When Frogs Play RPGs

By Wibbity Wubbity.

I was sitting on top of a computer monitor the other day, when Leopoldtulip called my attention to an interesting web site. After the eccentric cartoonist Jack Chick drew a tract called "Dark Dungeons" attacking role-playing games (RPGs), someone had written a Mystery Science Theater 3000 style commentary exposing the tract's inaccuracies. It's very funny, and you can see the commentary here. In looking at the MST3k parody, however, I was surprised at the number of inaccuracies that the commentator missed, so I will now address them.

I suppose I should mention that, in real life, I am a frog. I also have hair. On Friday nights, I often role-play with my friends. One of the things that surprised me was that, in Jack Chick's pamphlet, everyone playing the game was human. I've role-played with dozens of groups, and let me tell you, it never happens.

I was also surprised by the storyline. Traditionally, role-playing is set against the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic world in which the only hope for survival is mutated frog cyborgs. Customary names include "Amphibitron" and "Frogonitar," not "Blackleaf" and "Elfstar." Usually, the goal is to find the dark overlord Flybertok and to eat him before he can effect completion of the Death Lilypad. Prophecy says that when Flybertok has been eaten the seventh time, all our bodies will be transformed, and we will sprout wings and return to our home, the planet Ribithia.

As for the whole dark magic thing ... never happens. I will admit that I was in one game where I was asked to pray to the Egyptian frog goddess Heqet. However, that was because a giant pigeon had shot me with a petrification gun, and I was pregnant at the time. Well, I lost the baby, and I had to become androgynous anyway in order to repopulate the species, so it's not as if Heqet was actually listening. However, I did learn that it was better to role-play male characters rather than female ones, since males can't get impregnated by parasite DNA.