Rev. Arthur W. Collins
 

 

The Uses of Fantasy	-	Pastoral Perspectives	-	Notes
Dragon 41	-	-	-	Dragon

Even though clergypersons are supposed to teach people how to
be a “light to the world,” there are times when one is tempted to go
incognito and hide one’s light under the nearest bushel basket. I am
an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, and yet there
are times when I prefer not to be known as one.
 

And why should a minister ever wish not to be known as one? For
instance, when he (or she) is playing Dungeons & Dragons. It’s
difficult enough to explain my hobbies to my congregation—but
then, most of them figure that ministers are kind of spaced-out
anyway. After a while, they come to accept me as “normal,” because
they see in my life the fruits of a healthy mind and heart, and
we establish a relationship which enables us to appreciate each
other.

However, when one is happily talking about fantasy gaming with
a group of fellow hobbyists, sooner or later one is bound to ask you
what you do for a living, and it’s then that things tend to get awkward.
Like, after the initial shock, one will tend to say to you, “I bet all
your characters are Clerics (or Lawful Good, or whatever).” In order
to disabuse them of this stereotype, I generally tell them about the
group of ministers and theologs I play with: My specialties are Bards
and Druids; one fellow plays the most astounding Assassins you
have ever seen; another is enamored of weaponless combat (“watch
me pummel that displacer beast!“); and so forth.

Others assume that playing a fantasy game with a minister would
be a crashing bore, and thus would feel awkward sharing their hobby
in my presence. Again, this is stereotyping. In fact, I find the reverse
is often true. The men and women I play with are of varying ages, all
very well-read, with a breadth of imagination, a contact with real life

with its sorrows and raw deals (and also its triumphs), and a feel for
fantasy that I find very hard to duplicate elsewhere. After playing
with them (or people like them), I find other groups less sophisticated and harder to get used to.
Another problem is that for many people, clergypersons are seen
as inhibitors of fun rather than sharers of fun, and this brings me to
the point of this essay. The non-churched population generally
views the Christian faith (and religion in general) in terms of a body
of rules and regulations designed to keep one from enjoying oneself.
This is a false view, but a prevalent one, and voices in the Christian
community have been raised of late saying that such things as
Dungeons &Dragons are questionable at best (damnable at worst).
The double effect of misunderstanding and misguided righteousness
on either hand have made fantasy role-playing games a hot topic in
the religious community. It is my purpose to lay out a Christian
understanding of the uses of fantasy, and then speak from a pastoral
perspective on the value of role-playing games. Others may disagree
with me, and they are welcome to do so. But for all those who feel
that the real-life Clerics are after them the bubble of fear and
resentment needs to be burst.

The Uses of Fantasy
When I was in Seminary, I heard endless exhortations from
accomplished preachers on the art of preaching. And one of the
most oft-repeated statements I heard was “You gotta preach with
the Bible in one hand and today’s newspaper in the other.” Now, I
understand what these princes of the pulpit were tying to say, and I
have tied to heed their advice. They were basically saying that the
task of one who preaches is to address the very real concerns of very
real people and connect their needs with the resources that the
Christian faith offers: matching hatred with love; corruption with
justice; brokenness with healing; sin with forgiveness; turmoil with
peace; apathy with commitment. But what was often left out of their
exhortations was the need of every human being to not only manage
his life well, but to find fulfillment in it. And where fantasy comes in is
when we realize that fantasy is part of a very deep level of the human
soul—a part of us that also aches to be filled with the wholeness
offered by religious faith.
In his magnificent essay On Fairy-Stories, J. R. R. Tolkien spoke a
definitive word about why human beings contrive make-believe. He
writes,

“The magic of Faerie is not an end in itself, its virtue is in its
operations: among these are the satisfaction of certain primordial human desires. One of these desires is to survey the
depths of space and time. Another is . . . to hold communion
with other living things.”1

These desires are part of what make us human, and if they find
not their object in God, then they will seek satisfaction elsewhere.
Likewise, a faith that does not touch these deep recesses will fail to
really satisfy human beings and cheat them of their hope for wholeness.
For Tolkien, fantasy is a natural imitation of God, and the gospel
a realization of the dim longings of countless generations. On the one
hand, he views the making of fantasy milieux as a part of what it
means to be made in the image of God. He is the Creator; we are
Sub-creators, given the grace to enrich his world with imaginary
worlds; to add to his creatures creatures that never were. As Tolkien
writes,

“Dear Sir,” I said— “Although now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned:
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that moue from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons—’twas our right

(used or misused). That right has not decayed:
we make still by the law in which we’re made.”2

And on the other hand, Tolkien sees the natural bent for human
fantasy caught up, epitomized, and redeemed in the Incarnation of
Jesus Christ. As usual, he puts it best:

“The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger
kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories . . . But this
story has entered History and the primary world; the desire
and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation . . . There is no tale ever told that men would
rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men
have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the
supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation.
To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.”3

In the same essay, Tolkien also notes three particular functions of
fairy-stories (and by extension, of fantasy games): Escape, Recovery, and Consolation.
Escape is a legitimate exercise. Too many “realists” condemn
fantasy as “escapist.” But what is wrong with escape (or vacation, if
you will)? Life presents us with certain hard facts, such as a limited
amount of money, a comparatively short lifespan, and our social
environment. Why should one be condemned for experiencing
second-hand, as it were, things that he cannot afford, stretches of
time he could not live to see, or a mode of living impossible in
20th-centuy America (such as fighting with edged weapons in real
combat)? And if Life has dealt you a weak hand, who says it’s your
duty to enjoy it? Can’t a person living in the depths of a ghetto
fantasize about drinking from a pure mountain stream he cannot
realistically get to?
Recovery means seeing things from a new angle, recovering a
proper sense of things. Fantasies and faery-stories of undying love
help us to suddenly see our spouses and sweethearts in a new light,
recovering a fresh appreciation for who they really are, and for what
they mean to us. Fantasy vehicles involve moral implications that

also sharpen our focus: Fantasized nobility helps clean out the
shabbiness and cheapness which often clothes the world and its
inhabitants for us; fantasized villainy awakens us to the potential
Faust in each of us.

Consolation centers on the Happy Ending: not as a contrived,
gimmicked, sugar-coated result with no bearing on reality or relation
to previous events; but rather, fantasy vehicles involve us in joy
through the resolution of their conflicts. And the greater the terror,
the dreariness or the hassles, the greater the joy that uplifts us when
the moment of triumph arrives. I always try to make my dungeons as
challenging as possible. That way, when a player character emerges
victorious, he has really accomplished something. And more than
that—more than the satisfaction of having played well—he or she
has experienced a joy that belongs only to those who have faced
great odds and hopeless situations, and then seen deliverance won
by a hair’s-breadth. That is what keeps bringing ‘em back to play
again and again.

Thus, for me (and for many others) fantasy is an important and
natural human activity: It is a function of the human soul which
brings me fully alive. The pleasure I get from walking out of doors is
greater because I have walked in the sweet shadows of Lothlorien
and upon the high valleys of the Fixed Island on Perelandra.

Pastoral Perspectives
Of course, I do not mean to make this essay one long paean to
fantasy. Fantasy heals the mind; it can also be used to rot the mind.
Humanity is a two-edged sword: Nothing that can be used for good
cannot also be used for evil. And so, let me lay a few patented
pastoral profundities on you.
First, as to role-playing as a gaming device. Role-playing is fairly
new to gaming, but it has been around in the counselling room for
quite a while. Many self-destructive patterns in behavior and emotions can be linked to early psychological conditioning in the family,
so often a person in counselling will be asked to assume the role of a

parent or someone else deeply involved with his own psyche, and
speak to “himself” in an empty chair, telling himself the healing
messages that he needs to hear. For instance, a person with workaholic tendencies instilled by his upbringing might assume the role of
his “parent” and tell his “child” that it’s okay to have fun, too, and
that you’re important for who you are, not just for how much work
you can crank out..
Role-playing is also used to train people in the caring professions. When I was doing clinical work in a major hospital, we seminarians would take turns playing ministers and patients with various
concerns and personalities. Then we would evaluate how we had
perceived each other, and both the “minister” and the “patient”
would emerge with a deeper knowledge of the dynamics of the
situation.
Role-playing is a liberating exercise. It frees you from the pretense of trying so hard to be what you want others to think you are.
Instead, by assuming a role, you can be whatever you want to be,
and in the process you grow in your understanding of human behavior (your own, not the least). One of the geniuses of D&D and
AD&D is the identification of a player with a continuing, developing
character. A good character, well played, involves particular aspects
of your self-image and allows you to plumb their depths. Each of my
most-favored characters contains within his personality some seed
of myself. I get a different enjoyment and grow in different areas from
playing each one.
Second, as a pastor, I find that playing D&D with others is an
incredible tool for informal diagnosis. I am trained to understand the
motives and makeup of people: It is part of my calling to understand
what makes them tick, in order to understand and affirm who they
are, and minister to them. I have never found anything like fantasy
role-playing for revealing who a person really is. And that enables
me to effectively care for that person and affirm him or her even
more.

Third, role-playing gives us a sanity break. People ask me why I
play Dungeons & Dragons. One reason is for my emotional health.
Aggression and anger, for instance, can be dealt with constructively
or destructively. Destructively, you unload on people, or yourself.
Constructively, you have the option of unloading on objects (e.g., a
racquetball), or you can assume a role and unload on a bunch of
hapless orcs with no guilt and no restraints.
Unfortunately, the fourth note in this chord is a sour one. I said
that fantasy, like all that is human, is a two-edged sword. Each of
these benefits of role-playing games has its pathological counterpart.
It is possible to become obsessed with fantasy vehicles and lose
contact with the real world, rather than returning to it refreshed. It is
often seen that player characters are used as a means of relating to
people dishonestly: Rather than assume a role, a player with emotional problems merely changes his name
to “Siblfurd Yorgenmiddling” or whatever and plays out his destructive behavior in a
non-healthy way, inviting rejection and disrupting the enjoyment of
others. There are those for whom magic and demonology cease to
be conventions of the game and become real-life pursuits. The list of
possible perversions is endless.

It is this which elicits the questioning response to fantasy roleplaying games on the part of the religious community.
Healthy people fear their kids/friends will become unhealthy; responsible
people fear their charges will become irresponsible; believers fear
that fantasy role-playing games produce non-believers, or at least
provide a seductive arena for unhealthy commerce with hostile
values.

On the whole, I think these fears are ungrounded. It is possible to
misuse fantasy, role-playing, and any other hobby, but the great
majority of people who dabble in them are healthy persons. And
almost always, what comes out of a person who plays games like
D&D is merely a distillation of what that person brought to the game
to begin with.

C. S. Lewis made a useful point in his book, An Experiment in
Criticism. Rather than calling a book (or in this case, a game genre)
good or bad on the basis of what we think of it, we ought to judge it
by how it is used. Any book (or game) which can be used for healthy
enjoyment (what Lewis called healthy castle-building) is a good
work, even if poorly written or conceived, and even if some do
misuse it. On the other hand, only those works which can only be
used for what he called morbid castle-building should be condemned by critics.
As a pastor called to care for people and help them to find
wholeness for their lives through God, I am as deeply concerned as
any about those who misuse fantasy vehicles. As a convinced believer in the supernatural (and in the supernatural conflict between
good and evil), I am a vocal partisan for my Lord against all other
claimants to primacy in life. As a Christian, I believe the statement,
“Bad company ruins good morals.”4 But at its most fundamental
core, I find that games such as Dungeons & Dragons provide immense enjoyment in a healthy way, and are even useful in personal
growth. A healthy group of gamers can be a tremendous environment for a person to thrive in. It is not for everybody, of course:
Some don’t have the taste for it, and some should not play it if they
are going to become compulsive about it. But on the whole, I say
“Roll those dice!”

Notes
1“On Fairy-Stories,” The Tolkien Reader, Ballantine Books, New York
1966, p. 13
2Ibid., p. 54
3Ibid., pp. 71-72
4I Corinthians 15:33
 

The War Dragon

THE FORUM
I am writing this letter concerning the bad
publicity the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS®
game sometimes gets from ministers or television.
I saw a news report on one of my local news
stations in which they talked about how D&D
books contained descriptions of demons and
devils and how bad an influence D&D gaming is
on young people. The report was highly biased in
that they only got the point of view of a minister
who was against the game. They did include
some film of regular kids playing a game, but the
way they presented the game, the event didn?t
look as fun as many say it is supposed to be.

I couldn?t stand the report but I watched the
whole thing and took notes about what each
person said and who was involved (e.g., the
minister?s name and church). I then wrote a letter
to the news reporter and explained how I thought
the report was slanted and expressed how the
report could have been more balanced. All I
wanted to do was vent my opinion and I didn?t
expect her to get back with me personally. She
asked me if I would give my side of the story and
I happily agreed. In the end, we did get our side
of the story told, albeit not in the way I would
have preferred.

There were a few things I learned, though,
which people should be aware of. In my opinion,
the report we were part of was not presented in
the way I had expected. Mainly, they allowed two
of the four people to say one sentence; the reporter
said everything else, and they showed a lot
of footage of our painted figures, which they
obviously thought were pretty neat. Now, for
those who might happen to get into this spot, a
few warnings. The news report is not in your
hands. The editing (what goes in and what stays
out) is entirely in the hands of people who know
little or nothing about the game. What makes the
editor put something into the report is the quality
of the picture; is the person?s face focused, did the
person speak ineffectively, etc. The editor wants
to put together a montage of his best pictures
rather than try to present you in the way you
would like to be presented.

Another problem I ran into was that the reporter
asked me questions like ?What would you
like to say about the game?? I hadn?t prepared
myself for any of her questions and found myself
bumbling a lot of words (that scene didn?t get
into the report, of course). Another question she
asked me was, ?Could you explain how the game
is run?? Again, I knew what I wanted to say, but
because I didn?t prepare myself I bungled up in
my explanation by repeating things. When you
see politicians on television, they look good
because they?ve prepared themselves for the
camera. On the other hand, I didn?t have any
experience with the camera and I didn?t prepare
myself at all.

Finally, the last thing you have to be aware of
is the fact that working in front of the camera is
not as glamorous as it looks. There are a lot of
mundane things that have to be taken care of,
like: Do you have a large table where they can
film you? Is there enough room to move the
camera around and set up lights? Then they tell
you to act normally as if no one was about.

I hope that this information may prove useful
to future ?television aspirants.? I have done my
little part to ferret out any misinformation concerning
role-playing and would gladly do it
again, but only if I prepared beforehand.

I am 17 and a freshman at Georgetown University,
majoring in international political science.
I have been playing the ADVANCED
DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS® game for five
years, incorporating my love of languages into
my milieu. I read DRAGON Magazine regularly
and am an RPGA member.
    Nick Jamilla
    Cape Coral, Fla.
    (Dragon #104)