by Robert Laws

Created on: September 26, 2009   Last Updated: September 27, 2009

Those that claim Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is satanic are largely missing the point that it is a game. What I mean by this is that the D&D world is a game world; it is not meant to represent our real world. The game draws on influences from our world but so do the games of chess and monopoly, yet nobody complains about not receiving $200 when they pass by the Boardwalk or states how unrealistic it is that queens move so much faster than kings.

The D&D world is drawn from many influences, most notably the fictional works of J.R.R. Tolkien, but also from the mythology of past human civilizations. It therefore includes a number of clearly fictitious creatures, like elves, goblins, orcs and dragons. The most common D&D world settings (e.g. the Forgotten Realms) are polytheistic, not unlike that of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Vikings, Mayans and other early human civilizations.

To play the game, we are not expected to really believe that elves and dragons exist, nor that there are multiple gods. This is similar to when we read a superman comic, read Shelley's Frankenstein or watch a Star Wars movie. We can 'buy-in' to the premise of a book, movie or game and enjoy it for what it is (escapism), without it affecting our views of the real world.

D&D contains evil creatures, evil gods and evil characters. Like every good story, whenever we have a hero, we need a villain. We need evil for the hero to fight against. If there were no evil in D&D, playing the role of a knight would be significantly less fun. Just as Luke Skywalker needs Darth Vader, Batman needs the Joker, James Bond needs the KGB, D&D needs evil to balance the good.

D&D is just one example of the many different styles of role-playing games (RPGs) available today. In all cases, RPGs are like stories in which the player can participate in influencing the direction of the story and the outcome. Because of this flexibility, players have the option of playing the role of an evil character, as well as the option of being good. In most cases, this gives the player the chance to stretch their 'role-playing' skills and experience the game from a different perspective. It does not make the player evil and does not mean they need to be evil in real life to play this role. It is akin to all the many Hollywood actors that have played the role of Hitler or the Devil in movies. Those actors were not evil people, but the movie needed those roles to tell their story and someone needed to play them.

One final aspect of D&D (or any RPG) that is relevant to this debate is the fact that the players control the scope of the game. What this means is that if you want the scope of your D&D game to be as simple as a group of 'good' people wandering through dark caverns, killing wolves and finding treasure, you can do just that. You do not have to introduce the concept of gods or demons into the game at all. There is a lot of source material to help you create whatever type of game you want to play. Some of it includes demons and other creatures of evil, but much of it is far simpler.

There is nothing inherent in the worlds or mechanics of the D&D game that encourages Satanism. It provides an open and flexible setting and base rules for players to exercise their imaginations, create their own characters, their own stories and their own fun. I'm sure if you were already a Satanist and wanted to play the game in that vein, you could. You could also probably decide to replace your monopoly hotels with satanic altars, your chess pieces with carved demons and your hungry hippos with insatiable imps.

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