The recent interest in the relationship
between morality and fantasy role-playing
games (“Painted Ladies and Potted
Monks,” Dragon#36; “The Problem of
Morality in Fantasy,” Dragon #39) seems
at once both amusingly trivial and fundamentally important: trivial because of the
great effect on our lives attributed to Dungeons & Dragons®, a “mere” game; important because the question of good vs.
evil is one of the most profound and ancient
queries of mankind. Let me review what I
see as the important points raised by the
two previous authors, Larry DiTillio and
Douglas Bachmann, before continuing with
some observations on how others have
perceived the role of morality in gaming.

DiTillio has advocated using fantasy/
role-playing as a moral teaching tool in
which attitudes toward real life are formed.
Bachmann, on the other hand, lamented
DiTillio’s “relativistic morality” and the
game’s lack of mechanics and objectives
that deal with ethics and morality. Bachmann based his points on an inherent
“morality of being” derived from a general
pattern of heroic fantasy in literature.

DiTillio and Bachmann are not alone in
their interest in morality in gaming and its
effects on everyday life. Most readers will
remember an incident 1½ years ago, avidly
reported by the press, in which a college
student who actively played D&D® disappeared for a number of days. 
Presumably, so the stories read, the fantasies of the
game became part of his real life and he
descended into the sewers to act them out.

The actual circumstances turned out to
be far more mundane than suggested by
the stories. Nevertheless, national news
services were eager to lend credence to
rumors purporting a replacement of “normal” behavior by deviant behavior fostered
by fantasy role-playing games.

A less sensational interest in game
morality and its everyday effects was noted
by Emanuel Lasker, a renowned chess
master of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He asks rhetorically in his Manual
of Chess, “How should our poor little
game, even in smallest detail, bear
comparison to infinite Life?”

Of course, he referred to the game of
chess, but his remarks have a more general
application and validity. He continues,
“What is true of Chess must hold by
analogy for other games. And games
being, at least in intent, modelled on
Life—simplified, to be sure, but resembling it in essentials—there must
be some analogy between them.”

Lasker then brings forward the basic
principle of the theory of chess promulgated
by another master, Wilhelm Steinitz: “The
basis of a masterly plan is always a
valuation.” A judgment of quality, that is,
of good or bad, is the prerequisite of masterful play.

Furthermore, “‘Aesthetic valuations
evoked in Chess are Iikely to be met in
other fields of endeavor. To what
category must we assign Chess [and
D&D, I maintain] so as to account for its
aesthetic effect? Manifestly, the class
of achievements.” That is, it is action that
defines the quality of a valuation.

The need for game-design features that
simulate a growth in dignity and nobility so
as to promote ethical decision-making and
a heroic transformation is not apparent. 
D&D, like chess, requires value judgements 
for best play and the effects of these 
judgements becomes apparent as achievements 
during the game. 

“Relative morality” is important and
valid only insofar as it affects the DM’s opinion of the standard alignment classification.
It is the DM’s prerogative to structure the
morality of his world as he sees fit.

The Paladin of DiTillio’s account could
have come from a world where gratuitous
sex is considered good—but without certain social rituals it would be quite illegal. In
such a world the Paladin would jeopardize
his alignment with respect to Law, not
Good. The effective result is the same in
either case: he loses Paladin status. How
one plays the game (the aesthetic quality of
one’s character achievements) can demonstrate more moral principle than any
superficial morality of game design.

Another author who can be consulted in
this matter is Jorge L. Borges. In his works
compiled in Labyrinths is the short story
“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.” It concerns
an ingenious fantasy world constructed by
a secret society of learned men over a period of centuries.

Of the philosophers of Tlön, Borges
says, “They seek neither truth nor
likelihood; they seek astonishment.
They think metaphysics is a branch of
literature of fantasy.” This statement, I
believe, describes the position of a majority
of DMs.

Borges has a tendency “to esteem
religious and philosophical ideas for
their aesthetic value, and even for
what is magical or marvelous in their
content.” André Maurois writes of him,
“Nothing pleases Borges better than
to play in this way with mind, dreams,
space, and time. The more complicated the game becomes, the happier he
is.”
Borges’ statement, “The mind was
dreaming; the world was its dream,”
neatly summarizes the efforts of DMs
everywhere. There is no “morality of being”
here, nor a “relativistic morality.” All Borges
emphasizes is, “If this . . . were developed, . . . what world would be created?”It need not teach or moralize, but
rather it should stimulate thought and entertain. 

Presumably (and I may be much in error),
DiTillio’s “relativistic morality” and
Bachmann’s “morality of being” are based
on a Judeo-Christian dichotomy of Good
and Evil. In a game with admittedly simplistic alignment definitions, it is an easy matter
to pose moral questions with well-defined
answers. But in “real life” or a complex,
artfully done campaign, as Borges says,
“The facts of one’s nature are discovered to be astoundingly complex and
slippery, evil masquerading with endless subtlety as good, and construing
the good as evil. And in this perplexity
it still matters absolutely that one
choose the good.”

Alan Watts, a prolific writer in comparative religion and Zen Buddhism, mentions
another disturbing point: “Man is a selfconscious and therefore self-controlling organism, but how is he to control that aspect of himself which does
the controlling ?” In D&D, yet another
level is present: The character is controlled
by the player, but what controls the player?
The illusion of a little man inside, that I am
another character controlled by a higherorder player or DM who makes the ultimate
moral decisions, is an infinite regression,
like mirrors reflecting each other endlessly.
Does the little man within have a miniscule
man in turn inside his head?

The experience of relationship between
good and evil comes about from the insight
that there is no controller. “This becomes
evident,” said Watts, “as soon as the
consciousness which has felt itself to
be the inner controller starts to examine itself, and finds out that it does
not give itself the power of control.”
He concludes one essay saying, “On all
sides, within and without, he sees all
beings, all things, all events only as
the playing of the Self in its myriad
forms.”

It is not necessary for the reader at this
point to despair of good and evil, leave
home, and study with a Zen master for five
years. Gensha the Zen master wrote:

If you understand, things are as
they are;

If you do not understand, things
are as they are