DaRK PaRTY ReVIEW

::Literate Blather::

Saturday, March 08, 2008

R.I.P. Gary Gygax

The Death of a Bard

Gary Gygax, the co-creator of groundbreaking game Dungeons & Dragons, died last week at his home in Wisconsin.

He was only 69 years old.

Gygax’s fantasy role playing game is responsible for opening up the minds of millions of children, teenagers, and adults to the possibility of making the impossible possible.

His world was populated with wood elves, mountain dwarves, and halflings welding magic spells, battle axes, and enchanted daggers. Red dragons breathing fireballs soared through the skies, kobolds and goblins lurked in abandoned ruins, and sprites and fairies gamboled in deep forests.

And more pragmatically, Gygax is responsible for the 20-sided die and why graph paper can be found in so many wood-paneled recreation rooms in Middle America.

One could also argue that Gygax was the grandfather of fantasy role-playing games like World of Warcraft and the popularity of first person video games. He certainly played a major role in making J.R.R. Tolkien and “Lord of the Rings” a modern classic.

He founded game company TSR, wrote novels and game modules, and developed other role-playing games such as Chainmail and Gamma World. But it was Dungeons & Dragons that became a cultural phenomenon. The game spawned books, playing cards, magazines, online communities, films, and, of course, video and Web games.

Gygax never really approved on the video games based on his game arguing that the imagination came from the game creators – not the players. His pen-and-paper creation forced the participants to play together in tight-knit communities and rely on their imaginations to create the worlds they played in.

“There is no intimacy; it’s not live,” Gygax said of the video games spawned from his Dungeons & Dragons empire. “It’s being translated through a computer, and your imagination is not there the same way it is when you’re actually together with a group of people.”

I spent my hours of my teenage years being a Dungeon Master – the narrator of the Dungeons & Dragons game who creates the worlds and encounters for his players. I designed intricate dungeons for the clerics, fighters, wizards, and thieves of my friends to explore. They discovered treasures and magic troves and fought off trolls, goblins, and hordes of lizardmen.

Dungeons & Dragons unleashed my imagination. It solidified my desire to be a writer and, as I get older, it reminds me to keep the wonder alive.

So thank you, Gary. Here’s hoping they bury you in chainmail armor with a two-handed sword and a magic wand by your side.

Not everyone loves Dungeons & Dragons -- Just ask the Reverend

Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, Gary Gygax

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Posted by GFS3 at 11:02 AM.

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Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Under God's Right Arm: Satan's Game

By: Rev. Colson Crosslick

Poor, young Stephen Filly wept.

I stood with his parents praying for Stephen’s soul behind my church as we watched the 15-year-old burn his Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books in metal trash barrel. The flames leaped into the air and the dark, toxic smoke filled the parking lot (the smoke actually stained his mother’s paisley dress!)

First, went the Dungeon Master’s Guide, next the Monster Manual, and then the Player’s Handbook. All of it burning; returning those foul books to hell. I quoted the following passage to Stephen from 1 Samuel 15:23: "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry."

Stephen, my friends, was addicted; completely hooked on a role-playing game that encourages young people to fantasize about murder, mayhem, robbery, tomb raiding, spell-casting and consorting with undead creatures like zombies and vampires. Being addicted to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (known in gaming lingo as “AD&D”) is not unlike becoming addicted to pornographic web sites that show young girls and boys frolicking naked before webcams while claiming that they are all over the age of 18.

For those Christian parents unaware of AD&D – let me warn you. The game is toxic and encourages children to take up witchcraft, read Harry Potter novels, and use their imaginations to create rich, fully realized worlds that are not our own. These imaginary worlds are populated with gnomes, elves (which supposedly live for hundreds of years!), dwarves and even dragons (and if the books are any indication many of the female elf characters are scantily attired!). AD&D fills children’s heads with impossible fairy stories and has them role-play often violent scenarios of death and destruction.

Forget for a moment that Stephen is an A student at Ripsaw High School and is a star player on the varsity soccer team. His father, Gary, found a several “character sheets” among the papers on Stephen’s desk. These “character sheets” are the sketches of the characters that Stephen pretends to be while playing AD&D. One of the sheets was for an evil Halfling thief called Rat Catcher! Under intense grilling by Gary, Stephen admitted that he had pretended on several occasions to have Rat Catcher kill innocent people in order to steal their money. Innocent people!

Needless to say, Gary was extremely disappointed in his son’s behavior and gave him a few good whacks with his leather belt. He hoped it would knock some sense into his boy, but unfortunately, Stephen was stubborn. So Gary approached me as his pastor and I did some research on the Internet about AD&D. What I found was startling to say the least!

I found a site where a woman claimed that her son committed suicide because he played AD&D. He even used the AD&D books as a stool to secure the rope that killed him! This boy came from a poor, broken home and his father recently died of a drug overdose, but the AD&D game only made things worse because he was constantly pretending to be a knight in shining armor saving villagers from dragons and goblins. What silliness! This boy needed to face the realities of life and put his faith in Jesus – not in the hands of greedy, corrupt game makers. His mother, of course, was crushed and plans to sue the AD&D villains for ever penny they ever made. We can only hope and pray that she is successful.

The facts are the facts. AD&D is a cult that promotes anti-Christian values. The game forces children to believe in the supernatural and encourages them to experiment with witchcraft and to believe in monsters. There are also false gods in the game – like Thor the God of Thunder (which I thought was a comic book character, but apparently is a god worshipped in the democratic communist countries of Scandinavia). Remember Psalm 4:1-3: “How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?”

Christian parents need to take action if they find their children turning to AD&D. Instead, they should reinforce the Bible in their household. There is adventure galore in these holy pages! Have your children read about 500-year-old Noah and how God wiped out all of humanity in a flood, but Noah and his sons gathered two of every animal to save them from the destruction of the earth. Or read about how Jesus spit in the muck and created a mud mask that restored the sight of a blind man. Then there is the story about how Cain killed his brother Abel with a rock to the back of the skull and how the wrath of God forever marked him.

These are true to life Bible stories and not the corrupt violence and magic of AD&D. I urge my fellow Christian to boycott AD&D and work with your pastors to create Bible reading groups for children as alternatives. Together we can save our children’s souls from the dangers of dungeons and dragons and bring teenagers like Stephen back into the warm embrace of the Lord.

(The Rev. Colson Crosslick is pastor of the Pretty Good Shepherd Church in Ripsaw, Arkansas. In the past, he has called for a boycott of the Conan movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. He also writes the regularly appearing column Under God's Right Arm for DaRK PaRTY.)

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Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, Parody, Under God's Right Arm

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Posted by GFS3 at 9:54 AM.

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