I am currently playing a part of D&D that I don't get to play very often - Planning. Of course, as a DM, I prepare obstacles and enemies for the players' characters to overcome, but that's not the kind of planning I'm talking about here. The kind of planning that I'm doing in my personal D&D game that I run for myself is strategic planning.
My character, Evan, is currently facing off against an unbeatable opponent. Evan is currently level 8(ish. I'm using a unique system for character creation), and he's facing off against a creature with a Challenge Rating of 15, meaning that it's a good match for a full team of adventurers nearly double Evan's level. And Evan's going to fight this incredible threat alone.
The cool thing is that he's got a decent chance at winning. Over the course of his adventure, Evan has collected several magic items that will be of great use to him, and he has learn several powerful magical spells. But what really gives Evan the edge here is that a good deal of thought is being put into his battle strategy. I'm carefully weighing his options. Which magic sword should he wield? Which spell should he concentrate on? How can he make the best use of his Spell Points? I'm crunching numbers, calculating averages, comparing probabilities, and factoring them all into the most comprehensive plan I've ever made.
Evan is going to win because, by the time the battle starts, he is going to have a rock-solid battle plan.
And so can we.
It is unfortunate that I can't invest the same kind of tactical energy into my battle against Satan. The trouble is, I don't know Satan's stats, or my own stats, or the stats of any of my celestial allies. I don't know what our options are. I don't know how many actions we can choose from and what their effects will be. I can't make myself a rock-solid, anti-Satan battle plan because I don't know the rules of life as well as I know the rules of D&D. There's no Player's Handbook I can read to find out how the game of life is played. There's no Monster Manual describing Satan and his abilities so I can know what I'm up against. The best I've got are the scriptures, giving records of how other people's fights have gone, what they tried, and how it worked out for them. I can try to copy what they did, but that doesn't get me any closer to finding out why it worked for them, how the strategy worked in their circumstances, or how I should adapt their strategy to work better for me and my abilities and circumstances. I can try to copy the strategies of other players, but we're playing different characters on different battlefields. What worked for them might not work as well for me.
Fortunately, I don't need to know the rules of how the world works in order to have a rock-solid, perfectly personalized battle strategy. I don't need to know Satan's stats or abilities in order to know how to defeat him. I don't even need to know my own stats or abilities. I don't need to know what I can and can't do in order to know what I should and shouldn't do.
Because God knows.
God knows who I am and what I'm capable of. He knows my abilities, my strengths and my weaknesses, and He knows Satan's abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. God is my master tactician, just as I am Evan's. Evan doesn't know exactly how much damage his magic swords do well enough to accurately compare them. He doesn't know which healing spells would, on average, make the most efficient use of his Spell Points. Heck, he doesn't even know how to calculate his own Armor Class. But he doesn't need to. As long as I make the right decisions for Evan, and Evan follows the directions I give him (which he will, because he's my fictional character, and he does whatever I write him doing), he's going to be okay. He doesn't need to know the rules of D&D; I do. I don't need to know the rules of life; God does.
Sure, I'd love to figure out how the Priesthood works, which commandments lead to which blessings and why, how I can maximize my ability to counter my specific weaknesses, and how I can play the best game of life I could possibly play. But frankly, I'm probably not smart enough to master a game this complicated. The only reason I can play D&D tactically is because it's simplified with abstractions and the math never gets any more complex than basic algebra, which I also enjoy. I couldn't form a rock-solid battle plan of life, even if I had all the rules in front of me and all the time in the world to plan and strategize. God's better at this game than I am. I should follow His lead.
I'm having fun creating a rock-solid battle plan for Evan, but I'll have better success following God's rock-solid battle plan for me.
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