Why Playing Dungeons & Dragons Is a Spiritual Practice

Last Saturday, the whole gang finally ended an epic eight-month Pathfinder roleplaying game campaign, finally reaching the end of the story we were telling together.  After many, many nail-biting, caffeine-chugging hours, we saved the world!  And the story, though incredibly complex and confusing, offered me one particular God-moment that I will never forget.

Making a looong story short, my character was a Samsaran⁽¹⁾ paladin⁽²⁾ who served Pharasma⁽³⁾ and worked with a team of heroes to prevent Lolth⁽⁴⁾ from making the world a living hell.

⁽¹⁾ blue-skinned humanoid who continually reincarnates in the pursuit of enlightenment

⁽²⁾ hero-champion of a god

⁽³⁾ the Goddess of Death – neutral, peaceful death rather than destructive, macabre death or undeath

⁽⁴⁾ eeeeeeeevil goddess Demon Queen of Spiders

                          

[sample image of a Samsaran, from Paizo's Pathfinder]            [Pharasma, PathfinderWiki.com]

[Lolth, www.ObsidianPortal.com]

And despite the fact that I already gave a full sermon this summer on the spiritual significance of folks’ love of fantasy stories and games*, I feel moved to share one scene in that last 10-hour session which gave me all the tell-tale signs that God is making God’s presence known – hot tears in the eye, prickly skin, and big smile on the face.

Just as all of our heroes finally reached the end boss combat with Lolth herself, Lolth hurled some insta-kill magic at us all.  Then the Dungeon Master, the storyteller in chief, gave each of our characters the saving grace of a theophany, the full physical appearance of each of our gods.  He told me that my character felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Pharasma; and the goddess looked Lolth dead in the eye and said, “You will never, ever take one of mine from me.”

I suspect I’m not the only one who quietly longs to have that kind of experience with God.  To be accepted totally, the way Pharasma accepted the service and devotion of my blue-tinted paladin, who had struggled with moral alignment issues throughout the story.  To have such a powerful embodiment of deeply valued truths stand there in all her glory – standing by and supporting a person of imperfect faith in the face of destruction and pain.  Pharasma, the impassive Lady of Graves, ambivalently neutral in Pathfinder canon but – since the storyteller is a seminarian, after all - gently pastoral ‘in person’.

I will never stop talking about the essentially pastoral nature of God, and I will never stop seeking and collecting and reveling in and sharing every moment experienced in the visceral reality of that pastoral power.  So I won’t stop playing games like Dungeons & Dragons anytime soon.

Though my friends take the opportunity in these games to pretend to be all kinds of different things, roleplaying their way through different perspectives and personas, I will always be a paladin at heart.  D&D helps me realize in some small way my dream of being a heroic person of faith for whom God is always present and always felt, and who finds her own power for doing good in the awe-inspiring reality of God.

* “Dungeons & Dragons & Daniel in the Den”, Eliot Unitarian Chapel, June 23, 2013, http://www.eliotchapel.org/recentsermons