Faith in Role-playing

Today in many games, especially games like Shadowrun, it has become the way for the games to work is to choose one religion over another as the correct way things in the universe. In SR it is the pagan religions that turn out to be correct and expressed throughout the games and the characters within. In the real world it is especially cool to be pagan and receive special treatment in the world. In job selection, on college campuses and the like. It became O.K. for one type of faith to predominate the rest. In the early part of this century it was the WASPS who controlled everything and they were what was considered vogue. Everyone wanted to be one of them because they held the power. Before that it was the Catholics and the Protestants and so on. Today it is the Pagans and all that the term encompasses. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not trying to slam anybody’s personal faith. I respect everybody’s right to believe in what they choose to. From the Native Americans, who have a beautiful religion, one that I admire and respect deeply, although it’s not one I choose to believe in, to the Houngan of Haiti to the new Druids of England. What I however perceive as a problem is that today as before one is being chosen to come out on top in today’s game world. Now it’s cool to slam those who believe in the Cross or the Star of David. It’s O.K. to ignore their contributions to the world in favor of what’s in vogue right now. For that matter the followers of the Space Brothers are more in vogue than the Judeo-Christian faith. For the most part they are ignored in favor of the pagan religions and those characters who follow these beliefs are portrayed as either stupid or evil and sometimes both.

Now the point of the article is not to say that Judeo-Christian faiths are better. Not by any means is this the intent of the article. The intent of the article is to criticize the choice to ostracize one faith over another. When the pagan religions were on the down and out that was wrong. When the Jews were persecuted in W.W.II that was wrong. Telling anyone their faith is incorrect or evil is just plain wrong. Except today it’s “PC” to do it to the mainstream. It’s the gaming companies do the same—it’s correct and “PC” to make one faith seem to be the correct one over another. As Huston Smith, a theologian on many religious practices and faiths once said, Each religion is special in its own right. No one faith is correct over another. Each one is deserving of respect and admiration. Each is just as right as another as each seeks its own way to express that which is divine in the universe. Now to reiterate I’m not trying to tell you that one faith is better than another. Wicca is just as valid to those who practice it as Islam is to the Muslims. But in gaming today it is popular to deny many groups the validation of their faiths. Only once has a priest ever shown up as a character and he was a minor one at best. When a Houngan showed up he was portrayed as a villain of the deepest dye. I have never heard of a hero or even a secondary character in the books being a Rabbi or a Shinto priest, for that matter I can’t remember seeing an atheist. Whose belief for that matter are just as valid as anyone else’s. I’ve yet to see somebody portrayed with a Norse idol except for Winterknight who practiced the toxic versions of that. None of the characters in the SR books have had beliefs from Africa. I haven’t seen anybody except for “Pride” from a module from 1st edition who had any connections with Africa and its religious practices. The aborigines from Australia made a cameo as a bad guy, but no real information on the beliefs of dreamtime.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that it’s just plain wrong to have one religion coming out on top over another. No one faith is better than another and each is just as deserving of respect as another. From my personal experience I’ve met people from many faiths whose beliefs have impressed me. From Rick, a guy who’s on the outs with me as we plainly don’t see eye to eye on many things and don’t really like each other right now. I did respect him for his beliefs and the strength of them. The same with a guy we all called Ogre up in Dayton who practiced Wicca, and the strengths of his beliefs were just as impressive as a guy from Zaire whose name I can’t even pronounce. His African beliefs were just as strong and beautiful as anyone else’s.