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Nov 2002
Autumn is in full swing now. The days are getting shorter, the
temperatures are dropping (even here in Tucson, where the overnight
lows are actually dropping below 50 sometimes), and the school year has
settled into another term of filling empty heads, as Dumbledore would
say. Could there be a better time to discuss gaming? Probably not.
Some of you may be old enough to remember the great Dungeons
and Dragons scare of the early 80s, when well meaning (but horribly
misinformed) folks began denouncing D&D as being "satanic" and
leading kids to do strange, bizarre ritualistic things. The nightly news
read ominous reports of teens lurking through the city sewer tunnels,
wielding weapons as they sought out imaginary monsters. Worse, they
reported, were the rumors of kids being injured or even killed in strange
cultic ceremonies that mimicked evil practices in the game. Lock up the
kids! Burn the D&D books! Its us against them, and dark demons want
the souls of your children!
The great Theologian C.S. Lewis once wrote that people typically
indulged in one of two errors about demons. He wrote, "One is to
disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an
excessive and unhealthy interest in them" *. Its the latter error that led
to the panics about such things as D&D, and more recently, the "Harry
Potter" series of books (which were denounced by many as leading kids
into witchcraft and satanism). Amusingly, D&D is based on the writings
of J.R.R. Tolkien, who also happened to be a close friend of C.S. Lewis.
Lewis "Chronicles of Narnia" are also fantasy works containing dark
creatures, witchcraft, and magic, but being as Lewis was a highly
respected Theologian, I havent heard objections to his works from the
folks who condemn D&D and "Harry Potter". On the contrary, theyre
recommended reading (and in all fairness, I very much enjoyed the
Narnia books).
Now, as a father of two offspring who play RPGs, including D&D,
and having played the games myself, I find these objections somewhat
bizarre now. Sure, there are demonic creatures in D&D and many other
RPGs, but I havent witnessed any strange cultic behavior in my
children. OK, so my daughters cat often acts like a minion of evil, and
she and her husband are forced to regularly sacrifice large quantities of
food to keep him appeased lest he smite their apartment with great
scourges of damage, but that has nothing to do with D&D. She was a
cat lover before she ever played any RPG.
Having a kid who plays RPGs can actually be quite beneficial. If
he or she gets hooked on a collectible game, then youve always got a
"carrot" to dangle when you need something done. Its amazing how
much quicker the chores get done when someone wants the latest
"booster pack". Its also great knowing where they are in the evening.
Theyre not out on the streets causing trouble; theyre in the den with
the DM wreaking make believe havoc on make believe monsters, instead
of wreaking real life havoc on real life neighbors. If they go to a
friends house to play, youll be fairly certain that they did, indeed, go play the
game because when they get home, they'll give you a play by play
description of the entire game. Sure, a kid might make something like that
up, but once youve played the game as well, it gets easier to spot a
"fake".
Another advantage of having kids that play RPGs is that you can
play with them, and your size and maturity are not necessarily an
advantage. I can ride circles around either of my kids on the bicycle
(which is helped by the fact that I ride regularly and they dont), the
"advantages" in the RPGs all come back to the roll of the dice. Your
kids can learn valuable lessons in good sportsmanship when they easily
kill the orc that squashed you like a bug, and you dont ground them for
the rest of their lives for acting like the orc was no big deal. Were
parents. We can lose gracefully. We dont ground kids for the rest of
their lives for winning. 2 weeks, maybe. A month, tops. But not for the
rest of their lives. We do want them to move out sometime. Of course,
when we win, we also do so gracefully, and dont carry on the
superiority dance for more than 10 to 15 minutes tops, while chanting "I
ownzed joo, Noob!"** Its important for kids to know that we parents
can cut loose sometimes, too.
Yes, the family that plays together, stays together. It helps, too,
that no one will come arrest you for kicking your kids butts in D&D like they
might for kicking them in real life. How else could you tell your co-
workers that you killed your kids 4 times last night?***
* Quote from "The Screwtape Letters" by C. S. Lewis
** Yes, I know my "1337" speak isnt quite right. Im a parent. Im not supposed to get it right.
*** Hypothetical. I havent killed my kids 4 times in any night. I dont think Ive killed them even once.
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