians and solving self-sufficiency problems.
I have since seen a similar game concept for the Oregon Trail. Of course most teachers using the boxed Oregen Trail game aren't going to come into the classroom dressed as a jester....
Maybe you could make a Biblical d&d.
We have but there is definitely a different feel ... or spirit ... when you change the game that significantly. Life is too short for such pursuits in my 4th Edition Advanced Humble Opinion.
I feel sorry for people who sacrifice earthly pleasures in the name of the delusion of religion :( unfortunately, the chances of Jesus walking to earth again and all mortals being judged are minimal, at best- so many people have died thinking that the apocalypse will happen tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after :( It is a terrible shame, and a waste of so many opportunities to be had whilst one is alive.
On the other hand, I encourage the teachings of religions such as Christianity to be followed, because Christians are the most well-intentioned, charismatic people I have ever come across, and the direction the Bible points you down is without a doubt one of the most rewarding paths of all, although I advise you not to take these scriptures too literally, as they were merely written to help instill order and to make sure people live good lives. It is a tragedy however, when radical believers take the writings of these books so deeply to heart that they waste what little time they have in existence on ensuring themselves a good afterlife. An afterlife that sadly they shall never recieve.
May I also add, dlarson, that although you distance yourself from fantastical pursuits such as D&D, and you cannot 'rationalize them with your faith', Christianity is itself a fantasy, and in a way, Dungeons and Dragons and Christianity are very similar in what they aim to do. Dungeons and Dragons aims to take you away from the real world, where you can be someone else. Christianity promises a better world after this one, and ultimately, it is merely the pretence of an immortality that one can 'purchase' by being a good person and living a good life.
JoshAtWar:
I respectfully and wholeheartedly disagree with you. Scripture by nature is inspired by God, as witnessed by the prophets. No other source of prophetic writings has ever predicted so exactly the future as those included in the Bible.
And as for your perception of "Christianity" - I agree that most "Christians" are heavily deluded. I do NOT believe in a better afterlife nor do I believe that anyone can "purchase" an afterlife by good deeds. Those are the same delusions that all pagans, wiccans, and 97% of christianity believe. You can read my other hubs on the subject to understand my beliefs if you like.
If I had to summarize my beliefs on these matters, it is: Death is death - no afterlife until Jesus returns.
I will admit that I am taken aback, and that I can wholly understand why you believe what you do. I admire you for seeing through what most other Christians cannot, although I have never looked into the predictions for the future the Bible has made myself, and though I will probably dismiss them once I have looked into it, I am intrigued.
Contrary to what people will expect, I actually DO go to church on sundays, and just recently I witnessed some radical Christian giving what I can only describe as a hate speech for all those straying from the 'true' path of christianity. The 'preacher' there was, quite enthusiastically, telling us that people who do not do absolutely everything that the Bible says will go to hell. Of course, she was just a visitor and cannot be attributed to the church itself, as all other members are (as I mentioned before) extremely good people.
As for pagans, I am not sure of the fine details, only that they have no god and that they are the oldest surviving religion. All other religions sprouted from paganism, which was the worship of the sun. Jesus - Gods son, the light of the world, 'I will be with you 'till the end of the age', died on a cross and was ressurected after 3 days. Jesus's life is just a depiction of the path of the sun and the stars. I would go into more detail but only if you ask me to, as this post is going to be rather big..
'Wiccans' and 'occult' to me are more or less the same thing. Again, I don't know very much but I have always assumed them to be the small time groups that perform rituals and attempt sacrifices and other idiotic endeavours.
It sounds like you might be familiar with Zeitgeist - which is really only about half the story regarding Christ and sun worship. I do find it amusing that the "hate" preacher was teaching "that we must follow the Bible" yet she was there teaching on a Sunday - the venerable day of the sun for all sun worshipers which is strictly forbidden by the Bible as it was the day to worship Baal (or Bel/Osiris/Jupiter/etc. etc. etc.). Probably 95% of Christians still worship on Baal's day (Sunday) and believe they're following the Bible. Even the Catholics - the very source of Sunday keeping in the Christian church - will tell you that THEY are the ones who "Christianized" Baal worship.
I think I should do a Hub on this to further clarify. It is one of my favorite studies....
To my understanding, Pagans worship a pantheon of gods. Wiccan's worship the earth (more or less) which is modified paganism, and the Occult seeks to understand "the Mysteries" by contacting the "spirits" (demons) or something of that nature. To me, its all pantheonistic teaching one way or another but I may be over generalizing.
Zeitgeist got me to study further what Christianity really meant. Had I never watched it, I probably never would have challenged my beliefs. Had I believed everything presented in the film and not noticed some fine inconsistencies, I may have abandoned all my beliefs just as easily. Fortunately, there is a wealth of information out there on the web to draw from! Sifting the true from the false is the big challenge and that is where I try to use the Bible as a guide.
I did that myself with Zeitgeist - As willing as I was to go along with it I found that half the stuff in that film is made up entirely, and some of the Christ clones that they claim Jesus copied from never even existed. Also, the different clones of Moses never existed, on top of that the similarities listed between Horus and Jesus are complete rubbish, and as for the 'Buddha' - Well, he actually existed, and we know he never walked on water or raised the dead. The only similarities were that they were both tempted by some type of evil. However, Jesus was tempted by -the- devil, and the Buddha was tempted by one of the many, lesser demons. Jesus was tempted with food and told to test his faith, whereas Buddha was tempted with 'earthly pleasures' - the similarities don't exactly mount up so I dismissed zeitgeist as a well presented, resourceful way of telling complete lies in an underhanded manner that any atheists won't question for a second. As for the 9/11 conspiracy theories, they don't interest me and the stupidity of the accusations that are made merely make the film less convincing. Also, if you take the time to look at the sources that the zeitgeists 'research' was based on, then the books are all by notorious christ-mythers anyways, with titles such as 'The Myth of Christ'.
In conclusion, if any atheists who watch zeitgeist think they've finally found a way to disprove religion, then don't get too excited, it was just an organised way of attacking religion directly - the level of corruption of the information they have used gets worse and worse as the story is told by new and more imaginitive authors. All this corrupted information was then packed into a video and published to the world as some sort of revelation.
You have probably met a lot of people like me who just everything based on solid evidence. That's why I looked into zeitgeist and found it to be false, and it's also why I simply don't have the capacity to believe in a greater being that created everything. Especially since there have been no 'miracles' in living memory.
Another subject I am interested in is Rasputin.. I have read a single article on him. But I can scarcely believe it, it claims he survived 20 doses of (cyanide?) and then says he was stabbed, shot a few times, bludgeoned and then thrown into a river, where he apparently made scratch marks in the ice he was trapped under with his fingernails until he died way downstream of drowning, rather than his injuries. Most other accounts of his life tend to focus on this point, and I think any truth on the matter is long since lost.. Have you ever looked into it?
I appreciate your analysis of Zeitgeist! As for modern-day miracles, I'm a living one. That is to say I have seen them in my own life.
For example, try selling an SUV in the US right now - nobody wants them. We sold 2 within a week that were less than 2 years old and paid off the loans. On top of that, I make less than $100K a year right now but haven't missed a single mortgage payment on my properties (over $1 million in loans). The budget numbers never add up and I should have been bankrupt at least 2 years ago - but I still haven't missed a payment. Every couple of weeks, something comes up and there is just enough money to cover all my bills.
Now this Rasputin character sounds interesting. Is this a religion or just a historical figure of interest? I may have to do some research on this...
He's just a historical character - he apparently was able to cure Tsar Nicholas II's son of haemophilia, and in return he was given shared control of Russia with the Tsars' wife while the Tsar was away at war. Lots of people tried to give him a bad reputation but there is no real evidence that any of the things they accused him of were true. He was accused of meddling in the 'occult' but I'm not sure about that either..
I haven't really looked into it much..
Looked into it, seems to be mostly legend and hearsay.
I read his Wiki profile and he sounds like quite a character! I'll have to see if I can snag any good books about him from the library. My bloodlines run back to the Czars so I'm always up for some good historical perspective!
Speaking as a born again Christian who plays D&D, I think your stupid giving it up. You clearly love it and still want to play D&D, so I don't think faith should get in the way. It's all nice loving Christ with everything you have and all, but it's stupid if it makes you miserable. That's not the point of Christianity at all. And like you said many times: it's just a game.
Hi Koigo,
Thank you for your opinion. I've always been a Christian since before I began playing D&D over 20 years ago. However, I have recently been convicted on many different issues that I didn't consider for all these years. My conviction came when I studied the sources of the occult and secret societies (Babylon). There are far too many parallels with the game than I can justify. The Bible says very clearly that the children of GOD are to NOT practice any of the pagan traditions. To me, this includes D&D (filled with Pagan beliefs), pagan music (syncopated beats), TV, drugs (caffeine and alcohol) and all the pagan holidays. To be completely honets, I really do not miss any of these.
I read all these comments. Dlarson and Joshatwar, if you two had a group blog I would read it religously, no pun intended. Anyway, I play D&D, and I sometimes have to defend my hobby from hardcore Christians. I consider myself a Christian, I'm not perfect but I try my best to be a good person. It just seems to me that if DnD is evil, then plenty of other things should be thrown in the evil pile as well. Movies, books, plays, music, 90% of media. I believe that anything you do depends on how you go about it. When I play DnD I have all my best friends, a twelver of mountain dew, doritos galore. We laugh until were sore in the stomach and stay up until morning. Enjoying adventure, fellowship, and encouraging imagination are all good things. I fully respect your beliefs and am glad to be talking about this with someone of intelligence, but I think that many things get lost or smudged in translation.
So you gave up TV, most music, D&D, coffee etc....um....what do you do when you're not in church or reading the bible? Is it ok to workout? Is it ok to go to work? Is it ok to ask questions? What happens if you happen to be in an airport and "see" a TV show? Is it ok to read the paper? I mean...that would take away from bible reading time and church time? Anything taken to an extreme, whether it's DnD or religion, is generally an unhealthy thing. But hey, we're a county of extremes: the fatest, the fittest, the smartest, the least smartest, the most wasteful.....
Thank you for writing this article. I too am a Christian teenager, and recently decided to take up DnD with my friends. Alot of people from my school (being a Christian school) reprimanded us for involving ourselves in the "occult" as they called it. The difference that they don't seem to understand is that I know reality from fiction. I play games like this for fun. I know that I am not going to get so sucked into the game to the extent that I make it a religion! Playing games like DnD doesn't make you a bad person, and the Mennonites that run my school don't seem to realize this fact due to their extremely conservative beliefs and nature. I know it's just a game that was intended for entertainment, and have no intentions for making it anything more than that. And yeah, until Jesus comes back we must prepare our hearts and minds, but hey, he might even sit down and play a game of DnD with us!
Good comments, mostly...
Michael - what do I do now? What did I do before is a better question. I don't know how I ever had time to listen to music, watch TV, read the newspaper or magazines. I have far to little time to read, study scripture, watch insightful DVD's (other perspectives on scripture), or develop my homestead. So far this winter, I've built a shop, dug a well, developed two seperate wells, gathered many cords of firewood, logged my neighbors property, built a bathroom and done plenty of snow removal. How could I do all these things if I was distracted by "entertainment"?
nothing against christianity, and i mean no offense,
but it seems to me that god wouldn't want us constantly studying scripture, or even follow the letter of whats written,
i think that god would want us to follow ethics presented in the bible, and resist temptation,
but not avoid things that make life fun or interesting,
(of course tv has nothing interesting)
i manage to keep my faith and still have "entertainment"
and i still get everything i need done
of course the way you describe what your doing in your time, it seems you have alot more to take care of than i do
(my economics courses are flowing back into my brain :D)
just a thought
Christianity and gaming are not incompatible, the young Christian teen has a good outlook on things; it is only a game. dlarson, I do agree with you however, it is an incredible financial drain, (enough is enough already with the new versions,) and possibly an all-to-consuming time drain, as well. It seems to me that if someone wanted to make a table top D & D game with a Christian focus that it would be highly probable and possibly even fun. I'm currently playing a Chaotic Neutral druid that gets away with doing a lot of good things just simply for the fact that they're chaotic. I guess it depends on the DM, but I've never felt like, "Oh, man, this is too evil!" ... I wouldn't worry overly much about playing as a Christian. Everyone needs something to relax and help enjoy one's self.
I'm a Christian, and I play a Lawful Good Paladin. Much of my Paladin code of conduct is supported by scripture, Proverbs to be exact. It's how you play the game that really counts, a conservative christian could play a character who has conservative christian beliefs; now why haven't they considered this?
Playing a paladin allows me to be a good christian example to others, both to players and their characters.
They also have D20 Past, D20 Modern, and D20 Future along with an abundance of other settings. Entertaining, fun for more than one, and it keeps your mind active and imagination creative. we wouldn't have technology if nobody had an imagination. And can be educational, history wise.
Not really a waste of time or money. Although expensive but so are video games and board games. I'm pretty sure massages, pedicures, and haircuts are too.
I will not participate in the whole religious speak.
For those who consider themselves Christians here, the question that you must ask yourself really is :
"How much time do I *actually* spend with God, as opposed to playing/thinking about DND?"
Be honest with yourself. Do you actually read the Bible? For how long per day? How many hours do you spend in church a week? And, if you are there, how much do you actually listen to the teachers/pastors? Do you go out of your way to join in serving others, such as working in soup kitchens or visiting the elderly.
If the answer to these questions is, at the very least, not nearly the same as the amount of time that you spend on the weekends playing an "imaginary game", or thinking during the week about what possibilities could happen at your next gaming session, then DND *is* your god. Regardless of who you profess to "worship" with your mouth. Your heart speaks louder than your words do.
Please, don't misunderstand me. My intention is not to judge anyone here, only pose a question.
Personally, I've been a gamer for 20 some-odd years, and a born again Christian for even longer. So I do have a full grasp as to what is involved in playing DND, ADND - and beyond with further editions, GURPS, Champions, Cyberpunk, etc., along with original worlds created by many different DMs - including myself.
My point is, however, don't kid yourself into believing that it's ok to play...as long as I play a paladin...or as long as a spend an hour in church (not listening) every week.
At least be honest with yourself, if no one else. God ONLY sees in black and white - there is no grey in Him. And He isn't going to conform to your thoughts or interpretations of what *you* think might be acceptable.
...I still play every once in a while - when I have the time. I still love the game and enjoy all the imaginary characters, puzzles, and senarios that a DM comes up with.
Just something to think about... :)
Well said!
I think any type of gaming, from dungeons and dragons to counterstrike is a very dangerous thing for religious people to be involved in. As obviously they have very few tools for distinguishing fantasy from reality.
Chef Jeff says:
2 years ago
I never played D&D, but I always thought it could have so easily been made into a reality game instead of a fantasy game. There is so much interesting history that the concept might easily have been transformed into a teaching tool. What do you think?