MMORPG: Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Just read a blog post on We Fly Spitfires, an MMORPG blog (which is another way of saying online gaming). The post was called Video Games and Freemasonry and the author, a brother, made some great points about how the lodge could attract younger members.
How you may be wondering? Simply by changing the degrees into video game levels.
Some of his ideas and my thoughts to them:
- Replace the rituals with video game tournaments: OK, I know this is a bit of a stretch,but most tweens today are more at home with Xbox
controllers than they are with pens and paper. - Instead of Degrees, have levels: Honestly, its something ever tween today can relate to from the lowliest game on the Play Station to the ever expanding World of Warcraft.
- Online Degrees – with virtual attendance: With the proliferation of Video & Web Conferencing and Skype Conference Calls, why not do things virtually.
- Freemason Facebook (or MySpace) App (a la Farmville or Mafia Wars): If you know what your looking for, Freemasonry is all over Facebook already (including this site) but a step up in the interactivity may be an interesting take on something most of us do on a daily basis already. Instead of watering our virtual plants in Farmville, we could be learning about degrees and symbols.
Its an interesting concept, and if your already familiar with the on-line gaming world, then maybe you could see some of the applications in your head already.
Why not have a sanctioned World of Warcraft Guild of Freemasons? Several already exist depending on the game server you join.
Besides guilds, there are already several Masonic-esque items living in Warcraft, including the Masons fraternity ring, and this spiffy hammer.
Imagine what that raiding party would look like.
This is just one example of a lodge built in Minecraft.
How about a Masonic skin for Minecraft?
Have you found Freemasonry in other games, MMORPG or otherwise? Drop us a not in the comments below.
I am not an online gamer myself. If only because I have second hand systems. None that would handle the graphics intensive worlds online. While over a friend’s house he showed me the Masonic Lodge in Second Life. It was very nice. Even if it did have a picture of JR Bob Dobbs in it. Your earler (2007) Masonic Traveler post about Masonic related items in World of Warcraft was fun for item searching. I am betting there are a number of Guilds on WoW populated by Masons as well.
You know at one point I can recall an old turn-based game like Civilization and Masonry was a part of it. Founding fathers and the like could be involved fraternally. Might have been an add-on I dont remember. But, the online revolution is going to continue to grow and at some point the fraternity is going to have to embrace the internet as a whole.
Games or illustrated websites or whatever will be a great tool. Lord I just asked that we dont end up with YouTube Degree Channels. That would just end it for me. My apron would be useless.
Freemasonry needs to be face-to-face. I think these innovations are far more radical than allowing atheists or women, advocating a particular religion within the lodge, or getting involved in politics. A lodge without a festive board, where real food is shared, is not really a lodge. I have no problem with an imitative online version, as long as it is made explicitly clear that this is no substitute for Blue Lodge Masonry. Make it an Appendant Body or something akin to the Shrine.
I think this has teaching potential for investigating committees, social functions, but not for rituals.
Swany
Green Bay, WI