This is Faith in Play #81: The Bland Mind, for August 2024. I’m going to confess up front that this thought came from a typo: I was studying in the Synoptics about Jesus healing a blind man, and I mistyped bland for blind. I corrected it immediately, but it left me wondering, couldn’t Jesus heal … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #75: Tourette’s, for February 2024. Late in the twentieth century there was a fair amount of publicity given to a neurological disorder known as Tourette’s Syndrome. Sufferers cursed and swore uncontrollably and seemingly randomly, usually with a physical tic as they did. It was embarrassing and awkward. I have a … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #68: Prayer, for July 2023. This arose in discussion on the Christian Gamers Guild mailing list. It seems that someone mentioned a new role playing game in which players were expected to verbalize the in-game prayers of their fictional characters to the real God. Guild members had mixed reactions to … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #55: Marriage, for June 2022. I have written quite a bit about marriage over the years; I’ll not endeavor to list anything here. It strikes me, though, that although in my fiction I’ve had several weddings and character marriages, and in my games likewise, I haven’t written much about marriages … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #54: Stigma, for May 2022. Half a year ago, when RPG-ology #48: Embraces was published, a reader following our Facebook page (which exists primarily to let people know we exist somewhere else) commented that we should drop the word “Christian” from our group’s name. I responded to ask why, but … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #39: Of Aliens and Elves, for February 2021. Fantasy and science fiction are riddled with races. Star Trek offers Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Bajorans, and a host of others. Dungeons & Dragons gives us multiple varieties of Elves, Dwarfs, Gnomes, and Halflings, just for starters, and keeps going from there. … [Read more…]
The year 2020 surprised all of us, as we scrambled to make life work under entirely different conditions. However, the viral impact on our web site was minimal, as although we slowed down a bit we continued providing what we hope are valuable quality articles on gaming and faith. Last December we published 2019 at … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #35: Seekers, for October 2020. The “magic” in our role playing games is “make believe.” It’s not real, and no one could by reading any of the Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks or source books learn how to do any “real magic,” if such a thing exists. Indeed, you can’t learn … [Read more…]
This is Faith in Play #33: Psionics, for August 2020. About eighteen years ago, in July 2002, I published Faith and Gaming: Mind Powers, and thought I had said everything that needed to be said on the subject of psionic powers in fiction and games. It was republished fourteen years later on our refurbished reformatted … [Read more…]
This is RPG-ology #32: Doing Something, for July 2020. Although this is actually about a gaming referee technique, I’m starting with an example from a book, my novel Verse Three, Chapter One, freely accessible on the web. It also begins with magic items, but moves beyond that to objects in other settings and genres. As … [Read more…]