When the Rules Change

Back when I first started this blog on December 23, 2008 I was trying to bridge the gap between Christians and folks who played D&D. In that goal, I think I made a difference, tiny as it may have been. I think I can say that mine was a small voice in a grand choir that was the Golden Age of TTRPGs.

On September 10th, 2025 the rules changed.

We are now in a Dark Age and I feel compelled to try and communicate how I believe we got here.

In the almost 2 decades(!) I have been spilling electronic ink in this corner of the internet, the Oppressor/Opressed Dialtectic of Critical Theory has permeated virtually every walk of life. In our own hobby, I need only point to WotC’s warning label on all their legacy titles:

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

This statement divides our community into two camps: the Oppressors (those who lived, played, and wrote during the formative years of D&D), and the Opressed (those who produce the latest version of D&D). This bifurcation can be found everywhere, in all parts of life.

The fundamental flaw in the Oppressor/Opressed Dialtectic of Critical Theory is that the categorization is not only arbitrary, but based on what we are instead of what we do. I am a grognard. I was a D&D nerd in the 70s. There is nothing I can do to change that.

As a consequence, what is evil and what is good gets divorced from action and activity. Goodness is no longer a function of what a person does, it is a function of what they are. The consequence of this shift in morality is, as we saw last week, deadly, tragic, and terrifying.

This is why we all saw the celebrations over a father getting brutally murdered in front of his small child. This is how assassination is now a good thing.

I don’t know about you, but I remember when Assassins in D&D had an alignment requirement of evil.

It is hard to see a way out of this darkness.

I can tell you that we all can experience a unity with each other in Christ that cannot be found anywhere else, but my guess is that is not an answer most of you are ready to hear.

One thing that I have learned to see in my many years as a convert to Orthodox Christianity is that God expresses Himself fractally throughout His creation. In other words, the ultimate that is Christ can be partially experienced in various ways throughout human experience. One such experience is our hobby.

When done right, RPGs cross bridges. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you are from, what language you speak, or what edition of D&D you play. Our love of this hobby and of this game crashes through all of those barriers to unite us in a small, but significant, way. We play. Together.

If we do emerge from this Dark Age, it will be because we refuse to accept that evil acts can be celebrated as good. It will be because we overcome our differences because we love to actively play this game we love together. It will be because we will look back together at WotC’s statement above and remember how foolish we were to let the Golden Age end.

That is a Dragon

I recently watched Jonathan Pageau and Richard Rohlin discuss dragons on their Universal History video series. It is a fascinating look at dragons from symbolic, pre-modern, and Orthodox Christian points of view (which in some ways can be understood to all be the same). I wanted to share here because Dungeons and Dragons is specifically referenced. This whole discussion is contrasted with what we old gognards might call Gygaxian Naturalism — if we narrow our view to that of the modern, as expressed by the naturalistic categorization of monsters found in the various Monster Manuals of DnD, we might not completely grok what Johnathan and Richard are talking about. This is an interesting parallel to the move I was made to make when exploring how Scripture might inform the megadungeon.    

 

For those who don't want to sit and listen to these two geek out for over an hour, here is a short summary of the general characteristics of dragons:

1. They are serpents.
2. They are hybrids — the serpent aspect is mixed with pieces and parts of other animals.
3. As hybrids, they occupy a symbolic space of flux and can be understood as harbingers of change.
4. They function as guardians (mostly of water). This guardianship can be understood as hoarding and water needs to be understood as an essential material for civilization to function.
5. They have an enemy, often a thunder god symbolized by a trident (which is originally a symbol for lightening, not for a sea god/creature).

The aspect of this I find most useful and interesting is the fact that not all dragons exhibit all five characteristics. Thus, from this perspective, an owlbear is a type of dragon (as are many of the hybrid creatures found in the Monster Manual). From the perspective of a DnD campaign, the appearance of such a creature could signify a major event for the campaign world as a harbinger of change.

Personally, I would be tempted to leave all hybrids out of my placed encounter areas and only have them appear as Wandering Monsters. Once one appears, this could mean a roll on a major campaign event table with various types of catastrophes both natural (such an earthquake that reveals a subterranean civilization) and man-made (such as war).

This view also reinforces the mechanics of treasure from early DnD: the gold hoarded by dragons (monsters, especially hybrids) is the main means by which the PCs (both the enemies of the dragons and the defenders of Civilization) level up to become more capable of defending Civilization.

I highly recommend taking the time watching this episode. It is a fascinating (and I would say useful) discussion even for those of you who are not of the Christian persuasion. Enjoy.

On the Importance of Fandom

[I ask] that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. — John 17:20-21

One of the important principles in Orthodoxy Christianity is the idea that multiplicity is capable of becoming one. Through Christ, the various nations of the earth become one church despite all of the various things that we humans do to try and separate ourselves from each other.

This idea of one and many exists in every order of creation from the most high (God is both One and Three) all the way down to subatomic where electons, protons, and neutrons are gathered together as the building blocks of matter.

I don’t normally lead with such theological musings, but I want make clear the persupposition for why I find such beauty and joy in the idea of fandoms. When a fandom manifests itself properly, the love that each individual has for said franchise, game, hobby, sport, etc. can overcome all kinds of differences we impose upon ourselves and each other. 

For example, the majorty of the folks who read this blog are not Orthodox Christan, and I would venture a good chunk do not even consider themselves Christian. Despite this, we can all gather in this corner of the internet and revel in the love we have for RPGs. That love overcomes the fact that we do not all agree about religion. It can also overcome all kinds of barriers such as language, race, politics, ethnicity, gender, etc.

To put it theologically, the unity that Christ gives us through the Cross, the Resurrection, and His Church manifests itself in a small way through fandoms. Conversly, the unity we find in fandoms demonstrate that the unity promised by Christ is very real.

As a consequence, I firmly believe that the reason our beloved IPs from Star Wars to Indiana Jones, to Star Trek, to Dungeons & Dragons are in such bad shape is the fact that the companies that are in control of these IPs have roundly rejected the fundamental premise of unity from multiplicity and the role fandoms play in overcoming differences.

Companies such as WotC, Disney, Warner, etc. have almost universally adopted ideas found in Critical Race Theory, Intersectional Feminism, and Diversity Equity and Inclusion. At first glance, all of these concepts are laudable. There is no question that various groups of people have suffered at the hands of others throughout history and that trying to fix the various problems that come from this suffering is something I would hope everyone is on board with.

There is one very large however here, though. All of these ideas are based on a dialectic — the Opressed versus the Opressor. As a consequence, every single one of these ideas requires division. Not a single one of these ideas can ever unify humanity because the smallest possible number in a dialectic is always two.

Thus, when the fandom becomes hostile to the direction a company is taking a particular IP, these ideas don’t allow for love to overcome differences of opinion. They don’t allow for fandoms to become part of the solution. Rather, the fandom is moved from the in-group (the Oppressed) into the out-group (the Oppressor). This is why fans have been accused of being bigoted in all kinds of ways over the last several years.

Those of us who participate in RPGs are very fortunate because the OGL was born out of fandom. It was designed in such a way that the love we have of D&D could empower us to produce a plethora of products for this hobby. We have seen the fruits of that love and don’t every want to go back. This is why WotC’s attempts to ditch the OGL has been received with such a pushback from across the entire fandom. At some level, we have come to understand that the unity we find in participating in this hobby at all levels is much more profound and valuable than anything WotC could offer alone as the gatekeeper of everything D&D. 

While RPGs are a different medium than television or film, nonetheless, what has happened in the world of TTRPGs is a blueprint for fandoms to move forward and beyond the dialectic being imposed upon us by the likes of WotC, Disney, etc. We can participate in our fandoms (and make money doing so) in all kinds of ways that don’t involve us giving these corporations a dime.

We have a capacity to be one. They have limited themselves to merely being two.

They need us far more than we need them. 

The Importance of Presuppositions

In my line of work, I have to be acutely aware of presuppositions (one of the demands of doing theology). Our culture does not do a very good job of exploring or even being aware that we make them all the time. So, a definition is in order: a presupposition is a thing tacitly assumed beforehand at the beginning of a line of argument or course of action.

Let’s explore an element of D&D that is near and dear to my heart, but is widely rejected by those who play: Race-as-Class. I think part of the reason that so many people balk at the idea of Race-as-Class is that they believe it fundamentaly prevents people from playing a particular race the way they want to. Personally, I have a metal figure in my collection that is a dwarven wizard. I love the personality that exudes from the sculpt. Race-as-Class seems to dictate that I can never use that character concept in my favorite versions of the game. 

What this perspective fails to see is the presupposition that must be made in gaming worlds that have no Race-as-Class: since the mechanics of dwarf and human characters are so similar, there isn’t much actual difference between humans and dwarves.

In contrast, Race-as-Class poses siginificant mechanical differences between the two races. The culture that arises from humans as clerics, fighters, magic-users, and thieves is necessarily very different from that of Dwarves. One is mechanically diverse, the other isn’t.

Thus, when I pull out that dwarven wizard figure the machanics of Race-as-Class put far more weight on my choice of class than the versions of D&D that don’t use it. In both cases, I will essentially be playing a human character; however, while the mechanics of a dwarven wizard don’t say a lot about my character, playing a dwarven magic-user that uses the mechanics of a human magic-user says a tremendous amount about the world, the history of my character, and dwarves themselves. In order to become a magic-user, my dwarf has had to reject his culture and his people to the point that mechanically he no longer functions as a dwarf. For all intents and purposed he is a human.

In both scenerios, I come to the same basic conclusion: mechanically a dwarven magic-user/wizard is essentially a re-skinned human; however, when one looks at the necessary presuppositions that Race-as-Class demands, I get a much more interesting re-skinned human — one that I don’t think I would have arrived at without Race-as-Class.

I say all this as a preamble, because I did something quite outside my comfort zone this week. Chris Gore of Film Threat is producing a new show on his YouTube channel which seeks to bring Star Wars fans together to discuss whether or not Disney has murdered the franchise. The format is that of a court with those who are on the side of the prosecution and those who are on the defense.

I was asked to be on the first show, because so few people in the sphere of YouTube Star Wars fandom were willing to argue the defense. It was all in good fun and I think the overwhelming consensus is that my side lost the argument (not surprising, since Chris Gore’s audience is largely unhappy with Disney Star Wars). I want to explain why I was willing to be on the Defense and that has to do with presuppositions.

While the language “Disney Murdered Star Wars” is hyberbolic, there is a necesssary presupposition behind that statement: Star Wars fans are beholden to Disney for all things Star Wars. I vehemently disagree. 

The presupposition that I make is one that I believe better reflects reality: Star Wars is part of our culture. It no longer belongs to Disney or George Lucas in any way other than the legal right to produce Star Wars products. We, as the fandom have far more power than Disney thinks we do (or we do, depressingly). The Audience is a vital part of any artistic endeavor, especially when it comes to beloved franchises like Star Wars.

Very few Tolkien fans, for example, would argue that Amazon’s Rings of Power has any real place in the lore of Middle-earth. Likewise, the fans have the ability to embrace or reject anything Star Wars. As an example, few Star Wars fans acknowledge that the Star Wars Christmas Special has any real standing in Star Wars lore. Yes, it is the first appearance of Boba Fett, but does anyone argue that the Mandolorian, or any other Disney product, isn’t following the lore established in the Christmas Special? No, because the fandom doesn’t care about the Christmas Special. It does about the EU and the many ways Disney has contradicted it. Despite the fact that Disney has de-canonized the EU, it still lives on because the fans have embraced it.

The only way that Disney can murder Star Wars, in other words, is if we aid and abett them by rejecting Star Wars as a whole. As long as the fandom exists, Star Wars lives. And, if the fandom wakes up and realizes its own power and importance, we may see a day when the owners of the legal right to produce Star Wars products will listen.

May the Φος Be With You

The only Star Wars product
I have enjoyed in the last decade

Star Wars taught me a tough but valuable lesson: just because something has a particular label on it, doesn’t mean that it is good. This lesson took a long time for me to understand, however. Star Wars was a huge part of my childhood and a formative experience in my life. One of my favorite RPG campaigns of all time was played with d6 Star Wars. One of my favorite computer franchises of all time is the X-Wing/Tie-Fighter series. I was all in.

I couldn’t bring myself to understand that the emotion I was feeling after watching Episode I at a midnight showing on opening day was disappointment. I spent hours and a lot of money watching Phantom Menace trying to convince myself that it was good. Then I saw Episode II in theaters at a matinee a couple of weeks after it opened and came to terms with the idea that Star Wars was no longer a brand I could trust. 

I had hope that Disney could turn things around. So, when my kids wanted to see Episode VII in the theaters, I went. I walked out of the movie with a feeling I was familiar with and now was accustomed to: disappointment. This time, however, I refused to spend another dime.

I suppose that is why I was so adamant to ditch WotC when they put their “warning” labels on legacy products. The disappointment I had when realizing WotC saw me as a racist simply for buying and playing one of the most important games in my lifetime was similar to what I was feeling walking out of Phantom Menace. So, I didn’t spend another dime, despite several legacy products being released in POD that I would have otherwise snatched up in a second.

The last several months have proven my instincts correct. WotC has rendered the label “Dungeons & Dragons” worthless. It seems that the shenanigans Hasbro has pulled have finally woken some people up to the fact that WotC and Hasbro are run by people who care nothing about gamers or the games we play.

I realize I am a small voice in the wilderness, but I not only encourage everyone to stop buying something simply because it has the label “Dungeons & Dragons” on it, but to create your own systems, adventures, and worlds. I can almost guarantee that whatever you produce is going to be a whole lot better than whatever WotC has put the label "Dungeons & Dragons" on.

BTW for those interested, the title of this post comes from the fond memories of an alum of my seminary who went to my school in the 70s. In response to the popularity of Star Wars and the Force, which from an Orthodox Christian POV is a dualistic heresy, one of the bishops printed up a bunch of T-Shirts that said, “May the Φος Be With You.” In Greek, φος (phos as in phosphorescence) means “light” as in John 8:12, “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying,  ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”

Ever since May 4th became a thing where Star Wars fans say, “May the Force Be With You” I have gently corrected their spelling…  

The OGL is Still Dead...but Might Become an Undead Weapon

I have made no secret about stepping away from Hasbro and WotC for years now. I was never going to give them any money for any new sparkly version of DnD regardless of this whole OGL mess. While I will not be using any OGL from Hasbro going forward, I do want to raise a klaxon, warning anyone who thinks that any concessions Hasbro gives publishers are worth a morality clause, or that a morality clause is something that should be a part of any other Open License.

In order to demonstrate how strongly I feel about this, I give you James Raggi — someone whose published works I largely dislike and will no longer purchase for reasons of personal morality:

Morality clauses are weapons and you can never predict how and when they will be used, who will use them, and who will be the target. Weapons always have unintended consequences.

I try to stay away from politics, but there is a really illustrative political example that hopefully makes my point. Under Obama, the Democratically controlled Senate got rid of an old gentleman's agreement that certain weighty measures required a two-thirds majority rather than a simple majority. They had things to accomplish and needed the weapon of a simple majority to beat down their Republican opponents. Little did they expect Trump to win in 2016 and have that very same weapon of a simple majority get used against them again and again and again. Trump's legacy is going to have a much longer and larger effect on the United States because Democrats created a weapon they never imagined would get used against them.

Any morality clause in the upcoming Hasbro License or in the ORC License will weaponize our hobby. If this is tied to the legal language of irrevocable, it will be a weapon that anyone can use against anybody now and forever with consequences we can't even imagine.

Please allow me the freedom to choose for myself what is morally acceptable and what I feel comfortable supporting with my money, my time, and my play. I pray you do the same, lest we all someday become a target for weapon that never needed to built in the first place.

The Future of Prokopius Press

This is likely the most popular thing
Prokopius Press has ever produced.

WotC has officially responded to players of every stripe cancelling their D&D Beyond subscription and hitting Hasbro the only place that hurts: their pocket book. As far as I am concerned, this move by players is about three years late, but I'll take it. The response by Hasbro was not impressive.

As I stated in my last post, Hasbro has shown itself to be wholly unreliable when it comes to keep up their end of the deal when it comes to the OGL. For all intents and purposes, this means that the OGL is dead. This puts me in a bit of a pickle because I have produced a number of games and modules over the years using the OGL. 

Since most of these have been free or PWYW, I have no real fear of WotC ever bothering to come after me, but I really don't want to be associated with Hasbro at all. You may have noticed, all the various links to my free stuff son't work. While some of that is negligence on my part (Google being Google), I am not going to fix those links until I figure out a way to strip the OGL content from all of my works and/or find another license to operate under.

Matt Finch will be releasing his most recent version of Swords & Wizardry with a new license, Autarch will be producing their own license for the next version of ACKS, and the big boys in the 3rd party world of RPGs (Paizo, Kobold, Green Ronin, Chaosium, etc.) are working on a generic Open Game license that will be known as ORC. I will be looking into each as they become public. Since I am a hobbyist first and publisher second, I have no real need to operate under any of these, especially if I do my due diligence and make all of my stuff truly my own.

I will also endeavor to move away from Google. I will not shut this blog down. Indeed, I probably will continue to post general thoughts, news, and other such posts from time to time. As I work to make make all of my stuff non-OGL, I'd like a space that I feel more comfortable using going forward.

When I land in that new space to share the work I do, I will announce it here and have a permanent link to direct you to the next chapter of Prokopius Press. 

 

The OGL is Dead! Long Live the Open RPG License!

The last few days have been fascinating to watch. I think Hasbro vastly underestimated their customer base and the Dungeons and Dragons brand has been severely damaged. It will be interesting to see how they try to repair it.

In the meantime, 3rd party publishers like Kobold Press, Frog God Games, and Autarch have all officially declared that they will not be signing the OGL 1.1. Basic Fantasy (one the the pioneers in the world of Retro-Clones) is currently getting rid of all the OGL language in their products. There have been several statements that even if the original OGL can be upheld in court, Hasbro has shown itself to be a bad actor and can no longer be trusted. I don't see how any publisher going forward can use the OGL, even if Hasbro walks back on OGL 1.1. For all intents and purposes, the OGL is dead.

Enter folks like Kobold Press and Autarch who are moving forward with non-OGL game systems and Paizo hosting a website dedicated to creating a new Open RPG license that can used by anybody, and Frog God Games calling for publishers to band together to create these systems and this new license.

I will echo the words of Bill Webb of Frog God Games: if you care about this hobby, buy some books from publishers you like so they can keep their lights on long enough to get these things done. I have.

Godspeed to everyone who is trying to put food on the table. May the apparent darkness of today lead to a very bright tomorrow.

OGL 1.1: D&D is Dead! Long Live D&D!

My last post here was back in June (!) of 2022. If I am honest, it has a lot to do with the fact that I am not really all that invested in RPGs at the moment. I am happily and busily printing and painting away in my latest deep dive into the world of miniature war gaming. I also have to admit, 2022 was a very painful year…literally. Spent some time in the hospital and am currently still trying to figure out the source of the pain I have currently been in for the last several months. So, I hope you excuse my complete lack of activity here on the old blog.

The world of D&D, however, is currently going through a major crisis in the form of the OGL 1.1. To which I say: D&D is dead! Long live D&D! Hasbro has every right to change the OGL for whatever edition they want to produce going forward; however, that OGL will only be legally binding for that edition, and possibly 5e (thought I don’t believe so). The original architects of the OGL created it specifically to protect the game and those who play it from a major corperation trying to do what Hasbro is currently trying to do: kill the game (whether they realize it or not).

Game mechanics are not copywritable in the U.S., and the legal scope of the OGL simply makes certain descriptions of mechanics and monsters their legal property. Everything else is Open Content usable by anyone. The intent was that if the owner of the D&D brand ever went out of business or decided that D&D would no longer be published, the game itself could survive under other names, with different descriptions, published by other companies. Paizo’s Pathfinder is not only the direct result of the OGL, but was the intention of the OGL — because WoTC was abandoning 3.5e in order to produce 4e. Those folks who wanted 3.5e to continue had the ability to. Not only do we still do, we still have the ability to produce games that emulate older editions as well. Long live D&D (just not under that name).

If you recall, back in july of 2020, I wrote this post in response to a disclaimer WoTC placed on all their legacy content of DTRPG and DM’s Guild. They haven’t changed the language and I have spent a dime on their products since. I would highly recommend everyone adopt the same same attitude. Hasbro has clearly demonstrated that they do not care about the game, about the community, or about you. In turn, you have absolutely no obligation to support them in any way, especially financially.

Instead of relying on major corporations to curate and control the IPs we love, we ought to either support the independent creators that are producing great alternatives, or start producing our own.

It also might be worthwhile to start working on rewording the entirety of whichever SRD you like the best and then releasing that document as Open Content under a different license to give all of us yet another legal haven to ensure the game we love can live on for generations to come.

Saintly Saturday: St. Cornelius the Abbot of Komel

Today is the Feast of St. Cornelius the Abbot of Komel, Vologda. Born into a boyar family in the 15th century, his brother Lukian served at the court of the Great Prince of Moscow. Both brothers decided to enter into monasticism at the monastery of St. Cyril of White Lake (how cool is that name!?).

Desiring for a more solitary life, St. Cornelius left White Lake to enter other monasteries, but eventually chose to live in the inhospitable environs of the Komel forest. Other monks began to gather around him and in 1501 he built a wooden church dedicated to the Entrance of the Theotokos. By 1512, the brethren had grown so numerous that he built a stone church and compiled a Monastic Rule based on those written by Sts. Joseph of Volokolamsk and Nilus of Sora.

St. Cornelius died at the age of 82 on May 19, 1537.

As I explained in this seven-year-old (!?) post, there are two basic forms of monasticism: cenobitic (communal) and eremitic (hermit-like). The monastic rules found in Russia tend to be of a third type: the skete. It takes elements of both eremitic practices, allowing for the isolation of individual monks, and cenobitic practices, allowing for a community of monks to live in close proximity.

In other words, there really is no single “right way” to be a monastic. Depending upon the individual and the relationships that individual forms, one can be called to be a part of several different styles of monasticism. Indeed, many monastic saints, St. Cornelius included, practice several different types over the course of their lifetime.

In the comment section of my last Saintly Saturday post, there was a joke about edition wars in D&D. Admittedly, when I first started to blog about RPGs, I wrote several serious criticisms of “new-school” D&D and I will openly admit that the idea of playing 3e, 3.5e, Pathfinder or 4e sounds about as much fun as doing some major dental work. Today, however, I won’t begrudge (too much) someone else’s fun. Sure, I believe they would have more fun at my table and the way I like to play, but I also know from experience that isn’t a universal rule I can depend upon.

I have argued that we live in a Golden Age for RPGs. One of the reasons for that is that we, as players, have at our finger tips 0e-5e D&D and all the various clones of those editions out there to choose from and hack ourselves for our particular proclivities and our particular needs. In the same way monks have a plethora of opportunities to pursue the ascetic life, we gamers have a plethora of choices as to which rules we want to bring to the table to have fun with.

Recently Eric of Tenkar’s Tavern reported that WotC estimates that there are 12 to 15 million D&D players in North America and that there was a 44% growth for the D&D brand in 2016. Note that this is just the brand, not a specific edition. While I will openly admit that most of the growth can probably be attributed to 5e (and that is not a bad thing), I am guessing that no small percentage of that comes from older editions. Else, why does WotC keep on churning out publications for older editions in both PDF and POD forms? There was a time when I thought such a move by WotC would never happen and I cannot tell you how happy I am that they continue to open up that library.

In other words: play the version of D&D that you want to play and have fun! If that version doesn’t exist, make it! Today, we have so many tools at our disposal to do just that, we barely have an excuse not to.

To that end, one of my episodes of Gamer ADD which I have been subject to of late, was due to the WotC news Eric reported. I like the concept of 5e, but I don’t like its presentation, its editing or the relative complexity of the rules as they exist today. Erik took what were really simple rules (S&W White Box) and stripped them down as much as possible to still have a game we would recognize as D&D and S&W: SWL and SWCL. My Gamer ADD-addled brain thought why can’t I do that for 5e?

Thus, one of my wayward projects is editing the 5e SRD down to a rules-lite version of the game which I would gladly play and even Referee. Hopefully, I’ll have some presentable stuff done sooner rather than later to share.

Saintly Saturday: St. Euthymius the Great

Today is the Feast of St. Euthymius the Great who was born in Melitene in Armenia to faithful parents about the year A.D. 377. His parents were older and barren. They received a vision and conceived in their old age. His parents died shortly after he was born and he was taken in by the bishop of Melitene. He was tonsured as a monk and ordained as a priest. In this role, the bishop placed him charge of all the monasteries in the city.

St. Euthymius, however, yearned for the life of a hermit and left for the wilderness. What follows is a typical pattern of great monastic saints: they go out into the wilderness, attract the attention of the faithful through their piety and the miracles performed through them, a community with a monastery at its center forms and the saint goes off to the wilderness and the pattern repeats itself.

One of the monasteries that St. Euthymius founded in this way was in a cave situated on a cliff overlooking a gorge in the desert of Coutila. Despite its terrifying location (one, BTW, that would make a very interesting encounter area for a campaign), it became the location of a monastery and was very popular with the villages in the surrounding area.

He converted a tribe of Arabs. Their leader was ordained and became known as the Bishop of Tents (an interest FRPG title, if I’ve ever heard of one).

There are several great saints that were taught and/or influenced by St. Euthymius including St. Theoctistus (Sept. 3), Symeon the Stylite (Sept. 1) and St. Sabbas the Sanctified (Dec. 5).

He foresaw his death at the age of 82 and passed on January 20, A.D. 473.

The lives of monastic saints like St. Euthymius are, in many ways, one of the reasons I believe the framework of D&D works so well within a Christian context. The monastic is the adventurer who goes out into the Wilderness (Chaos) to make it safe for Civilization (Law).

The basis for my understanding comes from Scripture. If we look at the geography of Genesis, we have three areas:

• Eden (which is most likely some kind of plain because the name originally meant “open wastes”)
• The Garden (which is in Eden and has as its center the Tree of Life a.k.a The Cross whose fruit is Christ Himself)
• The Land of Nod (which is “across” from Eden and means “a place of restlessness or wandering” — wilderness)

In Leviticus, Aaron is commanded to cast lots on two goats. One is sacrificed as a sin offering, the other is presented alive for the atonement of sins and sent away into the wilderness of Azazel. The name Azazel literally means “rugged of God” which emphasizes “wilderness.” According to the Book of Enoch, Azazel is a fallen angel and leader of the Watchers — he is a demon. Thus, the wilderness of Azazel is a demonic wilderness. This is the origin of the word “scapegoat” — the sins of the people are placed upon the goat and sent into the Demonic Wilderness to feed the demons  in place of people. Thus, especially since Cain is exiled there, the Land of Nod is the place where demons live.

The first great wave of monastics went into the deserts of Egypt — the wilderness where demons reside — in order to fight the enemy in their own territory. Again, this is the model for the classic D&D campaign: the adventurers go into the wilderness full of monsters and humanoids in order to fight the enemy were they live. Upon clearing the wilderness of theses monsters, they build a Stronghold and thus make it safe for Civilization. Then the pattern repeats itself again and again.

Saintly Saturday: Conception of the Theotokos & Ever-Virgin Mary

Today is the Feast of the Conception of the Theotokos & Ever-Virgin Mary. Yes, you read that right: the Orthodox Church is celebrating a sexual act today and glorifying the result of the act. Western Christianity, for better or worse, is heavily influenced by St. Augustine when it comes to sex and he had a major problem with it. In contrast, the East has always had a far more positive view of the marriage bed:

And how become they one flesh? As if you should take the purest part of gold, and mingle it with the other gold; so in truth here also the women as it were receiving the richest part fused by pleasure, nourishes it and cherishes it, and throughout contributing her own share, restores it back to the man. And the child is a sort of bridge so that the three become on flesh, the child connecting, on either side, each to each… What then? When there is not child, will they not be two? Not so, for their coming together has this effect; it diffuse and commingles the bodies of both. And as one who has poured ointment into oil has made the whole one; so in truth is it also here — St. John Chrysostom, On Marriage and Family Life.

Notice the bed...

The origin of this feast, of course, is not to be found in the Bible. Rather, it reflects the story told in the Protoevangelium of James. This brings up a common theme with anti-Christian apologetics, that there were lots of books written in the first couple of centuries after Christ about Christianity and that many of them were “banned,” “suppressed,” or “concealed.” Yes, there are a bunch of books. A lot of them are heretical. A lot of them do not share the tight focus of the New Testament: the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Some of them were written by people who did not know Christ or his Disciples.

A fact that often gets lost in the shuffle is that the Bible was compiled over the course of almost three centuries. The first time we see the books of the bible listed as we know it today was in the fourth century by St. Athanasius the Great. Even he considered books outside this list to be “good for reading.” Examples include the Letters of Clement, The Shepherd of Hermas and the Protoevangelium of James. Some were even read in context of Church Services; however, ultimately, none of these made it into the Bible for a variety of reasons.

This illustrates an important axiom when it comes to the Bible: the New Testament was written by Christians for Christians. They had every right to determine what was going to be in the New Testament and what wasn’t.

This axiom is actually very relevant today in context of D&D because, living in a Golden Age of RPGs as we do, there is a proliferation of different versions of the game. Just in the last couple of months, for example, I have produced three. Not only do we have 0e, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, 4e and 5e but we have of the various iterations in the world of retro-clones and their ilk.

Imagine for a moment someone who doesn’t play RPGs comes in to say that Rune Quest was “suppressed” and represents true Dungeons & Dragons. While the history of Rune Quest has its origins in D&D, it is rarely accepted by those of us who actually play these games as D&D.

The axiom above is applicable to D&D in the sense that these games are written by gamers and for gamers. Therefore, we, to a large extent, get to determine what is and isn’t “D&D.” I will grant from a legal POV this isn’t entirely true because there are legal ramifications for using “Dungeons & Dragons” on a product without permission from WotC, but you can’t tell me the phrase “We’re playing D&D tonight” cannot be applied to anything from 0e to S&W to LL to Pathfinder to 4e to 5e. Despite all of the edition wars that have been fought over the years, ultimately, it is we who play the game that really determine what is and isn’t ‘D&D.’

Saintly Saturday: Prokopius the Great Martyr

Today is the Feast of St. Propokius the Great Martyr, the patron saint, as it were, of this blog. He was originally named Neanius and was from Jerusalem. Though his father was Christian, he was primarily raised by his pagan mother Theodosia because his father died when he was young. They were a prominent family in the Roman Empire. After receiving an excellent education, he was personally introduced to the Emperor Diocletian. He quickly rose through the government ranks when in A.D. 303 Diocletian began his great persecution against the Christians. Neanius was sent to Alexandria as a proconsul to rid the city of Christians.

On his way, Neanius encountered the risen Christ in a vision similar to that of Paul where both men were confronted with the question, “Why do you persecute me?” Like Paul before him, Neanius turned away from the role of persecutor to that of preacher. His mother eventually turned him in and he was sent in chains to Caesaria in Palestine.

There he was tortured and was repeatedly visited by Christ who gave him the name Prokopius. He thus was able to stand up to all the tortures the pagans threw at him, steadfastly proclaiming his faith in Christ. Finally, frustrated at the immovability of Prokopius’ faith, the governor ordered that he be given the citizen’s death of decapitation (thus admitting that the crime the Christians were accused of —treason — was a lie). Inspired by the firmness of that saint’s faith several of the Roman guards responsible for guarding the saint while he was held in prison, including the tribunes Nikostrates and Antiochus, several women of the court as well as his own mother all proclaimed their faith in Christ and followed Prokopius in martyrdom. They, too, are commemorated on this day.

I first met Prokopius on Mt.Athos. I had injured my foot and was waiting to see if there were any monks or facilities at the monastery I was staying that might determine if I had broken a bone or done something as severe. I was attracted to a particular icon of a soldier saint and spent virtually the whole time waiting gazing upon this saint wondering who he was.

After being attended to (in what looked like to me a state-of the-art facility by a doctor become monk from Mexico City) I was given some medication and sent on my way. I eventually visited six monasteries on the mountain and every time I went to church (every morning and evening) I found myself in front of an icon of this same saint, regardless of which monastery I happened to be staying. I eventually inquired and found out this saint was, in fact, Prokopius the Great Martyr. He has (obviously) been watching over me ever since.

I chose the name “Blood of Prokopius” for this blog because it sounded properly Swords & Sorcery-esque but also because I hoped that I could stand as a witness through my musings. Back in December of 2008 I wrote these words:

D&D is not by nature evil. In my life, it has been a great blessing. I allowed it to point me towards God. Through D&D Christ came into my life, and that has been huge. Whether or not something is good or evil depends on how we use it.

Thus we come to the reason for this blog. I fully realize that when the words "Dungeons and Dragons" are mentioned, a lot of Christians cringe. I also know that the same is true of many RPGers who hear the word "Christianity." I hope to stand firmly with one foot in the world of D&D and another in the world of my faith and thus reduce the number of cringes in both worlds. I still love D&D. I still love the culture, the people, the game. And I am a Christian. So, I will muse on how Christianity informs my view of D&D, how I play it and how the two can affect each other in a positive way. Enjoy.

I daresay things have changed for the better since then. In the last 8+ years there have been a number of civil discussions about Christianity and its role in RPGs. No longer does the mere mention of Christianity automatically generate a cringe from the RPG world. In fact, I have a sense that a number of folks out there have come to realize that Christ can in fact speak to the the way they play the game and to the worlds that they build.

Credit must be given to Christ Himself for much of this, through the intercessions of St. Prokopius, but I would be disingenuous if I did not credit all those gamers out there who have read this blog and told other people to read this blog. There are a bunch of people out there in this corner of the internet who were able to look beyond their own prejudices to see that these games we love to play bind us together in ways that reach beyond those prejudices, beyond the borders and walls we build around ourselves. For that I must thank each and every one of you and am proud to be a part of this little corner of the internet that continues to defy the convention that people from different backgrounds and different beliefs cannot understand each other.

Saintly Saturday: St. Botolph Abbot of the Monastery Icanhoh

Today is the Feast of St. Botolph, Abbot of the Monastery Icanhoh who is a British saint from the 7th century. Born in Britain, he became a monk in Gaul. King Ethelmund of East Anglia sent his sisters to Gaul to learn the monastic discipline. There they met St. Botolph and learned that he wanted to return to Britain. Therefore, they requested that their brother bequeath some land to the monk so that he could build a monastery.

St. Botolph asked that whatever land was given to him did not come from any man’s possession so to avoid gaining from someone’s loss. Therefore, King Ethelmund granted the monk a piece of wilderness called Icanhoh. The place, according to his hagiography, was crawling with demons. Thus, before he began establishing his monastery, he had to fight with the demons and drive them all off. He spent the rest of his life in prayer becoming known for working miracles and speaking prophecy. After a bout with a painful disease in the last several years of his life, he passed in A.D. 680. HIs relics were found later to give off a sweet fragrance and to be incorrupt.

Eventually, the area around Icanhoh became settled and was known as Botolphston, which can mean both Botolph’s stone or Botolph’s town. As the years passed, the name of the place was contracted to “Boston.”

I have often pointed out the fact that the lives of the monastic saints closely resemble that of the typical D&D campaign. They come from Christian Civilization, go out into the Demonic Wilderness and tame it so that Civilization can expand; however, I don’t recall ever reading a saint’s life that so explicitly followed this formula. The hagiography literally says that Icanhoh was a desolate place where he had to fight demons. This is yet another example of why I think the formula of Christian Civilization vs. the Demonic Wilderness in D&D works so well, because it mirrors the experience of the Church Herself.

In addition, it is really cool to know that the etymology of my old stomping ground suggests that not only is Boston Bean Town but also St. Botolph’s Town. It is too bad that the only Church of St. Botolph I know of is in Boston, Lincolnshire. Boston, Mass should have something dedicated to their namesake.

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The Red Seax

This legendary +1 short sword/long knife was forged from the strange red metal recovered from a meteor. It was forged to be a holy weapon using incense as its carbon source, etched with a holy symbol and quenched in holy oil. In the hands of a Lawful character, it offers Protection from Evil 10’r when wielded. Against Chaotic creatures it is a +2 weapon and against the undead it is +3.

Its original owner was the King’s Champion Dreux who had it forged specifically to combat a demon that had began to terrorize the people in the borderlands. Unfortunately, the demon prevailed and the Red Seax became part of the demon’s growing treasure trove. As the Kingdom’s fortunes fell with the increasing influence of the demon, the king’s youngest son, Merovech, gave up his monastic training to quest after the sword. He managed to sneak into the demon’s lair and steal the sword right out from beneath the creature’s nose. He went on to use the weapon to fight against and finally rid the kingdom of the demon’s influence, although he did die from the wounds he sustained before managing to deliver the killing blow to the demon itself. In honor of his great deeds, the Red Seax remains in the prince’s tomb where it awaits to be used once again to defend the realm against evil.

For those interested, I used random tables here and here to come up with the properties and the background of the sword.

Meditating on How I Play the Game

Having read JB’s thoughts on the matter and some of the rants that inspired his post, I want to share some of my thoughts, but not in a philosophical, ranty kind of way. Like others, I find the video that started off this whole series of posts to be rather a waste of time and largely mistaken. To explain how, I want to tell the stories of several seminal moments in my experience as someone who plays RPGs:

Moment the First

When I was a wee high-school baby, I was introduced through some of my older friends to a cigarette smoking college student who wanted to start running a D&D campaign. The premise was simple. He showed us a map of where our characters were and asked us what we wanted to do. I remember how eye-opening it was to be at the steering wheel of the campaign: “You mean this whole campaign can be about us trying to hunt down and kill that blue dragon you told us about!? YES!” And, indeed that was the entirety of the campaign.

It was also the first and last time I played a Chaotic Evil character. While I remember the campaign fondly, I do not remember my fellow players that way. Since all the players knew my character was Chaotic Evil (and therefore a threat, although what kind of danger they expected out of a 1st level Illusionist, I don’t know) and therefore they were always trying to kill my character. The DM, however, always had my back. Even when I blatantly explained how my actions were rather Chaotic and Evil, he always made the players explain to him how their characters would know. When they failed (because I was VERY careful that my actions could be interpreted as helpful) the DM would disallow every attempt to kill me off.

In other words, the DM did a really good job of being a DM. He gave us a bunch of freedom to do whatever we wanted within his world, but very strictly enforced parameters around that freedom. There were certain things that were just not going to happen (like using player knowledge to screw with other players at the table). This actually made the freedom we had as players more valuable. For example, I knew I could get away with certain CE-like acts because the DM made sure that players couldn’t abuse their player knowledge and, in a way, I think he enjoyed how much I toed the line so that being CE never actually overtly hurt the party.

Moment the Second

Like many players in the 90s I played a lot of White Wolf products, and believe it or not I really appreciated these games. They actually taught me a lot about how to play a game. When my friends approached me about playing Vampire for the first time, for some odd reason they wanted me to be the…was it Storyteller? is that what they called the Referee/DM/GM? The reason I say odd, is because I rarely sat in the DM’s chair when we played. In retrospect, it might have been the few times I ran Call of Cthulhu one-shots that inspired them to ask me to take the reigns of a horror-themed RPG.

If I am honest, I rather didn’t waste a lot of time reading up on “how to play” essays littered throughout the industry. I learned by doing and this was the first real opportunity I had to put into practice what I had learned from my experience in Moment the First. I presented my players with a world: Boston. I informed them of that world through their various clans and then dropped a McGuffin into the whole mess where everybody wanted the McGuffin for different reasons. I then allowed my players to do what they wanted to do (within the parameters set by the game and by the setting).

In many ways, it was one of the more thoroughly satisfying campaigns I have ever been a part of, because I was surprised every time we played. My players refused to be predictable and as a consequence, my world had to react in ways I never imagined. It all culminated in a rousing three-way battle in the middle of Cambridge which left the players catching their breath in disbelief that they had actually survived. The best part: one of the players decided that it was in the best interest of everybody that the McGuffin be destroyed. I remember the player asking me if he could talk to me in private, because he wasn’t really sure that what he wanted to do was allowed. When I said, “Sure, why not?” I saw in him myself when that cigarette smoking DM asked our party what we wanted do to. He suddenly realized how much power he had over his own character and the campaign. The reaction around the table when the McGuffin shattered to pieces was one of the best moments I have ever had at an RPG table. I wasn’t responsible for that reaction, but I set up the freedom and the parameters for its possibility. I have been trying to duplicate this atmosphere for my players ever since and every campaign has a moment just like this, where my world interacts with a group of players that have taken the reigns of the campaign to create something that I could never manufacture on my own, even if I tried.

Moment the Third

In another White Wolf campaign, the group I played with decided to give Mage a try. We all toiled over character creation and painstakingly crafted the characters we all thought we wanted to play. Then our Storyteller? Referee? did something rather surprising that we all found shockingly fun: once he had introduced the fundamentals of the campaign, he handed us our characters’ counter-parts in the Technocracy. I ended up with a chick in a wheelchair. At first we all were not very happy, but then as we started to play we all realized that playing these characters that we had nothing to do with the creation of was actually more fun than playing our actual characters. I had no time invested in this character at all so I seized upon some of the things I saw on the character sheet and began playing her personality to the hilt without any fear of having this character die or be harmed or of even being liked. Other players followed suit and we soon found ourselves clicking as party, playing off of each other and outdoing ourselves when we had those carefully crafted characters we spent so much time creating. We were actually disappointed when we had to go back to our own characters.

Playing wheelchair chick made me realize that unfettered creativity isn’t all that creative. Left to our own devices, we human beings are kind of boring. When we start putting limiters on where we start with our creativity, whether those limits are playing a character we had nothing to do with creating, using random tables, rolling attributes in order, using only the Fiend Folio or Monster Manual II, using B/X or the original three LBBs as a starting point or whatever, the choices we make are going to surprise us and lead down paths we would never have thought of otherwise. This was yet another example of complete freedom within a set of strict parameters that just exploded with creativity and good fun. I have used random tables ever since.

Moment the Fourth

I will end with a bad experience. It was the first time I played D&D 3.5 with a DM that pretty much resembled the fellow in the video that started this mass spilling of virtual ink. Our party found ourselves in a time-crunch. We couldn’t retreat for fear of the evil we had uncovered getting away and becoming more powerful. So we pressed forward through the dungeon we were in despite not being prepared in the way 3.5 expects its players to be. When we got to the boss fight, it should have been a TPK. We couldn’t afford to retreat, but we couldn’t do damage at a rate that would allow us to survive the encounter. In fact, my character was completely incapable of doing any damage. I was out of spells and was only good as a meat shield. When the DM realized the situation, he started fudging die rolls and inexplicably changed tactics so that our party could actually start doing the kind of damage we needed to do in order to survive.

I actually felt cheated. My character should have died and I was robbed of a(n in)glorious death. We missed an opportunity as a group to re-think our party make-up and the way in which we approached the campaign to start anew and having to deal with all of the consequences of our previous party’s failure. Instead, we were all slaves of the story. The campaign never really recovered for me, but the upside is that it created an opening for me to introduce this group of players to Labyrinth Lord and the Lost Colonies were born. Although I have been sore tempted to fudge a die roll now and then, I have done my best to keep myself honest by rolling all my dice in the open ever since. As a consequence, even when those die rolls have resulted in the death of a beloved character, I have never felt cheated.

Why I Don't Like Most Modern Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Or, Why D&D Rocks

So, my last post generated quite a bit of dialogue, all of which I found really interesting and it got me thinking. I don’t watch a lot of American-made TV shows and I have been to see a movie in a movie theater maybe three times in the last decade and barley remember the last time I either wasn’t disappointed or wanted to go back and see the movie I had just seen again. Part of it is that much of the entertainment business in the U.S. (and the English-speaking world) holds me in contempt for my religious views and that contempt is shoved in my face frequently enough that I don’t readily commit a lot of my entertainment dollar or time to their product.

However, I also think that the entire industry suffers from the very same problem that the show The Magicians does: at its core is a postmodern, post-Christian and post-religious world-view. As long as our story-tellers are dedicated to this view of life, the universe and everything then they are incapable of telling good stories.

Let me explain: as did the ancient Greeks, I categorize every story as either a comedy or a tragedy. In other words, the hero succeeds or the hero fails. Comedy or tragedy alone, however, do not make a good, compelling story because comedy and tragedy are simply about how the hero succeeds or fails, not why. The best heroes and villains are broken. Their journey towards success or failure depends upon why they are able to transcend that brokenness or why they cannot.

For example, one of the best movie trilogies to come out in the last decade or so, as far as I am concerned, is the Kung-fu Panda series. In each movie we are presented with a flawed hero (Po) who is a clumsy, nerdy, out-of-shape orphan who does not know who he is. The trilogy is his journey of overcoming his flaws, his preconceptions and his circumstance to become the Dragon Warrior. The why in all of this has to do with love, sacrifice, humility and the ability to understand that each of us does, in fact, have a role larger than ourselves.

The trilogy also presents us with three flawed villains who are the hero of their own story. Each of them has a reason for their villainy, a reason that is relatable and understandable. Should the audience find themselves in the villain’s shoes, they could easily make the same choices.

At the climax of each movie, Po tells each villain how to win. In each case, their own ego and burning desire for revenge prevent them from seeing the truth about who they are and the victory that is within reach.

At the heart of all of this is a world-view where the divine exists. Po overcomes his shortcomings because there is something greater in the world that he can tap into and be transformed by. The villains all fail because they do not have the humility to see the divine in themselves to be transformed. It is their very insistence on doing everything on their own without the divine that spells their doom.

In a world without the divine, Po cannot transcend his flaws. He is doomed to be a clumsy, nerdy, out-of-shape orphan that has no chance of defeating the villains. Without the transformative force of the divine, Po makes a completely unbelievable hero. If Po is to succeed in a world without the divine, he must simply be bigger, badder and better than the villains he faces. There is no transformation. There is no real why. The hero simply succeeds because that is what heroes do.

For an example of this, look no further than Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens. Rey has no flaws. She does not grow. She has no need to transform in order to overcome the challenges and villainy that are placed before her. Before anyone starts complaining that the Force is a type of divinity and she uses the Force in the movie, compare the hero’s journey of Luke Skywalker to Rey. Skywalker was a loser at the beginning of the movie who had to learn about the Force and how to trust in it and allow the Force to flow through him. When he tries to do things on his own, he fails. When he finally internalizes his trust in the Force, he succeeds. Rey never has to do any of that. No one teaches her anything. She just knows. The Force is reduced to being part of why she is bigger, badder and better than the villains she gets to overpower.

There are various ways that post-modern story tellers try to overcome this inherent flaw. They construct these massive mysteries as distractions (who are Rey’s parents? why did Luke run away? what happened to the republic and the empire? who are the First Order? etc.) or make use of cliffhangers or surprises (which character won’t survive this week/this movie?). I won’t deny that these devices can be entertaining; however, once the surprise wears off and the mystery becomes less mysterious there really is no meat or heart to the story.

The timeless stories we tell are timeless because they are transformative. They show us that we can be the hero of our story and that we can be transformed and overcome our own flaws. As a kid who was a loser and a nerd I can totally identify with Po and Luke. I can be like them. I can trust in the divine and through learning about myself and my place in the larger world I can be transformed into something beyond my own expectations and hopes. In contrast, I can’t identify with Rey at all, nor can I ever be like her. She’s a superwoman who can do no wrong. There is no mechanism by which I can be like her.

This is why I love RPGs, especially D&D in all its various iterations. By its very nature, D&D defies a postmodern, post-Christian and post-religious world-view. Not only is the divine assumed because of divine magic and clerics, but every character begins as a loser who must learn to cooperate with others using their own special skills and abilities in order to find out their place in the larger story of the world. The better they get at this, the more they are transformed. They get to go from being 1st level nobodies who are one goblin hit away from being worm food to being 9th level Lords who cleanse the Wilderness of monsters and now protect the land from a stronghold they built.

This is also why I think D&D became so popular and has survived so long. It taps into the transformative, timeless tales human beings have told since the beginning of time. It allows us to be that hero and to find out why we succeed or fail.

I am either an Optimist, a Fool or Both

One of the most influential moments of my life was sitting next to my dad in a theater (that is now a parking lot) watching Star Wars for the very first time. When Lucas re-released Star Wars, I had a very intense flash back, and almost asked my friend sitting next to me, "Dad, is that guy dead?" after the first rebel was shot down by a storm trooper in the first minutes of the film just as I did the first time I saw the movie.

As a result, I am a "Han shot first!" kinda guy; however, I have never been a partisan. I acknowledge that Star Wars was George Lucas's creation and that he has the right to do whatever he wants to with it.  However, no matter how much George Lucas mucks with it, he can never take away that moment of magic when I sat next to my dad and watched Star Wars for the first time.

Thus, I am not as shocked or disgusted as some are at the news that Lucas has sold Lucasfilm to Disney and that they plan on making a new movie. Rather (once again) I acknowledge that Lucas can do whatever he pleases with his creation and am even a tad bit hopeful.

Before anyone calls me a fool, let me put this into context. The vast majority of fans agree that the prequels were, if not horrible, then disappointing. Further, I would argue that many of us think that Empire is the best movie of the bunch.

It is here that I would draw a parallel to the trajectory of Lucas and Star Wars with TSR and D&D. OD&D/Holmes are akin to the original Star Wars. Moldvay's Basic Edition is akin to Empire. The originals are awesome, but their sequels improve on that awesomeness. However, everything that follows is increasingly disappointing.

Yes, I enjoyed both Return of the Jedi and AD&D, but they weren't as good as what came before (I know AD&D came out at about the same time or, in the case of the MMI, before Moldvay, but the analogy still works in the trajectory of Basic comes before Advanced).

By the time TSR went under, the product being produced was a far cry from the original and, in a lot of cases, not worth the paper it was printed on — similar to how many of us feel about the Star Wars prequels. When TSR went under, WotC bought the rights to D&D, produced the OGL and ushered in the beginnings of the golden age that we are currently living in.

This is why I am a bit hopeful for the Star Wars brand. It took another company with a brand-new perspective to re-invigorate D&D. The same might very well be true of Star Wars. By the time the prequels came out, Lucas was too powerful for anyone to say no, and the story got lost in all the new toys that he had at his disposal, in the same way TSR was more interested in putting out product than in actually playing the game.

Maybe, just maybe, Disney will do for Star Wars what WotC did for D&D. Now I will grant that the best thing WotC did was to give the game to us via the OGL and Disney is not likely to follow suit with Star Wars so there is plenty of room for this whole endeavor to go disasterously wrong; however, I choose to hope.

Here There be Monsters

My afternoon today found me spending time comforting my oldest daughter who had a rather nasty spill on the playground this morning. One of her requests was watching an old episode of Secrets of the Dead with me. She, like me, is really interested in how scientists can reconstruct events of the past through the study of bones, ruins, artifacts, etc. The episode in question was an investigation of the disappearance of the Minoans.

According to the show, we don’t know a lot about the Minoans. We just recently deciphered their written language (Linear A) and most of what we know is from myth. The Minoans had a cult based upon the bull and there is evidence that they made human sacrifices which were then eaten. This, of course, is strongly associated with the Greek story of the minotaur — the bull headed man who ate his victims alive.

The Minoans also likely had a female priesthood associated with some kind of snake goddess — among the various Minoan artifacts is a statue of a woman holding snakes in her hands. I couldn’t help but wonder if this weren’t the origin of Medusa or some other serpentine monster.

This also made me call to mind another episode which detailed how the Aztecs not only ripped the heart out of their human sacrificial victims, but took bones from their victims as trophies to hang in their homes and even ate them.

All of this reminded me that while we who are fond of fantasy and play FRPGs tend to associate such behavior with the mythological and the monstrous — the scene from Two Towers where the orcs are arguing over whether or not to eat Merry and Pippin comes immediately to mind — all of this nasty behavior can be traced back to human beings.

Not surprisingly, in both the case of the Minoans and the Aztecs this sacrificial cannibalism is justified via a twisted combination of religion and politics. Continuous sacrifice is made necessary to both appease the gods and keep various populations under control. This is a pattern, by the way, that Christianity shatters. Rather than demanding sacrifice, Christ gives Himself up as the ultimate sacrifice once and for all. It is also a pattern that keeps popping up once Christianity is pushed to the side — the Jews under Nazi Germany and the Bourgeois under Communism, for example.

Although one of the primary uses of RPGs in general is escapism, I cannot help but believe that RPGs (particularly FRPGs like D&D) can be very good at holding up that mirror to the fallenness and brokenness of humanity. Personally, I am forced to ask the question every time I play — are the monsters sin personified (and therefore unsalvageable) or are they human in some way fashion or form (and therefore worth saving)? This is particularly true when I have a group of players that enjoys talking to monsters as much as fighting them.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: one of the reasons that D&D is as successful and enduring as it is has to do with the fact that it is a pastiche. This allows a tremendous amount of freedom for we as players to explore (or not) just about anything we want to bring to the table. It can be both pure escapism and the horror of looking at the monster that is fallen humanity.

By the way, scientists have determined that the Minoans were wiped out by a combination of natural disasters. The island of what is now known as Santorini is a volcano that erupted with a Krakatoa-like force causing not just one tsunami comparable to the one that decimated Asia in 2004, but at least three of them. As a result, given the mythological connection with the minotaur, the show wondered if this destruction weren’t the source of the story of Atlantis. Food for thought for anyone who wants to include some version of Atlantis into a campaign...

A Sense of Place

I recently had a conference in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and though I did not get much of a chance to wander around and get a sense of the place, I was acutely aware that I was in the place where my favorite hobby was essentially born. It reminded me that within a four hour drive south one could also find the birth place of both GDW, creators of Traveller, in Normal, IL and Judges Guild in Decatur, IL.

Recently, James over at Grognardia asked the question if there was such a thing as “California games.” He cites Runequest, Arduin and Warlock and now (thanks to Dan of Gobinoid Games) Wizards’ World is also part of that tapestry.

In Orthodox Christianity, there is still a very strong pull towards the pilgrimage. I myself have done so on several occasions — to Mt. Athos, Thessaloniki (to follow the footsteps of St. Paul), and the island of Aegina and the tomb of St. Nektarios. There is a personal presence that accompanies these places because of the people I went to see — the various saints of the Orthodox Church. There is also a very powerful sense of the holy.

Lake Geneva, Normal and Decatur are not Mt. Athos, Thessaloniki and Aegina, but I cannot help but wonder what it is about the plains of the Midwest that inspired such a creative explosion in the 70s. It is a reverse of James’ question about California: Are there common themes in gaming cultures that coalesce into a certain kind of game? I would ask: How much does a sense of place have to do with these expressions?

Given that the primary place for gaming culture is no longer something one can find on a map, is this question even relevant any more, or am I just waxing poetic because of a deep sense of nostalgia?

As G+, FLAILSNAILS, Kickstarter and POD become the new gaming norm, what sense of place do we as gamers have anymore — if we ever had one in the first place?

Saintly Saturday: St. Abercius of Hierapolis

Today is the feast of St. Abercius the Wonderworker of Hierapolis and is a remarkable way to end this particular week. He was a 2nd century bishop in the Phrygian city of Hierapolis where the cult of Apollo was not only popular, but the chief patron of the city. While the city was celebrating a festival in honor of their favorite deity, St. Abercius received a revelation where he was instructed to destroy the idols.

That night he snuck into the temple and proceeded to overturn all of the statues therein. As dawn broke and the revelers discovered the saint's work, he boldly declared that all the gods must have become drunk from the quantity of libations offered them and then got into a fight with each other in their drunken confusion.

Enraged at the insult to their gods, a mob began to form in order to take revenge. They were stopped in their tracks by fear, however, when St. Abercius cast out demons from three young men. Upon hearing the Gospel, the crowd and then the city became Christian. St. Abercius reposed in peace near the end of the second century.

I find it remarkable that at the end of a week where I asked the question Is Christianity Compatible With D&D that I get to tell the story of a Christian saint involved in what can only be called a trope of both Sword & Sorcery tales and D&D. The scenario of sneaking into a temple to either steal stuff or do damage plays a significant part in my own formation as an S&S fan and a D&D player.

My introduction to the genre was Lawrence Watt-Evans second installment of his Lords of Dûs series, The Seven Altars of Dûsarra:

The crux of the story has Garth the Overman sneaking into all the temples of the Dark Gods in order to steal whatever is on their altars.

I realize that there is many an REH fan who despises Swarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian (I tentatively place myself among them); however, it was my first "D&D movie" and I still get a kick out of how Conan and company steal the Eye of the Serpent from the Temple of Set.

Speaking of REH, I came late to the creator of Conan. As many before me, I have come to really enjoy his stories. My favorite is The God in the Bowl which sees Conan sneaking into what the locals call Kallian Publico's Temple

Lest we forget, the idea of sneaking into temples are part and parcel to several modules from the early days of the hobby:

• A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity
• C1 Hidden Shrine of Tanoachan
• D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa
• T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil
• WG 4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun

I am sure these are not the last and that I am leaving out others. Needless to say, this just goes to show that even saints have been known to sneak into places to do things we might only expect a D&D PC to do…