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

[WhatGravitas]

Huh, never seen or heard of a game store like that - I only see the boardgame/comic/gaming combos, usually. And book stores tend to put RPG material close to Fantasy & Sci-Fi sections. *shrug*

But I don't really care anyway.

Cheers, LT.

 

[S'mon]

I meet quite a lot of pagan gamers GMing D&D in London the past 9 years. One was a Chaos Sorcerer, my wife didn't like him apparently leaving a summoned chaos spirit in our house (it broke the back door window/the back door window broke). Currently there's a 23 year old Californian wicca lesbian in my group, she seems nice.

I get some minis online from a store that also sells pagan paraphernalia. I guess I'd be less likely IRL to buy game supplies from such a store than from a regular games shop. So whether it's a good business strategy I don't know.

 

[Dyson Logos]

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

In Ottawa for a while we had an "occult shop" that was basically a grass-roots pagan shop (competing with the larger pagan store in town) that also had several shelves of gaming books on the shelves.

The fact of the matter is that they were a small store with a variety of products for sale, mostly wiccan / pagan, but also including used and new RPGs.

Setting the time-machine a little further back and one of the alternative fashion stores in Ottawa (selling primarily to the goth and punk scene) also stocked a lot of Vampire books.

At the heart of it, there are a lot of pagans who play roleplaying games, and in the early days of Vampire, there were a lot of goths playing vampire. So it made sense that if you had a store selling to one group (goths, pagans) you had might as well stock what they want.

 

[A Passing Maniac]

None of the gamers I know are pagan -- the only neopagan I know is my sister, who doesn't game, her preferred hobby being causing family drama -- but almost all of them are atheists or agnostics, leaning toward the former. Of course, there are exceptions; of the dozen and a half folk I've gamed with most frequently over the past few years, one is Jewish and two are Catholic -- though only one of those is actually a good Catholic.

As for the Friendly Local Gaming Stores in the cities I've inhabited, no books on paganism from them. One is a comic shop, and the other two are hobby shops (one focused on model building, the other on pets).

 

[Herschel]

Sounds like a kick-butt store I'd like to visit if/when I make it to the Netherlands.

And this coming from someone who (I think) would still be considered Christian.

Pagan/wicca stores ime tend to be small, niche places. Non-OP games stores tend to be small, niche places. In the gloabl economy, that's a tough place to come from. If a niche store thinks they can add to their foot traffic by offering other niche products, good for them. The proprietor may have an interest in both or it may be purely marketing. There will be crossovers in the demographics, and those people can also buy from both "sources" and increase sales as a "one-stop shop". So no, it doesn't bother me and does make sense.

Why are so many shops both comics & games? Same concept. I go to one all the time and I'm not in to comics in any way, shape or form outside of good movie versions.

 

[catsclaw227]

I have met gamers that are gothy, but not really pagan or wiccan per se. And none of the FLGSs I've been to cater to things other than gaming or comics, so I haven't seen any overtly neopagan products (but you see the occasional goth-wear pentagram necklaces or skull rings)

I did game for a few sessions with a group that were all Urantians, though.

 

[catsclaw227]

Pagan/wicca stores ime tend to be small, niche places. Non-OP games stores tend to be small, niche places. In the gloabl economy, that's a tough place to come from. If a niche store thinks they can add to their foot traffic by offering other niche products, good for them. The proprietor may have an interest in both or it may be purely marketing. There will be crossovers in the demographics, and those people can also buy from both "sources" and increase sales as a "one-stop shop". So no, it doesn't bother me and does make sense.

Personally, it doesn't bother me one way or the other. But I am not sure I would want my little girl going into a store like that.

I imagine that an RPG publisher trying to reach out to new gamers, especially 12-16 year old gamers, will find it frustrating if their product is being sold in a store that might be anathema to many concerned parents. Letting kids try out fantasy role-playing maybe nudging up to the edge of their comfort zones, but if the kid goes into a store with real-life witchcraft, paganism and (potentially) satanism would be too much.

In that sense, I don't think they should mix. I would rather have clean, comfortable and PG-13 location to sell my wares so that parents would trust that their kids are safe.

Honestly, if my girl came into a store with me to buy a gaming book I don't want her to be scared or to come out of it asking if I am a devil-worshiper because I buy books at that store.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

Religion is fantasy and fantasy is religion. It all depends on what you perceive, or believe, the truth to be.

 

[WizarDru]

But if you are a pagan, it's almost a sure bet you are into the fantasy genre and heavy metal music . . . at least for those of us who are children of the 80s!

For varying values of 'sure bet', perhaps. Of the five or so pagan gamers I've met, exactly none of them had any love for heavy metal. The only friend of mine who liked heavy metal was gay, but not a pagan. Everyone one of us were children of the 80s.


As for the sentiment that it would be odd that a store might carry Pagan materials and Christian materials at the same time; one of my favorite comic/game/book shops, Between the Books, has been odd for over 20 years, now.

 

[Wycen]

Personal anecdote.

In my early medieval history class, we did a class exercise, breaking into groups to determine if our village would switch to Islam, from Christianity, when they took advantage of Rome's decline.

I said no, I wasn't going to convert, I wanted to continue my Dionysian orgies and wine drinking. Someone else actually went one further and said she was an aethist, (in the end the professor mentioned we'd both die).

So next thing I know, the guy sitting next to me during the midterm says I should be called "Pagan Boy" since we didn't put our real names on the test to avoid favoritism.

Then this week we were discussing if we'd convert from paganism, as Frisians (French Germanic tribes) to Christianity. The other guy in our group then said, "we know you aren't going to convert".

I thought to myself, "how the heck did I get this reputation?" Then I said, "So what, I'm a gamer and frankly the mythology making up these pagan religions way cool".