Dangerous Games Quotes

“While the romantics rejected the Enlightenment’s exaltation of reason, many theologians accepted it and sought to frame the Bible as a set of empirical data.”
― Joseph P Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

“In an interview given at Gen Con in 2007, Gygax explained that he had been reluctant to talk about his identity as a Christian during the era of the panic: “I was afraid it would give Christianity a bad name because I did D&D.”4”
― Joseph P Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

“Biblow suggested that rich fantasy lives prepare children to think about different options for dealing with frustration and allow them to consider the possible consequences of these options.”
― Joseph P Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

“More importantly, one could make the opposite argument to Leithart and Grant--that if good is guaranteed to win, then goodness becomes merely a means to an end rather than an end unto itself.”
― Joseph Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

“We are narrative creatures, and stories render the world apprehensible. Narrative tells us about the world we live in and our place within it.”
― Joseph P Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

“Someone in a state of flow is happy because he or she is interested in the task itself rather than an end result.”
― Joseph P Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

“Like the Society for Creative Anachronism, The Ballad of the White Horse depicted “the Middle Ages as they should have been.” Chesterton’s ballad made a lasting impression on Robert E. Howard, who praised it in letters to his friend Clyde Smith.”
― Joseph P Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

“Both creators of Dungeons & Dragons were devout Christians.”
― Joseph P Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

“Finally, by inhabiting another world we are able to look back at our own from a new perspective. This too is a function that fantasy role-playing games share with religion. While the truth claims of religious worldviews generally cannot be proven empirically, they exert an observable influence on the way that people order their world.”
― Joseph P Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

“An example of this is an urban legend told in some gaming circles about a gazebo.”
― Joseph P Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

“The creators of D&D were themselves Christian, and groups such as the Christian Gamers’ Guild contain pastors among their ranks.”
― Joseph P Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds