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Subject: [rec.games.frp.*] Frequently asked questions Part 2
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Archive-name: games/roleplay/part2a
Last-Modified: 12/1/93

A new section, about this topic has been added, Part 2b.  It discusses in
general the fight GAMA and specifically Mike Stackpole have been winning
against BADD and other antigaming groups.

[due to popular demand (i.e. some have complained that part 2 of the general
 FAQs was too big), I have removed the questions about gaming/evil/satan/etc.
 into a separate FAQ.  Numbering begins at 1. ]

1: I have a problem with a friend of mine. He is active in his church and
   feels strongly that any Fantasy Roleplaying Game is Evil. What can I
   tell him?

A0: Roleplaying is an escapist activity that requires a good imagination,
    but it is not recommended for those with a poor grip on reality.  It
    does not make weirdos, it simply attracts them. That aside...

    I have SIX different answers for you. You can pick and choose,
    depending on which one is most applicable to your own situation.

A1:    [e-mail] (Deus Imperator) replies:

       Tell him this story:

       A young boy with STRONG roots in christianity became disenchanted
       with religion in general as he grew up. He fell into very
       antisocial behavior (thieving, pyromania). While in high school,
       he ran across a kid who knew a LOT about magic, and played D&D.
       Our disturbed hero fell in with this crowd, and soon was playing
       D&D regularly. He always played evil characters.

       Now this poor soul never really read for pleasure. In fact, *all*
       that he had read for the past three years was _First Blood_ and
       _Rambo_. One of the players recommended the Dragonlance series to
       him. He loved it, empathizing with Raistlin 100%. He read the
       first book in one night, bought the next two, read BOTH in one
       night, and begged his DM to give him more. His pleas were
       granted: Thomas Covenant; Dune; David Eddings; Tolkien. Soon this
       maladjusted youth began writing himself, specializing in poetry.
       He expanded his reading range, including such great works as Les
       Miserables, all of Joyce, and, oh yeah, the Bible. Indeed, our
       wayward youth regained his faith, and now this year published a
       book of poetry, dedicated to me: The DM. True story.

       Oh, yeah. For what it's worth, he wants to become a priest.

A2:    [e-mail] (Dan Kopes) replies:
       Have the religious "friend" read _Le_Morte_D'Artur_ by Malory
       (or Steinbeck's version). And then have him watch the Family
       Channel's animated version of the Prince Valiant comic. It's on
       Mondays at 8pm.

       Yes, you read right. Pat Robertson's Family Channel is running a
       new show based on the Prince Valiant comic. It's a little cheesy
       but it would be a good way to show a religious person that the
       Arthurian Legends are not satanic literature. Because it is from
       these stories that most frpg's formed. Dragons, knights, damsel
       in distress... all of these came from the Arthurian Legends. So,
       if one set of armored warriors, pious priests, and knowledgeable
       wizards are OK to read, then why isn't another group?

       I made a list of crucial elements that were in the first several
       episodes of Prince Valiant, all of these are also the backbone of
       most RPGs:

          1) Evil baron defeats good guys and exiles them from their home.
           - What!? A religious channel is saying that the bad guys win?!
           - In FRPs this is the plot hook that sets the good guys into
             doing something to regain the home.

          2) Prophetic dreams
           - sounds like Robertson's channel is delving into mysticism.
           - Used in FRPs to nudge the adventurers into going the right
             way.

          3) Spell casting - by swamp witch and Merlin
           - It seems it's OK to pretend that spells exist in stories...
           - One of the spell casters is a good guy so this throws out the
             idea that magic is evil or satanic...only some of it is.
             And the good guys do NOT use the evil magic.

          4) Authority figures can be evil and corrupt
           - another baron suppresses his people and forces the blacksmith's
             daughter to marry his wimpy brother.
           - In FRPs this sets up a lot of adventures...the good guys have
             to overthrow the abusive leader.

          5) Monsters are real and dangerous to let live...
           - The very first episode had a giant lizard, probably meant as a
             dinosaur or dragon.
           - In FRPs monsters as opponents are a staple in an adventurer's
             diet. They have to be killed/defeated for the greater good.

       Now, have your religious "friend" watch this show which is
       broadcast nationally on a religiously affiliated network.
       Robertson himself has spoken out against Fantasy Roleplaying
       Games, but he broadcasts a TV show that is very similar to most
       FRP campaigns.

A3:    Many people seem to think that Fantasy Roleplaying is inspired by
       black magic and Necronomicon-like grimoires. In fact, J.R.R.
       Tolkein's _Lord of the Rings_ and _The Hobbit_ and the world of
       Middle Earth, which are primary influences on almost all
       Roleplaying games, were primarily inspired by Christian
       (Catholic, to be precise) ideas.

       J.R.R. Tolkein was a devout Christian, and a close friend of C.S.
       Lewis, one of the great Christian thinkers of our (or any) time,
       and writer of the fantasy and science fiction classics
       (respectively) The Chronicles of Narnia and the trilogy
       comprising "Out of the Silent Planet," "Perelandra," and "That
       Hideous Strength." Some of Lewis's work in "That Hideous
       Strength" is acknowledged inspiration from Tolkein's writing (not
       to mention a large dose of Christian theology).

       From: <[e-mail]> (Tony Vasquez)
       " A peek inside the Jerusalem Bible (pub. 1966; a Catholic translation)
       will reveal, as a "principal collaborator in translation and literary
       revision" J.R.R. Tolkien. "

       Yes, Virginia, Christianity and fantasy can coexist.

       Another FRP-like Christian fantasy is _The Faerie Queen_ by
       Edmund Spenser, with the Red-Cross Knight and other allegorical
       characters engaging in typical FRP exploring and monster killing.

       Roleplaying gamers should also emphasize that their games exist
       in a moral world (that is, of course, if their players do not
       regularly play evil or psychopathic characters) and that
       wrongdoing and skullduggery usually rebound on the bad guys.
       Despite the fact that TSR strongly discourages evil player
       characters -- providing scenarios that are aimed almost
       exclusively at good and neutral alignments -- most critics think
       that players are all thrilling in immoral deeds.  They don't
       realize most of us play the good guys, in the white hats, who
       ride off into the sunset after the last scene.

A4:    Finally, one of the things that humans enjoy the most is telling
       or listening to a bashing good story. Jesus was well known for
       telling stories, as have been many very holy men and women
       through history.

       Fantasy Roleplaying Games are just another way of telling
       stories, which may or not be objectively good, but are generally
       enjoyed by the participants and certainly involve lots of
       bashing.

A5:    In case you are being persecuted by those who think they are
       only doing the christian thing by trying to convert you from
       what they see as a satanist or evil conspiracy to the only
       right and true way you may find the following arguments to be
       useful.

       Pierre Savoie of CaRPG supplied the following refutations of
       commonly quoted "facts" used by the anti-roleplaying set.

       The original claim of a teen committing suicide due to D&D was a
       hoax. In 1979 James Dallas Egbert III disappeared from Michigan
       State University, as described in a book by the detective on the
       case, William Dear (THE DUNGEON MASTER, 1984, Ballantine,
       biographies). Dear rambles a lot and he may be dramatizing too
       much, but he made headway not from talk about D&D played in
       underground "steam tunnels" on the campus, but only after he
       contacted a man who was keeping boys as young as 11 in his
       apartment, who claimed to know where Dallas was. It turns out the
       boy was 16 years old and in his sophomore year, a genius but also
       lonely, on drugs, and gay. He "ran away from it all", got stoned
       down in those tunnels, and staggered over to the home of a gay
       friend. This person got nervous when later the police search
       started, and Dallas was shuttled from gay to gay until he ended
       up in Louisiana with "friends". It could have been a prostitution
       ring involving juveniles.
          Dear's only concern was to bring the boy back, so he kept the
       facts hidden for 5 years until he wrote the book. For that
       reason D&D continued to be blamed, esp. nine months later when
       Dallas committed suicide (probably out of embarrassment). I
       don't know how far to trust Dear's account, particularly because
       of his choice of title to "market the book better".

       The very first published anti-D&D writings were from the Rev.
       John Torrell in 1980 (Christian Life Ministries, now called
       European-American Evangelistic Crusades, in Sacramento, CA).
       Torrell claimed that "these players go nuts with it! They start
       confusing fantasy with reality." That's an ironic claim in view
       of his own published "political" views in his newsletter, THE
       DOVE. In 1986 to the present, he claims that Ronald Reagan
       secretly surrendered the U.S. to the Soviet Union at the Iceland
       Summit in 1986, with a five-year transition period before the
       Russians assumed complete control. Well, guess who surrendered to
       whom! He has also claimed that George Bush's membership in the
       Order of Skull And Bones fraternity at Yale means that he has
       devoted his life to Satan! Torrell also claimed that the logo for
       the Seoul Olympics was a cyclic "666" symbol, and many other
       inanities. A perfect conspiracy theorist. Torrell's radio show
       got kicked off one radio station for making anti-Catholic
       remarks, but he wound up on another station.

       The famous woman who claims her son killed himself due to D&D,
       Patricia Pulling of Richmond, Virginia, is in league with some
       pretty questionable people. It seems she's a sort of guest
       director of the National Coalition on Television Violence (NCTV)
       run by Dr. Thomas Radecki from near Chicago. This man has put out
       loony claims that people are severely influenced by violent acts
       seen on TV, and counts the number of violent acts per hour.
       According to his criteria, The Smurfs average 13/hr.! He also
       says tickling, snowball fights, Donald Duck cartoons, the
       Christian Broadcasting Network, etc. are all bad for the mind,
       and that anger should be suppressed because "only God has the
       right to be angry", in flagrant opposition to the catharsis
       theories of his psychiatric discipline.
          Now, every issue of THE NCTV NEWS has a margin column where a
       "partial list of endorsers" is listed. Notice that it's
       "partial", so they want to bring out what they feel are the most
       notable names who "support" them. One of these names is Prof. J.
       Phillippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario, in
       London, Ontario, Canada. This professor published his theories of
       a "race hierarchy" where Blacks were rated inferior to Whites,
       and both ranked below Orientals. He got some of his funding from
       an American group called the Pioneer Fund, which is said to be
       racist.
          And yet he is listed as a notable endorser of Pat Pulling and
       Thomas Radecki from 1985 to at least 1989! This raises the
       possibility that various little "causes" such as D&D-bashing are
       really to raise funds for what REALLY interests these groups...
       hatred and racism.

       The only Catholic tract against the game of D&D had to be pulled
       out of religious bookstores--because of its sources of
       information. This was called "Games Unsuspecting People
       Play--Dungeons and Dragons" by The Daughters of St. Paul Press in
       Boston (light green cover, sub-digest size, 24 pages or so) and
       authored by Louise Shanahan.
          Originally this was from a Canadian Catholic magazine called OUR
       FAMILY in Battleford, Saskatchewan, re-made into a tract.
       However, two of their "sources" of information on the game were
       the Rev. John Torrell and also Albert James Dager (who calls
       Catholicism the "Babylon Mystery Religion", claiming it's a mix
       of true Christianity and Babylonian rituals such as communion and
       the confessional). Since both of these were anti-Catholic, the
       tract was discontinued, and the DSP will no longer accept any
       manuscripts from Louise Shanahan! She obviously didn't research
       these sources sufficiently.
          I did, and gleefully pointed it out to the publisher, which
       withdrew the tract.

       In the book CRUEL DOUBT by Joe MacGinnis, he seems to claim that
       D&D was the link between Chris Prichard and the friends he asked
       to help him kill his step-father. In fact, they ALSO went to the
       same school (North Carolina State) and lived in the SAME dorm,
       but these common factors were somehow not considered contributory
       to their conspiracy the way D&D-playing was. The motive for the
       killing, in these recessionary times, was greed for an
       inheritance, not drugs or game-playing.
          Interestingly, a lot of attention is focused on the 70 cases a
       year in the U.S. of kids who murder their parents. The number of
       parents who murder their kids in the same time is 2000! (see IN
       PURSUIT OF SATAN)

       If videos of Sean Sellers (a teen on death-row in Oklahoma) are
       presented on THE 700 CLUB as testimony of the link between
       violence and D&D, it is only because videos are all they can come
       up with. They can't link up with him live--because he no longer
       claims that D&D caused his crime!
          In a letter dated Feb. 5, 1990 from Sean Sellers to game designer
       Michael Stackpole, Sellers concluded with, "Personally, for
       reasons I publish myself, I don't think kids need to be playing
       D&D, but using my past as a common example of the effects of the
       game is either irrational or fanatical."
          Remember, people on death row are opportunists. They will claim
       that UFOs tampered with their brains and this caused them to
       kill. They will claim most anything to get parole, and who can
       blame them? Of course, as more judges and wardens are
       D&D-players, such a claim will not be possible within 10 years.
       In this case, concerning D&D, familiarity will kill the contempt
       against the game rather than 'breeding contempt'. Only distance
       and ignorance breed contempt against the game. The more the game
       is known, the less people make claims against it!

       TSR Inc. does a little to debunk anti-D&D claims, and an
       organization of game manufacturers called the Game Manufacturers'
       Association (GAMA; c/o Greg Stafford; Chaosium Inc.; 950A 56th
       St.; Oakland, CA; 94608) has done a lot to research these claims.
          However, there is now a fan-based organization I helped to found
       in 1988 called the Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing
       Games (CAR-PGa). The principal people are as follows:

       William Flatt
       8032 Locust Ave.
       Miller, IN
       46403 tel. [phone] [very dedicated to the issue because
       his father assaulted him for playing D&D, with a vacuum cleaner
       pipe]

       the Rev. Paul Cardwell, Jr.
       c/o Hippogriff Books
       111 E. 5th St.
       Bonham, TX
       75418 [a gamer who prefers Chaosium-style rules, author of the
       MYTHWORLD game, and an ordained United Methodist minister
       (teaching, not preaching) aged 58!]

       Mr. Pierre Savoie
       22-B Harris Ave.
       Toronto, ON
       M4C 1P4 CANADA tel. [phone] [age 30, analytical chemist by
       trade. I initially kicked off CAR-PGa with some diligent research
       on the exact groups which criticize D&D. Sometimes jokingly
       called "Head of Research" in the organization because I have 5
       feet deep of files and correspondence on the subject.]

       The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation did a radio show on their
       AM network in the "Ideas" series, Canada's most intellectual
       radio program, entitled "Dungeons and Dragons" (aired May 29,
       1991). It concluded as follows:
          "The National Coalition on Television Violence and BADD say
          they have a hundred and twenty-five cases of D&D-linked
          deaths. Only forty of these cases have been published and half
          of those are anonymous.
             The ones they do cite details for have no causal link with
          games. In every trial where Mrs. Pulling and Dr. Radecki have
          appeared, always as expert witnesses on the defence side, the
          defendants were convicted anyway, and in no case adjudicated
          by the courts has gaming ever been implicated in any crime."
             This is not some schlock show, and transcripts are offered
          for most of their programs, including this one, for 5 Canadian
          dollars per airdate. To order, indicate the title and airdate
          of the show and send CDN$5 or equivalent to: CBC IDEAS
          Transcripts; P.O. Box 500, Station "A"; Toronto, ON; M5W 1E6;
          CANADA.
          I assisted a little in the research for the show, and you may
       find it a refreshingly positive broadcasting of the facts about
       game-playing.

       There are at least two books in print so far which debunk
       anti-D&D theories in the context of "Satanism". These are:

          SATANISM IN AMERICA: How the Devil Got Much More Than His Due
          by Shawn Carlson and Gerald Larue, 1989 by Gaia Press (P.O.
          Box 466; El Cerrito, CA; 94530-0466; tel. [phone]) It
          is spiral-bound, 280 pages and the price is $12.95
          (Californians add .94 tax) plus $1.50 postage.
             50 of these pages is a special appendix by game designer
          Michael Stackpole of Chaosium Inc. directly dealing with the
          anti-D&D claims.

          IN PURSUIT OF SATAN: The Police and the Occult by Robert Hicks
          (1991 by Prometheus Books; 700 East Amherst St.; Buffalo, NY;
          14215; tel. [phone]). Hardcover, 420 pages, US$23.95
          plus maybe $3 postage. 25 pages devoted to D&D by this
          criminal analyst, plus additional chilling references. For
          example, in Chicago there is a wing of the Hartgrove Hospital
          called for the Center for the Treatment of Ritualistic
          Deviance. It's influenced by silly Satanism seminars, and one
          of the criteria for being a potential patient is "heavy
          involvement in fantasy and role play [sic] games". Therefore,
          a young teen can be "hospitalized" here with the consent of
          his parents for being a D&D-player--all legal and proper!
             This book was given a favourable review in an editorial in the
          July 1991 DRAGON, by Michael Stackpole, who curiously did not
          mention his own involvement with the first book.]

       --> generic!pnet91!pro-micol![e-mail]
       (Pierre Savoie; Micol Labs BBS; Toronto. A.k.a. DRACONIAN)

a6: From [e-mail] ("Mars, the Bringer of War")

     As a fairly devout Southern Baptist who has been playing for
     over a decade, I can sympathize with your question and have
     heard that particular arguement before.  The central flaw in
     the line of reasoning is assuming that the play of rpg's,
     whether evil or not, leads people into evil.  This is a classic
     fallacy which can be applied to the Church itself:  if people
     associate Christianity with horrible atrocities of the past,
     such as the Spanish Inquisition, the Jewish pogroms, the
     Crusades, and many other massicres which I am the first to
     admit occurred and were condoned by the Christian Church or by
     prominent Christians; then surely by being an active Christian
     you are telling people that you support these things?  As
     should by readily apparent, the actions of a person or group do
     not always reflect at all upon the nobility of the cause they
     claim to espouse-in this case, some of the most loathsome acts
     in human history being committed in the name of what I consider
     the most noble cause.  The case with role-playing games is
     similar.  A few twisted people have committed acts which are
     highly antisocial, and some people have placed the blame on
     rpg's, perhaps in effort to avoid their own responsibility for
     the actions of themselves or their children, etc.  Obsessive
     behavior of any sort is the sign of serious emotional problems,
     and placing the blame on rpg's is absurd.  A simple look at the
     facts will indicate that far more suicides/killing sprees/etc.
     are committed in the name of parential pressure, peer pressure,
     depression, and similar causes than could ever be linked to
     rpg's, and even in those cases, this blame is just a convenient
     excuse for avoiding those, most sensitive problems (John
     committed suicide?  It couldn't have been his parent's constant
     pressure to do well in school, it must've been those rpg's...)
     In the context of Christian belief, rather than avoid these
     issues, it is our duty to educate people out of their
     ignorance, rather than to just allow it to continue.  Arguing
     that playing rpg's condones sin is a ridiculous arguement, and
     merely demonstrates ignorance of what gaming is all about.

     Mars

A7: From [e-mail] (Fergason)

     But there is a link:  D&D players would like to kill all the people
     who think D&D causes devil worship.  There.  Nice and tidy.

     :-) for the humor impaired.

A8: From Aimee Yermish <[e-mail]>
        (maintainer of the Live-Action Roleplaying FAQ)

The simple fact is that people often *do* play evil or self-centered
or nasty or whatever characters (especially in an IL setting, because
the amount of inter-character conflict in a game demands a certain
percentage of nasty characters... I usually end up counting the nice
ones, because the list is *much* shorter).  It's foolish to think that
the evil inclination (okay, so I'm Jewish and use terms like that)
doesn't exist or can be suppressed by pretending it doesn't.  People
have dark sides, temptations to sin, whatever you want to call it.
They know they can't or shouldn't act on those impulses in real life,
but all too frequently, if they do, they find that hurting other
people is surprisingly easy and rarely results in their taking what
our sense of justice says should be appropriate consequences.  Most
crimes, after all, go totally unsolved.

What we do in roleplaying games is provide a safe environment, where
the players can act on their evil impulses without actually harming
others.  We hope that by providing this outlet for people's evil
tendencies, that they will have less need to act out those evil
tendencies in real life.

Not only that, but in real life, the evildoer rarely has to actually
confront the effects of his actions.  In a drive-by shooting, the
murderer may not even know if he has killed anyone, much less who it
was, who their friends and family were, and so forth.  There is
practically no chance that the murderer will be confronted by the
victim's loved ones, no matter how much they may want it.  But in a
roleplaying game, the web of society is woven much more tightly.  If a
PC kills a GM-run NPC, the GM has the option of having the police
decide that this case is worth investigating, or of having that NPC's
friends figure out who might have done it and come after him, or
whatever other repercussions are appropriate to the situation.  In an
IL game, practically every PC has friends or teammates or allies who
are also PCs, who do the job of tracking down and exacting some form
of justice (we regularly have *trials* during our games, so don't
think that all justice is handed out by the sword) without any
prompting by the GMs.  While it may seem counter-intuitive, the fact
is that evil is more often punished in a fantasy world than it is in
the real world.  One person's wish is to kill -- three others' wishes
become to see the killer brought to justice.

Now for the real point.  If you see a white ball on the table in front
of you, and someone says, "Pick the white ball, not the black one,"
well, of course you pick the white one.  You don't really have the
option of doing the wrong thing, because you haven't really been given
a choice.  If both balls are on the table, then you have the capacity
to choose, and therefore your correct choice has some meaning.  (just
to annoy the Christians, here's a biblical quote: "Behold, I have set
before you this day a blessing and a curse." (it's from Deuteronomy,
and I can easily provide the chapter and verse if I check at home)) In
real life, so many of the "wrong" choices are never presented as
options, so we never learn to choose against them.  In a game, we have
created an artificial environment where we can choose the "wrong"
options and examine what it feels like to be a murderer, a drug
dealer, a devil-worshipper, or whatever.  After making those choices
and examining the results, the player is now empowered to go back to
real life and continue to choose the light, but now with a clearer
understanding of just why it was that he didn't want to choose the
darkness.  If all you have for your morality is a set of rules saying,
"Don't do that particular thing," when you are confronted with a
situation which does not fit those rules, or which pits one rule
against another (which situation serious students of any religion are
very familiar with -- ethical dilemmas are pretty universal), you are
not equipped to make an intelligent choice between your various
options.  Maturity cannot come from slavishly following rules, but
must come from experimentation and understanding.

This is all part of what a friend of mine called "the hidden agenda"
of roleplaying games in general, and IL in particular.  In games, we
allow and encourage individualized personal growth in many different
areas, providing an environment where correct actions are usually
rewarded, and incorrect actions usually result in some form of loss or
punishment, but without the permanent life-destroying effects (20
years in prison) that prevent a person from changing his future
actions in light of what he learns.

Obviously, I'm much more long-winded than that probably needs to be.
Just thought it might help.  Feel free to ignore it.

+--Aimee


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