Update?

Cramming a semester of upper division classes into five weeks doesn't leave much room for anything else, and of course life doesn't bother slowing down at all. I believe that my brainstem is trying to redefine 'vacation' as 'time spent not working on something with a deadline'. In other news, there may be a rather substantial writing job on the horizon, which can only make things better.

Given what schedules are going to look like, I'm afraid that my favorite hobby is going to suffer. The usual alternate Sunday Pathfinder/dnd game is going to continue, but my plans for a regular game otherwise are staggering away bleeding. As a result, I may throw together some limited session or one-shot games. A few brisk rounds of Kill Puppies For Satan, My Life With Master, Mountain Witch or some other fun little independent game might just tickle my RPG nerve enough to keep me happy.

When pondering games that I'd only played briefly or encountered briefly, I tripped across the memory of a self-styled 'Christian' RPG who a childhood friend introduced me to. The game was called DragonRaid, and it was designed as a learning tool as well as an RPG. Of course, this game came out in 1984, during the peak of the anti-Dungeons and Dragons phase, and it pushes very hard to prove that it is a different creature entirely. I recalled that it involved memorizing and reciting Bible passages, and I had some vague and intriguing memory that it used allegory rather well. In wondering what happened to the game, I did a little scrounging around and didn't find much except some information that the game didn't do very well and got panned by some Christian groups.

Anyway, thanks to the beneficence of another friend, I got another look at DragonRaid, and it is fascinating to look at the game with my current perspective. It's a very peculiar game with a fairly simple system, and I noticed a certain disparity in how it presents itself.

First, DragonRaid is a thinly-veiled allegory for missionary work. The party is composed of 'TwiceBorn', who come out of a kingdom which is entirely invulnerable to the enemy's forces. They are sent on missions to try and save 'OnceBorn', who live under the rule of the dragons and other 'dark' creatures in the rest of the world. It is emphasized that death of the TwiceBorn merely results in a quick ticket to paradise, of course. The game includes talking animals and a very definitive black-and-white morality, and the way the game works, there really isn't much room for moral quandary. You see, rather than magic, the game uses what it calls WordRunes, which are selected Bible passages that have a pre-determined in-game effect. For example, one short passage will hide your character from evil eyes for a time. Passages are divided by level, and a player cannot recite a passage above his appropriate skill level. Interestingly, a player cannot recite a passage a certain margin BELOW his skill level, either. These passages thwart much of the evil influence one can encounter in the game, and the constant emphasis on adhering to Biblical principles is provided in a simplistic way which ensures a black and white view. This is further made apparent by the presence of such skills as Sense Evil and Hatred of Evil. What does Hatred of Evil do? It lets you do more damage when beating on evil creatures.

From a mechanical standpoint, good and evil are therefore sharply defined. When one character has fallen under a 'Sin Enchantment', causing him or her to act in a decidedly unvirtuous fashion, the game imposes a mechanical penalty on the WHOLE PARTY until the enchantment is dealt with. Though a points system is provided for 'Rescue' in these situations, the real arbiter of whether a Sin Enchantment is lifted is the fellow running the game, as the process involves the other party members offering calm, reasonable advice and so on to the affected person. Biblical citations, of course, are welcome.

The way that the mechanics function and the basic portrayal of the setting provide a rather sterilized vessel for adventuring. Yes, there is Evil, but it can never win. Evil cannot even provide a threat to the homes and families of the TwiceBorn. Yes, the TwiceBorn risk life and limb to bring their message to the OnceBorn, but death just leads to privilege and negative influences can be overcome largely by pointing at a Biblical reference and saying 'I believe this'. I understand the desire to provide a feel-good sort of game, particularly as the author intended to use this as a teaching tool, but this is where we find the inconsistencies and peculiarities in the game.

One of the skills is Resist Torture. Isn't that interesting? Suddenly, the sterilized, white-washed adventuring game isn't so white-washed. There isn't an expansive list of skills, and the fact that Resist Torture is on that list says something about the game. It is logical to assume that torture, presented in such a world, is there as a hurdle of faith. But it is a very adult, very gruesome hurdle of faith. Perhaps we can paint a different picture of the DragonRaid setting: the Onceborn live in an oppressive, dangerous world where fear, anger and despair keep them from believing. Bitterness keeps them from belief as well, and that same bitterness may be expressed by TwiceBorn who, emerging from their invulnerable paradise of a kingdom, discover that awful things are going on outside. Why were only a handful saved? Why isn't everyone saved? Guilt at living a happy life while others suffer might take root. Finally, we have some personal conflicts which cannot be resolved through regurgitation of Bible verse. It shouldn't ever be easy to just acknowledge that a good God lets awful things happen to good people for no apparent reason.

Another odd example I noticed was a skill called 'Righteously Mingle With Evil', which displayed the odd dichotomy that DragonRaid has about the nature of evil. Apparently the TwiceBorn are guaranteed salvation unless enchanted by a dark creature... or hanging around people who swear, apparently. I call this glass cannon faith; saying that virtue is an unassailable fortress with one breath and then thinking that any exposure to anything sinful is somehow a threat. This is expressed on the difficulty chart, which are situations rated from one to ten on how difficult it is to Righteously Mingle With Evil. According to this chart, the top three most difficult situations for a TwiceBorn to avoid 'contamination with evil' involve having various degrees of friendship with a OnceBorn.

Whatever happened to 'love one another'? I didn't think that was exclusive to any group in particular.

Now, I've got a problem with any group who automatically decries another for strong beliefs. I've met pagans who were just as prejudicial, close-minded and reactionary as the fundamentalist Christians they were complaining about. I've met atheists who were far more vitriolic about belief than most religious people are about atheists. So, there are some parts about DragonRaid that rub me the wrong way. But there are also some fascinating design choices in the game, and I can see some good potential in it. I love that the primary attributes are all virtues. I love that these virtues all have active roles in the mechanics and therefore tie directly to character behavior in decisions. The system is a bit clumsy, but it functions fairly well and I
definitely cite it as a system which supports the themes and feel of the game itself, and it does well. One of my favorite design decisions involve the dragons in DragonRaid, which are very flavorful and interesting; rather than vitality or hit points, dragons have Pride, which is reduced in combat as well as when someone refutes their attempts at persuasion. When a dragon has no more Pride, its physical body dies.

In sum, I can see this game run in about three different ways. I think I may throw together a few characters and use it for a one-shot game some weekend and see what game ends up getting played.