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Should you reconsider D&D alignments?

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You’ve heard it said–maybe you yourself have said it:

“There’s no point to character alignments in D&D or any other roleplaying game.  It’s an unnecessary hindrance to players!”

Or if you’re a proponent of alignments, you’ve seen the eye-rolls from players and other GMs.  I mean, who really takes those kinds of rules seriously?  Should alignments even exist in roleplaying games?

Well, I am taking those rules seriously, as I play my way through First Edition AD&D.  And I’m not simply finding them tolerable, I’m actually really enjoying the rules on alignment.

As someone who played 4th Edition D&D consistently for about four years (and has even dabbled a bit in the last year, believe it or not), I’ve experienced the other side of alignments.  In the 4e Essentials book, Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, alignment is discussed in this way:

“A character’s alignment describes his or her moral stance.  Many adventurers…are unaligned, which means they have no overriding moral stance. … Most people in the world, and plenty of adventurers, haven’t signed up to play on any team–they’re unaligned.  Picking and adhering to an alignment represents a distinct choice.

If you choose an alignment for your character, you should pick either good or lawful good” (Mearls, Slavicsek, and Thompson, pg. 43).

As I’ve played 4th Edition, my experience has been that 4e alignment rules functionally led to no alignments at all.  Which is fine!  I just think it’s an unfortunate drift from their original function.  So why were alignments originally written into D&D?  And how can their rigorous use  actually benefit our games?

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Get your game on the table!

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What’s that over there on your shelf?  You know, the dusty game you bought a while back that never seems to make it onto the table!

Wait, what’s that?  Nobody wants to play it?

I find that hard to believe.  Because, I mean, you want to play it, right?  Of course!  Otherwise you wouldn’t have bought it.

So my question to you is: if you want to play, there have got to be 3-6 other people on the planet who want to play it too.  Fair assumption?

Regardless, here we sit with an empty table and a dusty game.

Listen, I get it.  I mean, I’m the guy learning AD&D 1st Edition when D&D 5e is the hottest thing in town!  Even I was at my FLGS tonight flipping through those shiny, sexy 5e books.  But let’s not get distracted.

You’ve got a game you want to play.  So how are we going to get your game on the table?

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The DMs Guide to Session Planning

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DMs, do your players always take the path of most resistance?  Or are they content to sit in the local tavern for four solid hours, roleplaying and digging up so much information that you never could have prepared for it?  Or maybe they simply murder hobo through every NPC you carefully crafted.  Here’s my point:

Campaigns never go according to plan, if you plan.

As DMs who are trying to juggle family, jobs, other responsibilities, and gaming, it can get frustrating.  I mean, is there any point in planning at all?

I believe there is a point to planning within limits.  And it all starts with having the right attitude.  You need to make a plan in order to break it.  You heard me right.  Plan with the expectation and intention of breaking that plan.

The path your campaign takes will never be straightforward and simple.  It will be twisted and complicated with lots of course correction.  So here’s how you can plan for that  without losing your sanity:

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Life, Love, Gaming, and Guilt

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Have you ever found yourself feeling guilty at the game table?

I’m not talking about the lawful good paladin who is appalled at his colleagues activities.  I’m not even talking about the player feeling some moral guilt over their character’s questionable chaotic evil decisions.

I’m talking about guilt over what you’re missing back home.

Photo Credit: Kevin Thai

The fact of the matter is, many of you have significant others, spouses, even children back home while you’re gaming.  And if truth be told, between work and other responsibilities you don’t feel like you’ve spent enough time with them.

Yet here you are, away from them, playing a game and feeling kind of guilty.  In the end, it raises a question that I’ve heard put many different ways:

Does growing up mean giving up gaming?

As a husband, father, and (thus far still employed) member of the workforce, I want you to know that growing up does not mean giving up gaming.

When it comes to this question of guilt when gaming, here are three steps to help you improve the situation:

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What do you want more than anything?

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What do you want?

If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?

More time?  Better relationships?  The freedom to rest and to enjoy life?  The feeling that you’ve made a difference in someone else’s life?

What do you want more than anything?

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What I am learning as I ask people this question–gamers and non-gamers–is that they have a hard time answering it.  I usually have to ask an average of about ten more questions to get to the heart of what people really want.  And here’s what I’m beginning to realize:

It’s much easier to settle for things than to be honest about our desires.  Few people seem really, genuinely happy about their place in life, and yet people still have a hard time communicating what it is that they really want.  And the seconds tick by.  So let’s not waste any more time!

What do you want?

If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?

I’m just going to leave you with that question for today with the simple request that you actually think about it.  I’d feel like I’d actually done my job today if you were able to answer that question without missing a beat the next time I ask…

Do you find this to be an easy question to answer?  Or is it a challenge?  Tell us why in the comments!

(Photo credit: K Rupp)

As We Shape Stories, the Stories Shape Us.

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Welcome to Experience Points, my weekly response to one of your questions about anything!  Life, relationships, faith, or gaming…really anything is game!  If you’d like to send in a question, feel free to email me.  Here’s this week’s question:

Why in the world are you, a Pastor, playing tabletop games?

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For the record, I know the person who sent in this question and he/she means it in the absolute nicest way!  It is odd to stumble upon a cleric of any tradition in your FLGS, let alone one born and raised in the Bible belt and now serving in a conservative, Protestant institution.  It raises the question: what’s your angle, preacher-man?

Stating the obvious: tabletop gaming is fun!

I was born in 1983, two years before the US release of the Nintendo Entertainment System.  When my dad brought one home when I was four years old, things changed in our home!  I became a console gamer.  Really, quite frankly I was a Nintendo gamer…and still am.  Except for the Gamecube and the Wii U, all the systems are currently hooked up to my gaming TV.  But early on, I developed a gaming sensibility that continued.

My first brush with tabletop gaming was in junior high with the WEG Star Wars RPG.  A friend lent me the book and after school I and my brothers sat down to try it out.  When one brother’s PC decapitated the other’s with a lightsaber in the first five minutes, my mom made us take the book back.  And then tabletop games disappeared from my life.

…until 2011, that is.  I was actually a month away from moving to Louisiana, when the then-NBC sitcom Community had an episode about Dungeons & Dragons.  I was immediately intrigued.  I actually downloaded the basic 4th Edition rules from the WotC site, but moving soon took precedence and it slipped between the cracks.  But only for a few months.

After moving to Louisiana and taking a new position at a small suburban church, I became acquainted with a college student who was doing some volunteering for us.  As we got to know each other, we learned that we had a shared love of many things: the Beatles, comic books, and video games.  But then he mentioned Dungeons & Dragons…

I knew all the horror stories from the eighties.  I knew the sermon illustrations.  I knew the Scriptures against witchcraft and the like.  But when he invited me to join his gaming group, I took the Players Handbook home, read it in a week, and joined up.  And guess what?  It was fun.  It was a heckuva lot of fun.  As an extrovert who loves games and epic stories, I realized this could become a really great outlet for creativity, relaxation, and good old-fashioned fun.

The less-than obvious: tabletop gaming is good.

You don’t hear too many people talking about things being objectively “good” these days.  But here’s what I found to be good about tabletop gaming.

First (which I’ve talked about at length elsewhere), there’s something sacred about tabletops.  How many life-changing moments happen at tables?  How many important conversations happen there?  How many relationships are strengthened or challenged there?  How many children are shaped slowly and daily by what happens there?  In the Christian faith, one of our most important practices happens on a tabletop!  Any time I find myself at a table with other people, I know that there is great potential for good.  There is opportunity for relationships—for encouragement—for mutual care—for self-expression—for community.  And these things are all objectively good.

Communities have much more potential for good than the individual does.  That’s not to say individuals can’t accomplish good things.  But unified communities bring about exponential change.  Unified homes, seeking good things, are objectively good.  Unified workplaces, seeking good things, are objectively good.  Unified friends, seeking good things, are objectively good.  And unified gaming groups, seeking good things, are objectively good.

Even if that means something seemingly trivial like “telling good stories.”  Telling good stories enriches lives and homes.  Humanity itself came of age while telling stories around meals.  Before we ever wrote them down, we recited them and participated in them.  As communities shaped the stories, the stories shaped us.  It’s a sacred practice, happening at a sacred place.  And I believe this to be good.

The draw for a Pastor

As a Pastor, I am a storyteller and a story-shaper.  I tell stories that I believe will shape and transform the lives of the hearers.  The stories that I tell occupationally are stories of faith, rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  I believe them to be true.  But that does not mean that other stories cannot also be life-changing and redemptive.

As such, tabletop gaming (more specifically tabletop RPGs) is more than a simple interest to me.  I believe it to be a means of transformation.  Friendships happen there.  Ideas are challenged and shaped in the process.  People are transformed through these stories.  As we shape them, they shape us.  And I believe that to be good.

How have the stories at your tabletop shaped you?  How has it strengthened and catalyzed your friendships and your worldview?  Sound off in the comments!

(Photo credit: Mary)