God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them… The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. Genesis 1:27; 2:22, UNASB Last month we were examining the inclusion of … [Read more…]
Role playing games have been criticized for many things that are easily explained. Readers of this magazine don’t need to hear why the involvement of magic, false gods, or demons and devils isn’t a real objection to role playing per se. Or hear why it doesn’t matter if we play with non-Christians whose characters may reject God and His morality even more … [Read more…]
In the earliest articles of this series, we were looking at what might be considered the issues in role playing, those areas in which Christians might have concerns. We started with some fairly simple ones—the implications of various types of mechanics, the matter of creating settings which were different in any way from the world … [Read more…]
Thanks to Goethe, there is a very compelling story of a man named Faust, a man who made a deal with the devil. The story has become something of a cultural idea, such that the word “Faustian” is used to describe any effort to achieve something at too great a cost. Faust, according to the … [Read more…]
I believe in magic. I see the world as a vast battlefield on which the supernatural armies of God and Satan struggle for the souls of men. Magic is rampant in this world. Every time a believer sins or a sinner repents, these are events of spiritual significance. To quote from the movie Ladyhawke, “I believe in miracles; it’s … [Read more…]
Last month raised the matter of Battle. It took us to very personal matters of whether through our role playing we learn to view fighting as a preferred solution or a necessary evil. Yet it also introduced another question, the question of how to tell whether war is the right thing to do. That question … [Read more…]
I was recently re-reading my article Faith and Gaming: Christian Games (I often re-read my old material, and sometimes it gets me thinking afresh about issues previously addressed, so I write new ones like this one, usually posted over at the mark Joseph “young” web log). I think every time I read that article, which … [Read more…]
It happens that as I write this the world again stands on the brink of war, although as you read it that war probably will have been resolved. I’m old enough to know that this happens with alarming frequency, and that whenever it does happen there will be people arguing about whether the pending or … [Read more…]
Late last year (2002 at the time of this writing), on what I hope I may be excused for calling an inauspicious day, someone known to me only by an Internet screen name, somewhere else in these United States, was persecuted for being a gamer.
Eight months ago we began exploring ways of bring our faith to bear on our games. In that time, we looked at quite a variety of ideas. We said that you could play the Good Guys, characters who shared at least part of your faith; but that you could also play the Bad Guys, showing … [Read more…]