Is Dungeons and Dragons Just a Cult?
How a Hobby (or Hobbies) Can Take Over Our Lives
After college, I was living as a tenant in two of my college friends’ parents’ converted bed and breakfast (the two friends are sisters). While living there, my interest in Dungeons and Dragons was being reborn after a long yet unsatisfied fascination with it for years, where I dreamed of playing it, but never had anyone to try it with me. But I was a fully grown adult now with money, so I got the starter’s set, and I invited my two college friends and one of their boyfriends to play. We were going to play at the bed and breakfast, where there was plenty of room. As I was setting up the game, their mom came up to me, eyeing the gameboard and dice suspiciously.
“So…you’re going to play Dungeons and Dragons.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’d be careful. I’ve heard stories about boys running away and doing other bad things because of this game.”
Of course, I knew what she was talking about. She was referring to the Satanic Panic of the 80s and how DND was the scapegoat for so many bad things that had gone wrong during that decade. As a Christian, I had paid attention to these concerns and questioned them myself, but determined it was nothing to worry about. And I told my friends’ mother as much. We were just playing a game rooted in fantasy. No sacrificing small animals to demons—the family’s two cats would remain unharmed.
That was 2019. Over the past six years, I’ve played a lot of DND games. I’ve added many dice, minis, and books to my collection, and it has remained one of my top five hobbies. But over the past couple of years, I’ve seen a lot of things happening with the game, things that have made me think: maybe this game is a cult for some people.
Let me clarify some things first: I find DND to be a viable hobby. I’m wearing a DND t-shirt as I write this. And it is no different than hobbies like video games, reading, playing golf, or collecting statues of baby angels (shout out to my mom). But as with any hobby, it can become an idol, and something that is worshipped. Just what a cult is built on.
And certainly, if DND has the capacity to be a cult, it has quite the number of followers. Over the past ten-plus years, the number of DND players has shot up. It has a mainstream popularity that it hasn’t realized in many years, and I think that’s great. But I’ve seen a lot of things that aren’t so great.
Some people are just overly enamored with it. I connected with one person who says he hosts three-plus games a week. I know of groups that play for more than eight hours in a single day—a full workday. At most, I get to play now once every other month for just a few hours, so the idea that people are devoting so much time to this one hobby fascinates me. I won’t belittle someone for how they spend their time, especially if it’s something they enjoy…But I do think there’s such a thing as an overindulgence in something.
From my perspective, each person has many other enjoyments available to them in the world, as well as responsibilities. There are many better ways to spend copious amounts of time than using it for a RPG game. But again, I emphasize, this can happen with any hobby, and any responsibility. But I’ve noticed it particularly with DND because it’s a hobby I enjoy.
Some people build their entire lives around this game. They’ll integrate it into their lifestyle and spend every second of every day devoting some aspect of their lives to the game, whether that’s painting minis, preparing a game session, or talking about it on online forums. You’ll even have people tune in once a week for three-to-four-hour streams where people sit around and play DND—something I’ve never really understood.
There have to be better ways to spend your time than living every waking moment in a fantasy game.
For my reader, please understand my perspective. I am not against Dungeons and Dragons. I still love playing the game, though I don’t have an interest in it like I once did. This is because I’m focusing on more important things. Like my Faith, my wife, my job, my responsibilities, and my more enriching hobbies like reading and writing. I think RPG games like DND are very beneficial in several ways, but I have also seen the detriment it has for many people. For some people, DND is a religion when it shouldn’t be. There are many more important things in life. So let’s treat DND for what it is: a hobby that brings people together. And if that’s what your favorite thing to do is, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Just make sure your life is balanced. And don’t be taken in by a cult, whether it’s DND or something else.
I would have liked a definition of "cult". It sounds like you mean it in the sense of idolatry.
Regarding DnD's resemblance to religious practice, I think it goes further than what you suggested.
First, TTRPG's are an echo of gathering around the fire/hearth and passing on the myths of the culture and family. Second, due to the randomness introduced with dice, it has resonance with seance sessions (gathered around a table and consulting an outside force for filling in the blanks).
So the Satanic Panic, though a hysteria can not completely be dismissed in the sense that at least one can say that DnD is not completely neutral in a spiritual sense. It does carry with it a spiritual resonance of practices that some Christians would identify as anathema to their tradition.
So, yes they overblew it but it wasn't nothing.
DnD promises that one will be immersed in an epic adventure where one's choices matter. This is what the soul yearns for. People get sucked into sinking so much time into this because the world in general has not satisfied that yearning. Modernity is not offering a better alternative. So they go for what does quench that thirst even if it is ultimately insufficient.
I think D&D can only be a cult in the same way that using any externalized activity as an identity is a cult—in other words, it's not D&D that's the problem. You see the same sort of position and behavior everywhere now—in photography, activism, trade work, baking, music collection, and even fantasy writing. We've forgotten how to understand ourselves, and so we obsess over and define ourselves by interests and other things far more superficial.