David Kociemba asks about incor****ation of neopagan ideas into
roleplaying games, and posts, in part:
This paper will examine how role-playing game players
craft their own creative folklore out of the fictional
folklore of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example.
I confess to being confused about what Buffy the Vampire Slayer has to
do with anything, though I admit to not having watched it at all. The
gamers that I know do not pay much attention to mass media, and are
unlikely to incor****ate "media representation" into their games.
With respect to neopaganism and paganism, I think you have to consider
that the term "pagan" covers a very broad ground. The "neo" in
neopaganism means "new", of course; it's a modern religion, only a few
decades old. For games with medieval or pseudomedieval settings, such
as my own, it's too modern to serve as direct source material.
It does have roots in certain historical traditions and religions of
northwest Europe. On the other hand, it's unrelated to other
historical pagan religions like that of the ancient greek gods of Mt.
Olympus. It's not clear to me how much of this you're asking about.
For what it's worth, my own campaign does have some elements drawn
from northwest European pagan folklore, though they are not central.
Mostly I took a few ideas that interested me and used them, but I've
never really had much chance to flesh out what's behind them or to
research original material very closely. If I did, my version of
druidic religion would probably end up diverging strongly from actual
historical analogues, since the economy in my campaign is much less
agrarian than that of the people who put up Stonehenge.
I find myself unsure as to whether any of this relates to your point
at all. For the people I know, neopaganism - the modern religion - is
a player world thing, not a game world thing. For example, my wife is
a witch and we were married in a Neopagan ceremony. I suppose if I
were running a modern campaign - such as a superhero campaign - I'd
treat neopaganism just as I'd treat Christianity or Hinduism or any
other religion. I personally don't tend to care for modern campaigns,
though.
Warren J. Dew
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