“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Thy Fates open their hands. Let thy blood and spirit embrace them”

~Malvolio in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

My heroes are struggling to know what to do.

In the D&D world I’ve created, they are caught up in a giant tug of war. The former government of wizards is fighting the current government of warriors. Demons seem to be aiding the conflict in an effort to create more chaos. In the middle of it all, there are these adventurers, and they don’t know whose side they’re on. They’ve been recruited by both sides. They’ve made friendships and enemies on both sides. They’re not strong enough to overthrow everyone and start their own government, nor can they take on the evil demon orchestrating it all. They can’t even find seem to find the big bad.

It’s a Dungeon Master’s worst nightmare. When I start a game session, I truly have no idea which direction the team is going to go. Talk about making it difficult to prepare!

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night there’s a line, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” I assumed that the PCs in my game were born great. I didn’t worry about building them up, I figured that the nature of the game, the fantastic powers they would wield, and the epic tasks they would be able to pursue would take care of that.

Instead I focused on creating a world that feels alive and active. I’ve tried to create a world where the paths untaken turn into consequences down the road. I’ve tried to create a complex sandbox of a world where grey areas are abundant and where the black and white binary thinking of good and evil is complicated. I tried to create a great world for the great PCs to live in. To a large degree, I’ve succeeded.

And my poor adventurers don’t know what to do.

They lack purpose and direction.

Which has gotten me thinking about a very basic question, “How do we find purpose? What gives us direction?” As a pastor and as a dungeon master, part of my task is in helping people to find purpose, meaning, and direction. This is as true for my players and their characters as it is for my parishioners and their lives.

In my game, I could take the opposite approach. I could put my players’ characters on a track and railroad them into purpose with a non-optional direction. I could thrust greatness upon them. “You’re going to save the world whether you want to or not!” Yet, you don’t have to scratch that approach too deeply to find out how shallow and unsatisfying it truly is. There needs to be more.

So, without the railroad, where does one look for purpose and direction? How do you get the PCs to achieve greatness?

As a pastor, one of the places I look most often is Baptism.

The waters of baptism uncover all sorts of things. Those waters uncover your limits, your mistakes, your failings, your sins, your mortality. Those waters uncover a truth deeper than your sins – your identity as a beloved child of God. Those waters uncover a calling on your life, a purpose for which you were created. That purpose is, in my church’s liturgy, “to live among God’s faithful people, to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s Supper, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.”

In some ways, baptism comes with a greatness that is thrust upon you. The purpose of baptism is poured out upon you. You are immersed in that purpose. You find that purpose originating outside of you as the Word of God comes to you from beyond the boundaries of yourself. It’s a purpose that we experience as coming from another direction too, from inside. Baptism uncovers the depths of who you and I are and who you and I were created to be.

Baptism uncovers the origins of purpose. They are both inside and outside ourselves

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When you become a pastor, one of the stories that you get used to telling is your “Call Story”. It’s the story of how you decided that you wanted to be a pastor. While each person’s story is somewhat different, they almost always contain the same two elements: the ‘inward call’ and the ‘outward call’.

The inward call is the part of the story where people consider their own dreams, desires, abilities, and enjoyments. It comes when you think or pray about who you are as a person and then ask the question, “And what does this person, who is me, want to do?”

My sandboxy Dungeons & Dragons has been pretty good at figuring out the inward call part. As my players created their characters, I asked about backstories. I pushed them to do some character work. They rolled their abilities. They know what they are good at, what they are bad at, and what they like or don’t like to do.

But like I said at the beginning, they still lack purpose and direction. My poor adventurers know who they are, they know that they are great, but they still don’t know what to do.

The inward call, by itself, is not enough. If someone shows up at seminary, thinking they will make a great pastor, but those around them have never affirmed that, then chances are that person will in fact not make a great pastor. Thinking you are great and being great are two very different things.

In the same way, the outward call by itself would also not be enough. Just because others think you are good at something, or even if you are actually good at something, doesn’t mean that you find enjoyment or fulfillment in doing it. I can thrust greatness upon my players, but without their participation in achieving that greatness it rings hollow. That’s why in the process of going through seminary, people are always being asked about both the inward call and the outward call.

And that, I realize, is where my little D&D campaign is falling short. While my heroes know who they are and what they can do, they have received very little affirmation from the NPCs in the game. They’ve been asked to do this or that: guard this caravan, investigate this stranger, free these prisoners. However, I’m realizing that these have been haphazard, and that in creating a complex world I’ve created a world where those primary voices of affirmation are lacking. My heroes have few close friends that they trust completely. They don’t know who to trust. And since they don’t know whose words to trust, they have been robbed of the one source of that outward calling.

To achieve greatness, the heroes need trusted affirmation. As a Dungeon Master, I need to make sure that there are NPCs that they can trust that can do the affirming. And while, as the DM, I can’t decide who the PCs are going to trust and who they are not going to trust, I can decide who to make trustworthy.

In our lives as people, you and I need to be both inwardly asking and outwardly listening to some questions that form our stories. The answers to those questions will begin to lead you to a place where you are going to flourish and experience the fullness of life. There are two questions. The question of inward call is, “Who do I say that I am?” The question of outward call is,  “What do those whom I trust tell me about myself, and what do they ask of me?”

Hopefully with a bit more of the outward call, my heroes will find their purpose, and finally they will find some purpose in the sandbox.