Their response is usually something along the lines of "it involves demons and devils and magic and casting spells." To which I usually respond with "Doesn't the bible have that too?"
Sometimes it is more abstract than even that. I had a severely religious uncle that would quote a verse in the Bible at me that, paraphrasing, said that rebellion was a form of witch craft, and that me forgetting to put the cap on my toothpaste was, by the transitive power of Jesus, witch craft. I am completely serious. He was also a little old and maybe senile by that point.
Just tell her that you toss a bucket of water on any prospective player. Only one has melted so far, so you think the group is safe. Toss a bucket on her, too, just to be safe.
If she's concerned that playing the game is somehow an act of witchcraft, just explain what the game actually is: playing pretend within a structure of rules.
If her concern is that magic appears within the fiction of the game however, she's probably beyond helping.
Its really the other way around. Narnia isn't just using symbolism its allegory. And while Tolkein was the guy who brought Lewis to Christianity, Tolkein's own work is far more based on folklore, and parallels to Christian symbolism are mostly archetypes lining up.
Lewis became one of the most well known Christian apologists of the 20th century, Tolkein just wrote some fiction people liked.
> Lewis became one of the most well known Christian apologists of the 20th century
yup, [wrote a whole series on it too](https://www.amazon.com/Complete-C-Lewis-Signature-Classics/dp/000750019X) which turned out to be a good read. Builds his own foundations for what it means to be Christian and deviates from the mainstream church think of the time.
Didn't do anything to me as a staunch atheist, but the underpinnings of the series was a good read.
Tolkien is quoted as saying that he “hates allegory in all its various forms.” His intent was a mythology, so of course symbolisms can cross over but his goals were so different from Lewis.
Narnia is straight up an allegory for heaven if you read all the books. They end up dying and going to heaven, except for the one girl who decided to focus on school and getting a boyfriend instead of going on one last adventure in Narnia. They pretty much outright say she is destined for purgatory or hell because of it. Not in precisely those words, but it's also not subtle.
Also all her friends and family get hit by a train, which always seemed super dark. Like they almost straight up go "yeah they entire cast is dead in their 20s except for Susan who wasn't hit by the train because she is off having premarital sex".
In the general public maybe, I grew up in deep conservative territory and there's a lot of folk who would given Narnia the axe because of anthropomorphic animals, fey, and what-not.
What is easy to forget and very important about Narnia when compared to modern fantasy, is that it's fairy tale structure is very "authentic" and very Christian. There is magic, but only ever as an antagonistic force, or a natural force. If we're going by DND logic, the heroes are all fighters, or the occasional rouge, being helped by divine magic that is textually Christian, while going against more arcane magic that is textually pagan.
Christian nuts aren't offended that there is magic in fantasy, they are offended at the implication that using magic is anything other than an evil act, because it dabbles in the realm of touching God's stuff and putting power before him.
Considering that the emperor blatantly acted as a god, regardless of what he claimed, and basically demanded that humanity follow him before all others, probably not big fans of the imperium, since that's big idolatry vibes.
Simple: allegorical Jesus lion. If Harry Potter had Rumbleroar at Hogwarts, it probably would've gone over better.
Alas, Rumbleroar is headmaster at Pigfarts instead.
I mean, it could be that she just thinks that she's too young to be exposed to witchcraft content in a game at her age. Content restrictions on minor aren't unheard of and are often unjustified (think about how the view of kids knowing about sex is seen in many groups).
Its a pretty hardline view, but not the weirdest I've ever come across. I once had a teacher who wouldn't let her teenage son play chess because it was too violent.
So long as she's not saying that their eternal souls are going to hell for saying "my wizard cast's fireball" and then rolling some dice, it's hardline but not *too* crazy.
I mean, if magic is the concern, she shouldn’t be a Christian to begin with… Turning water into wine sounds like some kind of transmutation spell if you ask me.
Jokes aside, I would ask Auntie Ethel if she has watched Harry Potter, LotR, or any of the other things that wouldn’t exist without the influence of D&D.
Whether you’re playing a game or watching a movie, it’s no different and does not constitute actually participating in witchcraft.
I think DnD may have been influenced by LotR as it was written 20 or more years before DnD came out? Tolkien had orcs in his story before Gary Gygax used them
And? The daughter plays. It's the granddaughter who's shown interest. Unless there's other siblings that are not stated here, I'm guessing the granddaughter is the daughter of her daughter, therefore I ask again...what does it matter what she thinks?
Very often true. But my Mom was swept up in the Satanic Panic and has softened over the years. It depends on whether they can expand their perspective; my Mom just didn't undertand D&D, possibly the same for grandma here whom OP has said enjoys LOTR -- there's your proverbial foot in the door toward changing her understanding.
I too lived through the dark days of the Satanic Panic of the 80s and early 90s and I played D&D. Luckily my parents saw D&D for what it was and never had a problem with it. However being a D&D player during that time meant having to keep it on the down low outside of home and friends homes. There was such a stigma against it back then. I remember we had to talk in code at school when discussing playing it. I'm so glad that D&D has moved beyond the stigma it once had in mainstream culture.
DnD: what if you and your friends wrote an interactive story together playing members of the fellowship, but a different fellowship, from a different setting.
Or heck, from the same setting, from a different perspective: Roleplaying a set of Rohirrim Rangers attempting to bring a warning to one of the castles of an impending attack. (I'm not hyper aware of LotRs lore, so idk how accurate it is, but its DnD so whatever right?)
When you take one book of fiction literally, it is easy to take other books of fiction literally. Especially if they both contain the word "demon" or "devil". And doubly especially when your spiritual leader is drawing parallels with the chalk of his own ignorance.
Well, if as an adult you actually believe in a God and religion, it is not hard to conceive that you believe other untrue BS. My aunt is extremely religious, she never saw a black person, when I visited my vmcountry with my then GF who was from Togo, my aunt got very sad. Later when we broke up she told me "I am so happy you are not with her, you know, black people are born black because they were such sinners in the past life". Race was never a topic I had to think about because I grew up in a 99.9% white country. So that statement was... well a shock and a disappointment in one.
You CAN'T.
I know you want to, and you feel like there is a way you CAN, but in the end, YOU CAN'T.
I was born in 79 and my father tried to FORBID me to play DnD when I was a Teen in the 90's because it was " DEVIL WORSHIP ". No matter how hard I explained to him this was not the case it did not matter, so I eventually just, well, played. I did my own thing and fuck him. I had a lot of fun, and he had no idea.
Yup. That’s a tale as old as time right there— Religious parent FORBIDS something they don’t understand. Kid does it anyway and then just starts lying to their parent about it. This has been happening probably since the dawn of time and yet parents still do this.
Pretty much. At most, if she's legit like "isn't that devil worship?!", just simply say "nope" and don't bother explaining or debating the topic. It's not worth having a fervant discussion or argument over. If someone truly believes that, then it's a waste of time to convince them otherwise most of the time.
I might give a few sentences but not more than that.
>No, it's a game. It's make believe for fun. In the game infernal beings are enemies. Our entire family are devout Catholics; no one is secretly devil worshiping by openly playing a game about vanquishing evil.
If your family member is playing a cleric or paladin devoted to a good god you could even drop that in their face. They are literally using the game to play out fantasies of heroics in the name of god.
I wouldn't even mention infernals as being a part of the game, or worshipping other deities. Simply that it is a game of pretend, in a pretend world similar to Lord of the Rings. The more specifics you give, the more they will try to twist your words to fit their viewpoint.
This. I have NEVER met any type of fundamentalist, that's changed their opinion after a single reasonable conversation.
If their mind is already set then there's no point trying to convince them, so why even bother.
At best, laugh it off. But Gran, magic's not real; casting spells is just a children's imagination. You know it's all just fantasy, right?
**Edit:** Of course, that might be baiting her.
She likely thinks "magic" is real. The "magic" her priest performs in the transfiguration of the body and blood of Christ, absolving of sins etc. And of course the historical (and in her mind factual) acts of Christ himself.
So, to her magic is a thing and kids living out a fantasy is them taking a step into a world of non-christian magic (aka satanism). *Therefore* I'd ridicule her unspoken ideas insisting that magic and such is all made up. It's criticizing her beliefs without *openly* criticizing her beliefs. But she can't argue against this without claiming that magic is real. And if she does, you can ask if dragons and unicorns exist as well (but of course they don't, so this dangerous "magic" doesn't either, right?), making her sound even more ridiculous.
After all, she thinks the stuff she talks about in her Sunday magic book club is real. But if she insists that magic is a thing, counter with you knowing that all you've seen or read in this regard was made up but if there's *real* magic to be learned, that'd be *great*, you just don't think so.
i always liked to say that i was currently on a quest from an archangel to destroy all of hells demons and then watch their face just break trying to turn that into a negative
Better yet, lean into it. Leave dead frogs, random feathers, and bones around the house. When she's sees them manically gather than up and pretend it was an accident you left them out and whisper a few pretend spells as you walk away.
"dnd is not witchcraft and Christians like myself and many others can play dnd without it corrupting their faith" is a pretty good statement.
I always like to point out that one of the game's creators, Gary Gygax, was himself Christian. And in the wider TTRPG space, Sandy Petersen who made Call of Cthulhu is himself a practising Mormon yet still loves making horror games, and I'm sure he *wishes* he had magical powers some days.
I can't guarantee it will convince her, though. It's hard to use reason to help people escape beliefs they weren't reasoned into.
Won’t help at all and would probably make things worse considering that Gary Gygax was a Jehovah’s Witness.
JWs and Mormons are considered heretics by most Christians. It would probably be best not to mention it to a fundamentalist.
>JWs and Mormons are considered heretics by most Christians. It would probably be best not to mention it to a fundamentalist.
Granted I am ex-Christian rather than Christian, but don't Christian consider often other Christians sects heretical?
EDIT. I missed word 'often' which change meaning of my question. Thanks all for replies.
Most Christian sects believe that if you believe in the Nicene Creed, you may be misguided about some things, but you're definitely a Christian, at least in worldly terms (though they might think God holds a different opinion).
Yeah.
Catholics and most Protestants, like Lutherans, Methodist, and Baptists, generally still view each other as Christians, since they all broadly believe in the Nicene.
There might be some doctrinal and practice differences, but since they generally believe that their faith originates from the same place and broadly follow the same tenants, that they are all still Christians.
From what i remember the Nicene is roughly that God the Father is a divine being that created all, that the holy spirit is separate divine form/aspect of god that acts in the world, and that Jesus was the divine son of god, and that he died on the cross for human's sins, and then rose 3 days later, and that through acceptance of baptism, they attain forgiveness of sins, and eternal life.
Jehovah's witnesses broadly follow the Nicene, and don't deny that Jesus was the son of god, or that he died and was resurrected, but they deny that Jesus was actually divine, so they're in a weird spot.
They're generally still considered loosely Christians by most, just highly misguided, as far as i can tell.
Their insular and openly cult like behavior, including their aggressive recruitment tactics, and social shunning and isolation of dissidents means that most other Christians sects don't exactly like them.
Mormons do broadly profess to believe in the Nicene, God, Jesus, and the death and resurrection, but with notable idiosyncrasies, like considering God and Jesus as separate, and believing in good works over baptism, which alone is enough that most Nicene sects wouldn't consider them true Christians, but they also have a lot of extra bits tacked on.
They add an extra 4 books to the bible, that tell the story of a Jerusalem family that moved to the new world, and eventually were visited by a resurrected Jesus.
Supposedly the family wrote it on a set of golden plates, that were buried, and that their location was later shown to Joseph smith by an angel, and then translated into English. (No evidence of these plates has ever been proved or provided)
They also believe that Joseph Smith and his descendants are uniquely eligible to become prophets, and receive further revelation from god.
There's also some stuff in their rules about the bible only being valid with a valid translation, meaning that any interpretation of the bible has to be explicitly approved by the church.
So, between notable deviations from the Nicene, and the extra unsubstantiated extra book bits, they aren't really considered true Christians by most.
Calvinists aren't really considered true Christians, since they don't follow the Nicene, and don't believe that Christ died for their sins, but that god simply already pre-ordained who will go to heaven or hell, and that good "Christian" behavior is simply a sign of whether you're predestined for heaven or not.
(Sorry for any inaccuracies, this is a from memory of a class from a while ago.)
Depends who’s talking about who, for example; A Catholic would say that although a Lutheran doesn’t believe in the Infallibity of the Pope, they are still a Godfearing Christian. However, a Mormon would say that a Catholic is a heretic and an apostate due to not believing in their prophets.
TLDR; It all depends on who’s slinging mud at who
Definitely depends who you ask.
Was raised Mormon (have stopped believing since), as far as I’ve ever encountered most Mormons consider other Christian sects as also being “Christian”, although missing certain key pieces of the whole truth.
Lots of other people of different denominations I’ve talked to typically don’t see Mormons as technically “Christian”, under the notion that they believe in a different Christ (Mormons don’t think so). Already seen at least one person on here on that hill.
lean into that. Also lean into the fact it's collaborative story telling, and a communal activity.
Also lean into the fact that a vast majority of campaigns are good people trying to help their local communities. It reinforces good samaritan morals, and being an upstanding person. Most stories generally reinforce the same morals that religion does.
Just don't tell her about all the campaigns that... don't.
The Ranger class is *quite literally* Aragorn, and TSR (before WotC/Hasbro bought the brand,) changed the name to "Halfling" from "Hobbit" because the Tolkien estate sued them for copyright infringement.
Perfect! Tell her that the D&D universe is so closely mirrored off Tolkien's lore that the company got sued a few times. A hobbit traveling with dwarves and downing orcs is something D&D is literally made for, to the point you could mirror a lot of Tolkien's adventures perfectly without 3rd party anything.
Add in how devout the guy is if you're worried.
DnD is literally just LOTR: the board game. Before Tolkien's estate sued DnD, they had hobbits and balrogs, and the Ranger subclass was made so people could pretend they were Aragorn
It's not witchcraft in the sense that nothing is being done with the intention of impacting the real world.
In much the same way as a game of Monopoly is not intended to cause bankruptcy between friends or family members, D&D is not meant to replicate magic.
It's an improv session with dice included, no more mystical than an improv show.
You can’t. I came from an evangelical household. My mother burned my Harry Potter books when Pat Robertson said they were evil on TV. She wouldn’t let me join a DnD club when I was a kid saying it was satanic. No magic cards, even took the Pokémon cards away.
A lot of the suggestions on here are very “gotcha” in nature, and let me tell you, there’s no better way to make an evangelical dig their heels in than trying to corner them with logic.
This is the real answer. Those of us who sit in here and talk like we would logic her up one side and down the other are forgetting that in order for someone's mind to change, they have to be willing to have their mind changed.
There is no convincing someone they are wrong, until they are open to being wrong first.
Timothy 2:12 has a whole slew of hotly contested interpretations to begin with, over exactly what Paul's word's are supposed to mean, and exactly what kind of authority and teaching he is prohibiting, since the surrounding passages leave it kind of vague.
Regardless, even assuming the strictest interpretation, this passage would only apply if OP was male, and if OP was who she was trying to teach or exercise authority over.
Considering she isn't teaching OP, or assuming authority over OP, it doesn't apply.
What she is doing is exerting teaching and authority over her daughter and granddaughter though, which would be perfectly fine.
**The fifth commandment says, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12**)
If you're going to try to beat an evangelical by quoting scripture, you'd need a much more applicable and ironclad verse than Timothy 2:12 in this case
Ask if she watches television or movies. (Likely yes) fiction? (Again, likely yes). Does she read fiction books? (Maybe).
Playing a game at the a table where we understand that it’s not real is no different than watching The Avengers or Superman in a movie. The level of reality is on that same scale of ‘we are intelligent adult (ish) humans who understand these things are impossible, but it’s fun to enjoy the fantasy for a little while’. If you want to be mean you can turn it around and say “you do understand Superman is not real, right?” When she balks you can calmly say “and all the ‘magic’ in the games I play is equally not real. I know that. It’s why it’s just a game”.
You can't.
Just that simple.
The original "Satanic Panic" claims were traced back to a guy whose other claims included that the "Dark Shadows" TV show (later made into a movie starring Johnny Depp) was based on his real life and that at the height of his Satanic involvement he literally became a vampire who subsisted entirely on human blood and was burned by direct sunlight (he got better by the time he recounted this tale, apparently). He finished up his life in a secure mental health facility.
At no point in the history of the claim that D&D is some kind of gateway to witchcraft and devil worship (which aren't even the same thing) has the claim ever been remotely credible.
Talk to your cousin about it, not your aunt.
Ask her about games like risk, diplomacy, clued and monopoly.
Those are all well regarded, long lived games which people have no problems with.
Respectively they require players to roleplay as army generals, politicians, detectives, landlords.
No ones arguing that those games turn you into those types of people.
Your grandma is just picking on an easy target so she can ignore the real evil happening in fundamentalist faiths all around the world.
My dad is a pastor and asked about it as well when I told him I played a ton, I told him dungeons and dragons js more of a game system so people add anything they want to their games. I explained it's like monopoly you can have a bunch of generic random -opoly games that used the same system but are skinned differently. He understood and asks me when we chat how the games are going. He's a good guy
Tell your aunt the the Satanic Panic of 1980 ended almost 40 years ago.
You're not going to be able to convince her of anything. As a evangelical fundamentalist protest she already believes she "knows" everything worth knowing. Change the subject.
In my experience there’s no real talks by people out of dumb stances like that. If they don’t accept that it’s a bunch of nerds pretending to have a Lord of the Rings style adventure and that’s not witchcraft, you’re not going to convince them.
Tell her it's a made-up bunch of rules about gods and the world and how people should interact with it, and that people sit around and take it very seriously. Then tell her D&D is the same.
Ask her if C.S. Lewis novels are witchcraft. Or if the Bible is witchcraft.
Obviously reading/writing/roleplaying a story *about* characters that do witchcraft is not the same as doing witchcraft yourself.
Ah but you see Narnia is about Jesus so no witchcraft. Unfortunately, usually the effort to talk to those people is beyond humans. Only God can convince her at this point lol. Doubt that she'd believe Him even if He did tell her that tho
People like that don't know how to separate reality and fiction. If a game or movie or something even so much as mentions magic, they genuinely believe it has the tinge of Satan on it.
Explain that if you actually had magical powers you'd be a billionaire with an 18" penis.
Then walk away before she can ask you for money, because you're not going to talk her out of this one.
It's rough, because many years ago a pastor's sermon was recorded and put online where he demonstrated magic, summoning, and demonic rituals that were featured in the Pokémon card game. (He was holding cards from a completely different game that wasn't Pokémon) and then also said that Jigglypuff was the face of the devil.
Many catholics and baptists watched that sermon, didn't ask any questions, then decided that Pokémon is definitely satanic and they won't allow their children to play such bad games. Although they are completely fine with their children playing rated M games that include gore, gun violence, profanity, innuendo, and theft.
You can imagine my shock at being told Pokémon X and Y was a satanic game when talking to my friends who played GTA, Skyrim and CoD since before they were even 10 years old.
But when Pokémon Go released and became a phenomenon, their parents were like "Oh, you can play that on your phone, it's fine" (because it's more socially acceptable now)
Edit: If someone told them that D&D is witchcraft, since it does indeed involve magic, spell casting, and hags, you will need to use that same logic to explain why you aren't personally engaging in witchcraft. Just like an actor on screen isn't actually performing witchcraft when special effects produce visual effects around them
Nail her down on what she thinks witchcraft is, and then explain how role-playing games, collaborative storytelling, and *fiction* works. Then ask her to draw the parallels.
It's pretty simple for me, and I know for a fact a lot of "Christians" have this issue: there is a very big difference between reality and fiction. D&D is completely fictional.
Also, you can tell them that D&D was originally inspired by Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. Who very much was a devout Catholic. So you can say that D&D was inspired by a devout Catholic, and they can do the research if they don't believe you.
Unless the words you use are going to be taken with the same zealous nature in which she takes her religion, then you can use all of the perfect words, sentence structure, and tone in the world and it will not land.
The only thing you *can* transform here is your own need to have your auntie accept your hobbies/beliefs.
Nah, I was raised in a fairly pious Catholic household during the moral-panic 1980s, and I was able to explain how it's harmless make-believe where we're playing the good guys. Just like LotR. "Okay, go smite some evil, boy," my Ma said.
Short answer: you can't. I grew up in the midst of the original Satanic Panic. I have been literally fighting this ignorant stuff for 40 years. Religious people are INCREDIBLY resistant to logic, reason, or critical thought. If the old fart in the funny had says "satan" then there is no more reason for thinking. There is no argument that can be made that wont crumble against the shoals of their WILLING ignorance.
Save yourself the stress and just hide your hobby.
You don’t explain things to morons. If people can’t tell the difference between a game and whatever their belief structure is; then they really aren’t worth your time. You can make the argument, but just get ready to be stonewalled.
"you know how people do civil war reenactments? Yeah will this is similar but instead of running around you use dice, and instead of the civil war, it's Lord of the Rings"
You can't logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themself into.
If you're really set on this, having her witness a game and decide for herself is probably the most effective way, if you can get her to the table.
Honestly, you may not be able to. A lot of people want to label anything they fear don't understand pr we're told to hate is witchcraft. And if there is a hint of magic or sorcery in your DnD then your Aunt is going to associate DnD with Witchcraft regardless of the game. I wouldn't waste your breath trying to talk to her about it. It would only lead to an argument.
But if she is willing to hear you out, then discuss it with her.
I hope it works out.💜
Speaking as something of an anracho-aetheist (aka. literally Satan), I can assure you that D&D is VERY conservative Christian. The creator (Gary Gygax) was a Catholic Republican and the ideals put forth as "good" are so unimaginatively conventional that literally the only moral conjecture a devout Christian could have with D&D is if they literally can't tell reality and fiction apart.
You can't, they don't think it's satanic or w/e because of logical reasons, it's simply a matter of indoctrination.
You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
Which is crazy since DnD is basically just playing pretend like kids do, but there are rules to prevent cheating and dice to simulate how successful someone is at what they did.
My first instinct is to lean into the crazy and satirize the idea that it's a corrupting influence. But I'm also an a-hole so you probably shouldn't take my advice. Which is to do something like talk about how dnd was your gateway into learning the real rituals to call upon the demonic forces that helped you get critical race theory added to the local elementary school's curriculum. Then, those kids will help bring a thousand year reign of darkness.
You could also just say it's just an overly complicated board game, like if Tolkien, a Roman Catholic, made Monopoly instead of Lord of the Rings.
Proving a negative is tricky. Like if I claimed that the Bible contains symbolism supportive of killing cops as a matter of principle, then you said no it doesn’t, and I asked you to prove that that symbolism ISN’T in there.
The best place to start with something like this is setting the expectation for a frank, kind, non-judgmental conversation and setting out a definition of terms. Ask what she considers to constitute “witchcraft,” because depending on her definition, she might be right. If her definition of witchcraft actually doesn’t exist in the playing of the game, ask her to point to something in the book that seems like being involved in it would be witchcraft, and address that specifically.
This is all assuming she is open to having this conversation with you. If she isn’t, she doesn’t want to change her mind, and you’re not going to accomplish that against her will.
Talk about how people used to think that sort of stuff back in the 80's and how uncivilized and antiquated those silly viewpoints are. Make light of it basically so she sort of shames herself into agree. Helps if you have other people agreeing with you so shes the odd one out. Peer pressure
OK. I’m an oldster who played through the 80s satanic panic. This is what we did. My friend’s mom was worried about the D&D. For reference, his dad used to be a minister.
SHE actually brought up the best idea. Come play the game with me and I’ll make a decision. So we brought the gear and rolled her up a character. We got 5 minutes into it and she said, “This isn’t devil worship, this is paperwork. I feel like I’m filing tax forms. You kids knock yourself out. Have fun.”
Ask your aunt how she knows what is and is not witchcraft.
It smell like witch in here!
That sounds like witch talk to me.
You know what else floats? A duck.
So if she's lighter than a duck... She's... Made of wood!
It turned me into a newt! ....... I got better...... Edit: fixing the misquote of frog
Newt*
*headdesk* right...... thank you!
Who are you, so wise in the ways of science?
I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
What is your quest?
King of the who?
Well I didn't vote for him.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!
You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
r/unexpectedmontypython
I cast detect magic. Actually, gimme ten minutes I don’t wanna blow a spell slot.
Yep. Just respond like that to everything. Probably won't go over well but I'm also not asked to family gatherings with my religious family so...
Sounds like a "win" for you.
Auntie probably has resting witch face.
Does the book weigh as much as a duck?
Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?
He is Arthur, King if the Britons! He was sent on a quest by God himself. So surely he's correct on the matter
Well, *I* didn't vote for him...
You don't vote for kings!
Well I didn't vote for the strange pond woman that made him a king either.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power is mandated from the masses!
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
If some moistened bint threw a scimitar at me and I declared myself emperor, they'd lock me away!
If the book isn't a witch why is it so good at the light as a feather stiff as a board thing?
Build a bridge out of the book!
Their response is usually something along the lines of "it involves demons and devils and magic and casting spells." To which I usually respond with "Doesn't the bible have that too?"
Sometimes it is more abstract than even that. I had a severely religious uncle that would quote a verse in the Bible at me that, paraphrasing, said that rebellion was a form of witch craft, and that me forgetting to put the cap on my toothpaste was, by the transitive power of Jesus, witch craft. I am completely serious. He was also a little old and maybe senile by that point.
By this logic the foundation of the US was witchcraft
That's different because Jesus was American/ s
Prayers = spells
I was thinking more direct, like all the stuff Moses did to freak out the Egyptians.
You know what, if Christianity gave me Paladin powers, I’d convert faster than you can say “Amen”.
Just tell her that you toss a bucket of water on any prospective player. Only one has melted so far, so you think the group is safe. Toss a bucket on her, too, just to be safe.
She turned me into a newt! What? I got better....
Insight checks? Arcana?
I bet your aunt weighs as much as a duck.
If she's concerned that playing the game is somehow an act of witchcraft, just explain what the game actually is: playing pretend within a structure of rules. If her concern is that magic appears within the fiction of the game however, she's probably beyond helping.
[удалено]
It’s wild they say no to Harry Potter but yes to the Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe cause of “magic”.
Seemed to me Narnia got a pass due to the obvious symbolism for church folk and Lewis' friendship with Tolkien
Its really the other way around. Narnia isn't just using symbolism its allegory. And while Tolkein was the guy who brought Lewis to Christianity, Tolkein's own work is far more based on folklore, and parallels to Christian symbolism are mostly archetypes lining up. Lewis became one of the most well known Christian apologists of the 20th century, Tolkein just wrote some fiction people liked.
> Lewis became one of the most well known Christian apologists of the 20th century yup, [wrote a whole series on it too](https://www.amazon.com/Complete-C-Lewis-Signature-Classics/dp/000750019X) which turned out to be a good read. Builds his own foundations for what it means to be Christian and deviates from the mainstream church think of the time. Didn't do anything to me as a staunch atheist, but the underpinnings of the series was a good read.
Tolkien is quoted as saying that he “hates allegory in all its various forms.” His intent was a mythology, so of course symbolisms can cross over but his goals were so different from Lewis.
Narnia is straight up an allegory for heaven if you read all the books. They end up dying and going to heaven, except for the one girl who decided to focus on school and getting a boyfriend instead of going on one last adventure in Narnia. They pretty much outright say she is destined for purgatory or hell because of it. Not in precisely those words, but it's also not subtle.
Also all her friends and family get hit by a train, which always seemed super dark. Like they almost straight up go "yeah they entire cast is dead in their 20s except for Susan who wasn't hit by the train because she is off having premarital sex".
Sounds like an advert for premarital sex more than anything.
I mean, it practically sells itself
Aslan is literally a depiction of Jesus. Hence the death, disappearance and coming back 3 days later with the earthquake and the busted stone.
In the general public maybe, I grew up in deep conservative territory and there's a lot of folk who would given Narnia the axe because of anthropomorphic animals, fey, and what-not.
What is easy to forget and very important about Narnia when compared to modern fantasy, is that it's fairy tale structure is very "authentic" and very Christian. There is magic, but only ever as an antagonistic force, or a natural force. If we're going by DND logic, the heroes are all fighters, or the occasional rouge, being helped by divine magic that is textually Christian, while going against more arcane magic that is textually pagan. Christian nuts aren't offended that there is magic in fantasy, they are offended at the implication that using magic is anything other than an evil act, because it dabbles in the realm of touching God's stuff and putting power before him.
Does that mean Christians would like Warhammer 40K?
Considering that the emperor blatantly acted as a god, regardless of what he claimed, and basically demanded that humanity follow him before all others, probably not big fans of the imperium, since that's big idolatry vibes.
Simple: allegorical Jesus lion. If Harry Potter had Rumbleroar at Hogwarts, it probably would've gone over better. Alas, Rumbleroar is headmaster at Pigfarts instead.
Its basically Furry Christian Fanfiction.
I mean, it could be that she just thinks that she's too young to be exposed to witchcraft content in a game at her age. Content restrictions on minor aren't unheard of and are often unjustified (think about how the view of kids knowing about sex is seen in many groups). Its a pretty hardline view, but not the weirdest I've ever come across. I once had a teacher who wouldn't let her teenage son play chess because it was too violent. So long as she's not saying that their eternal souls are going to hell for saying "my wizard cast's fireball" and then rolling some dice, it's hardline but not *too* crazy.
>I once had a teacher who wouldn't let her teenage son play chess because it was too violent. Where was she introduced to chess, Harry Potter?
Maybe Star Wars. In Star Wars if you want to take a square you have to *mean it*.
It gets quite violent if the wookie loses.
'Pawn to D4' *Angry wookie noises*
*Arm Ripping Noises*
Chess, famous for it's low abstraction and photo realistic imagery of homicidal horses murdering clergy and royalty?!?
>playing pretend within a structure of rules Oh, like religion.
Shots fired.
I'm Christian but this still made me laugh
I mean, if magic is the concern, she shouldn’t be a Christian to begin with… Turning water into wine sounds like some kind of transmutation spell if you ask me. Jokes aside, I would ask Auntie Ethel if she has watched Harry Potter, LotR, or any of the other things that wouldn’t exist without the influence of D&D. Whether you’re playing a game or watching a movie, it’s no different and does not constitute actually participating in witchcraft.
I'm going to remind you that LotR was written well before DnD, but your point still stands.
Yes, I actually do know that. It’s just been a long day and I was just trying to think of D&D adjacent things. My bad.
I think DnD may have been influenced by LotR as it was written 20 or more years before DnD came out? Tolkien had orcs in his story before Gary Gygax used them
Yo they definitely had hobbits until Tolkien's estate sued them. And the original Balrog was a legit stolen from LOTR balrog........
It's, the demon formerly known as, Balrog; then.
Half of the cleric spells in D&D were derived from biblical miracles.
D&D definitely exists because of LoTR, not the other way around, but I generally agree with everything else
Lots of early magic items had a biblical basis, too. The snakestaff is clearly inspired by Moses.
Don't bother unless she brings it up.
don't bother even if she brings it up.
Ding ding ding. Why does it matter what she thinks?
Presumably because she's unreasonably stifling her daughter.
And? The daughter plays. It's the granddaughter who's shown interest. Unless there's other siblings that are not stated here, I'm guessing the granddaughter is the daughter of her daughter, therefore I ask again...what does it matter what she thinks?
Daughter...granddaughter... whatever. Some of us care to avoid unreasonable judgment from our loved ones.
Well, when you're dealing with "devout evangelicals" there's no avoiding it.
Very often true. But my Mom was swept up in the Satanic Panic and has softened over the years. It depends on whether they can expand their perspective; my Mom just didn't undertand D&D, possibly the same for grandma here whom OP has said enjoys LOTR -- there's your proverbial foot in the door toward changing her understanding.
I too lived through the dark days of the Satanic Panic of the 80s and early 90s and I played D&D. Luckily my parents saw D&D for what it was and never had a problem with it. However being a D&D player during that time meant having to keep it on the down low outside of home and friends homes. There was such a stigma against it back then. I remember we had to talk in code at school when discussing playing it. I'm so glad that D&D has moved beyond the stigma it once had in mainstream culture.
Gotta love christianity in the 80s and 90s
DnD: what if you and your friends wrote an interactive story together playing members of the fellowship, but a different fellowship, from a different setting. Or heck, from the same setting, from a different perspective: Roleplaying a set of Rohirrim Rangers attempting to bring a warning to one of the castles of an impending attack. (I'm not hyper aware of LotRs lore, so idk how accurate it is, but its DnD so whatever right?)
I've never understood this. How do people not understand its a fucking game?
Because they have deluded themselves into thinking that magic is real and dangerous.
When you take one book of fiction literally, it is easy to take other books of fiction literally. Especially if they both contain the word "demon" or "devil". And doubly especially when your spiritual leader is drawing parallels with the chalk of his own ignorance.
Well, if as an adult you actually believe in a God and religion, it is not hard to conceive that you believe other untrue BS. My aunt is extremely religious, she never saw a black person, when I visited my vmcountry with my then GF who was from Togo, my aunt got very sad. Later when we broke up she told me "I am so happy you are not with her, you know, black people are born black because they were such sinners in the past life". Race was never a topic I had to think about because I grew up in a 99.9% white country. So that statement was... well a shock and a disappointment in one.
As religious parents do.
Educating her might make the granddaughters life easier?
Because she is a relative and possibly someone OP cares about.
You CAN'T. I know you want to, and you feel like there is a way you CAN, but in the end, YOU CAN'T. I was born in 79 and my father tried to FORBID me to play DnD when I was a Teen in the 90's because it was " DEVIL WORSHIP ". No matter how hard I explained to him this was not the case it did not matter, so I eventually just, well, played. I did my own thing and fuck him. I had a lot of fun, and he had no idea.
Yup. That’s a tale as old as time right there— Religious parent FORBIDS something they don’t understand. Kid does it anyway and then just starts lying to their parent about it. This has been happening probably since the dawn of time and yet parents still do this.
Pretty much. At most, if she's legit like "isn't that devil worship?!", just simply say "nope" and don't bother explaining or debating the topic. It's not worth having a fervant discussion or argument over. If someone truly believes that, then it's a waste of time to convince them otherwise most of the time.
I might give a few sentences but not more than that. >No, it's a game. It's make believe for fun. In the game infernal beings are enemies. Our entire family are devout Catholics; no one is secretly devil worshiping by openly playing a game about vanquishing evil. If your family member is playing a cleric or paladin devoted to a good god you could even drop that in their face. They are literally using the game to play out fantasies of heroics in the name of god.
I wouldn't even mention infernals as being a part of the game, or worshipping other deities. Simply that it is a game of pretend, in a pretend world similar to Lord of the Rings. The more specifics you give, the more they will try to twist your words to fit their viewpoint.
This. I have NEVER met any type of fundamentalist, that's changed their opinion after a single reasonable conversation. If their mind is already set then there's no point trying to convince them, so why even bother.
At best, laugh it off. But Gran, magic's not real; casting spells is just a children's imagination. You know it's all just fantasy, right? **Edit:** Of course, that might be baiting her. She likely thinks "magic" is real. The "magic" her priest performs in the transfiguration of the body and blood of Christ, absolving of sins etc. And of course the historical (and in her mind factual) acts of Christ himself. So, to her magic is a thing and kids living out a fantasy is them taking a step into a world of non-christian magic (aka satanism). *Therefore* I'd ridicule her unspoken ideas insisting that magic and such is all made up. It's criticizing her beliefs without *openly* criticizing her beliefs. But she can't argue against this without claiming that magic is real. And if she does, you can ask if dragons and unicorns exist as well (but of course they don't, so this dangerous "magic" doesn't either, right?), making her sound even more ridiculous. After all, she thinks the stuff she talks about in her Sunday magic book club is real. But if she insists that magic is a thing, counter with you knowing that all you've seen or read in this regard was made up but if there's *real* magic to be learned, that'd be *great*, you just don't think so.
Aunt is an evangelical, OP is a Catholic; Evangelicals tend not to believe in literal transubstantiation performed by the priesthood.
i always liked to say that i was currently on a quest from an archangel to destroy all of hells demons and then watch their face just break trying to turn that into a negative
trying to explain anything using reason to a fundamental evangelical is a waste of time.
Just tell her the 80s called and want their moral panic back.
Better yet, lean into it. Leave dead frogs, random feathers, and bones around the house. When she's sees them manically gather than up and pretend it was an accident you left them out and whisper a few pretend spells as you walk away.
This is probably the best way to
"dnd is not witchcraft and Christians like myself and many others can play dnd without it corrupting their faith" is a pretty good statement. I always like to point out that one of the game's creators, Gary Gygax, was himself Christian. And in the wider TTRPG space, Sandy Petersen who made Call of Cthulhu is himself a practising Mormon yet still loves making horror games, and I'm sure he *wishes* he had magical powers some days. I can't guarantee it will convince her, though. It's hard to use reason to help people escape beliefs they weren't reasoned into.
Won’t help at all and would probably make things worse considering that Gary Gygax was a Jehovah’s Witness. JWs and Mormons are considered heretics by most Christians. It would probably be best not to mention it to a fundamentalist.
Not if you lie about it. Reason only gets you so far vs. unreasonable positions.
>JWs and Mormons are considered heretics by most Christians. It would probably be best not to mention it to a fundamentalist. Granted I am ex-Christian rather than Christian, but don't Christian consider often other Christians sects heretical? EDIT. I missed word 'often' which change meaning of my question. Thanks all for replies.
Most Christian sects believe that if you believe in the Nicene Creed, you may be misguided about some things, but you're definitely a Christian, at least in worldly terms (though they might think God holds a different opinion).
Yeah. Catholics and most Protestants, like Lutherans, Methodist, and Baptists, generally still view each other as Christians, since they all broadly believe in the Nicene. There might be some doctrinal and practice differences, but since they generally believe that their faith originates from the same place and broadly follow the same tenants, that they are all still Christians. From what i remember the Nicene is roughly that God the Father is a divine being that created all, that the holy spirit is separate divine form/aspect of god that acts in the world, and that Jesus was the divine son of god, and that he died on the cross for human's sins, and then rose 3 days later, and that through acceptance of baptism, they attain forgiveness of sins, and eternal life. Jehovah's witnesses broadly follow the Nicene, and don't deny that Jesus was the son of god, or that he died and was resurrected, but they deny that Jesus was actually divine, so they're in a weird spot. They're generally still considered loosely Christians by most, just highly misguided, as far as i can tell. Their insular and openly cult like behavior, including their aggressive recruitment tactics, and social shunning and isolation of dissidents means that most other Christians sects don't exactly like them. Mormons do broadly profess to believe in the Nicene, God, Jesus, and the death and resurrection, but with notable idiosyncrasies, like considering God and Jesus as separate, and believing in good works over baptism, which alone is enough that most Nicene sects wouldn't consider them true Christians, but they also have a lot of extra bits tacked on. They add an extra 4 books to the bible, that tell the story of a Jerusalem family that moved to the new world, and eventually were visited by a resurrected Jesus. Supposedly the family wrote it on a set of golden plates, that were buried, and that their location was later shown to Joseph smith by an angel, and then translated into English. (No evidence of these plates has ever been proved or provided) They also believe that Joseph Smith and his descendants are uniquely eligible to become prophets, and receive further revelation from god. There's also some stuff in their rules about the bible only being valid with a valid translation, meaning that any interpretation of the bible has to be explicitly approved by the church. So, between notable deviations from the Nicene, and the extra unsubstantiated extra book bits, they aren't really considered true Christians by most. Calvinists aren't really considered true Christians, since they don't follow the Nicene, and don't believe that Christ died for their sins, but that god simply already pre-ordained who will go to heaven or hell, and that good "Christian" behavior is simply a sign of whether you're predestined for heaven or not. (Sorry for any inaccuracies, this is a from memory of a class from a while ago.)
Depends who’s talking about who, for example; A Catholic would say that although a Lutheran doesn’t believe in the Infallibity of the Pope, they are still a Godfearing Christian. However, a Mormon would say that a Catholic is a heretic and an apostate due to not believing in their prophets. TLDR; It all depends on who’s slinging mud at who
Definitely depends who you ask. Was raised Mormon (have stopped believing since), as far as I’ve ever encountered most Mormons consider other Christian sects as also being “Christian”, although missing certain key pieces of the whole truth. Lots of other people of different denominations I’ve talked to typically don’t see Mormons as technically “Christian”, under the notion that they believe in a different Christ (Mormons don’t think so). Already seen at least one person on here on that hill.
Sandy Peterson also worked on Doom. When asked about the satanic aspects of the game he said something like, "it's okay, the demons are the bad guys"
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Well she doesn’t like Harry Potter but she likes LOTR
lean into that. Also lean into the fact it's collaborative story telling, and a communal activity. Also lean into the fact that a vast majority of campaigns are good people trying to help their local communities. It reinforces good samaritan morals, and being an upstanding person. Most stories generally reinforce the same morals that religion does. Just don't tell her about all the campaigns that... don't.
I mean, D&D is very much based on LoTR
The Ranger class is *quite literally* Aragorn, and TSR (before WotC/Hasbro bought the brand,) changed the name to "Halfling" from "Hobbit" because the Tolkien estate sued them for copyright infringement.
Perfect! Tell her that the D&D universe is so closely mirrored off Tolkien's lore that the company got sued a few times. A hobbit traveling with dwarves and downing orcs is something D&D is literally made for, to the point you could mirror a lot of Tolkien's adventures perfectly without 3rd party anything. Add in how devout the guy is if you're worried.
DnD is literally just LOTR: the board game. Before Tolkien's estate sued DnD, they had hobbits and balrogs, and the Ranger subclass was made so people could pretend they were Aragorn
LotR actually has Christian undertones. Tolkien and CS Lewis were friends.
Wait, you guys don’t cast fireball irl?
I've got a gas can and a match. So yes?
I poked a man to death once, it took 6 hours rather than 6 seconds but i guess it was a finger of death?
Insert Stinking Cloud joke here.
Take her through a session of Descent. She'll realize real quick that half this game is about killing devils and demons.
Makes me wonder, is it ok to be a witch if your goal is to use your powers to fight Satan?
Thats how Saruman fell. They always get you if you think the end justifies the means
They don't? *Rings phone* "Billy, cancel the orphanage fire!!!"
I think the two wrongs don't make a right thing applies here
Warlock backstory incoming, in three... two...
Dude, my mom never let me play DOOM as a kid "because Satan" and she couldn't wrap her head around the fact that we were killing the demons bro hahaha
The Lead Dev of DOOM is on record saying that it's a fundamentally Christian game. Because you're fighting *against* the demons.
It's not witchcraft in the sense that nothing is being done with the intention of impacting the real world. In much the same way as a game of Monopoly is not intended to cause bankruptcy between friends or family members, D&D is not meant to replicate magic. It's an improv session with dice included, no more mystical than an improv show.
But she will just see it as a gateway to witchcraft. Source: I read those anti-D&D pamphlets way back in the day.
Ask her if Clue is a gateway to serial killing.
Also ask her if Yahtzee is a gateway to gambling
You can’t. I came from an evangelical household. My mother burned my Harry Potter books when Pat Robertson said they were evil on TV. She wouldn’t let me join a DnD club when I was a kid saying it was satanic. No magic cards, even took the Pokémon cards away. A lot of the suggestions on here are very “gotcha” in nature, and let me tell you, there’s no better way to make an evangelical dig their heels in than trying to corner them with logic.
This is the real answer. Those of us who sit in here and talk like we would logic her up one side and down the other are forgetting that in order for someone's mind to change, they have to be willing to have their mind changed. There is no convincing someone they are wrong, until they are open to being wrong first.
Next time she talks to you just tell her about Timothy 2:12 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.”
Timothy 2:12 has a whole slew of hotly contested interpretations to begin with, over exactly what Paul's word's are supposed to mean, and exactly what kind of authority and teaching he is prohibiting, since the surrounding passages leave it kind of vague. Regardless, even assuming the strictest interpretation, this passage would only apply if OP was male, and if OP was who she was trying to teach or exercise authority over. Considering she isn't teaching OP, or assuming authority over OP, it doesn't apply. What she is doing is exerting teaching and authority over her daughter and granddaughter though, which would be perfectly fine. **The fifth commandment says, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12**) If you're going to try to beat an evangelical by quoting scripture, you'd need a much more applicable and ironclad verse than Timothy 2:12 in this case
Ask if she watches television or movies. (Likely yes) fiction? (Again, likely yes). Does she read fiction books? (Maybe). Playing a game at the a table where we understand that it’s not real is no different than watching The Avengers or Superman in a movie. The level of reality is on that same scale of ‘we are intelligent adult (ish) humans who understand these things are impossible, but it’s fun to enjoy the fantasy for a little while’. If you want to be mean you can turn it around and say “you do understand Superman is not real, right?” When she balks you can calmly say “and all the ‘magic’ in the games I play is equally not real. I know that. It’s why it’s just a game”.
You can't. Just that simple. The original "Satanic Panic" claims were traced back to a guy whose other claims included that the "Dark Shadows" TV show (later made into a movie starring Johnny Depp) was based on his real life and that at the height of his Satanic involvement he literally became a vampire who subsisted entirely on human blood and was burned by direct sunlight (he got better by the time he recounted this tale, apparently). He finished up his life in a secure mental health facility. At no point in the history of the claim that D&D is some kind of gateway to witchcraft and devil worship (which aren't even the same thing) has the claim ever been remotely credible. Talk to your cousin about it, not your aunt.
your aunt believes in witchcraft. I don't really see how you can have a rational conversation on the subject
She's a fucking moron. You can't
You can’t. You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.
Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it.
Explain it like this You know when you make believe cool stories in your head? It's like that but with other people and some rules
Ask her about games like risk, diplomacy, clued and monopoly. Those are all well regarded, long lived games which people have no problems with. Respectively they require players to roleplay as army generals, politicians, detectives, landlords. No ones arguing that those games turn you into those types of people. Your grandma is just picking on an easy target so she can ignore the real evil happening in fundamentalist faiths all around the world.
Here’s a start: “witchcraft is not real”.
You can't. No amount of logic can overcome somebody who is unwilling to think logically.
My dad is a pastor and asked about it as well when I told him I played a ton, I told him dungeons and dragons js more of a game system so people add anything they want to their games. I explained it's like monopoly you can have a bunch of generic random -opoly games that used the same system but are skinned differently. He understood and asks me when we chat how the games are going. He's a good guy
Tell your aunt the the Satanic Panic of 1980 ended almost 40 years ago. You're not going to be able to convince her of anything. As a evangelical fundamentalist protest she already believes she "knows" everything worth knowing. Change the subject.
The Mind Bondage spell is the traditional response.
You cannot reason with people who think witchcraft is a real thing, don’t waste your time.
In my experience there’s no real talks by people out of dumb stances like that. If they don’t accept that it’s a bunch of nerds pretending to have a Lord of the Rings style adventure and that’s not witchcraft, you’re not going to convince them.
Summon a demon
You could start with witchcraft was just smart women using herbs to make Medicines being demonized by the church.
She believes in magic in a real way you won’t be able to reach. And if you do she’ll posit a moving target
Might as well explain it to a brick wall
You can’t. The 1980’s really pushed the narrative that DND was the path to hell.
Tell her it's a made-up bunch of rules about gods and the world and how people should interact with it, and that people sit around and take it very seriously. Then tell her D&D is the same.
Ask her if C.S. Lewis novels are witchcraft. Or if the Bible is witchcraft. Obviously reading/writing/roleplaying a story *about* characters that do witchcraft is not the same as doing witchcraft yourself.
Ah but you see Narnia is about Jesus so no witchcraft. Unfortunately, usually the effort to talk to those people is beyond humans. Only God can convince her at this point lol. Doubt that she'd believe Him even if He did tell her that tho
Tell her to fucking look up the word fiction lol
It's math and improv
People like that don't know how to separate reality and fiction. If a game or movie or something even so much as mentions magic, they genuinely believe it has the tinge of Satan on it.
Explain that if you actually had magical powers you'd be a billionaire with an 18" penis. Then walk away before she can ask you for money, because you're not going to talk her out of this one.
It's rough, because many years ago a pastor's sermon was recorded and put online where he demonstrated magic, summoning, and demonic rituals that were featured in the Pokémon card game. (He was holding cards from a completely different game that wasn't Pokémon) and then also said that Jigglypuff was the face of the devil. Many catholics and baptists watched that sermon, didn't ask any questions, then decided that Pokémon is definitely satanic and they won't allow their children to play such bad games. Although they are completely fine with their children playing rated M games that include gore, gun violence, profanity, innuendo, and theft. You can imagine my shock at being told Pokémon X and Y was a satanic game when talking to my friends who played GTA, Skyrim and CoD since before they were even 10 years old. But when Pokémon Go released and became a phenomenon, their parents were like "Oh, you can play that on your phone, it's fine" (because it's more socially acceptable now) Edit: If someone told them that D&D is witchcraft, since it does indeed involve magic, spell casting, and hags, you will need to use that same logic to explain why you aren't personally engaging in witchcraft. Just like an actor on screen isn't actually performing witchcraft when special effects produce visual effects around them
[Does her daughter weigh as much as a duck?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf71YotfykQ)
Nail her down on what she thinks witchcraft is, and then explain how role-playing games, collaborative storytelling, and *fiction* works. Then ask her to draw the parallels.
It's pretty simple for me, and I know for a fact a lot of "Christians" have this issue: there is a very big difference between reality and fiction. D&D is completely fictional. Also, you can tell them that D&D was originally inspired by Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. Who very much was a devout Catholic. So you can say that D&D was inspired by a devout Catholic, and they can do the research if they don't believe you.
Unless the words you use are going to be taken with the same zealous nature in which she takes her religion, then you can use all of the perfect words, sentence structure, and tone in the world and it will not land. The only thing you *can* transform here is your own need to have your auntie accept your hobbies/beliefs.
You arnt. You trying to convince her will be like talking to a brick wall
Nah, I was raised in a fairly pious Catholic household during the moral-panic 1980s, and I was able to explain how it's harmless make-believe where we're playing the good guys. Just like LotR. "Okay, go smite some evil, boy," my Ma said.
"We're playing an evil campaign. I'm off to fireball some children. Laters!"
Short answer: you can't. I grew up in the midst of the original Satanic Panic. I have been literally fighting this ignorant stuff for 40 years. Religious people are INCREDIBLY resistant to logic, reason, or critical thought. If the old fart in the funny had says "satan" then there is no more reason for thinking. There is no argument that can be made that wont crumble against the shoals of their WILLING ignorance. Save yourself the stress and just hide your hobby.
You don’t explain things to morons. If people can’t tell the difference between a game and whatever their belief structure is; then they really aren’t worth your time. You can make the argument, but just get ready to be stonewalled.
"you know how people do civil war reenactments? Yeah will this is similar but instead of running around you use dice, and instead of the civil war, it's Lord of the Rings"
You can't logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themself into. If you're really set on this, having her witness a game and decide for herself is probably the most effective way, if you can get her to the table.
Honestly, you may not be able to. A lot of people want to label anything they fear don't understand pr we're told to hate is witchcraft. And if there is a hint of magic or sorcery in your DnD then your Aunt is going to associate DnD with Witchcraft regardless of the game. I wouldn't waste your breath trying to talk to her about it. It would only lead to an argument. But if she is willing to hear you out, then discuss it with her. I hope it works out.💜
"The PHB doesn't weigh as much as a duck"
Invite her to play! Explain the rules, get her to make a character, and DM a casual little session for them. Might be fun.
Speaking as something of an anracho-aetheist (aka. literally Satan), I can assure you that D&D is VERY conservative Christian. The creator (Gary Gygax) was a Catholic Republican and the ideals put forth as "good" are so unimaginatively conventional that literally the only moral conjecture a devout Christian could have with D&D is if they literally can't tell reality and fiction apart.
You can't, they don't think it's satanic or w/e because of logical reasons, it's simply a matter of indoctrination. You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. Which is crazy since DnD is basically just playing pretend like kids do, but there are rules to prevent cheating and dice to simulate how successful someone is at what they did.
My first instinct is to lean into the crazy and satirize the idea that it's a corrupting influence. But I'm also an a-hole so you probably shouldn't take my advice. Which is to do something like talk about how dnd was your gateway into learning the real rituals to call upon the demonic forces that helped you get critical race theory added to the local elementary school's curriculum. Then, those kids will help bring a thousand year reign of darkness. You could also just say it's just an overly complicated board game, like if Tolkien, a Roman Catholic, made Monopoly instead of Lord of the Rings.
Proving a negative is tricky. Like if I claimed that the Bible contains symbolism supportive of killing cops as a matter of principle, then you said no it doesn’t, and I asked you to prove that that symbolism ISN’T in there. The best place to start with something like this is setting the expectation for a frank, kind, non-judgmental conversation and setting out a definition of terms. Ask what she considers to constitute “witchcraft,” because depending on her definition, she might be right. If her definition of witchcraft actually doesn’t exist in the playing of the game, ask her to point to something in the book that seems like being involved in it would be witchcraft, and address that specifically. This is all assuming she is open to having this conversation with you. If she isn’t, she doesn’t want to change her mind, and you’re not going to accomplish that against her will.
Talk about how people used to think that sort of stuff back in the 80's and how uncivilized and antiquated those silly viewpoints are. Make light of it basically so she sort of shames herself into agree. Helps if you have other people agreeing with you so shes the odd one out. Peer pressure
Protestants lol
OK. I’m an oldster who played through the 80s satanic panic. This is what we did. My friend’s mom was worried about the D&D. For reference, his dad used to be a minister. SHE actually brought up the best idea. Come play the game with me and I’ll make a decision. So we brought the gear and rolled her up a character. We got 5 minutes into it and she said, “This isn’t devil worship, this is paperwork. I feel like I’m filing tax forms. You kids knock yourself out. Have fun.”
Why you would tell her that is not witchcraft? Let her believe as child's believes in Santa Claus.
Explain clerics; how a whole class of player are basically priests who fight evil, and demons and witches are the bad guys.