Role Playing Games

[Cam42]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' date='Jul 15 2005, 02:56 AM']Well I've never known anyone to dress up like a Wizard, excepting of course the LOTR opening.  See I would agree with you if you had say 3 year olds being encouraged to play D&D you know like they are encouraged to play with Harry Potter toys and watch Harry Potter movies and the first thing shoved in there face when they expressed an intrest in reading at the Library was a D&D book, but it's not.( for the record I would oppose the D&D cartoon  if it where on now as well, dispite the Fact that it was really really dumb)  No while as you say D&D is dorky ( which is the world small minds usually use to adress those things that more intellectually gifted people enjoy.) Harry Potter is Cool, and while the spell in D&D is a series of mechanical variables from which a in game effect takes place, Harry Potter spells out the nature of neopagan Magic or should I say Magick.  And of Course there is a very serious differance in that D&D is all about what you bring to the Game, it is active, it requires the imagination to create the story and to participate in it, Harry Potter ( or any book) brings with it it's own agenda on that is imputed into the Reader. Harry Potter's agenda is a neo-pagan one. Of course  There is the biggest problem  with your comparasion which is the one which I keep coming back to Harry potter is set in the Real world and is set in a Real time( now), and engages in Quasi-real witchcraft.  D&D  like LOTR ( which it was originally modeled after) normally takes place in a completly unreal place with alien gods and powers, it has no bearing on the real world.
Just as an aside I will show you what a "spell in D&D looks like.
Real occult isn't it.

I think the differances have been well spelled out.
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So, I have a small mind. I never do anything creative, like playing golf or running a multi-million dollar company, or studying the Church, or reading copiously amounts of literature. D&D brings out all the beautiful people, I forgot. And as far as getting wrapped up in it, I know many who will forego just about anything constituting a life, in order to play.

The comparison to Harry Potter is this.....it is fantasy. It is not intended to be real. D&D is fantasy, it is not intended to be real.

Hmmmmm......[url="http://www.ddo.com/"]the big scary skeleton[/url] that wants to chop me to pieces really promotes Christian thought.

And [url="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20050630a"]this[/url] demonstrates nothing about the "reality" of what people become obsessed with. Where can I get a tail like his? (sic)

Very convincing defense, not so much......still dorky, still, in my opinion, more dangerous than Harry Potter.

[philothea]

[quote name='Cam42' date='Jul 15 2005, 08:58 PM']The comparison to Harry Potter is this.....it is fantasy.  It is not intended to be real.  D&D is fantasy, it is not intended to be real.

Hmmmmm......[url="http://www.ddo.com/"]the big scary skeleton[/url] that wants to chop me to pieces really promotes Christian thought.

And [url="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20050630a"]this[/url] demonstrates nothing about the "reality" of what people become obsessed with.  Where can I get a tail like his?  (sic)

Very convincing defense, not so much......still dorky, still, in my opinion, more dangerous than Harry Potter.
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Not that anyone is paying attention to me, but as someone who writes fantasy novels, I have put a [i]lot[/i] of thought into this! One more try.

First, you're mixing up two issues here, obsession, and occult influence. Obsession is a red herring -- people can be obsessed with anything interesting: games, movies, books, stamp collecting, bird watching, phatmass, etc.

So, occult influence. This should be obvious, but I'll state it anyway to keep things clear. [b]No one who has any serious religious conviction is going to be influenced away from it by a book or a game. It's the people who are either too young to know better, or don't have any religion that are endangered.[/b] No one here at phatmass is risking harm by reading Harry Potter, or by playing D&D.

But are these things dangerous to some people? Maybe. Many of you have been Catholic, or at least Christian, all your lives, so you have no understanding of what it's like to be entirely unformed spiritually except by the culture around you. People hunger for God, and if they don't know Him, they keep looking for something to fulfill them, for something to make sense of their lives and heal their pain. It isn't hard to be led astray.

D&D, for all its "spellcasting" doesn't resemble religion or spirituality at all. If you're playing with the wrong people, sure, you might be influenced badly, but that has nothing to do with the game. As hard as I try, I cannot see a danger in that set of rules and that world. It's too contrived to be especially compelling.

Books though...

In fantasy the author makes up the whole world, including the metaphysics, the morals, and the laws of nature. Writing is only half the work of storytelling (perhaps less than half). As the reader, you reconstruct that world in your mind, and bring the characters you read about to life. In the process of reading, people put themselves into that world -- a world which may have rules entirely contrary to the ways of God.

A huge part of writing fantasy is building the metaphysics. Who are the gods? What are the morals of the world? What does magic do, and how is it controlled? How did these people and this place come to be?

Please belive me when I tell you that many, if not most, writers in the science fiction and fantasy genres are hostile to Christianity. I went browsing through My LiveJournal "friends" and their "friends" -- all of us SF/F writers -- and I looked through their interests lists before coming to respond here. It seemed like everyone was pagan and/or LGBT. The worlds, gods, morals, and mysticism these people write will not inspire unformed readers to turn toward God.

Is Harry Potter a book where the mysticism of the world is antithetical to Christianity? I don't know; I haven't read them. It's not a trivial question. Just because it's harmless to devout adult Catholics, doesn't mean it can't be very harmful indeed to the ignorant.

The possible danger is not some trivial connection like: fictional magic -> wanting to be a wizard -> trying to cast real spells and becoming a pagan. It's the overall moral sense behind the story that matters.

I try to be careful what I write.

[kaidoh]

its one of the main games i play now and days