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We’re very happy to welcome Dan Repperger of Fear the Boot as a guest host for this episode! Dan isn’t just a founding host of one of the longest-running RPG podcasts out there; he’s also a deacon in his church, and well-versed in theology. He’s also a lot of fun to have as a guest host. Dan joined us for this episode to discuss a topic he brought up himself: Running fantasy games with a Christian mindset and with respect for Christian beliefs. As usual, Peter’s in-depth show notes will be up soon.
We also want to remind everyone that while we’ve reached our first goal for PEG Partners already, we’re not done yet! 
We’d like to raise $250.00 by the end of December if at all possible — the children PEG Partners helps definitely deserve it, and the Saving the Game community has already proven to be remarkably generous. If you haven’t paid much attention to our fundraiser yet, check out our Razoo.com fundraising site or our own page explaining PEG Partners and what they do.
Show Notes:
Scripture:
1 Chronicles 29:17-18
1 Corinthians 12: 4-11
1 Corinthians 13:1
1 Corinthians 1:26
2 Kings 9
Quotes:
“And what is art but the soul’s reflection, however imperfect, of the Light that gives it life and definition? This is supremely true of story art. In stories, the subconscious mind gives voice to some of its most deeply cherished longings. In Myths and legends, men and women make desperate attempts to tell one another who they are, why they are here, where they are going, and what they are meant to do. The Tree revealed within our stories has its roots deep within the human heart.
That’s why stories make such promising hunting grounds for spiritual treasure seekers. At least writer G.K. Chesterton thought so. And it was precisely the human connection between story art and the image of God in man that led him to this conclusion. ‘He who has no sympathy with myths,’ said Chesterton, ‘has no sympathy with men.’” -Jim Ware from God of the Fairy-Tale
“The value of myth is that it takes all the things you know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the veil of familiarity.” -C.S. Lewis
As a christless, nonreligious gamer who grew up idolising Thor and Herakles, I found your discourse both delightful and fascinating. If I had any points of criticism or, heck, reproach, they were either addressed directly or elaborated to satisfaction in the course of the show. Very cool.
And I’m definitely in Brandon’s camp regarding misguided characters; the type that cannot help but make all the wrong decisions (seeming perfectly right at the time). Might be my enduring love of old Greek storytelling. There’s something profound and cathartic about hitting that point of realisation, even if you knew it was coming beforehand, when all your assumptions are proven false and all your deeds up to that point come back to you, fresh and clean from truth’s ablution. I’d say this is where the story REALLY begins, whether it be one of atonement or bitter vengeance.
Anyway, cordial thanks for that hour and change of mind/heart/gaming snacks. I’ll be sure to tune in again, and haply to raise you a cup of glögg on Advent Sunday. Amen. All that.
We’re always happy to have new listeners, Wilhelm, especially ones who (A) love heroic mythology; (B) make fun characters; and (C) will help me drink all this mulled wine! (Note to self: Make mulled wine.)
I think games worth mentioning that present the religions as Monothetistic (or pretty close) are Iron Kingdoms (now the main setting has a setup almost this way, the setting has other gods in it, but that does not mean the layman of the setting believes they exist), and Fading Suns is another good example of Monotheism in a scifi setting.
Interesting! I’ve not paid either of these much attention, but your description of Fading Suns interests me particularly, because one of the topics we’ll be talking about at some point is religion (and the lack of it) in science fiction games. I’ll have to check that out. Thanks!
Ptolus had an interesting mesh of monotheism with Paganism that in a lot of ways emulates the end of Roman paganism after the Edict of Milan and Constantine’s conversion.
Before I start:0) I loved the show, it was a very fun way to pass guard duty. A) I’m a secular Jew living in Israel, my contact with Christianity is limited at best. B) I’m not a native English speaker so forgive grammar and spelling mistakes C) I’m a cynic towards religion in general because I see first hand how people speak and act disgustingly in the name of God, so take everything below with a grain of salt.
It was a very interesting listen but I have a few questions to help elaborate:
1) What is MONOtheisim?
I caped MONO because that means only one entity. If you have one god he is both the root of all good and of all evil. If you cut the field of influence to “good” and “evil” you get a diminishing power of the main god.
Also, in Jewish lore there is a Heavenly bureaucracy with no real good or evil but with God at the top of it, managing it all. Satan is just another angel who are in turn just a facet of God.
I know that the Kingdom of Heaven (at least in Catholic lore) has many Saints and Angels serving in it that all have one function. Can’t the gods of FR be just Angels and Saints of a greater single God?
2) What about witches and wizards?
Arcane magic in most fantasy settings come from deep study and understanding of that reality’s nature, it’s not given is learned. Now, Jewdeism and Christianity both forbid consulting any power but that of God. So if you plan to do a proper Monotheistic fantasy setting, you should put a disclaimer “No Wizards”. If I’m not mistaken that’s also the reason for D&D bashing in the 80s and 90s.
Haggai: First of all, welcome! I’m glad you’re listening to the show! To address your two questions in order:
“1) What is MONOtheism?”
a. Monotheism is, as you said yourself, belief in a single deity—usually the primary creative force for the universe, though I suppose that’s not strictly necessary. Describing God as the “root of all good and the root of all evil” is a little bit tricky; almost all Christian denominations, including Catholicism and all mainstream Protestants, believe that God is only good, which raises obvious questions about where evil comes from! I don’t know that I can really, fully do justice to the Christian explanation of the “problem of evil” here—especially since English isn’t your native tongue, I don’t speak Hebrew, and it’s fairly complicated. If you’re interested, though, I recommend picking up copies of C. S. Lewis’s Miracles and The Problem of Pain. I can’t find any Hebrew translations on Amazon, but I may not be searching correctly! Even untranslated, though, you may be able to get a lot from them—Lewis was a very clear author and is very good at explaining his thoughts.
b. Jewish lore and mysticism has always interested me, and I’ve never found a good resource that explains it to someone who isn’t Jewish. I’d love to hear suggestions if you know of any! At some point down the road (probably a long time, unfortunately) I do want to do a series of Saving the Game episodes about elements of other religions to bring into RPGs.
c. Your suggestion about fantasy settings’ various gods being treated is saints and angels is a good one; I think Branden and Dan mentioned it in passing in this episode, and I know we’ve brought it up before in the past. I think we haven’t spent much time on it because it’s a fairly obvious solution!
“2) What about witches and wizards?”
Taking arcane magic out of most fantasy settings drastically changes those settings. Whether or not you keep it in depends somewhat on the stories you want to tell and the tone you want to give your fantasy world. Most Christian (and Jewish) traditions teach that ‘magic’ is possible, but is almost always evil, precisely because you’re getting power from some source other than God (demons, the natural world, etc.) Removing it makes the setting “safer”, but I don’t know that it makes it “better” if your goal is character conflict and growth!
Regarding the D&D moral panics of the 80s and 90s—the presence of magic in the game was certainly one reason the game attracted a lot of attention. It’s not the sole reason, though. Our first episode (Episode 01, “Are RPGs Evil?”) actually dealt with these concerns in detail, if you want to give that a listen!
And speaking of giving things a listen… If you’re not already aware of it, there’s a RPG podcast in Hebrew you might be interested in: Hamis`hakia (המשחקיה). I don’t know much about them, but they seem like good people, and might be worth checking out!
Thanks again for your thoughtful comments; I hope my responses have helped, and I hope you continue to enjoy our podcast!
First: SO MUCH PUNCTUATION MARKS!!! It reads like you either shout or really exited.
1)A) Thank’s for the recommendation I will search for that book.
1)B) Jewish mysticism is regarded as a big dark secret. The Zohar (“Glitter” for a lack of a better term) and the Kabala (“the acceptance”) are regarded as books with such a vast knowledge then any who reads them goes mad, Necromonicon like. Those two main scriptures were written in early medieval times and by the late 1700s alchemists, necromancer, demonologists and all other manner of occult crafters used them as a basis for their work. I think finding a properly explained Jewish mysticism article is most likely to be written by those dealers and dabblers. For example, recently for game research I found out that the ‘Lesser Key of Solomon’, a big great demonologist Monster Manual, has four sections: Two demon ones and two Angel ones, and both work the same way and are inspired by the Jewish texts.
I would love to see an episode dealing with other religions in games.
Hamishakiya (The play ground) went the way of the Dodo but in her last twitches focused on Video Games and especially Israeli development of Video Games, more then tabletop RPGs.
I know it is fairly late but I wanted to reply with my thoughts on the “Wizards and witches” angle.
While it is true that if trying to perfectly translate christianity into a RPG you will likely have to come down hard on the line of “Arcane magic! BAD!” there is no such reason you would HAVE to if your players think it’s fun to play wizards or sorcerers or such.
Since this is a fantasy world you can massage/change the rules of the religion as you desire. Our religion is based on the world we live in, because it would be foolish for a deity or church of a world to construct rules for it’s believers in a world that does not exist. Here, we would view someone capable of performing actual magic like throwing a fireball from their hands as unnatural because people can’t just do that, but if the rules of the fantasy world people can then the religions in that world likely would just view it as an uncommon but natural occurrence, and may not condemn it.
As the famous quote goes “Any technology significantly beyond the realm of understanding is indistinguishable from magic”. Wizards don’t need to fully know where their magic comes from or how it fully works, they just need to know enough to know how to manipulate it in the proper way to get it to do what they want. In a similar fashion as to how I don’t have to understand how an internal combustion engine works in order for me to drive a car, I just need to know how to steer it. Thus Arcane study would be a since like medical study or the practice of law or the martial arts, a pursuit an individual can attempt for their entire life and never fully master because their is just too much information to know and it’s constantly changing.
Perhaps the religion even embraces arcane magic as another gift from the divine to blessed individuals (allowing for Sorcerer).
Perhaps the religion teaches one should only use such magics for good purposes, so a wizard who goes around saving people and doing good deeds could even be sainted by the church, while another who razes cities and terrorizes individuals would be condemned.
Also just because the power does not come directly from the divine does not mean there is another god out there. I would classify a God as something that has a divine level of power and or knowledge and sentience. It could be that arcane magic is drawn from a non-sentient source that cannot be communicated with on any advanced level, but it wouldn’t be able to answer prayers or anything like that, thus I do not feel the presence of arcane magic ruins anything of a monotheistic world as the source of arcane magic, by definition, is in a divine.
I have a monotheistic fantasy game called Gemini, but I’ve never played it so I don’t know how it really plays out.
So weird hearing Dan talk religion!
I loved this epissode. You all have good ideas. It was awesome hearing Dan talk on this. He has touched on this in FTB, but kept it simple there. Hearing him be given free rein was very cool. Something I have wanted to hear for a while. I am enjoying this look into the FTB community fron the side of faith.