You play WHAT?! - Part 1: Discovering Dungeons and Dragons as a Christian

Originally written in 2016


"You play Dungeons and Dragons!?" my new friend stared in shock. I have had this kind of reaction before and knew I would have some explaining to do.

"Um... yes?" I cautiously responded.

"Isn't Dungeons and Dragons evil?" he asked in astonishment...



It's ingrained within the more conservative strains of Christianity (my context being Evangelical) that Dungeons and Dragons (and games like it) is somehow associated with sex, sorcery, and suicide. A while ago I created a longish and perhaps unwieldy explanation of how Dungeons and Dragons does not do any of the outrageous and evil things it has been accused of. This is my attempt at a more coherent explanation of a Christian's perspective on Dungeons and Dragons geared specifically for Christian friends or parents concerned about someone playing DnD as well as Christians who are intrigued by the game despite been told that it will wreck their life.

Part 1 - Discovering Dungeons and Dragons as a Christian

I was raised in a conservative Christian home. My parents took their roles seriously and focused on building as strong a family unit as they could. We loved each other. We valued good hard work. We went to church on Sundays, volunteered in church programs, and went to kids clubs and youth group. My parents took precautions to filter out violent and destructive elements in my formative years by way of limiting what we watched on TV, which kids I was allowed to hang out with, and which social functions I could attend. In addition to this they took precaution against our being exposed to magic, the occult, and demonic influence as good Bible believing parents should. They weren't raving fundamentalists, but they took the Bible, as well as their spiritual role as parents seriously and insulated me and my siblings against influences that could lead us away from Christ. While this sometimes lead to situations where I didn't get to do what I wanted growing up I loved them for what they did and still do. We had good open and honest conversations and they always had good reasons for every rule. Maybe your background is similar, maybe it isn't, the point is that I come from a conservative Christian background where the Bible and personal faith were and still are foundational to who we are.

My father and grandfather used to play Dungeons and Dragons a long time ago and still sometimes played role playing games on the computer like Might and Magic (back in the late 80s - early 90s) and I enjoyed looking over their old maps and notes and collections of dice. I learned to enjoy fantasy at an early age and I enjoyed thinking about the heroic knights, evil monsters, castles, magical swords, flying carpets, and trap laden caves that I saw my father and grandfather exploring on computer. My imagination was exposed early and it left an indelible mark.

At first my father and I bonded over the experience, I distinctly remember jumping around the basement in celebration when we finally defeated "the cyclops king" and his "bubble brain" minions in the Might and Magic 3 computer game (1991). I remember the sense of awe and wonder when he explained the powerful fireball magic that the magic character could use only once and how it could backfire if he got it wrong. I remember my grandfather getting far ahead of dad and how he fought ghouls and dragons and other things dad and I had not encountered yet (on a colour monitor too!). I remember my grandfather reminiscing about how he and dad and my uncle used to play Dungeons and Dragons, how one of them would be the referee / dungeon master and draw the map while the others tried to find their way out. It seemed to my little mind that this was the height of entertainment and adventure!

I suspect my parents saw my growing enthusiasm and decided to stop feeding the fire. I remember how they would sit me down on different occasions to explain that Dungeons and Dragons (and things like it) were dangerous and something I should not become interested in. Some people who played that game got too attached to their characters and then killed themselves if their characters died, some became possessed by demons, and others started attacking each other with actual weapons because they couldn't separate the game from reality. Understand that this was all pre-internet so my parents' couldn't fact check and that these were the sorts of stories that made it into the news back then, my parents were going with what information was available at the time (see part 2 for a history of the hysteria over Dungeons and Dragons). It became clear in my young mind that Dungeons and Dragons had a dark side and that I ought to avoid the game like my spiritual destiny depended on it. Strangely enough dad's old maps and DnD-like games vanished shortly thereafter, but Grandpa still reminisced on occasion.

I continued on through school with a love of fantasy being fed instead by C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I loved fantasy, it spoke to me in ways that other forms of fiction did not. When I wrote stories, they were fantasy stories, and when I drew pictures, it was almost always some creature or place that didn't exist in our world but may exist in Narnia or one of the worlds I imagined. Every once and a I while I would get a chance to play RPGs on the computer like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Knights which were placed in a fantasy world full of incredible stories, characters, monsters, and an epic struggle between good and evil. (I found out later that these games were quite literally Dungeons and Dragons in video game form.) There were a few times when my brother and I attempted creating our own board game that mimicked the computerized DnD (that we didn't know was DnD) and my father would be in his glory explaining the probability of dice rolls and how to scale statistics according to level (he was a math and computer science teacher after all), but we stayed far away from real DnD because it had become taboo.

Then I moved away to college at Briercrest where I learned theology, biblical studies, some psychology, and higher critical thinking skills. I had heard that there was a secretive group that played Dungeons and Dragons on campus, but I did not seek them out. I was intrigued, but decided to keep to my studies and look into the Christian DnD group later.

Then, during the summer of my third year at college I decided that I needed to learn more about this forbidden fruit that continued to smell sweet to me. I approached it slowly at a distance with my guard up as though I were approaching a real dragon. I started by reading John Weldon and James Bjornstad's Playing with Fire: Dungeons and Dragons, Tunnels and Trolls, Swords and Sorcery and other Fantasy Games. I even wrote a review on the book afterwards. This Christian tome identifies the dangers of Dungeons and Dragons to exist in 1) an abuse of fantasy 2) an abuse of escapism 3) playing in a world of nonChristian morality and 4) how the line can become blurred between a player and his character. After re-reading the book, the Stackpoll Pulling Report, the anti-DnD literature from Chic publishers, a variety of blogs and websites, as well as spending a long time thinking and praying about it I came to the conclusion that it was actually safe for me to take another step forward. I had no intention of mixing fantasy with the occult, I was grounded well enough in the Word of God to not get sucked into escapism or living in a non-reality, and, from what I understood of the game, if I was the one leading it then I was the one to determine the morals of the game world.

I purchased a 4th edition player's handbook along with two packs of Dungeon Master dice and set to work creating a small adventure for my siblings to go on (after getting permission from mom and dad of course). There was far more math and stats and prep work to go through than I thought there would be and most of the experience was crunching numbers and preparing the map for hours before playing. I built a dungeon for them to escape from complete with patrolling monsters, traps, and bits of a story line that I might continue if they enjoyed the experience. We played a few times and had lots of fun learning how it all worked. It was like interactive story telling where each person would take turns narrating what their character was doing. My father even joined in and we had a blast. No lure of the occult, no demonic influence, no questionable morality, just lots of good natured fun... at least that's what it seemed to be on the outside... on the inside... nah, just kidding, it was good natured fun all the way through.

A lot of the mystery and mysticism surrounding Dungeons and Dragons was dispelled after I actually played it and got a handle for how the game worked. At its core the game is make belief for adults ideally played with five people, four of which play as characters in the story with the fifth person (the Dungeon Master) telling the story and describing what the characters see, feel, and experience. When one of the characters tries to do something that has a chance of failure (climbing a tree, shooting a goblin, convincing an angry cyclops to not squish you because you are actually his long lost brother that has been turned into a human, etc) you roll some dice and do some math based on your character's statistics to see if you succeed or fail. Then the story goes on.

The monsters and magic that have been demonized by various groups in the past are just tables of statistics to be used when rolling dice to determine whether a character is successful or not. When sneaking past an orc for instance, a character must roll stealth higher than the orc's listen roll. If the character is using magical boots, he gets a bonus to his roll.

Not once did I or any one of my players ever have a creepy encounter with the demonic or feel the pull of the occult or act immorally or indecently or do or experience any of the things Dungeons and Dragons has been condemned for.

By the time I hit seminary there were two secret Dungeons and Dragons groups on campus and I was leading one of them and was a prominent player in the other one. When DnD night came my house was packed with friends and the campaign which started with 3 people grew to 9! We had a blast, everyone got to enjoy themselves, and after the games people talked and got caught up. We lived in a busy college campus out in the middle of the Saskatchewan wilderness where there was no drinking allowed and academics were taken very seriously. The escapism provided by DnD night was a welcome break where nobody had to work on papers and we could just relax, pretend to be someone else for a few hours, and take out some frustration on fictional monsters. For anyone who thinks we should have taken a hard line approach of all study and no play I congratulate them for thinking they have the mental fortitude for such labour but will argue strongly that nobody else there did and that fun, frivolity, and fellowship are a foundational piece to being human as God intended. People opened up afterwards about their struggles in life and it allowed us to keep tabs on one friend who was borderline suicidal and a few more who were wavering towards that line. It also opened up excellent conversations about faith and spiritual health... probably because we were all Christian college students studying the Scriptures every day, but that's beside the point. Dungeons and Dragons started out as just a fun game between friends and it became a safe place for the people on the fringe to feel welcome and start opening up. The friendships forged and the lessons learned were invaluable and I sincerely believe that God used the game night for his glory. Did Dungeons and Dragons replace or distract from devotions or prayer or Bible study? Absolutely not. It gave us a break so we could process what we learned and allowed us to see life from different perspectives (an important part of higher and personal learning). Playing DnD safely as a Christian is not only possible but in the right context it can become a ministry for those who just don't feel like they fit in.

Now that I am done school I still keep in contact with a few of my players and my players keep in contact with each other. I don't get to play much of anything right now because my time is spent working and taking care of my young family. I'm slowly chipping away on other campaigns to maybe play in the future but that is another post for another time... Occasionally I get a random message from one of my players to say they still remembered the campaign and and we get to reminisce about adventures and friends.

So that has been my journey with Dungeons and Dragons in a nutshell: from fear to fun with a slow steady and traceable pace in between. My parents came along for the ride with me in some respects. I don't blame them for shielding me from what many perceived as a threat at the time, because knowing what I know now I still would have shielded myself. They were being responsible parents and weren't afraid to make uncomfortable decisions according to their faith. I respect and love them for that. Now about why so many people thought Dungeons and Dragons was a danger there is lots I would like to say on the topic. Part 2 of this series is going to tackle that.