One of the bugbears goes down, and another one is hurting pretty badly. A third one looks at the other two and seems to be panicking. She says, “What are we going to do? If we go back empty-handed, we’re dead.” They look at you and seem to be trying to decide whether to attack or flee. 

A short conversation later between the party and the bugbears, and the party now has four bugbears fighting alongside them as the party promised to protect them from the Big Bad that sent them. 

As Dungeons & Dragons continues to grow in popularity, well beyond the number of players during its height in the 1980s, people have found that social media and other shallow forms of communication are inferior to gathering around a table and sharing stories, strategies, and jokes with each other. It’s easier to cope with day-to-day life in the real world when you can escape with some friends into a fantasy world for a little while, but as shared universes continue to grow in popularity, we realize that these universes draw us in as we see the similarities to our own. This allows us to take the challenges of life and put them into a new context to take a fresh look at them and find new approaches to real-world problems. 

Welcome to Caphora: The Divided Continent. Designed to take advantage of the game’s ability to bring different people together to accomplish a common goal, whether you use this campaign world, one published by Wizards of the Coast, or one of your own design, you can use these principles as you Dungeon Master a game. As well, this works with any tabletop role-playing game, although my references will specifically refer to Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. 

What It Is:

Critical Success principles run through these methods, so I present to you a combination of principles and strategies that flow from each other. These principles include but are not limited to:

• Every person has inherent value regardless of what they have done or what has been done to them.
• Heroes create hope. Hope is caused by trust that the future is secure.
• Nobody is beyond redemption. Some may reject it, but they are not beyond it. 
• The greatest power is love—not a feeling, but commitment to actively caring. 

Experiential Learning

We learn best when we see the effects of our actions. In Dungeons & Dragons, we can explore the same situations we encounter in daily life but approach them from a new angle, then take what we have learned back into the real world situation.

Natural Consequences

Because the game world is designed to feel real, suspension of disbelief notwithstanding, actions have consequences. Both players and Dungeon Master learn from each other through various encounters and the results of those encounters.

Dialog inducing

Unique situations require unique approaches. The party must discuss how they will resolve the challenges they face and the possible consequences of their actions. Because the game is open-ended, they can be creative but also need to balance risk and reward. Different ideas will sometimes conflict with each other or build off each other.

How to see the world

I’ve often described my parenting style as, “I want to teach you how to think more than what to think.“ When someone knows how to think, that will guide them as they draw conclusions from what they learn. So critical thinking guides the process. 

What It Isn’t:

Political

We hear politics all day long. It’s important, but it’s exhausting, and every platform is imperfect, so Critical Success is not about pushing an agenda but rather learning to form your own agenda and act on it.

Preachy

This may sound ironic, given my day job as a preacher, but nobody likes having information shoved down their throats. Critical Success is about presenting options, not laying down the law.

Judgmental

Every action has consequences. Some we can foresee, and some we can’t. Nearly every decision is imperfect on some level, so Critical Success embraces imperfection and alternate viewpoints as a means of learning about each other and the world.

What to see in the world

Just as a fantasy world is a place of wonder, this is even more true of the real world, so Critical Success helps players find love, hope, and joy in the real world not by pointing it out, but by offering a different angle from which to look and allowing them to notice the things that are important to them.
As I mentioned above, I’m writing this as a Christian pastor, so that viewpoint will probably be obvious, but I hope this will be valuable to all kinds of gamers, regardless of their religious background or beliefs. Our tables combine people with many beliefs and worldviews, And we welcome all and strive to use these very principles to make everyone feel welcome.

This article is the first in a series. I invite you to subscribe if you’re interested in the rest.

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The Honest truth about Dungeons and Dragons

Much ink and way too much sweat has been shed over the question of negative influences of fantasy role-playing games (FRPGs) like Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). Much of this is due to miscommunication, distributed half-truths, and exceptions perceived as rules.

I would like to clear the air on some of these misunderstandings.

Since it’s impossible to separate a text from its author, some qualifications may be in order. I’ve been playing FRPGs since 1983 when I played with some fellow Boy Scouts. When confronted with the allegedly negative aspects, as a Christian, I was concerned, so I read everything I could get my hands on regarding the subject, both pro and con. I have a B.A. in Psychology and Theatre and a M.Div. I’m an ordained Pastor (LCMS).

Aren’t FRPGs Pagan?

Not necessarily. It depends on who’s playing the game. D&D and AD&D were designed around medieval miniature strategy war-games, Greco-Roman mythology, medieval legends (like King Arthur), and the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien (an outspoken Christian writer). The idea was to get a group of people together to write a story in their minds. The group is led by a Dungeon Master (DM) who serves as narrator, setting the scene, supplying the plot, and portraying the supporting cast. The main characters are portrayed by the players, like a puppet show with no script. As the DM presents the story, each player informs the DM of his character’s actions.

Polytheism

Now, because of the historical background of the setting, you will find an element of polytheism in the game. However, even those playing clerics (priests) of these gods are not actually worshipping these gods. His character does, but not with any detail. Generally, the sum of the “worship” goes something like, “My character goes off and prays for three hours,” and that’s about it. The gods are not thought to be real any more than the character who worships it.

Sorcery

Also, some have expressed concern over sorcery present in the game. Players have the option of choosing characters who are wizards like Merlin or Gandalf. Please note that, when a wizard character casts a spell, the player utters no incantation. Characters cast spells; players do not. When a player wants his character to cast a spell, he merely states, “My character is going to cast a (fireball, light, etc.) spell.” No actual ritual is described nor performed.

Yeah, but what about the immorality associated with FRPGs?

The three big concerns in this area about FRPGs are suicide, violence, and immersion.

Suicide

First, several suicides have been attributed to FRPGs. It usually goes along the line of, “My son’s character was killed, so he killed himself.”

First of all, the suicide rate among gamers is significantly lower among gamers (in the USA; I haven’t checked elsewhere) than the national average. Nearly every gamer who commits suicide makes the news, and the game is blamed, yet these stories are rare compared with the frequency of teen suicide in our nation. FRPGs become a scapegoat because no one wants to admit that their dead child was psychologically unbalanced. When children are playing FRPG’s like “Cowboys and Indians,” a much more violent, more involved game (they actually act it out), they don’t commit suicide when their friends shoot them with plastic guns. I won’t go so far as to say that FRPGs prevent suicide, because creative people (like those who play FRPGs) are less prone toward suicide. (Creativity, p. 247)

Violence

FRPGs often have a lot of violence described within the game. This argument is valid, yet it raises the question of perceived violence. While violence is the result of sin, it is not itself sinful. The Bible is one of the most violent collections ever assembled, yet the violence in the Bible has a point, as does the violence in FRPGs. (eg. A party of adventurers goes to kill a dragon to protect a city.) The violence in FRPGs is neither worse than nor more real than that in movies like Star Wars. Note the irony that some people who are against FRPGs have no problems with hunting or watching the evening news.

Immersion

Finally, immersion is a catchall category relating to people who become addicted to or consumed with the game. From my perspective, which in this case is the Lord’s perspective, our priorities must be God first, family second, and everything else after that. As with any enjoyable activity, people can become addicted to gaming. The same can be true of web surfing, fishing, eating, or sex, none of which are inherently evil or addictive. Of the documented cases of those who lose their identities and can’t separate reality from the game, the loose contact with reality was generally present apart from the game. These same people should stay away from books, movies, and plays, too.

Advantages

Now, all that aside, I have observed several advantages of FRPGs.

Creativity

First, the sheer volume of imagination exercised by those playing these games is unsurpassed among popular pastimes, and the more one excercises his creativity, the more he’ll have, much like a muscle.

Teamwork

FRPGs also encourage teamwork. Few characters could slay a dragon by themselves. They work together, carefully planning their strategies based on each one’s abilities. In the church, we call this the Body of Christ. In business, the same concept applies. FRPGs exercise this kind of thinking.

Academics

History

FRPGs also aid in several areas of academics. I never had a course in world history in high school (long story involving transfers), yet I know more about it than most of my peers in college because of my interest in history for the sake of helping me play FRPGs.

Literature

Also, I’m a slow reader, thus I don’t usually read much, but my interest in FRPGs incited me to read a great deal of literature, including the Iliad & Odyssey, a ton of mythology, related encyclopedia articles and other documents, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, and innumerable other works, not to mention all the history and political science resources.

Writing

Creative writing and grammar are important to those writing articles and modules (story outlines) for distribution. FRPGs have already been cited as being a source of creativity.

Math

Depending on the game, some require a great deal of math work. This can run from adding the results of a handful of dice to complicated character creation processes (cf. Harn) to abstract three-dimensional mapping in many science fiction games (cf. Space Opera).

Art

While fantasy artwork is sometimes risqué, this is true of nearly all genres of art. That aside, many FRPG players, myself included, are motivated to learn art techniques for the game, whether to draw their characters or to draw the castles, monsters, heraldry, etc. In any gaming group, you’ll nearly always find at least one artist.

Language

Show me a gamer with a limited vocabulary, and I’ll show you someone who hasn’t played for long. When I started playing, I constantly found myself in a dictionary, looking up words like, “charisma,” “halberd,” and “somatic.”

Morality

Finally, the question of morality and the values conveyed by the game needs addressing. FRPGs, including AD&D, are neutral. Being commercial games, they encourage neither good nor evil. That said, the rules are centered around the assumption that the characters will be non-evil. The movement of the game is directed greatly by the DM, but players are free to make their own choices. Also, studies have shown that it is generally easier to advance a person’s moral judgment to a higher stage than to a lowered one through role-playing. Of note are:

Rest, J.R. (1979) Development in judging moral issues. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Ibid. (1983) “Morality.” In J. Flavell & E. Markman (eds.) Handbook of Child Psychology: vol. 3. Cognitive Development. NY: Wiley.

Turiel, E. (1966) “An experimental test of the sequentiality of development stages in the child’s moral judgments.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3, 611-618.

According to these studies, FRPGs can actually be used to raise, but not lower, the participants’ morality.

Conclusion

Are you still concerned or have questions? My best advice is to observe, or even better, play in a game or two, just to get a feel for how it’s done. Most universities have gaming groups who would be happy to help you. Discuss your concerns with the players, and be specific. Beyond that, you can contact me.

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