Strengths, D&D, and real life

One of my favorite authors is Robert Heinlein, who, through the voice of Lazarus Long, said “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

Mr. Heinlein, as noble and manly a quote as that is, I must confess that I ever so humbly disagree. Rather, I believe that specialization is central to success. This has been presented clearly to me through Living your Strengths and Now, Discover Your Strengths. Both books based on a theory that emphasizes doing, essentially, what one is good at rather than what one is bad at.

This may seem obvious, but it is not our initial reaction, most of the time. As is often the case, allow me to draw an analogy from Dorkdom, Dungeons and Dragons and Star Wars. As most of you know, I am an avid Dungeons and Dragons player and huge Star Wars fan, and I have learned a huge amount about real life from playing role playing games and engaging “fictional” universes and the questions and answers they are able to ask and give.

When many people begin playing Dungeons and Dragons, or any role playing game, their instinct is to be a jack of all trades, to cover all weaknesses and be a rock unto his or her own self. Whatever role you decide to take, cover your weaknesses so that you can always have something to do and you are never ineffective. Healers should also be damage dealers, utility casters should also heal, damage dealers should also have helpful buffs (boons for other members of the party). Makes sense, right? If one has multiple capabilities, one is always able to participate and never just standing around.

In my experience with role playing, multi-player video games, and reading fiction, as well as my experience in (shock!) real life, says that this is just plain wrong headed. Sure, it is good to be able to help in a number of situations, and if you only have a hammer every problem starts to look like a nail. However, one should recognize and use one's strengths.

Lets take the above example. In the D&D world, if you are going to play a healer, be it in D&D, World of Warcraft, or whatever, be the best healer you can; take every feat, every ability, every bonus, every talent, every everything you can get hold of to become the best healer the game can create. Work your tail off in order to get every advantage you possibly can, and only then are you truly seeing your potential come to pass. Healers who also want to do damage will end up doing both poorly.

The same is true in any group/party/troupe role playing session. If you have a job, do that job better than any other could. Work your tail off to be an expert at that job and let the rest of the group deal with the rest of the issues.

This teaches us two things. First, if you are an expert healer or damage dealer, you need somebody else to be an expert at other things. The best healer is at MAXIMUM capacity with the best tank and damage dealer, etc. If you are an expert in your field, gather around you a group who are also experts in their fields, and together you will achieve more than a million jacks-of-all-trades. This is the same in a real life; if you are an expert with numbers but not much of a public speaker, find an excellent public speaker who is not so good with numbers and you will blow every other accountant in speech class.

Second, this teaches us that success requires co-operation, and it requires recognizing one's failures and “growing edges” and inviting others to pick up the slack. It means humbling ourselves to those who are better than we are at certain things and giving them room to excel. Sure, you may be able to help, but giving your expert partner a 10% boot (the Aid Another action, for those of you with RPing experience) is almost always better than having your own go at the same thing, even if there is enough time (and there usually isn't).

There is more to this that I will post soon, about using one's strengths. But emphasize your strengths, cover your weaknesses with co-0peration, and join a team. I invite your thoughts, here, and would love to hear your own responses. (Especially if you have something helpful to say about Corran Horn.)

Pelor and the Euthyphro

Those of you who know me know that I am an avid Dungeons and Dragons player as well as a long time student of philosophy. More often than not the latter of these informs my thoughts on the former. I find philosophy fascinating and wonderful, and I believe that fantasy, science fiction, and the comic book/superhero genre are realms in which questions about philosophy, theology, and ethics are asked in new ways and brought to a a reader's mind. I will be touching on this again, I'm sure, as this is more than a bit central to my thinking.

Today I want to discuss the divinity system in D&D, which is wonderfully simple, with one of my favorite issues in philosophy, namely, the Problem of the Euthyphro. One of my favorite things about D&D is that it is so simple, its theology is cut-and-dry, at least in the version I'm used to, and it shows a particular bias on the part of the writers, which I love. The D&D system is not like the Force, which is complicated and multi-faceted and deep.

In a dialogue known as The Euthyphro we encounter a fascinating question about the relationship between the gods and good and evil. (By the way, if your education failed you so thoroughly that you have never read this dialogue, go read it. It is short and fun and classic. Go read. Now.) The question is, essentially, which came first, the chicken or the egg. Let me explain.

Lets take the example X. Most reasonable folks agree that X is good, and notX is bad. It doesn't matter what X actually is, it is just an example, a holder for an action.

The problem is this: is X good because the gods decided it is, or because they like it, or is X good whether or not the gods like it? Is X morally good because it is commanded by the gods, or is X commanded by the gods because it is morally good? Both are problematic.

First, one has to assume that the gods are perfect, that, while they may make lapses of judgement, they are themselves good and try to do good and lead humans to do good things.

Then, take the first option, in which X is good because the gods decided that it is a good thing, the gods voted and they all generally think that X is good and, thus, it is. The problem with this is that you can fill anything into the place of X and it is good. Take the most despicable thing you can imagine and put in the place of X. The gods, who are good and helpful and so forth, can just arbitrarily say anything falls into that category, and thus what is morally good, X, is only so based on their opinion, and anything (even things that we all see as evil) could be good if the gods decided that it is. (And if the gods disagree with each other, then we are really screwed.) Also, if there was ever a time without the gods, what was good and evil then? And if the gods change their minds, does what is good change so that X is currently good but, after some divine council, they decide that X is not bad and notX is to be preferred? Needless to say, this is a problem, especially as it gets picked up in the 4th century CE by Christian (and other monotheist) philosophers and theologians.

On the other hand, is X morally good and the gods command it because it is morally good? While this answer deals with some of the above questions, it is not satisfying upon closer examination. The second answer means that the gods themselves are only teachers, looking to something above themselves for what to teach, no different than a junior high algebra teacher, turning to the book and saying X is good because they understand the nature of the universe. X, then, is bigger and more important than the gods. Also a problem, especially as this question is discussed by monotheists.

So which is it, asks the dialog? Are the gods arbitrary and tyrannical, able to call anything good at their whim? Or are the gods merely teachers, discerning something greater and realer than themselves and passing it along to us humans? Either way, the gods (and later, God as conceived by monotheist thinkers) end up looking kinda dumb.

While I do believe there is an answer to the Problem proposed in this dialogue, and I believe that the Christian faith can give a very clear and true answer, I want to hear your thoughts, and I also want to talk a bit about D&D.

Pelor is the All Father in the D&D cosmology. He is the big good guy, symbolized by the sun, and the most "good" or all the gods, though he is not the only god nor even the only good god. He is the god most opposed to undead (zombies, vampires, etc), and most supportive of good without the restrictions of law and chaos.

Pelor, however, and the rest of the D&D cosmology, falls very distinctly in the second category of the Euthyphro. Pelor does not decide what is good, the gods are not the designers of society so much as they are the judges of good and evil and the teachers of mortals. Pelor supports what is good, but it is good long before Pelor ever ascended. Good is good even if nothing recognizes it, evil is evil even if we all pretend it is not. This makes for a very cut and dry system, in which self sacrifice is good, for example, even in a universe run by evil beings.

However, it is TOTALLY UNSATISFYING for a Christian. Pelor and the D&D gods are subservient to the moral categories around them, but we believe that God is sovereign, wholly holy, and nothing can dictate to God. So, is God a tyrant, and X is good because God just decided that it is, and God in God's divine wisdom, could have decided otherwise? This answer is also unsatisfying (and I think worse) because it makes good and evil arbitrary, and whether or not there are four lights or three or five just doesn't matter.

What are your thoughts? How does one grapple with this question?

First (awkward) Post

G'day.

Hello, I'm Peter Gillotte.

This is my blog. I am new to blogging, and I'm not immediately sure how to start. So, instead of being awkward (which is already is), I'll treat this like an introduction. If you care to read, I will tell you a bit about myself, a bit about why I am writing this blog, and a maybe tell a joke.

See, awkward already.

Why am I blogging? Well, the obvious answer is that I have something to say. And I do think I have something to say, a lot of things to get off my chest. But I also am a pastor, and as many of my professors in Seminary told me, most pastors and seminarians are narcissistic (though I had professors that also made us narcoleptic.) A portion of this blog will be to give me a place to write some of my own thoughts, my own ideas (some more, shall we say, provocative than others), without needing to gush my narcissism and awkwardness all over a sermon, which has been my modus operandi in the past.

I will also be discussing, theoretically, a number of items that may be inappropriate for discussion in sermons. Some of this comes from personal experiences (one does find it difficult to draw sermon illustrations from a D&D game or Star Wars book, after all), books I will be reading, and discussing on this blog, conversations I have had, etc. Many many pastors use the "personal illustration" in their sermons. While this can be effective, I was recently struck by an article I read in Leadership Journal about the dangers of the personal illustration; particularly about what it can teach a congregation and where the weight of the church can fall. Church should be about Jesus, not the pastor, and coming to church and hearing about the pastor more than about Jesus is, well, problematic. More in this to come. If you are interested in listening to me or hearing what I have to say about things, you would be welcome to lurk or post as you desire.

I am also a church planter, looking to be planting a church in Kansas City soon, to where my family and I have recently moved. As I navigate this ecclesiological adventure, I will talk about The Field, the church we will be planting, giving updates on the process and eventually announcing events as they come to be. If you are interested in hearing more about The Field and this church plant, stay tuned, and you will be rewarded with information, as soon as information exists.

Finally, I will be using this blog to discuss some of my own ideas. As I said, I will be discussing here some of my own more provocative ideas, things I believe about Jesus and the church (church universal, not specific bodies of believers) and faith and sexuality and politics and architecture and cars and the environment and theology and leadership and philosophy and fasting and ethics and prophecy and the bible and manliness and beards (probably a lot about this one, lets be honest). Much of this, also, is inappropriate for the pulpit, but for different reasons.

(I may also eventually discuss why I like to do things in threes. Genetic preference for trinitarianism? Too much bad poetry written as a youth? Natural out pouring of being the youngest of three? Disdain for the number four?)

(See, I tried to be funny and ... awkward again. Lets keep moving.)

I will end, I think, with a joke, and post a bit about me on my next post (see, narcissistic -- I want a whole post just to talk about myself). Talking about myself, after all, will guarantee that I do actually post a second post.

So, deep under the ocean, there were two prawns by the name of Oswald and Christian who were very good friends. Being prawns, they spent a great deal eating whatever was smaller than them and avoiding being eaten by things bigger than them. (This is not unlike how we all spend a great deal of our lives, lets be honest.) Now, prawns are not large creatures, and while plankton is abundant, so are larger fish, particularly barracuda, at least in this neck of the seaweed.

One day, while swimming along and trying to avoid being seen, and thus eaten, Oswald and Christian come upon The Magic Cuttlefish. (Yes, magic cuttlefish. He's vaguely more benevolent little brother. Back off.) Having found The Magic Cuttlefish, Oswald and Christian are granted one wish between the two of them (see, only vaguely benevolent). Oswald, being the more outgoing (read: jerkwad) of the two of them, and tired of running his whole life, shouts (bubbles?) out "Magi Cuttlefish, I want to be a giant barracuda!" Magic Cuttlefish of course obliges and, poof (sputter?) Oswald is a giant barracuda. He is, of course, excited, but Chris is nowhere to be found (because, lets be frank, "aw hell a giant barracuda" produces a strong instinctual reaction in a prawn.)

Oswald goes off, swimming and eating and scaring and hunting and hiding (and a wee bit of running, as even a giant barracuda is shark food) and having himself a hellova time. After a while, as these stories always go, he begins to miss his friend. So he goes on a quest to find The Magic Cuttlefish. Having found him (a feat in itself) , he asks to be turned back into a prawn. Magic Cuttlefish obliges without much argument (because this joke is getting long and not very funny.) Oswald, back in his previous state, swims home to find his friend! Wee! However, he learns that Chris has locked himself up in his hole and refuses to eat and talk with anyone, as he misses his best friend so very much. Oswald goes to his hole and announces "Chris! Come out! It is me, Oswald, I want to come and play!" Chris, not being a dummy, yells back a very sad "No! You are a giant barracuda (and still a jerkwad!)!" To which Oswald responds "No no! I'm different now! I'm a prawn again, Christian!" /rimshot! (Or, perhaps, /facepalm)

Shalom.

(See....awkward.)