Apt142’s Blog

I’ve been listening to a new podcast lately. Fear the Boot is a podcast that focuses on various aspects on Role-playing Games (RPG’s). A recent one caught my attention. (I”m still catching up, so recent is my time frame, not theirs.) There was a conversation about religion and RPG’s. Mostly this was on the topic of in game beliefs.

For those not familiar with RPG’s, it’s a game where a group of people come together to tell a story. Most members of the group come together with the intentions of dictating the actions of the main characters in the story. While one member, the Game Master (GM) dictates the story, plot, settings and conflict resolutions.

Anyways, in the 80’s there was a huge controversy over D&D (a RPG system). There was a suicide that hit the media. See James Dallas Egbert III. The product of that unfortunate incident was that a lot of media coverage got focussed on a relatively quiet and new hobby. The result was that RPG’s were labeled as satanic and unnatural.

I started playing early. My older brother was into it. When I was old enough to start running my own games, I did so. The entire time, I understood that the game I was playing was largely misunderstood. Telling somebody that I was playing one was always a difficult thing.

When I got into my late teens, I realized how insane it was that a hobby that I enjoyed was so publicly reviled. I felt a lot of guilt about it from time to time. When everybody tells you that what you are doing is harmful it’s hard not to listen. But, it’s also really difficult not to dismiss the claims. Because even when I knew the people talking about it were misinformed, I couldn’t help but wonder myself if they knew something I did not.

This lead to a crisis of faith on it after a while. I quit playing for a bit to re-examine the issue. Upon doing some research, I did discover that a lot of the claims of satanism and so on that are made against RPG’s stem back to that incident cited above. They just spread like wildfire and hearsay as any such reported claims do. The problem is that the RPG community was extremely young and populated by a lot of people who were more prone to just let things blow over.

As such, the hobby gained an incredibly ugly reputation that was quickly seized upon by the likes of Jack Chick. Who (in this blogger’s experience) is more talented with his pen than with his logical reasoning skills. Him and many other conservative Christians continued to campaign against RPG’s. The mark of their work still lingers to this day. Other religious groups have also taken up this stance. The problem I had with this, is that I am a person of faith. So, being arbitrarily bundled into a group of ill repute of my religion, seriously bothered me. I knew there was nothing that I was doing wrong. I also think I would have seen such a glaring issue with RPG’s.

Many RPG’ers are still affected by this. For that reason alone, you’ll find them hesitant to talk to people directly about their hobby in a cold turkey conversation. You’ll often have to do this verbal secret handshake that involves sci-fi and/or fantasy shows that is often followed by books, colletible card games and/or comics before you’ll end up in RPG territory.

The truth of the matter is that RPG’s are no more evil than an acting company, a movie or even a video game. The act of role playing is so much akin to playing cops and robbers that trying to make a distinction between the two is nearly impossible. And like kids who play cops and robbers, the subjects of the stories that the players put together are going to be as mature and as honest as the players themselves make them to be. So, while it’s easy for an outsider to imagine all sorts of evil encounters, it’s much more likely the players are rescuing princesses or bringing the one ring to Mount Doom.

If you’re an RPG gamer, hold your head high and repeat after me. There is nothing wrong with my hobby. Gaming has brought me a lot of enjoyment and has taught me a lot about what it feels like to walk in another person’s shoes. Nobody I’ve known has ever been hurt or received an injury in relation to RPG’s. And nobody has received any lasting psychological trauma from the game.

I wanted to write this post in hopes that another person like me, who has struggled to come to grips with this awkward reputation the hobby has, will be able to get above it and see it for what it is. A valid and completely legit form of entertainment.