Repent

Faith, Grace & Spirit: The Christian Core of Repent

Part 3: Metagaming and the Ministry of Repent

“Repent: The End Times Role-Playing Game is a work of fiction. Names, characters, governments, shadowy agencies, secret societies, global disasters, and divine judgements are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual beings, living, dead, or interdimensional, or the fulfilment of prophecy by actual events, are purely coincidental.”

Yeah… no.

A disclaimer like that just doesn’t work for Repent, does it?

Repent is a game that strives to realistically depict the state of the world according to ancient prophetic scriptures concerning future events, as written in The Holy Bible—which some two billion Christians worldwide hold to be the infallible Word of the One True and Almighty God.

So, what am I saying?

In my youth I dreamt of exploring the wilds of Middle Earth, trespassing into forbidden Eldritch catacombs, or making the jump to A Galaxy Far, Far Away. All places full of adventure, of epic battles between good and evil, ancient wisdom and prophecies, where ordinary people did extraordinary things. The real world, obviously, was completely boring, and contained no such elements to pique the interest of an imaginative young man.

But one day, while researching ideas for an epic “end of the world” campaign idea for Dungeons & Dragons, I found myself thumbing through the Bible, remembering something about the apocalypse in the Book of Revelations.

As I read, and read, and read some more… I realized that the Bible wasn’t just a book full of stories about the past.

It was a book about the future.

Ages ago, a handful of people were chosen by God, to be shown visions of the distant future, that they were instructed to write down, and would later be transcribed, translated, printed, published, and duplicated for centuries, eventually ending up sitting on your nightstand, on a bookshelf, or in a drawer somewhere in your house, church, or even hotel room.

Where you, can now find it, pick it up, and access the divine knowledge and wisdom contained therein.

Now most of us have read a book, watched a movie, or played a game where when it was over, we found ourselves wishing it were true, wishing it were real, or even find ourselves acting out our favorite scenes when we think no one is looking. But aside from in our imaginations, none of us expect to encounter a Nazgul, a Shoggoth, or an AT-ST while taking the trash out at night.

With Repent, things are… rather different.

A person unfamiliar with the Bible, or any of the things depicted in Repent, may ask if any of it could even possibly be real? While a Christian, well-versed in scripture, will very confidently be able to tell them… yes, it’s all real!

Whether believer or non-believer, once exposed to Repent, you may find yourself thinking… about the world around you in a whole new light…

If a secret occult society infiltrated your community, local government, or even your church, how would you know? If the government offered a reward for the names of any Christians in your school, or neighborhood, who would turn you in? When you see a stray cat watching from across the street as you take the trash out at night, do you tell yourself not to worry, it’s just a cat?

No other game invites its’ players to fundamentally shatter their preconceptions of reality, in such a way, that when you stop playing the game for the night, you find you are still playing the game.

Some would call it metagaming. Actively applying elements from within the game, to your life beyond, after the game session ends.

So, what happens when you create a game like Repent, that teaches the players about what it means to be a Christian, how to bring others to Christ by spreading the Gospel, how to battle demons in Spiritual Warfare, and how to understand Biblical Prophecy regarding the events of the end times and the Return of Jesus Christ?

Well… it becomes a ministry of sorts.

It encourages players to verify the contents of the game against the contents of the Bible. It encourages players to learn about Christianity, and the truth about this world, and the end times, in order to understand and play the game.

And ultimately, through metagaming, it encourages the players to take what they’ve learned and apply it to what they see around them, the people, the places, the news, as well as themselves, their own thoughts, and desires.

By taking the narrow path, and weaving sound Biblical Christianity into the fabric of a game, you cannot share Repent, without sharing the Good News of Christ and his imminent return.

So, it is my dream, and indeed perhaps my calling, to bring people together, in person or via webcams, as friends, families, classmates and coworkers, believers and non-believers alike, to share in the danger, excitement, collaboration, and faith, of Repent.

And maybe share a pizza or two as well.

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:” Acts 2: 17

Up next, Design & History - How Repent Began...

Faith, Grace & Spirit: The Christian Core of Repent

Part 2: Repent, the Spirit and the Flesh

From the beginning, I knew Repent: The End Times Role-Playing Game would, at its core, have to be different than most role-playing games.

While some RPGs offer players the option to have their characters aligned with a fictional belief system, or worship a fictional deity, it is usually just considered part of the character’s background story or color text and has little or no bearing on the actual gameplay. Other games simply add on a Faith statistic, which serves as a one-stop catch-all for anything in the game related to a character’s beliefs or religion of choice.

With Repent, the intriguing design challenge that presented itself early on, was realizing that Christianity itself had to be the core system of the game. Think about that for a minute before you continue reading. The concept is staggering.

The other nearly opposing component of Repent that was critical to me, was realism. It couldn’t just be an apocalyptic game where you play a bunch of sinful heathens killing, stealing, and destroying, with a tacked-on Christian theme and setting. It also couldn’t be a game where you played righteous perfect saints gallivanting around, ridding the world of evil, in the name of Jesus. Why not?

“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” Galatians 5:17

In a nutshell, that means that as Christians, a battle between good and evil, the natural and the supernatural, the physical and the spiritual, is constantly taking place within us.

In order to achieve this goal of “Christian Realism” in Repent, the core system had to depict this internal struggle within the Player Characters. In Repent, you no longer just have to worry about suffering physical Wounds, losing Health, and dying; you also have to worry about incurring spiritual wounds, aka Strongholds, losing Faith, and ultimately losing your “self”, your soul.

I once heard it said that the only perfect people, are the ones you don’t know.

In many RPGs, players role-play as heroic characters who battle external foes. Repent’s player characters are simply ordinary people, with hopes, dreams, and problems, all in a state of spiritual struggle, and enduring what many would simply term, “the end of the world”. Their foes are both external, and internal as well.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:12

All player characters in Repent begin the game with a number of Strongholds already accumulated according to their age and life experience in this fallen world. Strongholds, as you may recall, are the fleshly natures, vices, flaws, struggles, or demonic influences, which can lead a character to sin. Strongholds are represented in the game by a percentage score, which can be tested to determine if a character gives in to their sinful nature, or if they are able to overcome it.

For example, if a player character named John has an Addiction Stronghold of 36%, that may mean that in John’s backstory, there is a family history of alcoholism, which John himself struggles with.

In a scenario where John and his companions are searching for food and medicine in an abandoned farmhouse, John discovers a bottle of whiskey, and feels the urge to pocket it for himself when no one is looking. Even though the player knows this is the wrong thing to do, the game Host may decide that a Stronghold Check is needed to determine how John handles this urge.

A successful roll of equal or above 36% could mean that John leaves the whiskey, tells another character about it, hands it to another character, or even pours it down the sink, depending on the degree of success.

While a failed roll of less than 36% could mean that John pockets the alcohol for himself, or quickly consumes it to hide the evidence.

A success will result in a decrease in John’s Addiction Stronghold, representing his increased ability to overcome it. While a failure will result in the opposite. If John’s Addiction Stronghold continues to climb, he will continue to fail to control it, and it may become dangerously problematic for himself as well as his companions.

To make matters worse for John, there may also be an evil spirit lingering in the farmhouse. A demon. Who picks up on Johns weakness for alcohol and decides to attack him spiritually, in hopes of pushing John over the edge by increasing his Addiction Stronghold. But demon troubles are a whole other area of the game, known as Spiritual Warfare.

As John’s Addiction increases, the flesh begins to win over his spirit, and John’s Faith decreases by the same amount. When his Addiction reaches 100%, John’s Faith likewise reaches 0% and his alcoholism now dominates his motivations in all areas of his life.

In addition, John’s 0% Faith, now makes him open to Demonic Possession.

It is this realistic approach to Christianity’s struggle between the flesh and the spirit that makes Repent different than other role-playing games, and when coupled with its end-times survival setting, makes it the perfect recipe for storytelling, adventure, and moral quandaries.

Next up: Part 3 – Metagaming and the Ministry of Repent…