The book of Genesis describes God as looking over the creation He made and calling it "good;" then humans were added in we messed things up. A lot.
Not to elevate another book to nearly the same level, I found Holland's "Dominion" very interesting, with the thesis that Christianity has shaped the Western world (and, by extension, all the world) in deep and subtle ways that even affect how the opponents of Christ see and deal with the world.
I think both these images are in play when thinking about D&D (and pretty much everything else, but anyway...). Great potential, badly corrupted. Is D&D inherently Christian? I don't think so, but the imaginations and thought processes that created and maintain the game were shaped by Western Christian civilization - and, like most things, I believe that the best fulfillment of any art form is when the artist and the artist's vision is aligned with God. As I see it, D&D is no more, no less, inherently Christian or right-wing than literature or visual art or music.
Obviously, WotC's artists, authors, and their vision(s) are, as a group, very much not in line with God, and haven't been for a very long time, and that has become more generally evident in recent years.
I appreciate your more nuanced take on D&D's ruleset and how its magic system is treated as a tool and contrasted as temptations to be resisted in Tolkien and C.S. Lewis's works. The concept of D&D as having the spirit of Christianity is admirable, but you cut to the heart of the matter as pointing out that D&D in most of its incarnations as being literally might makes right even down to diplomacy and bluff checks.
We have to choose to follow Jesus Christ. Although choosing not too is akin to the parable of Jesus in the storm swept waters and leaving the boat he was taking a nap in.
God used a wizard, Balaam, to effect. When Balaam diverted from God, God used the wizard's donkey to speak to him.
God uses as we use: tools.
And almost anything can be used as a tool. For what purpose? As Christians, we should probably "entertain" ourselves by reinforcing the struggle of good vs evil. As a tool, D&D could certainly be utilized. Stories could be told within the game's framework that supports strong, moral ideals.
It’s not as simple as “God uses tools, so anything can be a tool.” That logic collapses under the weight of Scripture itself. Consider Saul in 1 Samuel 28. Desperate for guidance, Saul seeks out the Witch of Endor, a medium he had previously outlawed, and asks her to summon the prophet Samuel from the dead.
What happens? Samuel appears, but he doesn’t offer comfort or divine insight. He condemns Saul outright:
“Why then do you ask me, since the LORD has turned from you and become your enemy?” — 1 Samuel 28:16
Saul’s invocation of a forbidden “tool” doesn’t result in divine partnership. Instead, it results in judgment. The act of using a medium is portrayed as rebellion. The tool itself is not neutral; its moral weight is bound to its origin and intent.
So yes, D&D can be used to tell stories of good vs evil. But the framework matters. The symbols matter. The moral architecture matters. Not every tool is sanctified by use alone. Some tools carry curses, not blessings.
If we’re going to invoke biblical precedent, let’s not cherry-pick Balaam’s donkey and ignore Saul’s necromancy.
Thank you for writing this article! I like your work, here and on YouTube. Your use of the terms like "catechism" are well used and applicable to the post-modern, post-Christian age we find ourselves in. I do want to offer further analysis of the arguments you present to disqualify D&D and Christian and right-wing.
You state Gygax's own personal religion is merely biographical, and not informative of the game he developed. I believe this to be incorrect. I do believe his religion had an impact on the world he created. The points in criticizing the game have merit, but I think there is even more nuance to be found upon closer inspection of the meta-elements present in D&D.
Now, I will be the first to point out that Jehovah's Witnesses are most certainly not Christian (they deny the Trinity, among many other heresies), but I cannot help but notice that evil is very real in the default universe presented to us in the original and first editions of D&D. When compared to the non-religious authors involved in D&D who came after Gygax, we begin to see a departure from this belief.
The recent hullaballoo about orcs being evil-aligned is evidence that so-called secularists lack a moral certainty that Gygax seemed to possess. Said a different way: Gygax believed in evil, and that certain creatures and entities are not only necessarily evil but that they are additionally irredeemable. You deal out death to all manner of orcs, kobolds, etc., without thought because they will kill you and eat your family (or worse...) if you do not. This gives a very real reason to fight and conquer evil and chaotic creatures. That seems pretty right-wing to me! Meanwhile, post-modernists are unable to articulate what evil is beyond mere therapy-speak, as you point out in your article.
You could argue that Gygax lived in a postive-Christian world, where the last remnants of our Christian culture had yet to be fully dismantled, and that the background radiation of this culture is what caused Gygax to write D&D as it is. This argument however would admit that Christian values did have some impact on the creation of D&D.
Your point that the axes of Law vs Chaos and Good vs Evil should not be balanced in the context of a Christian understanding of the cosmos is correct. I agree with you whole heartedly. My only disagreement is that D&D lacks eschatology. Gygax left the apocalypse (literally, the righting of wrongs) to the Dungeon Master's purview. If the DM so wished, the history of his game world would end with Law and Good triumphing over Chaos and Evil. This may be an unsatisfying answer in our interrogation of D&D, but I do believe it leaves room for a fully Christian understanding of the cosmos in the game.
The strongest argument you present is about magic. In the real world, magic comes at the cost of blood sacrifice and demonic pacts. In D&D, it's a morally neutral tool. A rare tool (as presented in OD&D and 1e AD&D), but a tool nonetheless, that can be used for good or evil. This itself, I do not believe, is immediately disqualifying in regarding D&D as right-wing, but it does bring into question any Christian influence. It is most certainly the most disquieting aspect of the game when we examine it with a Christian lens.
There is, however, a Christian aspect to the magic system of D&D. This can best be found in lichdom. No matter how powerful a wizard may be, he is still a mortal man. Immortality is impossible to achieve, without embracing undeath and becoming a lich - an inherently evil choice that forever changes your alignment to Evil. Men like Peter Thiel and Bryan Johnson greatly desire to live forever, and believe this pursuit is either morally neutral or even good, but Gygax seems to have believed differently. Gygax is telling us something about the pursuit of the ultimate power, the power over life and death. I find this incredibly Christian in its understanding of mortality and immortality.
I think, too, there is space to understand the magic of D&D as a greater understanding of nature, much like science. The technological developments of northern Europeans came out of an initial desire to understand God's creation and take dominion over it. WiFi is pretty crazy, and would be "magical" to those living just a few decades ago. So, too, could the "magic" of Dungeons and Dragons actually represent a breakthrough in more fully taking dominion over creation. You could say this is a cope - a post-hoc rationalization I use to validate my desires to play D&D. I admit, this isn't the strongest of arguments. I do raise this point to provide an alternative understanding, even if it is somewhat weak.
Taken all together, I do believe Dungeons and Dragons represents a Christian and right-wing (but I repeat myself) world. Gygax present us with a world, in the original and first editions he wrote, that possesses ontological evil. This is a Christian understanding of the cosmos, even if he left the eschatology of the game world unwritten. And as much as the magic system of Dungeons and Dragons defies a Christian understanding of magic, I believe even here we can find a Christian understanding of life and death. Even if Gygax was not a Christian himself, he put enough of true Christianity in his game that I find it is inherently both Christian and right-wing.
Eh. D&D involves many things: an imagination exercise, a game, a storytelling medium that Tolkien would, I think, heartily approve. It's humanist and secular but without being anti-religious, and especially not anti-any specific religion. Its creators and most of its players, even now, intend no greater comment on metaphysics than did the appearance of Greek gods in the original Star Trek.
In short, it's nothing more nor less than a toy for creatives, nerds, and writers. I can almost guarantee that every single person on this website is one or more of those three things, and every group I've ever played with is made up of nothing *but* those three things. While it's true that some elements of D&D, especially tangential ones like specific campaign settings or source books, may have eyebrow-raising motifs, still it's safe to say that any good or evil that comes out of D&D is from the minds of the people playing it. At least, that was true until WotC decided to cast "Power Word: Wokeness" on it. Let's just hope their "Permanency" spell failed.
I read the article alright. And it seems to me that you try to ascribe a moral framework to a system of rules that are inherently without one. It may well be that the rules have just been chosen or evolved from chainmail onwards because they were simply the most practical or fun thing to do. Other assumptions may not have factored in at all, so superimposing them ex post is finding meaning where therw was not intended to be any. Even the balanced approach of good/evil or order/chaos is not universal to dnd, it is setting specific. Just look at Ravenloft or Dark Sun and there is a clear shift in the balance of power inherent in this world's existence. A world where the relationship mirrors the view of Christianity is easily crated. And it is still DnD. The notion too of it being built upon might makes right strikes me as incredibly reductive. The magic is not all fireballs and teleport, how does purify water and cleaning the village well factor in? It might just as well be "practice makes perfect", the more you do something the better you get at it. D&D is just a maleable set of rules addabtable to whatever you want to play. Just a cigar. How you smoke it is your choice. So, with respect, I think you're putting too much on the game. Or maybe I just don't get your point. Also possible.
Tolkien’s concept of sub-creation is not a license for imaginative free-for-all. This entails a a disciplined act of reverence and an echo of divine creativity that demands moral coherence and metaphysical integrity. "On Fairy-Stories" doesn’t endorse fantasy as spiritual spectacle for its own sake; it calls for mythic construction that reflects truth, not just invention.
Sub-creation isn’t sanctified by default, it is sanctified by fidelity to the moral order it reflects. Tolkien’s own legendarium is steeped in peril, hierarchy, and spiritual gravity. Magic in Middle-earth isn’t a gameplay mechanic. It is all theological and symbolic. Magic is reserved for beings with divine authority or tragic burden.
Suggesting that D&D is spiritually safe as long as you restrict casters to Clerics is a cute workaround, but it misses the point. The question isn’t who casts, it’s what kind of world are you building, and what truths does it serve?
What other activity can have four or five children debating moral lessons and come back week after week?
The churches lost a tool rejecting d&d.
I saw the same with LARPing in the early 00s. Young boys struggling to be squires. Few adults, helped it could have been something.
The book of Genesis describes God as looking over the creation He made and calling it "good;" then humans were added in we messed things up. A lot.
Not to elevate another book to nearly the same level, I found Holland's "Dominion" very interesting, with the thesis that Christianity has shaped the Western world (and, by extension, all the world) in deep and subtle ways that even affect how the opponents of Christ see and deal with the world.
I think both these images are in play when thinking about D&D (and pretty much everything else, but anyway...). Great potential, badly corrupted. Is D&D inherently Christian? I don't think so, but the imaginations and thought processes that created and maintain the game were shaped by Western Christian civilization - and, like most things, I believe that the best fulfillment of any art form is when the artist and the artist's vision is aligned with God. As I see it, D&D is no more, no less, inherently Christian or right-wing than literature or visual art or music.
Obviously, WotC's artists, authors, and their vision(s) are, as a group, very much not in line with God, and haven't been for a very long time, and that has become more generally evident in recent years.
I appreciate your more nuanced take on D&D's ruleset and how its magic system is treated as a tool and contrasted as temptations to be resisted in Tolkien and C.S. Lewis's works. The concept of D&D as having the spirit of Christianity is admirable, but you cut to the heart of the matter as pointing out that D&D in most of its incarnations as being literally might makes right even down to diplomacy and bluff checks.
We have to choose to follow Jesus Christ. Although choosing not too is akin to the parable of Jesus in the storm swept waters and leaving the boat he was taking a nap in.
God used a wizard, Balaam, to effect. When Balaam diverted from God, God used the wizard's donkey to speak to him.
God uses as we use: tools.
And almost anything can be used as a tool. For what purpose? As Christians, we should probably "entertain" ourselves by reinforcing the struggle of good vs evil. As a tool, D&D could certainly be utilized. Stories could be told within the game's framework that supports strong, moral ideals.
What other venues can be used as tools to effect?
It’s not as simple as “God uses tools, so anything can be a tool.” That logic collapses under the weight of Scripture itself. Consider Saul in 1 Samuel 28. Desperate for guidance, Saul seeks out the Witch of Endor, a medium he had previously outlawed, and asks her to summon the prophet Samuel from the dead.
What happens? Samuel appears, but he doesn’t offer comfort or divine insight. He condemns Saul outright:
“Why then do you ask me, since the LORD has turned from you and become your enemy?” — 1 Samuel 28:16
Saul’s invocation of a forbidden “tool” doesn’t result in divine partnership. Instead, it results in judgment. The act of using a medium is portrayed as rebellion. The tool itself is not neutral; its moral weight is bound to its origin and intent.
So yes, D&D can be used to tell stories of good vs evil. But the framework matters. The symbols matter. The moral architecture matters. Not every tool is sanctified by use alone. Some tools carry curses, not blessings.
If we’re going to invoke biblical precedent, let’s not cherry-pick Balaam’s donkey and ignore Saul’s necromancy.
Thank you for writing this article! I like your work, here and on YouTube. Your use of the terms like "catechism" are well used and applicable to the post-modern, post-Christian age we find ourselves in. I do want to offer further analysis of the arguments you present to disqualify D&D and Christian and right-wing.
You state Gygax's own personal religion is merely biographical, and not informative of the game he developed. I believe this to be incorrect. I do believe his religion had an impact on the world he created. The points in criticizing the game have merit, but I think there is even more nuance to be found upon closer inspection of the meta-elements present in D&D.
Now, I will be the first to point out that Jehovah's Witnesses are most certainly not Christian (they deny the Trinity, among many other heresies), but I cannot help but notice that evil is very real in the default universe presented to us in the original and first editions of D&D. When compared to the non-religious authors involved in D&D who came after Gygax, we begin to see a departure from this belief.
The recent hullaballoo about orcs being evil-aligned is evidence that so-called secularists lack a moral certainty that Gygax seemed to possess. Said a different way: Gygax believed in evil, and that certain creatures and entities are not only necessarily evil but that they are additionally irredeemable. You deal out death to all manner of orcs, kobolds, etc., without thought because they will kill you and eat your family (or worse...) if you do not. This gives a very real reason to fight and conquer evil and chaotic creatures. That seems pretty right-wing to me! Meanwhile, post-modernists are unable to articulate what evil is beyond mere therapy-speak, as you point out in your article.
You could argue that Gygax lived in a postive-Christian world, where the last remnants of our Christian culture had yet to be fully dismantled, and that the background radiation of this culture is what caused Gygax to write D&D as it is. This argument however would admit that Christian values did have some impact on the creation of D&D.
Your point that the axes of Law vs Chaos and Good vs Evil should not be balanced in the context of a Christian understanding of the cosmos is correct. I agree with you whole heartedly. My only disagreement is that D&D lacks eschatology. Gygax left the apocalypse (literally, the righting of wrongs) to the Dungeon Master's purview. If the DM so wished, the history of his game world would end with Law and Good triumphing over Chaos and Evil. This may be an unsatisfying answer in our interrogation of D&D, but I do believe it leaves room for a fully Christian understanding of the cosmos in the game.
The strongest argument you present is about magic. In the real world, magic comes at the cost of blood sacrifice and demonic pacts. In D&D, it's a morally neutral tool. A rare tool (as presented in OD&D and 1e AD&D), but a tool nonetheless, that can be used for good or evil. This itself, I do not believe, is immediately disqualifying in regarding D&D as right-wing, but it does bring into question any Christian influence. It is most certainly the most disquieting aspect of the game when we examine it with a Christian lens.
There is, however, a Christian aspect to the magic system of D&D. This can best be found in lichdom. No matter how powerful a wizard may be, he is still a mortal man. Immortality is impossible to achieve, without embracing undeath and becoming a lich - an inherently evil choice that forever changes your alignment to Evil. Men like Peter Thiel and Bryan Johnson greatly desire to live forever, and believe this pursuit is either morally neutral or even good, but Gygax seems to have believed differently. Gygax is telling us something about the pursuit of the ultimate power, the power over life and death. I find this incredibly Christian in its understanding of mortality and immortality.
I think, too, there is space to understand the magic of D&D as a greater understanding of nature, much like science. The technological developments of northern Europeans came out of an initial desire to understand God's creation and take dominion over it. WiFi is pretty crazy, and would be "magical" to those living just a few decades ago. So, too, could the "magic" of Dungeons and Dragons actually represent a breakthrough in more fully taking dominion over creation. You could say this is a cope - a post-hoc rationalization I use to validate my desires to play D&D. I admit, this isn't the strongest of arguments. I do raise this point to provide an alternative understanding, even if it is somewhat weak.
Taken all together, I do believe Dungeons and Dragons represents a Christian and right-wing (but I repeat myself) world. Gygax present us with a world, in the original and first editions he wrote, that possesses ontological evil. This is a Christian understanding of the cosmos, even if he left the eschatology of the game world unwritten. And as much as the magic system of Dungeons and Dragons defies a Christian understanding of magic, I believe even here we can find a Christian understanding of life and death. Even if Gygax was not a Christian himself, he put enough of true Christianity in his game that I find it is inherently both Christian and right-wing.
Eh. D&D involves many things: an imagination exercise, a game, a storytelling medium that Tolkien would, I think, heartily approve. It's humanist and secular but without being anti-religious, and especially not anti-any specific religion. Its creators and most of its players, even now, intend no greater comment on metaphysics than did the appearance of Greek gods in the original Star Trek.
In short, it's nothing more nor less than a toy for creatives, nerds, and writers. I can almost guarantee that every single person on this website is one or more of those three things, and every group I've ever played with is made up of nothing *but* those three things. While it's true that some elements of D&D, especially tangential ones like specific campaign settings or source books, may have eyebrow-raising motifs, still it's safe to say that any good or evil that comes out of D&D is from the minds of the people playing it. At least, that was true until WotC decided to cast "Power Word: Wokeness" on it. Let's just hope their "Permanency" spell failed.
What D&D is is a set of gaming rules with fancy set dressing. What you make of it is your choice, not the games. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
And sometimes people leave a comment without reading the article.
I read the article alright. And it seems to me that you try to ascribe a moral framework to a system of rules that are inherently without one. It may well be that the rules have just been chosen or evolved from chainmail onwards because they were simply the most practical or fun thing to do. Other assumptions may not have factored in at all, so superimposing them ex post is finding meaning where therw was not intended to be any. Even the balanced approach of good/evil or order/chaos is not universal to dnd, it is setting specific. Just look at Ravenloft or Dark Sun and there is a clear shift in the balance of power inherent in this world's existence. A world where the relationship mirrors the view of Christianity is easily crated. And it is still DnD. The notion too of it being built upon might makes right strikes me as incredibly reductive. The magic is not all fireballs and teleport, how does purify water and cleaning the village well factor in? It might just as well be "practice makes perfect", the more you do something the better you get at it. D&D is just a maleable set of rules addabtable to whatever you want to play. Just a cigar. How you smoke it is your choice. So, with respect, I think you're putting too much on the game. Or maybe I just don't get your point. Also possible.
No, I didn't. The D&D alignment system has been around since inception.
Tolkien’s concept of sub-creation is not a license for imaginative free-for-all. This entails a a disciplined act of reverence and an echo of divine creativity that demands moral coherence and metaphysical integrity. "On Fairy-Stories" doesn’t endorse fantasy as spiritual spectacle for its own sake; it calls for mythic construction that reflects truth, not just invention.
Sub-creation isn’t sanctified by default, it is sanctified by fidelity to the moral order it reflects. Tolkien’s own legendarium is steeped in peril, hierarchy, and spiritual gravity. Magic in Middle-earth isn’t a gameplay mechanic. It is all theological and symbolic. Magic is reserved for beings with divine authority or tragic burden.
Suggesting that D&D is spiritually safe as long as you restrict casters to Clerics is a cute workaround, but it misses the point. The question isn’t who casts, it’s what kind of world are you building, and what truths does it serve?