Up On a Soap Box, Douglas P. Bachmann, Dragon Vol V no.1 #39

Larry DiTillio’s article in The Dragon #36, “Painted Ladies & Potted Monks,” was quite thought-provoking. In that article, Mr. DiTillio raised some interesting questions which touch the deeper dimensions of role playing. In short, he suggested that we are doing a bit more than “playing”; we are forming attitudes toward real life.
It is the intention of this article to push beyond the conclusion of Mr. DiTillio’s piece. If statements in this article give him some rough handling, it is not out of contempt. Mr. DiTillio deserves our thanks and respect for his sensitivity to the effects his game was having on younger players and for his attempt to respond to those effects in a responsible manner.
The exchange between the DM and the shy Paladin which Mr. DiTillio relates needs some examination. The Paladin asked if en- gaging in (what appears to have been) some gratuitous sexual titilla- tion was or was not a violation of his character’s alignment. The DM responded by saying that “if he considered sex evil it was, though in [the DM’s] opinion it wasn’t.” The DM responded on the level of right and wrong. The point here is that the question was not about right or wrong; it was about the appropriate response of a character. The question was: Do Paladins engage in such activities? The ques- tion was not: Is it right or wrong? The question that was actually asked was straight out of Faerie. The DM’s reponse was direct from Poughkeepsie. It is important to hear what is actually being asked as we play games; the rules of the game may be different than the rules of “real life. ”
Please permit a short digression here. Faerie, or Elfland, is a strange world. It is not familiar or comfortable to us. It is weird, awe-ful, wonder-ful. Anything which comes directly out of “real life” is from Poughkeepsie; it is comfortable, familiar, plastic, ultimately
trivial and boring. The art of Fantasy is not concerned with real-life evil, or science, or quickies or getting high. It is concerned with the profound mystery behind and within life, nature and the human soul. Anytime you sense “real life” creeping into a fantasy game, you know that the Poughkeepsie Factor is at work. So ends the digression.
What can we make of the answer to the Paladin’s question? Was the answer adequate even in “real life” terms? I cannot see that it was. Is something right just because we think it is right? If Hitler feels that it is right for him to kill six million Jews, is that morally accept- able? Was the Inquisition right because the Pope said it was? It seems to me that this kind of relativistic morality is untenable. My own suspicion is that people accept such relativity either because they have not given the matter sufficient thought, or because they wish to avoid the moral claim or issue which is implicit in a given situation or decision.
In spite of expressing a relativistic morality, Mr. DiTillio later communicates a sincere desire to provide “real life situations in a dungeon” which will enable players to “pick up reasonable attitudes toward the very real evils of life.” He wants to use games as teaching devices by espousing “real life” good. Although such charitable impulses are to be applauded, they drag us out of Faerie back into Poughkeepsie.
I do not wish to say that we cannot learn some lessons from Fantasy, but I would argue that Fantasy is not designed to teach us anything. If someone uses a fantasy game or novel as a soap box or a pulpit, that person has perverted Fantasy and has turned a form of art into a form of propaganda or pornography.
Fantasy will not tolerate teaching or preaching. Nor will Faerie accept the imposition of moral concerns from “real life.” Neverthe- less, there is an inherent morality to Fantasy. It is not a morality of law, but a morality of being.
The assumption underlying all Fantasy is that a character is going to become a hero or a heroine. The potential hero begins as a normal person, unprepared to do the work that he must do, unworthy of the dignity which properly will be his at the completion of his task. In order to do his work and face the final terror, the hero must grow—in strength, courage, dignity and wisdom. In short, he must experience an inner transformation.
There is a mythic structure which embodies this transformation.
It is summarized here from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces: “The mythological hero, setting forth from his commonday hut or castle, is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds to the threshold of adventure. There he encounters a shadowy presence which guards the passage. The hero may defeat or conciliate this power and go alive into the kingdom of the dark (brother-battle, dragon-battle; offering, charm), or be slain by the opponent and descend in death (dismemberment, crucifixion). Be- yond the threshold, then, the hero journeys through a world of unfamiliar yet strangely intimate forces, some of which severely threaten him (tests), some of which give magical aid (helpers).
“When he arrives at the nadir of the mythological round, he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward. The triumph may be represented as the hero’s sexual union with the goddess-mother of the world (sacred mother), his recognition by the father-creator (father atonement), his own divinization (apotheosis), or again—if the powers have remained unfriendly to him-his theft of the boon he came to gain (bride-theft, fire-theft); intrinsically it is an expansion of consciousness and therewith of being (illumination, transfiguration, freedom). The final work is that of return. If the powers have blessed the hero, he now sets forth under their protection (emissary); if not, he flees and is pursued (transformation flight, obstacle flight). At the return threshold the transcendental powers must remain behind; the hero re-emerges from the kingdom of dread (return, resurrection). The boon he brings restores the world (elixir).”
I believe this pattern is one of the essential forms of Fantasy and that it contains within it an inherent morality.
Beyond this inner dynamic, the task set for the hero is his alone. It is a work only he can do for the benefit of the world. If he fails, the world will die or be enslaved. The character will become a hero by accepting the role fate has set for him and by fulfilling the task he must perform. The hero, then, has a significant part to play in the World History of Faerie.
Whatever contributes to the hero’s growth toward nobility is good; whatever contributes to his regression is evil. If he does something which imperils his mission (thereby putting his world in peril), he is foolish—perhaps criminally foolish. If he acts in a way which promotes his mission he acts wisely.
From this, we can conclude that without a world within which to work and for which to work, there would be no morality in Fantasy. If we play out dungeon adventures which have no vital connection to a world hanging in the balance, if a player cannot find a place for himself in the whole epic of history, then there is no imperative to do anything and there is no reason to refrain from doing anything. Everything is then truly relative.
Game objectives, as they now exist in AD&D and even C&S, only permit a character to grow in power. As long as games define significant activity solely in terms of the acquisition of power, we will h&e no morality. If games begin to allow experience points or
something like them for growth indignity or nobility, then we will begin to move toward the morality inherent in Fantasy.
When that begins to happen, we will be able to ask questions. What does it mean to be a noble Warrior/Mage/Cleric/Thief/Pala- din, etc.? What kind of behavior is appropriate for my character? What are my Paladin’s deep wishes? For what does he seek and yearn? What really satisfies him or fulfills him? Given his role in the world, how might he act his best? When we answer these questions for ourselves, we will begin to formulate a morality.
As a player will need to continually ask if certain actions are worthy of his character, so a DM will have to ask if certain situations are weighty enough to claim a place in Faerie. Gratuitous sex and pot smoking seem to fail that test. That is, they fail unless they are being used by a villain to lure some potential hero from his quest into dismal failure.
Mr. DiTillio’s “scarlet hued room” seemed pointless—good for some kicks but ultimately signifying nothing. The “pseudo-high” he provided was dangerous because it meant that a character had surrendered his alertness, preparedness and awareness while in the Perilous Realm. A three-turn inability to fight is hardly a serious penalty for abandoning three virtues every hero must possess. Per- haps a combat penalty plus forbidding the acquisition of any experi- ence points for 24 hours would have been more in keeping with the impact that getting stoned actually would have in Faerie. If you want significant/meaningful play, you have got to fashion a significant/ meaningful world.
Finally, Mr. DiTillio calls upon older players to teach younger players, and thereby improve play. I do not share his faith. I am not overly impressed by the morality, holiness or sacrificial love em- bodied by my life or those of my contemporaries. But I do believe that as we struggle to discover the reality of Faerie and the proper forms of Fantasy, as we design game mechanics which are true to those realities, we will discover our souls, we will make ethical decisions . . . we will be transformed.