What is wrong with dungeons and dragons?

January 6, 2022

QUESTION? / COMMENT!

What is wrong with dungeons and dragons, my son is meticulous? He states it’s just a dice game.

ANSWER! / COMMENT!

Dr Thomas Radecki, research director of the National Coalition on Television Violence. A practicing psychiatrist and college professor, Radecki has psychologically evaluated Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) and other fantasy role playing games.

"Dr Radecki has documented 123 cases of homicides and suicides for which he blames D&D. He has testified as an expert witness in eight murder trials in which D&D was criminally implicated. Radecki claimed brutal murders, rapes and crimes have been patterned after characters D&D players concoct in the game. He cited one example in which a 19 year old Utah boy choked, raped and sadistically disposed of a 14 year old girl. Radecki surmised that the murderer / rapist, who slaughtered evil female D&D characters to survive in the game, was unable to distinguish fantasy from reality when he committed the heinous crime. May people argue that D&D players who violate and slay people in real life are mentally unbalanced. Radecki responded that, although D&D players are emotionally troubled from the start, most are honor students with brilliant futures. Radecki pointed out that role playing is a powerful teaching tool or both positive and negative behavior. Unfortunately, fantasy role playing games like D&D encourage evil. They reward players with power points for casting curses and remorselessly slaughtering each other.

Gary Gygax, inventor of D&D has protested that his creation is only a game. Dr Radecki responded that in the D&D manuals, Gary Gygax encourages players to become their characters and even uses Adolph Hitler as a role model of charisma. Furthermore, Radecki pointed out that the game discriminates against women portraying them as erotic objects of lust and aggression. Dr Radecki warned that many players lose the ability to distinguish between fiction and fact. He says children who play the game may be desensitized to violence in varying degrees and suggests they get help from a minister or counselor. Dr Radecki advises parents and grandparents to gently, but firmly, steer youngsters away from D&D and similar fantasy role playing games” (Book:‘Satanism: the Seduction of America’s Youth’; Bob Larson; p.201-202).

St. John Vianney: “We must watch over our mind, our hearts, and our senses, for these are the gates by which the devil enters in.” Demons traffic through the senses.  

*Matthew 6:22-23 [RSV] says, "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" The point of this passage is that much of our lifestyle is determined by how we use our eyes -- what we choose to look at. What people see with their eyes shapes their soul because the eyes are the windows to the soul.

Or as the prominent protestant Christian motivational speaker Zig Ziglar (RIP) was fond of saying, “Garbage in garbage out.” We become what we experience through our senses.

Psalm 101:2-3 (RSV) “…I will walk with integrity of heart within my house; I will not set before my eyes anything that is base. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cleave to me.” I know Catholic homes where this verse is put on a sign underneath their television.

(Dr Dan Schneider – Exorcism team member; Las Cruces NM) 3 things happen when you watch a horror movie:

1. You see the reality of evil, you examine your life and your conscience, you have compunction in your heart and this drives you to repentance and back into a right relationship with God.

2. Curiosity leads you to the rabbit hole of the diabolic, you become focused on the demon, you become enamored by the phenomena. The demon wants to draw you in by performing these parlor tricks. The disordered curiosity with demons becomes an entry point for diabolic affliction.

3. Watching horror movies opens you to the diabolic If you have openings and your in mortal sin, you expose yourself and you become an entry point to your home and your room.

Fr Chad Ripperger (Exorcist) p.535 ‘The Science of Mental Health’: “the directees (patients of spiritual affliction) must be sure to avoid not only sinning themselves but of watching the sins of others. By viewing the sins of others, eg. watching someone commit fornication on TV or killing someone in a graphic fashion on TV, they provide the sense data for the demons to make suggestions to them by forming images in their imagination. In fact, the more programs one watches on TV, the more demons can influence a persons actions since they have more data to use. The more we become familiar with the imagery of sin, the easier it is for the demons to coax us into sinning because we have lost our inhibitions with respect to the sin because we are comfortable with it.” *This is why Fr Ripperger (Exorcist) teaches possessed people under his care before he does an exorcism over them that they must engage in “sensory deprivation” (no media, no phone, no internet, no computer) for 60 days before he starts the ‘rite of exorcism’ over them.