Table of Contents
Abbreviations Used in the Text viii Introduction: A Game Like No Other 1
Part I Lawful Good vs. Chaotic Evil 5
1 Sympathy for the Devils: Free Will and Dungeons & Dragons 7 Greg Littmann
2 Paragons and Knaves: Does Good Character Make for a Good Character? 23 J.K. Miles and Karington Hess
3 Is Anyone Actually Chaotic Evil?: A Playable Theory of Willful Wrongdoing 35 Neil Mussett
Part II So Did You Win? Philosophy and D&D Gameplay 61
4 Save vs. Death: Some Reflections on the Lifecycle of PCs 63 Christopher Robichaud
5 To My Other Self: Reflection and Existentialism in Dungeons & Dragons 72 Rob Crandall and Charles Taliaferro
6 Player-Character Is What You Are in the Dark: The Phenomenology of Immersion in Dungeons & Dragons 82 William J. White
Part III Crafting Worlds 93
7 Imagination and Creation: The Morality of Fiction in Dungeons & Dragons 95 Robert A. Delfino and Jerome C. Hillock
8 Dungeonmastery as Soulcraft 106 Ben Dyer
Part IV Foray into the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance 119
9 Menzoberranzan: A Perfect Unjust State 121 Matt Hummel
10 Who Is Raistlin Majere? 132 Kevin McCain
Part V The Ethics of Spellcasting 145
11 Expediency and Expendability: An Exhumation of the Morality of Necromancy 147 Matthew Jones and Ashley Brown
12 By Friendship or Force: Is it Ethical to Summon Animals to Fight by Your Side in Dungeons & Dragons? 163 Samantha Noll
Part VI Dungeons & Dragons out in the Real World 173
13 “Kill her, kill her! Oh God, I’m sorry!”: Spectating Dungeons & Dragons 175 Esther MacCallum-Stewart
14 Berserker in a Skirt: Sex and Gender in Dungeons & Dragons 189 Shannon M. Mussett
15 “Others play at dice”: Friendship and Dungeons & Dragons 202 Jeffery L. Nicholas
Contributors 217
Index 223