Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) has many surprising connections to philosophical inquiry. Published around the time of D&D's fortieth anniversary, they bring together contributors who are passionate about both philosophy and D&D to explore the rich intellectual depths the game offers. The central premise across both books is that D&D is more than just a game; it's a game that lends itself to deep thinking, offering unique perspectives on various philosophical questions. It's seen as a form of interactive storytelling and make-believe that can function as a source for "thought experiments," allowing players to actively make decisions in hypothetical situations. For many players, D&D has even fostered an interest in moral philosophy by presenting a formalized ethical system. Here are some of the major areas where these books find philosophical resonance within the world and play of D&D: **1. Morality, Ethics, and Alignment** A core element of D&D is the alignment system, typically categorizing characters along axes of Good vs. Evil and Law vs. Chaos. The books delve into what these concepts mean both within the game and in philosophical terms. - **Defining Good and Evil:** D&D sourcebooks often distinguish good characters by their concern for others' well-being, neutral by self-concern, and evil by harming others for personal gain. Some game lore even suggests good and evil are tangible forces that can be detected by spells, with certain creatures being intrinsically good (like celestials) or evil (like demons and chromatic dragons). However, this simple definition is noted as not very philosophical. A more philosophical perspective, drawing on virtue ethics (traced back to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle), suggests that good and evil stem from a character's repeated actions, developing virtuous or vicious habits. This offers a robust moral framework for role-playing. - **Law and Chaos:** Lawful characters tend to follow societal rules, neutral ones follow rules when advantageous, and chaotic characters actively disrupt rules. The origins of the Law/Chaos axis in fantasy literature, particularly the works of Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock, are discussed, presenting Law and Chaos as forces distinct from good and evil, with Neutrality representing a commitment to balance. One perspective even links Lawfulness to Kant's idea of willing that which can be explained by universal laws. - **Ethical Dilemmas and "Why Be Good?":** D&D inherently poses the question "Why be good?" when players decide what kind of character to create. The game allows for exploring complex ethical dilemmas, such as choosing whether to kill a surrendering enemy. Applying moral philosophy can make these choices more meaningful and enhance the gaming experience. - **The Ethics of In-Game Actions:** Specific actions in D&D worlds bring up ethical questions. Necromancy, often depicted as inherently evil, is examined, questioning if animating the mindless undead is truly morally wrong, especially when considering scenarios like contracts for post-mortem labor or using undead for the greater good. The books explore if disapproval of necromancy is merely a "pre-theoretical intuition" or cultural normativity, linking it to philosophical ideas like Hume's "is-ought" problem (you can't logically derive "necromancy is wrong" solely from "necromancy involves animating the dead" without assuming the latter is wrong). Summoning animals to fight raises ethical concerns about consent from non-human creatures and whether it's ethical for a character to force a creature to do their bidding, connecting this to different ethical theories and character alignment. - **Problematic Content:** While D&D can explore positive moral themes, the question of whether fictional worlds or characters can be morally problematic is also raised, contrasting the view that playing an evil villain is harmless with concerns about the game's fictional world of magic and dark forces being inherently dangerous. **2. Metaphysics, Existence, and Worldbuilding** D&D's fantasy settings prompt reflection on the nature of reality, existence, and the construction of worlds. - **Souls and Dualism:** Typical D&D cosmology explicitly includes a soul/body divide, where a creature's soul departs upon death. This aligns with a nonreductionist theory of personal identity, suggesting personhood involves something beyond just the physical body and brain. Spells like _raise dead_ vs. _true resurrection_ further highlight this distinction. - **Worlds and Worlding:** D&D encourages players and Dungeon Masters (DMs) to imagine detailed worlds and realities. This process, sometimes called "worlding," involves creating coherent settings with practical elements like tools and maps, but also redundant features whose only purpose is aesthetic ("to delight and disturb"). Worldbuilding is seen as central to the game's growth, influenced by authors like J.R.R. Tolkien who focused on creating coherent secondary worlds. - **The Nature of Reality in D&D:** The game's worlds often blend mythology, history, and literary sources, creating potentially infinite spaces of overlap (e.g., Norse mythology next to Greek, sci-fi aliens in a fantasy setting). The existence of multiple planes, like the Material Plane, Astral Plane, and elemental planes, also challenges players to think beyond a single reality. - **Flat Ontology:** One perspective suggests the D&D universe is "flat" in that all entities—living, non-living, creatures, gods, equipment—are equally considered active "substances" with powers that affect and are affected by others. This view sees the universe as composed of these interacting substances, highlighting the variability in how their qualities manifest depending on local relations. - **Describing the Indescribable:** The concept of magic or Lovecraftian horrors in D&D worlds brings up philosophical questions about whether something conceptually foreign or indescribable can be meaningfully talked about or depicted. **3. Identity, Self, and Character** Playing D&D often involves adopting a persona and stepping into the shoes of a character. This experience raises fundamental questions about identity. - **Player vs. Character Identity:** The most interesting phenomenon in D&D is becoming someone else – thinking, speaking, and acting as a person who only exists in the player's mind. The game allows players to explore different identities and character traits, potentially leading to a greater understanding of what it might be like to be someone else. - **Philosophical Thought Experiments on Identity:** D&D scenarios can resemble philosophical thought experiments regarding personal identity, like the famous Teletransporter scenario, prompting questions about whether a character remains the same person after teleportation or resurrection, especially across different races or game editions. The identity bubble between player and character is crucial and maintained through the collaborative effort of the DM and players, particularly regarding "meta-gaming". - **Sincerity and Worlds:** Playing different character classes or races in D&D allows players to explore different forms of "sincerity," or being irreducibly glued to one's intentional objects and experiences. Different characters have different environments, physical states, and experiential "worlds," and navigating these can help players handle different "sincerities" at will. Alignment also implies different "worlds" beyond the physical realm, like the world of demons (Chaotic Evil) or devils (Lawful Evil). - **Gender and Sexuality:** The game's imaginative structure allows players to explore the fluidity of gender and sexuality, embodying characters that might challenge traditional roles, such as a "berserker in a skirt". While D&D doesn't actively promote gender flexibility, the act of playing allows for creative exploration of these concepts. D&D has even been interpreted as having a "feminist ethical universe" due to its emphasis on collaboration for success. **4. Art, Play, and Make-Believe** D&D is examined not just as a game, but as a unique art form that blends game and story. - **D&D as Art:** D&D is considered a revolutionary invention and art form. It combines rules of simulation with narrative continuity and blurs the line between player, character, and miniatures, creating something new in the worlds of game-playing and storytelling. The game involves elements like stories, maps, world history, illustrations, performances, and improvisation, all of which can be artistic in their own right. - **Fiction and Make-Believe:** D&D is described as a game of make-believe, similar to other forms of fiction. It's a "shared fiction" or "shared fantasy" where players and the DM are collaborative authors. The fictional worlds generate "fictional truths," and players become imaginatively and emotionally wrapped up in this experience. - **Immersion:** The process of becoming a character leads to a deep level of immersion. Character identification, rather than just visualization, is suggested as a key mechanism for immersion, operating in the space between the player and the character. The interactive nature and the role of dice (_alea_, or chance) also enhance immersion by allowing the game world to "speak" for itself. - **Play and Philosophical Value:** D&D is a form of play that, while appearing distinct from wisdom or folly, can nonetheless lead players to recognize important truths. Aristotle's views on leisure and intellectual activity are applied to argue that playing D&D, even in its combat-focused forms, is a form of intellectual activity, like playing chess. Role-playing is seen as a combination of storytelling and improvisational theater. **5. Gameplay, Role-play, and Metagaming** The dynamic tension between the rules and mechanics of the game (_ludology_) and the narrative and character aspects (_narratology_) is a central topic. - **Ludology vs. Narratology:** Philosophers and game designers debate whether games should be viewed primarily as rules-based systems (ludology) or as extensions of narrative (narratology). D&D, with its strong mechanics focus but also rich story-centered culture, sits at the intersection of these two perspectives. The game demonstrates that both gameplay and role-play are needed for epic and fun tales. - **Metagaming:** This refers to the conflict or distinction between what the player knows and wants and what their character knows and wants. It's a long-standing concern in RPGs. Examples include players using real-world knowledge (like chemistry to make gunpowder) or game knowledge (like monster stats) that their characters wouldn't have. - **Managing the Metagame:** The metagame can enrich the game when used properly, buffering both the ludology and narrative. Strategies for managing it include the DM choosing their wording carefully when describing dice roll outcomes and, in older editions, physically separating players when their characters split up to maintain the distinction between player knowledge and character knowledge. - **Choice and Chance:** Character creation involves player choices (race, class, background) and elements determined by chance (like ability scores from dice rolls in older editions). For the character, these are matters of chance, highlighting a distinction between the player's agency and the character's lack thereof in their own origins. This choice-chance distinction is helpful in keeping the ludology (dice rolls, stats) distinct from the storytelling (the character's lived experience). **6. The Role of the Dungeon Master** The DM is crucial to the D&D experience, responsible for organizing and maintaining the game world, running the narrative, and interacting with players. - **Worldbuilding Authority:** The DM puts players in a world. The DM's job is to tell a story that makes sense within the game's rules and setting. While ideally, events should unfold according to reason and probability, some DMs embrace genre tropes like placing unrelated monsters together, seeing it as part of the art form rather than bad design. - **Allocating Authority:** In the context of the game as art, the DM effectively allocates authority to the statements and propositions submitted by the players, much like cultural principles authorize interpretations in other art forms. - **Control and Influence:** A key aspect of being a DM is managing how much control and influence they want or need to have over the game world (rules, realms, versions) and the player characters. Despite extensive planning, campaigns can dissolve into chaos due to player choices, highlighting the challenge of balancing the DM's intent with player agency. **Further Ideas to Explore:** The books touch upon many other related philosophical concepts and ideas, including: - Determinism and its historical philosophical proponents like Lucretius and Baron d'Holbach. - Compatibilism as a view on free will (Thomas Hobbes). - Virtue theory and its proponents like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. - Objective moral truths and their independence from deities (Plato's _Euthyphro_ dialogue). - The "is-ought" problem (David Hume). - Fantasy literature's influence on D&D (Tolkien, Moorcock, Howard, Vance, etc.). - The concept of "metanarratives" in understanding game worlds and stories. - Connecting D&D experiences to existentialism and reflection. - Phenomenology as the philosophy of experience and how it relates to immersing oneself in a D&D world. - Philosophical views on death and how D&D might offer a unique perspective (e.g., PC death). - Fairness, justice, and luck, potentially raised by character creation via random dice rolls. - D&D's place within participatory culture. - The concept of collective intelligence in online gaming communities. - Comparisons between D&D and other games and genres (MMORPGs, card games, LARP). - Romanticism and narrative structure in D&D. - The idea of "willing disbelief" rather than suspension of disbelief in accepting game conventions. - Wittgenstein's concept of "family resemblances" applied to defining what constitutes a "game". - The influence of D&D on video games and other RPG systems. - The six core ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma) and their philosophical interpretations. - The role and impact of published modules. - Zen philosophy applied to Dungeon Mastering. - Gadamer's concept of "fusion of horizons" in understanding character perspectives. In essence, D&D demonstrates, with its blend of rules, narrative, chance, and player imagination, a fertile ground for exploring fundamental philosophical questions about morality, reality, identity, art, and the very nature of play itself. They encourage players to bring philosophical reflection to the table and use the game as a unique lens through which to examine complex ideas.