ID: Art by critbit on Instagram. A paladin girl with crazy hair and a determined smile raises her shield. She holds a great sword in her other hand. A symbol of a sun is on her jerkin and she is encircled by metallic sun rays.
ID: Jeanne D'Arc by Asuka111 on DeviantArt. A young woman with short hair, armor, and a red cape rests a sword in her hand. A fiery figure hovers above and behind her, beholding her with gentle hands and a feather.
Dungeons and Dragons and Devils, oh my!
I've been enjoying D&D for over five years now, and the Holy Spirit for over fifteen! Sharing my interests with my closest Friend is where much of the magic in my life sparks alive; the clash of my identity and hobbies multiplies the fun! Thus, how I play may look a little different from non-Christian players. So, if you're a fellow fan of Jesus AND fantasy TTRPGs wondering if you have to compartmentalize these priorities in order to enjoy them, know that that does not have to be the case!
This is not a guide, rulebook, or instruction manual for others to follow, so don't expect me to be telling you what to do. If you find any of these considerations helpful, that's great! But this is merely a list of practices for how I personally enjoy the game from the standpoint of IRL demon-slayers.
Keeping romance closed-door
Pretty obvious.
The details concerning what my characters do behind closed doors is usually unnecessary in advancing their arcs, and indulging sordid curiosity is not beneficial to the mind anyways. Even if I'm playing with a group that's okay with a step-by-step playthrough, which is rare, I keep that boundary for my own sake. Session Zero is a perfect time to clarify what everyone's preferences are when it comes to the dating sim aspect of D&D. If the DM and other players are expressly cool with it, I think flirting is fair game and all in platonic fun.
ID: Fanart of Jester and Fjord from Critical Role's The Mighty Nein. Artist unknown, comment for credit. Jester, a blue tiefling in a pink gown, dances with Fjord, a green half-orc in fancy pirate attire. They dance on a ship, surrounded by candles, music, and cake.
Some Christians like to point at D&D as a generally evil game. But really, D&D is not merely a game. I would even go so far as to call it its own medium of storytelling like novels, videogames, and movies. Some stories glamorize sin, for sure, but there are also those that amplify goodness. Professional players from Critical Role and Dimension 20 enjoy tossing around dirty jokes, moral ambiguity, and political allegories like candy. They're fun to watch, but their popularity can lead folks to believe that they have to play in the same style.
But not so!
If I don't want to befriend demons IRL, then I won't in-game. If I don't want to be loose, then I won't. If I don't condone reckless violence, then I won't. That's the beauty of D&D; it can be whatever you want, holy or unholy. If I can be creative enough to come up with something evil, I can just as surely create something to counter it. None of my characters are nuns; they simply don't revel in evil like it's a jacuzzi.
For characters or NPCs with evil alignments for plot purposes, I make sure that their actions, reasons, and backstory do not justify their evil. Explain their evil, but never excuse it. Their evil always has consequences, and being the consequence is good fun for the players!
ID: Official art for Tiamat by Chris Rahn. Six silhouetted figures stand before Tiamat, the dragon god of evil, wielding five heads that breathe the five chromatic elements.
Making religions reminiscent, not wish-lists
It's nearly impossible to perfectly capture God's essence in a fictional character, so I don't strain myself trying. Whether I'm using an official patron or making up my own, I pick a single aspect of God and build a deity around it. For instance, my cleric's patron is a dragon who embodies fatherly kindness and my paladin serves the goddess of Justice. Neither of them are perfect symbols of YHWH, but they are symbols nonetheless.
Also, I make sure that I'm not cherry-picking God's personality to frankenstein my own idea of a better god. The dragon is not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent, he's just a kind mentor. The Justice goddess is not intimately present in her follower's daily lives, she's just a nebulous goal for my PC.
A divine patron can portray aspects accurate to my God. But I don't worry about making them a 1:1 symbol, and I'm careful that they're not my personal cherry-picked version of God either. Keeping divine patrons reminiscent of God instead of a direct reflection or self-serving wish-list keeps things interesting while avoiding disrespect.
ID: Helaine the Eldritch Knight by TheRagingAviator on Reddit. Helaine stands with a massive sword and produces a flame in her hand. She has black skin that crackles to glowing yellow like a volcano or heated metal. Six horns crown her head, wide smile, and sparking eyes. A black sun encircles her head and wispy lights like wings flank her sides.
Creating a setting that's kind to minorities
The lore of D&D contains a huge variety of minorities: racial, cultural, religious, sexual, etc. Some players like to lean into the division, saying it gives an edgy realism to the setting. I agree that a world broken is a world like ours, but we don't have to keep rehearsing the same brokenness.
I don't think everyone should be holding hands around a campfire singing Bahamut Loves The Little Children. Division can -- and even should -- exist since it can make for interesting character arcs and plot conflict. At the same time, I like to introduce NPCs, PCs, and settings that reflect the diversity of God's good earth. There's so many interesting places and cool people out there in our colorful world already, so drawing inspiration makes campaign-building and character creation all the easier.
Also, including minorities in campaigns allows me to practice kindness. Jesus was endlessly kind to the marginalized, setting an example for change that begins from the inside out. The realm of imagination is a perfect place to start, because our thoughts guide our feelings, and our feelings guide our actions. As I said under the glorifying evil principle, I prefer to use my creativity to invent new ways of goodness. D&D is fun escapism, but it can serve as training ground for how we can be better humans in our own world.
ID: Maret scene of various animal-people by @binglinhu via Pinterest. A stork-like creature with a baby in a sling on their back buys from a dragon-like vendor. A snake-person runs a food stall. A dino-person happily carries a basket of buns. An axolotl-person buys grilled food from a crocodile-person with four arms.
I love indulging in grit and angst as much as anyone, but I have to intentionally not forget the very real Hope I have in Christ in the real world.
There are some plotlines and character concepts I've made that probably won't ever see the light of the play table, but that's okay. They're entrenched in a darkness, hopelessness, or fear that do not apply to me as a child of God but are still so easily felt anyways. It's like the old saying: We are like ships and the world is the sea. We can be in it, struggle along its waves, and suffer its storms, but we mustn't sink. We should be in the water, but the water should not be in us.
Not every campaign has to be sunshine and rainbows. Please no! I simply bring hope with me to the table and I don't spurn it when it shows up on its own. My PC could be in the literal Depths of Despair and I would take it as a challenge to find hope anyway. If I remind myself to carry it with me into even the darkest stories, it affirms my spirit and keeps the game from straying into pessimism or nihilism. Like I mentioned before, I like to determine at Session Zero what kind of vibe the campaign will have and how edgy it will be, on a scale of cheese knife to tungsten nanoneedle.
ID: Dtiys fanart of Tommy from the Dream smp by BEAXMICE. A young man with shaggy blond hair kneels with his sword in the rain. He and his blade are bloody, yet he looks up gently at a bluebird perched on his hilt.
Leaving room for fiction, but determining what remains true
Run with me here. In our YHWH-centered reality, there are certain objective truths as laid out in Scripture. These truths make sense because of the reality we live in. But, these truths only make sense in our reality.
For example, the principle "do not get drunk" makes moral, logical sense because our God cares about the wellbeing of our bodies and doesn't want us to dull our ethics. We live in a world wherein our Creator commands self-control because He is intimately considerate of His relationship with His creations.
But what if my character does not live in a world like that? What if her deities do not cast the same commands because they are not concerned by the same things? Why then would she abide by the same commands as I do, if nobody cast them? Thus, it would make moral, logical sense to let herself get drunk now and then. There is no command and thus no consequence, beyond a hangover and a lapse of embarrassing memory.
Does this mean that I leave my entire worldview at the door when I sit down to play? Not exactly. I carefully consider which truths I deem inalienable to my soul and build the fiction around them.
Here's an example.
The paladin Mov serves the goddess of Justice, who promises a peaceful afterlife to those who lead lives of generosity, fairness, and truth. For those who perish in innocence, such as young age or martyrdom, they are set aside for a special place of rest. Mov lost her twin brother in childbirth and carries survivor's guilt. She sets out on her Holy Mission, a tradition created by other followers wherein you travel throughout the land in search of injustice to be righted. Mov hopes to die as a martyr on her Mission so that she can go rest in the same place as the brother she has never met. However, when she falls in love with a fellow party member, she harshly cuts things off because it's tradition that a follower doesn't form any such attachments until their Mission is complete. Now she must choose which she wants more: an afterlife with her brother or a long life with her love.
Clearly, there is no such law in Christianity that forbids romantic attachments or marriage while on mission trips. Mov's story focuses on grace in the context of herself and relationships. Will she be able to forgive herself for living when her brother never got the chance? Will she be able to receive the same kindness that she extends to others? What would it take for her to do so? Although there are a lot of foundational differences between my faith and Mov's, the core theme of grace remains equally true as she grapples with issues relevant to real believers.
ID: Kaelix Debonair by bunmellos via Pinterest. A young person with pale hair and a maroon tunic cries gently as they hold a sparking light in their hands over their chest.
Well, that's all for this time. A bit of a shorter piece, I know, but I'm glad I took the time to hammer out my thoughts and put them into words for once.
Are you a Christian D&D fan too? What are some things you like to do that I didn't mention? If you're a nonchristian, what are your thoughts on religious people playing D&D?
Add comment
Comments