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Comment by helsinkiandrew | Hacker News Reader

> "a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings".

The great 1980s Dungeons & Dragons panic: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26328105

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Ironically, I think every single one of these is in the bible. ...Maybe not cannibalism.

Isn't one of the sacraments a little bit cannibalistic?

2 Kings 6 24And it came to pass after this, that Benhadad king of Syria gathered all his host, and went up, and besieged Samaria. 25And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver. 26And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king. 27And he said, If the LORD do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress? 28And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. 29So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son. 30And it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes; and he passed by upon the wall, and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within upon his flesh. 31Then he said, God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day.

Cannibalism is symbolically re-enacted by practicing Christians every Sunday, when they literally eat the body of Christ at the end of mass.

Figuratively eat, unless you are a Catholic, who believe they literally eat the body of Christ (transubstantiation).

I'm a Protestant, but that explanation of transubstantiation may be the popular understanding but is not the actual official doctrine of the Catholic Church. I'm not versed enough to explain it except by way of terrible analogy to software development - everyone knows what Agile is, but no one really knows what Agile is, and once you start to read the Agile Manifesto and think deeply, you realize that.

I'm a Protestant, but that explanation of transubstantiation may be the popular understanding but is not the actual official doctrine of the Catholic Church.

I was raised a Catholic, I believe doctrine changed at some time, maybe Vatican II? I remember being told as a child (a long time ago :) not to eat some time before communion.

Maybe that's obsolete now.

The Catholic Church (and the bible they started from) effectively say everything and its opposite, depending on which argument is convenient at any particular time. They've been debating (and training to debate) these subjects for more than a thousand years. The only official doctrine, in practice, is that they are Right at all times, no matter what the topic might be.

I wouldn't really characterize the Catholic Church's official doctrines that way or that flexibly, but again, I am a Protestant with a number of overall disagreements with them and less personal experience with them, and it is easy for me to read your post as someone with much more personal experience. And since HN isn't really the best place for extended religious discussions, if you are interested for any reason, my email is always open.

See below, from https://thejesuitpost.org/2023/04/catholic-101-transubstanti... This seems clear enough to me, and can be summed up by saying that Catholics believe that they are literally eating the body of Christ.

... “transubstantiation” refers to a change in which the substance of a thing—what it really is—changes, while its physical characteristics do not. Of course, this sort of change only occurs in the Eucharist, which, though it appears to remain bread and wine throughout the Mass, nevertheless truly becomes the flesh and blood of Jesus.

I took your using the word literally to mean you were saying that the physical characteristics changed, which is apparently not what you were saying.

I think this is a difference in language expectations, because when and where I grew up, some Protestants thought that Catholics believed either that the physical characteristics of the Eucharist changed during the blessing or consumption of the Eucharist, which your link seems to demonstrate to me that you are not agreeing with.

> unless you are a Catholic

The Lutherans would like a word.

It’s figurative in most sects I believe. Catholics take it literally

remove the "fantasy role-playing game" part and you have great description of youtube, tiktok, facebook etc

"a which uses demonology, witchcraft, ... " ?

> But in the 1980s the game came under an extraordinary sustained assault from fundamentalist religious groups who feared its power over young minds.

> ...

> Pulling described D&D as "a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings".

It could be said that the source material for the religious groups contains far worse stories. I wonder if the irony was lost on the people back then.

It can go both ways. One of the cofounders of the Dragon Lance stories and games used his religious expertise (LDS) and knowledge of an Indonesian language learned from his religious mission to help develop story plots and the pantheon of gods.

In fairness, if you remove fantasy role-playing game, it's not a terrible description of the Old Testament.

To me the best change they made in all that time was getting rid of the 1 gp = 1 xp mechanic. It toned down the murder hoboing a lot.

Was there a different xp mechanic between AD&D's gp = xp and 3+'s only killing is xp? Because I don't see how the switch to that could possibly reduce the incentive to murder.

xp for gold means you get less for killing a monster than you do for robbing it, and encourages a more careful exploratory approach. Modern D&D is much more of a tactical combat game than the original, where encounter design is "balanced" based on the assumption that players will be able to kill what they run into.

> Modern D&D is much more of a tactical combat game than the original

Kind of ironic when one thinks about it! Also, depending on how one defines "the original" this statement can be impossible to be true.

(not at all disagreeing, it's one of the things I don't like about the modern game)

> satanic type rituals... sadism... demon summoning

Wow, they sure didn't like C++ template metaprogramming back in the day!

Still don't. But they used to too.

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