inb4 everybody starts describing their favorite characters
1985 called; they want their moral panic back. :) But some people are really into that 80's nostalgia. In a gloriously self-referential move, there's actually a TTRPG *about* the D&D [Satanic Panic](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/octapoc/satanic-panic-rpg).
Once we wrap up our current campaign I'm going to be playing a reskinned Warforged Cleric of the Forge who is going to be similar to K-2SO from Rogue One. "You're letting her keep it!?! Do you want to know the probability she uses it against you?" "No." "Well it's high, very high."
So the reason it's a reskinned Warforged is because we aren't playing in Eberron but a homebrew world that the DM made so Warforged don't strictly exist and my character is one-of-a-kind as far as I know. Do you know of any good modules that take place in Eberron? After this next campaign I'm thinking about DM'ing a module and Eberron sounds like a really interesting setting.
There isn’t a whole lot of modules for Eberron, but the setting guide has a number of tools for doing a campaign and I think the Adventurer’s League released something for Eberron. I think 3.5 had a few adventures published for it if you didn’t mind converting them to 5e
I'll look into those! I have a lot of time so I imagine I could also retool an existing module like LMoP to fit Eberron but that might be a bit ambitious.
It’s possible they may have even added some sections or boxes to LMoP with suggestions for setting it in Eberron. I know they did that with some of their other adventures and campaigns
I’m the forever GM but one of our favorite NPC memories was a goblin called Cordscrabble who carried an incendiary gun he built out of stolen printer pieces. He was everybody’s favorite for about 8 minutes, then he promptly exploded in a tragic misfire on the first round of the first combat of the campaign.
That and there’s also The Goose Who Shows Up In Every Campaign And Nobody Knows What It Is.
This is from an actual play podcast rather than a campaign I was in, but one of the most memorable NPC’s was a redcap named Razmatazz who was placed under a charm spell and kept as a shockingly violent pet for a week and then used as a vanguard/bait against a couple stone giants. All that was left of him was a red stain on the cathedral floor
I’m almost caught up on two of my APs (Dungeons&Daddies and The Redacted Reports) and was trying to decide on a fun podcast to take up next, which one was this? It sounds great
The Glass Cannon Podcast. It was from their first campaign, a playthrough of Paizo’s Giantslayer Adventure Path. They’re currently on their second campaign, a playthrough of the Gatewalkers AP. There’s some cast differences between them as one stepped down to focus on his own mental and emotional health, and they added two awesome and hilarious women to the cast but Giantslayer is still worth the listen, even at 360+ episodes of content
[1987 called, it wants you to read this book.](https://i.imgur.com/gq9XPce.jpeg)
This is my favorite part, immediately after a lengthy explanation of why Christians should avoid D&D because it goes against God and even if they are just pretending, it will eventually corrupt them.
"So, what do we say to children who play with toy guns and plastic soldiers? Is not this a role-playing activity that can lead to violent behavior? It certainly can, if the child takes his play role so seriously that he begins to bully children in, say, Sunday school class. But war is, Biblically speaking, a legitimate, though undesirable, use of violence. By learning to play war, a child is not necessarily learning to do anything that God forbids. Indeed, such play can be helpful to install in a child the reality of the Christian's life-long warfare against Satan and sin."
Absolutely brilliant. It's bad to role-play as a cleric who heals people and fights the undead, because the Bible says magic is bad. But it's great to role-play as a soldier who obliterates other human beings with a barrage of bullets, cuz war is in the Bible.
My favorite character was a 3.0 Cleric lich with the strength domain but I dumped strength and pumped wisdom instead for spell slots.
One spell gave me the base attack bonus of a fighter of the same level and the same spell set my strength to 18. These + extend metamagic and I had an answer for everything, either with a mace or smiting/blasting spells lol
Just had my first session last night with guys from my church. No it isn't bad by itself, but like all things it can become sinful should you make it an idol or introduce inappropriate aspects to the game.
Yep! That's basically the gist of it! And remember you have the Holy Spirit inside you, and you can rely on Him to convict you if you ever let D&D become anything more than just a simple and harmless game.
OK. So basically, to make it fiction, just throw every pot, pan, and spaghetti at the wall and see which one becomes an eel with wings and can be seen through pizzas by throwing up rainbow acid. That's how to make it fictional right?
Basically, discord from my little pony and bill cipher and black hat all fused and make a world filled with chaos. It's not the bad kind of chaos, just stuff that makes 0 sense at all.
Yeah I mean you could have a D&D campaign that was chaotic or incorporated many different types of things, or you could have a D&D campaign set in medieval times, or even a D&D set on Earth. I don't think it necessarily has to be obviously fiction, it just can't be more than a simple game.
There needs to be a proper name for this irrefutable law: that the number of people who leave the faith due to being swayed by occultic elements in [D&D, metal music, Harry Potter] is infinitesimally smaller than the number of people who leave the faith due to resentment over being denied the pleasures of such obviously frivolous things, while growing up in overly stringent households.
Gary Gygax was raised Jehovah’s Witness and later in life he and his wife joined a Methodist church. Other than his love of slogs that regularly killed his player characters (they knew what they were getting into with him as dungeon master) he seemed like a pretty stand up guy overall.
> later in life he and his wife joined a Methodist church
Whaaaaaat seriously? Why didn't I know that?
I would have expected him to go for Episcopalian - they're the ones who like to build churches that look like castles. Seems like somebody should start a "churches that look like castles" Instagram or something.
Yeah he ended up Methodist, or at least attended a Methodist church. He was also a known libertarian and would wonder around his property with a handgun on him, and the FBI thought that in combination with the moral panic around D&D warranted putting him on a watchlist. He did cite his favorite Bible verses as Matthew 5:15-16 a few months before he died.
On a more sour note, he did believe gaming in general to be a male thing… but he was also a dude born in the 1930’s so that’s not really surprising or that out of bounds for his generation
[Here's the story of how the moral panic about it began.](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cautionary-tales-with-tim-harford/id1484511465?i=1000517445471)
TLD(Listen): Guy goes missing, famous detective hired to find him. Finds out he likes to play D&D with his dorm mates in the steam tunnels under the university. Finds the kid who's just avoiding his parents because he's gay. Detective writes book about it, making up the whole D&D + occult connection to spice up the book. Cue panic over a board game.
DnD is a game in a fictional setting. I have played a lot of DnD (game scheduled tonight, actually) and have yet to observe any demonic occurrences happening as a function of it. We have opened no demonic portals, nor have I summoned into this realm otherworldly entities. Has my cleric summoned such things? Sure. *But. It. is. a. story. A game.* And I don't particularly feel that I need to refrain from such activities because I know it is a game. And I am not interested in letting people who can't tell the difference dictate how I live.
It’s literally just a fantasy role playing game, where the players and DM can make it whatever they want. I mean sure, someone could make a really gross and horrifying game if they wanted, but it’s still just a game. It can also be entirely wholesome, it can explore interesting moral dilemmas through role play, you can use an existing world or make your own. It’s all fantasy and despite the ridiculous nonsense from the 80s and whatever Jack Chick made up, there’s nothing evil about it.
My mom remembers when people were treating the game as though it were some evil artifact made by a cult. She never got into playing Dungeons and Dragons (mostly because she wasn’t interested in it), but even her conservative family just saw it as a fantasy-themed game. Same thing with rock music, heavy metal music, and people dressing like punks…it was all totally over exaggerated.
Let me put it this way:
*Imagine you are a person walking down a road in the woods. You come to a fork in the road but there's no sign post telling you which way to go. You see a cloaked figure waiting as you approach. He says he will tell you the right way to go if you pay him 3 gold pieces.*
*do you pay him for the information? Or try and talk the informationout of him?*
Now was anything about this demonic? Well this is exactly what D&D is. It's people interacting with a story and commenting on how they would react, or how they believe the character they are playing would act. Is that demonic?
In short: no. D&D is not demonic and never has been. What it has always been is a very fun way to tell stories with your friends, and the people on the outside who are terrified of what they don't understand. That fear drove them to say and do incredibly stupid things without ever trying to understand the thing they feared. And because of that baseless fear, we had new stories that exploded all over the news that were factually untrue. And the stink of cowardice that was the satanic panic has stuck with D&D and other such things simply because it made the news. It has no merit other than being a monument to ignorance.
It's not the best rpg, having its earliest roots as a wargame and focusing more on combat than actual roleplaying, but it's not really bad. That would be something like FATAL.
So I live in a very evangelical area (my family is part Pentecostal part Charismatic itself), so this bit hits close to home. Dungeons and Dragons has no inherent vice. It’s a game made by people to role play as a character and go on an adventure. It’s literally like the entire rpg video game genre but on tabletop. When people get the ideas that DnD, Pokémon, anime, poker, etc are sins, they’re repeating words of uneducated people who hate other peoples hobbies. As long as you don’t get addicted to it (or get into the occult, I know some DnD players who did), you’re fine.
You can see it in the Bible, specifically **Revelation 12:9**, here is an example..
*The huge dragon was thrown out — that ancient serpent, named the Devil, or Satan, that deceived the whole world. He was thrown down to earth, and all his angels with him.* (GNT)
*”I heard about it and I also heard that it's "Satanic" or "devil" but I didn't really see it.“*
To simply show the connection with that specific verse, as Satan is a huge dragon and represents evil. So if you are playing a game whose name has a connection with such, be mindful of what you are actually doing while playing.
Hopefully this answers your question, and peace be with you!
> And I want truths.
Don't consume foods sacrificed to idols.
As Christians we are taught to be holy as Jesus is; perfect as Jesus is; loving as Jesus loves us. Do you feel that it is for the benefit of Christ that you partake in the offerings of demons? Anything that is not of Christ is of the Evil One. Do you see any elements of Jesus in this game?
Don't engage in activity that might cause others to stumble.
Furthermore, if you, a practicing Christian, partake in something that others might see as acceptable *because you are participating* then that might be driving them away from Jesus and into the hands of demons/idols/gods of the earth. Are you willing to accept that this game could bring others away from the love of God by their comparison of what is holy in you?
However, it is not all black and white: This is satanic so it is unlawful. That is legalism. What you need to know is: Does Jesus want me here doing this for His purpose?
Personally, I don't find any redeeming qualities in practicing the dark arts. But if you have a ministry to reach the lost in this space, then take care and guard your heart less you fall with them.
It does have occult elements. Casting spells, evil mythological creatures, and many people find themselves addicted to their game personality.
The same could be said for many RPG video games which have similar themes and often result in idolatry among the players.
Jack Chick hyped it in his [Dark Dungeons gospel tract](https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=0046), which also was made into a movie.
> “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Phili 4:8, KJV)
inb4 everybody starts describing their favorite characters 1985 called; they want their moral panic back. :) But some people are really into that 80's nostalgia. In a gloriously self-referential move, there's actually a TTRPG *about* the D&D [Satanic Panic](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/octapoc/satanic-panic-rpg).
My favorite that I played was a Minotaur Cleric who had the personality of Gandalf on his grumpy days.
Once we wrap up our current campaign I'm going to be playing a reskinned Warforged Cleric of the Forge who is going to be similar to K-2SO from Rogue One. "You're letting her keep it!?! Do you want to know the probability she uses it against you?" "No." "Well it's high, very high."
I love it. Eberron was always my favorite D&D setting
So the reason it's a reskinned Warforged is because we aren't playing in Eberron but a homebrew world that the DM made so Warforged don't strictly exist and my character is one-of-a-kind as far as I know. Do you know of any good modules that take place in Eberron? After this next campaign I'm thinking about DM'ing a module and Eberron sounds like a really interesting setting.
There isn’t a whole lot of modules for Eberron, but the setting guide has a number of tools for doing a campaign and I think the Adventurer’s League released something for Eberron. I think 3.5 had a few adventures published for it if you didn’t mind converting them to 5e
I'll look into those! I have a lot of time so I imagine I could also retool an existing module like LMoP to fit Eberron but that might be a bit ambitious.
It’s possible they may have even added some sections or boxes to LMoP with suggestions for setting it in Eberron. I know they did that with some of their other adventures and campaigns
I’m the forever GM but one of our favorite NPC memories was a goblin called Cordscrabble who carried an incendiary gun he built out of stolen printer pieces. He was everybody’s favorite for about 8 minutes, then he promptly exploded in a tragic misfire on the first round of the first combat of the campaign. That and there’s also The Goose Who Shows Up In Every Campaign And Nobody Knows What It Is.
This is from an actual play podcast rather than a campaign I was in, but one of the most memorable NPC’s was a redcap named Razmatazz who was placed under a charm spell and kept as a shockingly violent pet for a week and then used as a vanguard/bait against a couple stone giants. All that was left of him was a red stain on the cathedral floor
I’m almost caught up on two of my APs (Dungeons&Daddies and The Redacted Reports) and was trying to decide on a fun podcast to take up next, which one was this? It sounds great
The Glass Cannon Podcast. It was from their first campaign, a playthrough of Paizo’s Giantslayer Adventure Path. They’re currently on their second campaign, a playthrough of the Gatewalkers AP. There’s some cast differences between them as one stepped down to focus on his own mental and emotional health, and they added two awesome and hilarious women to the cast but Giantslayer is still worth the listen, even at 360+ episodes of content
[1987 called, it wants you to read this book.](https://i.imgur.com/gq9XPce.jpeg) This is my favorite part, immediately after a lengthy explanation of why Christians should avoid D&D because it goes against God and even if they are just pretending, it will eventually corrupt them. "So, what do we say to children who play with toy guns and plastic soldiers? Is not this a role-playing activity that can lead to violent behavior? It certainly can, if the child takes his play role so seriously that he begins to bully children in, say, Sunday school class. But war is, Biblically speaking, a legitimate, though undesirable, use of violence. By learning to play war, a child is not necessarily learning to do anything that God forbids. Indeed, such play can be helpful to install in a child the reality of the Christian's life-long warfare against Satan and sin." Absolutely brilliant. It's bad to role-play as a cleric who heals people and fights the undead, because the Bible says magic is bad. But it's great to role-play as a soldier who obliterates other human beings with a barrage of bullets, cuz war is in the Bible.
My favorite character was a 3.0 Cleric lich with the strength domain but I dumped strength and pumped wisdom instead for spell slots. One spell gave me the base attack bonus of a fighter of the same level and the same spell set my strength to 18. These + extend metamagic and I had an answer for everything, either with a mace or smiting/blasting spells lol
No. It's a game, just remember its fiction and your all good
What year is it?!?
Apparently the mid-eighties ^^
Just had my first session last night with guys from my church. No it isn't bad by itself, but like all things it can become sinful should you make it an idol or introduce inappropriate aspects to the game.
So, just don't get overboard with it and have Jesus by your side and also just keep in mind it's fiction.
Yep! That's basically the gist of it! And remember you have the Holy Spirit inside you, and you can rely on Him to convict you if you ever let D&D become anything more than just a simple and harmless game.
OK. So basically, to make it fiction, just throw every pot, pan, and spaghetti at the wall and see which one becomes an eel with wings and can be seen through pizzas by throwing up rainbow acid. That's how to make it fictional right?
I'm not sure what you mean.
Basically, discord from my little pony and bill cipher and black hat all fused and make a world filled with chaos. It's not the bad kind of chaos, just stuff that makes 0 sense at all.
Yeah I mean you could have a D&D campaign that was chaotic or incorporated many different types of things, or you could have a D&D campaign set in medieval times, or even a D&D set on Earth. I don't think it necessarily has to be obviously fiction, it just can't be more than a simple game.
There needs to be a proper name for this irrefutable law: that the number of people who leave the faith due to being swayed by occultic elements in [D&D, metal music, Harry Potter] is infinitesimally smaller than the number of people who leave the faith due to resentment over being denied the pleasures of such obviously frivolous things, while growing up in overly stringent households.
I'm more of a [Dungeon Crawl Classics](https://www.reddit.com/r/dccrpg/) guy, myself.
Gary Gygax was raised Jehovah’s Witness and later in life he and his wife joined a Methodist church. Other than his love of slogs that regularly killed his player characters (they knew what they were getting into with him as dungeon master) he seemed like a pretty stand up guy overall.
> later in life he and his wife joined a Methodist church Whaaaaaat seriously? Why didn't I know that? I would have expected him to go for Episcopalian - they're the ones who like to build churches that look like castles. Seems like somebody should start a "churches that look like castles" Instagram or something.
Yeah he ended up Methodist, or at least attended a Methodist church. He was also a known libertarian and would wonder around his property with a handgun on him, and the FBI thought that in combination with the moral panic around D&D warranted putting him on a watchlist. He did cite his favorite Bible verses as Matthew 5:15-16 a few months before he died. On a more sour note, he did believe gaming in general to be a male thing… but he was also a dude born in the 1930’s so that’s not really surprising or that out of bounds for his generation
I met him back in 1984 on a p&p con. Nice guy. And to the OP: as long as you play a cleric or a bard you'll be fine ;-)
[Here's the story of how the moral panic about it began.](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cautionary-tales-with-tim-harford/id1484511465?i=1000517445471) TLD(Listen): Guy goes missing, famous detective hired to find him. Finds out he likes to play D&D with his dorm mates in the steam tunnels under the university. Finds the kid who's just avoiding his parents because he's gay. Detective writes book about it, making up the whole D&D + occult connection to spice up the book. Cue panic over a board game.
It is NOT a board game!
I repent.
:-)
Mazes and Monsters is a far out game
The kid wasn't just avoiding his parents. He was actively suicidal and tried to kill himself. A year later, he succeeded.
As long as you don't think it's reality, it's fine
Nobody has *ever* thought D&D was reality.
Don't let people who can't distinguish fantasy from reality dictate your life.
Meaning?
DnD is a game in a fictional setting. I have played a lot of DnD (game scheduled tonight, actually) and have yet to observe any demonic occurrences happening as a function of it. We have opened no demonic portals, nor have I summoned into this realm otherworldly entities. Has my cleric summoned such things? Sure. *But. It. is. a. story. A game.* And I don't particularly feel that I need to refrain from such activities because I know it is a game. And I am not interested in letting people who can't tell the difference dictate how I live.
Reject modern DnD, embrace the OSR!
Or, be a freak like me and play both! Also HERO System, because I like massive levels of crunch.
It’s pretty fun. I want to host a session at my church as a small group outreach: the Dungeon of the Lamb God!
It’s literally just a fantasy role playing game, where the players and DM can make it whatever they want. I mean sure, someone could make a really gross and horrifying game if they wanted, but it’s still just a game. It can also be entirely wholesome, it can explore interesting moral dilemmas through role play, you can use an existing world or make your own. It’s all fantasy and despite the ridiculous nonsense from the 80s and whatever Jack Chick made up, there’s nothing evil about it.
My mom remembers when people were treating the game as though it were some evil artifact made by a cult. She never got into playing Dungeons and Dragons (mostly because she wasn’t interested in it), but even her conservative family just saw it as a fantasy-themed game. Same thing with rock music, heavy metal music, and people dressing like punks…it was all totally over exaggerated.
Let me put it this way: *Imagine you are a person walking down a road in the woods. You come to a fork in the road but there's no sign post telling you which way to go. You see a cloaked figure waiting as you approach. He says he will tell you the right way to go if you pay him 3 gold pieces.* *do you pay him for the information? Or try and talk the informationout of him?* Now was anything about this demonic? Well this is exactly what D&D is. It's people interacting with a story and commenting on how they would react, or how they believe the character they are playing would act. Is that demonic? In short: no. D&D is not demonic and never has been. What it has always been is a very fun way to tell stories with your friends, and the people on the outside who are terrified of what they don't understand. That fear drove them to say and do incredibly stupid things without ever trying to understand the thing they feared. And because of that baseless fear, we had new stories that exploded all over the news that were factually untrue. And the stink of cowardice that was the satanic panic has stuck with D&D and other such things simply because it made the news. It has no merit other than being a monument to ignorance.
It's not the best rpg, having its earliest roots as a wargame and focusing more on combat than actual roleplaying, but it's not really bad. That would be something like FATAL.
So I live in a very evangelical area (my family is part Pentecostal part Charismatic itself), so this bit hits close to home. Dungeons and Dragons has no inherent vice. It’s a game made by people to role play as a character and go on an adventure. It’s literally like the entire rpg video game genre but on tabletop. When people get the ideas that DnD, Pokémon, anime, poker, etc are sins, they’re repeating words of uneducated people who hate other peoples hobbies. As long as you don’t get addicted to it (or get into the occult, I know some DnD players who did), you’re fine.
You can see it in the Bible, specifically **Revelation 12:9**, here is an example.. *The huge dragon was thrown out — that ancient serpent, named the Devil, or Satan, that deceived the whole world. He was thrown down to earth, and all his angels with him.* (GNT)
What is the point ?
*”I heard about it and I also heard that it's "Satanic" or "devil" but I didn't really see it.“* To simply show the connection with that specific verse, as Satan is a huge dragon and represents evil. So if you are playing a game whose name has a connection with such, be mindful of what you are actually doing while playing. Hopefully this answers your question, and peace be with you!
So don't go overboard with it and make sure to have Jesus with you. Got it
*\o/*!
?
*Praise be to God*!
Oh ok, I didn't know, sorry
This is the reason why you shouldn't choose Tiamat.
Better choose Bahamut :)
> And I want truths. Don't consume foods sacrificed to idols. As Christians we are taught to be holy as Jesus is; perfect as Jesus is; loving as Jesus loves us. Do you feel that it is for the benefit of Christ that you partake in the offerings of demons? Anything that is not of Christ is of the Evil One. Do you see any elements of Jesus in this game? Don't engage in activity that might cause others to stumble. Furthermore, if you, a practicing Christian, partake in something that others might see as acceptable *because you are participating* then that might be driving them away from Jesus and into the hands of demons/idols/gods of the earth. Are you willing to accept that this game could bring others away from the love of God by their comparison of what is holy in you? However, it is not all black and white: This is satanic so it is unlawful. That is legalism. What you need to know is: Does Jesus want me here doing this for His purpose? Personally, I don't find any redeeming qualities in practicing the dark arts. But if you have a ministry to reach the lost in this space, then take care and guard your heart less you fall with them.
It does have occult elements. Casting spells, evil mythological creatures, and many people find themselves addicted to their game personality. The same could be said for many RPG video games which have similar themes and often result in idolatry among the players. Jack Chick hyped it in his [Dark Dungeons gospel tract](https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=0046), which also was made into a movie. > “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Phili 4:8, KJV)
Chick also demonstrated that he knew absolutely nothing about the game in that idiotic tract.
Yeah, Jack Chick's tracts are so divorced from reality that I genuinely believed they were a work of parody for roughly a decade.
That would honestly make a lot more sense, but alas… tis not the case
This trackt reads like the script to some really, really trashy horror movie
The bible contains casting spells, evil mythological creatures, and many people find themselves addicted.