Challenging your prejudices is an attempt to make yourself a better person, something that I consider laudable and to be encouraged and supported.

I agree completely with your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. Well said.

Now, if I have to be around someone like that at a public event, such as a tournament game session I’m running, I will grit my teeth and deal with it — it’s not my place to oust such people in those situations. However, even then, I refuse to accommodate such prejudices in my game-mastering.

Too many people want to play heroes in their RPGs but refuse to stand up for what’s right in real life. I can not honestly claim I am not a bigot if I make my gaming group into a sanctuary for bigots to openly enjoy their bigotry without consequence or rebuttal.

I think I can better explain what I mean through two examples.

Example Firstus: It was a new group’s first game, a spy campaign, and we were playing out the PCs’ first introduction to each other. One of the players was playing an African-American tech expert. When she described her PC’s appearance, one of the players blurted out, “Why are you playing a — ” and then he used a racist term for an African-American. We all took a deep breath and asked him very politely, “Is that your character saying that?” He looked confused and told us, “No. But she’s White; why’s she gotta be playing a — ” and then he used that racist term again. At that point, I informed him coldly that such terms were not going to be used in my home, not unless a PC or NPC used them for characterization and maybe not even then. His only response was to ask me whether he had to expect any Black NPCs among the good guys in the game. Yes, he did, and I tried to be courteous and positive when I told him in effect that I refused to excise all Black PCs and NPCs from my campaign merely to make him comfortable in his racism. He apologized to the player of the African-American tech expert, refused to look at her for the rest of the game, and twitched a lot. None of us were upset when he decided not to show up for the next gaming session.

Example Secondus: This time, the new player was the roommate of another player. His first game, he discovered that two male PCs were lovers. He stopped the play by complaining that he didn’t come to a game to see “sick things like that”. While the player who’d brought him flushed red with embarrassment, we informed the new player that the two male players playing the gay PCs were lovers in real life. We also pointed out that another male player was bisexual and one of the two women players was a lesbian. He stared at us like we were Deep Ones at Innsmouth, then demanded we admit we were just making this up to tease him. He said to us, “I thought this was a Christian game.” Well, games have no religion, we pointed out, but most of us attended the same Christian church — a gay-friendly Christian church. “I don’t mind playing with you as long as they play normal people not gay people,” he said. At that point, we thanked him for his time and suggested he game elsewhere.

I agree with you that we should be considerate about other people’s beliefs and creeds. The purpose of an RPG is fun, not enlightenment and not a civics lesson.

However, there are times when we should draw that line in the sand and say, “No, I will not accommodate you in your racism or your homophobia or your hatreds.” There aren’t many, but they are there.

Oi vey. Has this man not read the Bible, the book of Revelation in particular? The Bible makes no bones about the fact that we live in a world of angels and demons and, ergo, supernatural interference, aka magic.

I sympathize with those who struggle to understand how the game interacts with their religious convictions in the real life, but I cringe at your friend’s interpretation of the Bible. (Wrong forum, I know.)

Shalom.

For magic to work, even in the hands of a villain, even conceptually, implies that something not of God has power over mortals beyond what power they voluntarily give him (as I understand it), and is therefore banned. Your position rests on distinguishing between a pretence and real life, and that is incompatable with a requirement to be faithful in “thought, word, and deed”. To the followers of such religion, playing a killer or a thief in a game is just as big a black mark as actually committing such acts, and protestations to the contrary are on a par with “I smoked marijouna but did not inhale”.

I don’t personally agree with such a strict interpretation. But your last point is spot on the money; if there was not only no magic, but no seeming of magic, it was fine. It’s worth remembering that he was struggling because he didn’t agree with what he had been taught, but still believed in the faith; he was struggling to reconcile his personal beliefs with what he had been told he had to believe by people he trusted absolutely.

Sooner or later, we all discover something that runs counter to what we’ve been taught to believe. It starts with the realisation that there’s no santa claus. From that point on, we experience a perpetual struggle to reconcile our own observations and opinions with superior authority. He just had a sharper case of it to deal with than most people, is all.

@ Jason: Glad to have a comment adding to the positive side of the ledger. I must say that I was a little concerned about posting this blog entry in the first place, as it seemed to be an open invitation to flame wars with intolerant people. I rewrote the blog three times before I was satisfied that my points were being made as objectively as possible, and then trusted the gaming community to respond thoughtfully and with integrity. I have to say that I have been proven absolutely right to do so by the insightful discussion that’s ensued. Well done, folks!