This is Faith in Play #106: Choosing, for September 2026.
This article was inspired by comments in Hector Miraz’ Faith and Fandom: Level Three about commitment.
In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the villain asks his archaeology expert which of a large array of cups is the Holy Grail. Her choice is based on finding a cup appropriate for the Son of God, the King of Kings–and it is the wrong choice. As the villain disintegrates after drinking from it, the Knight Templar set to guard the cups says with remarkable understatement, “He chose poorly.” Indie’s choice–the correct cup–is based on that which is appropriate for the Son of Man, the carpenter from Nazareth. He chose well.
Our lives are filled with choices. None of them have consequences so immediate as those of choosing the wrong cup from which to drink, but they can be as serious. As Dan Peek’s America hit song said, Don’t give up until you drink from the silver cup; you never know until you’ve tried. Most of those reading this series will have made that choice already–as Moses said, choose life, that you and your descendants may live. But as life continues, we continue to make that choice, choosing the way of life.
The consequences are not so serious for our characters–after all, ultimately they aren’t real, and their eternal destiny is probably not more than whether or not we remember them in our afterlives. Yet they can be: the characters we play in our games can influence the lives of the other players, and will do so largely through their choices, whether they choose life or death, blessing or cursing.
That doesn’t mean we must always choose for them to be saints. The bad choices of good characters can be very instructive, as the consequences follow. Indeed, the choices of bad characters can similarly be pedagogic, played through to consequences. One of my earliest articles, Morality and Consequences: Overlooked Roleplay Essentials, addressed this issue. The evil character eventually gets his comeuppance. The person who chooses the wrong path in life similarly winds up unhappy. Seeing it happen in the game can be a potent warning. Some of that is illustrated in Faith and Gaming: Bad Guys. Creating characters who choose cursing and death can be a lesson to choose not poorly but wisely.
So choose blessing; choose life, that you and your descendants–and perhaps, too, your friends–may live.
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