Do fantasy and paganism go together, or should they stay separate?

[White Tornado]

Do fantasy and paganism go together, or should they stay separate?

Thanks to the list of locations for D&D Game Day, May 23th, I discovered a Friendly Local Game Store in my own city I didn’t know about. Today I went there to check it out, and I was quite annoyed and a bit shocked. Even though the place is called “Labyrinth Fantasy”, it had an entire bookcase with books dedicated to witchcraft, wicca, and other forms of (neo-)paganism. There was even an invitation to join a coven dedicated to wicca, druidism, shamanism and other forms of paganism. To give some context, it was quite a big store (for Dutch standards), and they had several shelves of D&D 4th edition, all sorts of other RPG’s, LARP equipment, and Warhammer, and even wine and fair-trade chocolate.

It kind of shocked me, and made me thinking. There are all sorts of prejudices towards D&D about it being “occult” or whatever, which aren’t true (imo). But this FLGS decided to put fantasy and witchcraft together, and I really dislike it. I want my fantasy games to remain exactly what it is: fantasy and games. When I find the courage, I will go there again and ask the storekeeper about it.

I was really curious what other people’s experiences are. Does your FLGS sell books on “real” witchcraft? Do you know D&D players that practice any form of paganism? Are there any wiccans active on these boards? How related are D&D and paganism? Do they (sometimes) go together, or should they stay separate?

NOTE: I know this is a website that doesn’t like to discuss religion, and I fully agree with that. Please don’t make negative comments towards any religion or spirituality in general. I don’t want to be negative about neopaganism here, but I do want fantasy and witchcraft to remain two separate entities.

Also, I am not a native speaker, and not very much into wicca/witchcraft/paganism, so I may have some words and terms cluttered. Sorry 'bout that!

 

[Crothian]

For the most part the gaming stores I've seen just stick with things like comics and board games. I have seen two stores though that had pagan items in them, one of them went under pretty fast.

It doesn't bother me in the least. Operating a store of any time is not easy to do and if they can sell these items and stay in business I'm fine with that.

The store that went under though I found it amusing that they had a strong D&D following there and not a WoD following. When I first went into the store it screamed WoD to me.

 

[Dykstrav]

There used to be a game store in Modesto, CA called the Gauntlet. I played a vampire LARP there every weekend when I lived there, and we kept getting bozos coming in thinking that we were "sanguinarian covens" and stuff like that. Yep, people coming in literally looking for stranger's blood to drink. During the week when I was running my D&D campaign there (this was back in the late 2E days), there were people coming in looking for the satanic bible or tarot cards or what have you. Apparently, the store had a reputation about town as an occult hangout perpetuated by people who didn't really understand what gaming was. So in a strange sort of way, it makes sense to me on some level for pagans and gaming to go together. Alot of people already lump it together anyway... So if you have the demand for the product, I could see a retailer wanting to meet that demand. It's still pretty bizarre though.

That being said (and respecting the "no religion" rule), I think the reaction would be far different if you combined a gaming store with supplies for a more mainstream faith. Paganism and gaming are still activities on the fringes of society, and the gaming hobby seems to have more than its fair share of pagans, so it doesn't surprise me as much. I'd be far more surprised to see a store that sold D&D books and bibles (despite the fact that several fantasy authors are christians).

Still, I can see reason for concern. That's exactly the sort of thing that my father would use to "prove" to me that D&D is an evil, evil hobby. I wouldn't be surprised if some parents had a strong reaction to their children visiting such a store. Let's be thankful that a place like this wasn't around in the eighties!

 

[billd91]

It doesn't bother me in the slightest. And whether or not one preceded the other I don't know, but the only people I know who have professed any belief in Wiccan and neo-pagan religion I have met through gaming and sci-fi/fantasy circles.

Does fantasy attract people who already believe in these religions? Or do these religions attract people who are already into fantasy? Do they simply appeal to people in similar ways? Is there something about fantasy and sci-fi literature and gaming that conditions people to be less likely to stick with the Abrahamic religions? Is it because of some kind of doctrinaire qualities of these religions or because the Abrahamic religions are so establishment?

Hard to say.

In any event, a game store with free trade chocolate certainly sounds awesome to me. As long as they're reasonably knowledeable about their games and friendly, I'd be going there.

 

[TerraDave]

We could do a really good pole for this.

The mods wouldn't allow it....

As I think about it, I know of no neo-pagans into RPGs, but I only know of a few, and not at all well. BUT, I know plenty of RPGers who have at least a few books on (real world) gods, witches, the paranormal, stuff like that.

 

[Nymrohd]

Well paganism and the occult are certainly a good source of inspiration for a fantasy game.

 

[the Jester]

Yes, there are plenty of (neo)pagans gamers. Most of the pagans I know game; I do not think that most of the gamers I know are pagan, however.

It wouldn't especially bother me to see books on paganism at the FLGS, but it sure would strike me as odd.

 

[Crothian]

What is especially fun is when you go into a more mainstream bookstore and see the things like Vampire the Masqurade in the Pagan section shelved by someone who didn't really know what they were doing.

 

[Tilenas]

You make fantasy without Christianity, they call it paganism. You make fantasy with Christianity, they call it heresy. Either way, the Christian Right always has its Golden Calf to dance around.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Probably 95% of the pagans I know (and I know quite a few, including my ex-wife) are also gamers so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there's something that draws the two demographics together. I can't draw that large of a percentage with any other religious leaning (including agnostic or atheist, though I know a lot of atheist gamers as well).