I may have said in a previous entry that my first encounter with pen-and-paper role-playing games was with BattleTech when I was at Asbury in 199X. That’s not exactly true. I neglected to mention the actual very first PnP RPG I ever played: The DragonRaid Adventure Learning System.
DragonRaid was a “Christian” role-playing game. Basically, instead of Fighters, Wizards, Rogues and the like, you created heroes called “Light Warriors” which were destined to uphold the words of Christ and fight against the demonic minions of Satan. You did this with melee weapons, of course, but players were also intended to quote Bible verses at the enemy. Each verse had a different effect – dealing a certain amount of damage, surrounding a Light Warrior with a protective shield – that sort of thing. Basically Bible verses served as the “spells” of the DragonRaid universe. This encouraged youngsters to memorize parts of the Bible, so of course they could be “better” Christians. I don’t even think there was a limit to how many verses you could quote in a combat encounter – thus making them very powerful. I can’t remember if there were character classes or not, but I don’t think there were. Every Light Warrior had the same abilities, which probably would have made for a boring game to anyone over the age of 8.
I remember the game came with an orange 20-sided die that was transparent, and if you looked at it from a certain angle, light would shine through it to form a star shape. The instructions suggested you think of this as the “star of Christ” or some shit. It also came with a Cassette Tape that led you through character creation and your first adventure – it was somewhat like an audio Choose Your Own Adventure book. (Remember those? You read them until a decision point, made your decision, then flipped to a certain page which described the consequences.) In any case, I thought the entire game was totally rad and endeavored to play it immediately.
I seem to remember that my Brother wasn’t too interested in the game, so one of my first sessions was with my Uncle, who Pastored an Charismatic church. When I explained the Bible verse system to him and set him up with a battle against a Demon, he quoted so many widely varying verses at it that I was completely amazed. As the Game Master, I ruled that the demon actually converted to Christianity! Uncle got a little uncomfortable and said that it was absolutely impossible for a lackey of Satan to convert because of their age-old rejection of God. I was a little disappointed that my decision had been over-ruled. Anyway, after that I couldn’t get anyone to play with me, and I gradually dropped the game.