Is Dungeons & Dragons an evil game?

its as bad as pokemon, or heroscape, or any of the other kid card games out there. the only threat to your mortal soul is you may be labled a nerd for playing it

ROFLCOPTERS! Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy styled table top game that has started the tradition of role playing games for decades to come. Yeah it's got demons and stuff in it but it's all made up. Fable has creatures too similar to the ones just like in Dungeons and Dragons such as orcs or trolls and you gotta go around slaying evil creatures to advance and follow a storyline just as any other rpg game. The book Catcher in the Rye could be considered "evil" cause it made a guy kill John Lennon and yet people still read it and not everyone feels the sudden need to go around killing people. Overall, it's just a game to be enjoyed no harm in it.

I've been playing D&D for 29 years.

I've was ordained as a Christian minister 27 years ago.

In all my years, I've never seen anything in D&D that is in conflict with the Bible. The very worst I've seen is that the game is very fun to play - and time slips away, which has led me to play late into the evening... making it hard to wake up on Sunday morning to go to church.

The game is make believe. Have you ever watched a movie and imagined that you were the character on the screen? D&D is the same thing. Through the use of dice and a book full of rules, you get the description of a character that could be in a movie. Then the Dungeon Master creates a story like a playwright or a movie director. The biggest difference is that when the director (DM) describes the scene and yells "Action!" it is when YOU get to react to the scene.

Imagine walking down a street and seeing a thief trying to steal a woman's purse. What do you do? You can keep walking or try to stop the robbery. If you decide to stop it, do you just stand there and scream for the police or do you do it yourself? If you do it yourself, do you just run up and try to push the thief away or hit him on the head with a base-ball bat?

Congratulations - you were just playing D&D. It's the same thing.

My nephew is Catholic, as well, and enjoyed playing Dungeons and Dragons game for years. He turned out perfectly fine. In my opinion, there is nothing evil about the game. It is just a game. If you decide not to play it, do it because your father requested you to do it. Do not do it for any other reason.

As for me, during lunch, I often joined a Baptist church group and played ping pong. My parents did not have any problems with it. The kids were nice and well behaved. The priest at my parish "had kittens" and thought it was terrible. My parents listened to the priest and let me stay. The did ask me whether the kids tried to talk about religion or anything like that. I said no. I seem to recall mentioning that we said prayers before we ate and the Lord's Prayer that I learned was different than theirs. My dad asked me if I changed even the way I said the prayer. I said I stuck to the way I learned it and none of the kids made a comment.

Have also heard people say that the Harry Potter books are evil and the students at Hogwarth's School worship Satan... Fooey! It is just a series of novels and if the truth be known, it is filled with bravery, honesty, curiosity and just plain fun. It is just a story and nothing else.

Just because I am disagreeing with your dad does not mean you should do something behind his back and play the game. When you get older and have kids of your own, your opinions might change and you'll understand that the evil in the world is not in kid's games or books. It resides within the hearts and souls of people who are cruel, greedy and prejudiced. It resides in all too many political leaders.

Dungeons & Dragons is a role-playing game. It's based on fantasy, like mythology of different cultures, or Lord of the Rings kind of stuff. Satan isn't mentioned in it.

It uses dice, not cards. And books, and paper and pens.

You create a "character"-- you could be an elf, or a human, or a dwarf. you could decide to be good, or evil, or somewhere in between. You could be a wizard, or a thief, or a fighter. You roll the dice to determine things like how strong or smart your character is, and how many points he gets.

The "Dungeon Master" (DM) makes up an adventure. He'll describe to you the setting and what's happening, if you meet someone along the way.

You tell him what you want to do. You roll the dice to see if you succeed.

For instance, the DM might tell you there is a treasure chest ahead of you. You could tell him you want to try and open it, or check it for traps, or load it on your wagon (if you've bought one), or you want to ignore it and go on. Lets say you choose to open it. The DM might tell you it's filled with treasure, or that an angry skeleton in armor with a sword jumped out to fight you. You tell him what you want to do next. You roll to see if you succeed.

It's fun, if you like play-acting and fantasy.

A lot of Christians have been calling it a Satanic game since it came out. I've played many games, honestly Satan just never came up.

Dungeons and dragons literally has a lot in common with Linux. Back in the old days, (fifties and sixties) there were a bunch of board games from avalon hill (my brother was into them) which reenacted historic battles by adapting traditional markings for analyzing them -- military technology but not weapons. Around when the game Adventure, which combined some tolkien imagery and database technology, began circulating among computer geeks, two guys named Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, who were into both Tolkien and Avalon Hill games, combined the processes of Avalon Hill games and the imagery of elves, dwarfs and so forth into an essentially do-it-yourself kit which allowed thousands of us late baby-boomers to create our own games to play with friends. This was Dungeons and Dragons.

There is a lot of talk about how anything with fantastic imagery is in league with the devil. Tolkien was a Christian Allegory. J. K. Rowling takes her whole background for Harry Potter from Christian Legends of Witchcraft, while Eoin Colfer's Artemus Fowl series is like a children's book version of Flann O'Brien's modernist books of the early 20th century.

I would seriously get over taking peoples' opinions of what you should read into account. There are certainly bad books out there but there are many -- well-meaning -- guides which are worse.

Dungeons and Dragons is a role playing games that has Nothing to do with (you know who). There are roles you play of elf, dwarf, magician, etc., you go on quests to get things, etc. It is an innocent game and many religious people (Catholics included) have played it for years with no bad things happening. Look up the game on Google and talk to your dad based on what you find. He is probably simply misinformed. You shouldn't play without his permission, however.

It depends on what religious practice you observe. For Born Again Christians and those belonging to the Jehova's Witnesses, games such as the one you mentioned are considered evil in nature. Other religions have a more tolerable point of view.

Dungeons and Dragons, more commonly and affectionately known by its players as D&D, is the first and most famous of thefantasy role playing games (RPGs). Dungeons and Dragons is based on traditional fantasy literature such as J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. In the game, players cast themselves as imaginary characters and go on imaginary adventures in a fantasy world of their own design. Gaining popularity in the 1980s, D&D perhaps symbolized the existential angst of a youth worried about inheriting a world that was not their own.

In D&D, the Dungeon Master (DM) creates an imaginary world full of monsters, dangers, and magic. Character-players then journey through the DM's world fighting battles, stealing treasures, or outwitting monsters. The game is played verbally with conflicts settled by a role of dice.

The players create characters for themselves based on a variety of traits; strength, intelligence, and endurance are three key qualities. The level of each trait that a character acquires is determined by the roll of a dice before the game starts. Players can choose a variety of roles for their characters such as thief, assassin, fighter, and cleric, among others. Players can also choose the race for each character; choices include humans, elves, and dwarfs. The game can be played with varying degrees of complexity, depending on the experience of the players and the Dungeon Master.

D&D was originally created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. They simplified the game, moving from the action of regiments to the actions of individual fighters to create D&D. The first two print runs of the game sold out. TSR, Inc. produced the Dungeons and Dragons series starting in 1974. When D&D became very popular, especially among the college crowd, a whole industry arose. TSR published supplementary guides, including books of monsters and demigods based on world myths and legends. Dragon Magazine and other magazines devoted to gaming campaigns hit the newsstands. TSR also published book lines like Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance that had their origins in the games. Other fantasy authors incorporated D&D motifs into novels as well.

In addition to being popular, D&D was also very controversial. Campaigns can take hours, days, and sometimes even weeks to finish. Tales arose of promising college students flunking out of school because they spent all their time playing D&D. Other accusations against the game were even harsher. Many people accused it of instilling violence in the minds of the players; others said it produced suicidal tendencies, especially when a player over-identified with a character that had been killed during a game. Organizations and religious groups accused the game of being Satanic since it sometimes dealt with demons and conjuring devils. The campaign against Dungeons and Dragons eventually spawned a group known as BADD, (Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons). The group was founded by a woman who claimed that her child killed himself because of the game. The game took another publicity hit when the television movie Mazes and Monsters came out. The movie was based on an account of how D&D players took their role playing too seriously and started acting out the campaigns in the tunnels and sewers of their college.

Proponents of the games fought back, arguing that a game alone could not be the main cause of any psychological problems certain players were exhibiting. Advocates emphasized the notion that the game helped stimulate imagination and problem solving skills. Others claimed it helped vent violent feelings through imaginary play instead of acting such feelings out.

The debates about D&D generated negative publicity for the games and many concerned parents did not want their children playing. TSR continued its own positive publicity, and they began to tone down some of their manuals and game-based fiction, especially the parts that dealt with demons and conjuring. Eventually, new technologies helped D&D and other role playing games recover some popularity. One player made an interactive on-line computer version of the game called a M.U.D., a Multi-User Dungeon. MUDs became the place where computer aficionados went to play.

Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons