What It’s About
By Anthony Casperson
10-4-25

“The game is about what the game rewards.”

I heard this sentence from the mouth of a tabletop roleplaying game designer while describing an important aspect of his job. Regardless of what any particularly direct statement in the RPG itself might say, the truth is that the cycle of play experience will revolve around whatever causes the players to come back for more.

Since RPG players are often interested in whatever gains them levels or powers up their abilities, the cycle of play that enables this is what they try more of. Many RPGs utilize Experience Points (XP), which typically comes from defeating enemies, solving puzzles, or exploring areas on a map. Some other RPGs grant power ups after a certain amount of failed roll attempts. These essentially say that we can learn more from failure than success, so the very attempt grants a benefit. I’ve even seen a couple of RPGs reward players for just showing up to the game.

This means that the easiest way to figure out what an RPG’s about is to flip to the “Leveling Up” section of the game and see how this increase of a character’s abilities functions from a reward level. Sometimes, you’ll have to go back a few more steps to figure that out, but the mechanics of the reward system will quickly become clear.

For instance, if a character requires a certain amount of XP to level up, you have to figure out how that XP is earned. Therefore, if XP is only specifically stated to come from the enemies defeated, then the game is about defeating enemies. (And this is how “murder-hobos” are born.)

However, sometimes this reward system doesn’t follow what the game designers explicitly say that it’s about.

A number of RPGs say that they stand on the three legs of Combat, Social Encounters, and Exploration. “It’s not just about defeating monsters,” they say. Yet there is no stated reward system for the party if they try to talk their way out of a fight. They would’ve gotten XP for fighting the group of bandits, but defusing the situation through communication grants them nothing substantial. And I’ve only ever seen a piddly excuse for XP when it comes to exploring a new area in a video game RPG. Good luck trying to get any for exploring in a tabletop game, even in a hex crawl.

Reality doesn’t match up with the explicit instruction of the game designers. They forgot that the game is about what the game rewards.

This whole thought around the statement above reminded me of what I’d learned in a youth ministry class that I had in bible college. While reminding us to center the students’ experience around the truth of the bible, instead of the fun and games that many youth leaders are tempted to emphasize, the professor told us this:

“You win them to what you win them with.”

If a bunch of teenagers only ever experience an hour of the “fun Jesus” and afterward are forced to “suffer through” a 15-minute devotional time, then any sense of loyalty is only to that skewed version of faith. As soon as the fun and games are over, then so is the thing they once called faith.

Once they see Jesus calling them to discipleship and sacrifice—once they are called to pick up their cross, deny themselves, and follow him—they go off to whatever else can offer them the “fun” that they were looking for to begin with.

Jesus himself confronted this issue in John 6. In the first part of the chapter, Jesus performed the Feeding of the 5,000. He’d fed a whole crowd of people and taught them while they ate. However, the next day—after the crowd stalked him across the sea—he confronted the crowd with the truth.

In John 6:26, we see him calling the crowd out by saying that they weren’t following him because of his amazing teaching, or the miracles that he could perform in the name of the Father. Rather they followed him because they’d had full bellies the day before. And they wanted more. This crowd had chosen to be won over by the buffet instead of the truth of Jesus.

And he proves this point in the sermon that follows the rebuke. His sermon on the Bread of Life that he is. When he gets to the part in verse 53 where he says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you,” the crowd starts grumbling about how strangely difficult that teaching is for them to follow.

Instead of drawing closer to him to figure out what he meant by this, they abandoned him by the hundreds. Once the truth caused them to lose their lunch, they stopped looking to him for another free one.

While Jesus wasn’t afraid of losing a few followers, many in church leadership today are. And we slowly inch toward feeding those under our care with the false doctrines of the “fun Jesus.” The one who calls us to acceptance in the name of love, instead of true love that seeks the good of God in our lives. The one who calls us to social justice instead of the righteousness of God that only comes through obedience to Jesus. The one who calls us to happiness instead of real joy and peace and faith that will withstand the worst of life’s trials.

I fear that this is the Jesus to which many today are pushed toward. This skewed version of him that just keeps on serving up meals without ever feeding the truth of God to them. And this fear of mine increases all the more with the recent influx of people going to churches.

Are they meeting this “fun Jesus” that is willing to leave them where they are, or are they being introduced to the true Jesus who calls us out of our sins and toward his holiness?

One of the easiest ways to figure out which Jesus it is that’s being put forward is to look at what the gospel being preached is all about. Is it about an easy life where everything is promised to go our way from now on? Is it about “fire insurance” to get us out of hell for free, while causing no actual change in this life? Or is it about joy that remains despite the circumstances of life, about hope that finds security in the truth of Jesus, about righteousness that calls us to more than what we ever thought possible, and about love that accepts us as we are but doesn’t want to leave us there?

The faith created is only as strong as the gospel it believes.

And the only faith that will persevere is the one that clings to the truth that lasts through the bad times just as much as through the good. The truth that leads us to grow and change and mature in our faith toward God’s holiness. Toward the godly actions that make us look more like him every day. It’s the faith that outlasts the “fun Jesus” when he calls us to deny ourselves and follow him.

In John 16:33, we see a statement of truth about the gospel that Jesus promises. He tells his disciples—and by extension us—that in this world we will have troubles. Life with Jesus isn’t promised to be a walk in the park. Problems will abound. Friends will mock us. Family will leave us. And those we once thought were good people will show their true colors.

But we can still stand sure in hope, because Jesus has overcome the world.

His work in his perfect life, his death on the cross, and his resurrection from the dead provide us strength to endure and overcome every trouble life can throw at us. He is with us to walk through it all. And he will never leave us.

You might be asking how. How can we overcome like Jesus? The answer can be found in a couple of similar passages: Romans 5:1-5 and James 1:2-4.

Paul speaks in the Romans passage about how we who’ve obtained access to faith through grace should rejoice in hope in the glory of God. And even more so, we should rejoice in our suffering. Rejoice in the troubles, not that they’ve come—that would make us masochists—but rather that God can bring good through them. He can reveal his glory despite them. And grow our faith through them.

The rest of verses 3-5 say that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. That enduring character of hope doesn’t put us to shame. No it leads us straight to the love of God who gives us his Spirit for his work. He’s working in us a masterly crafted saint who seeks to continue his holy work in the lives of others.

Every good thing and every moment of suffering leads to his glory, our spiritual growth, and the spiritual growth of others around us.

The second passage from James is like these words from Paul. And notice, James starts his letter with these words. He tells us to consider it all joy when we face various kinds of trials. Again with the rejoicing in God for the opportunity to grow.

But it’s not just a generic growth, it’s one that has a specific trajectory. The testing of faith produces endurance. The same endurance Paul wrote about in Romans. And that endurance, once reaching its full effect, leads us to complete maturity in faith. Growth that leads us from where Jesus found us to the place of holiness he has for all who are his followers.

So the question is, what gospel have you been told about? Regardless of what the preachers and teachers of the bible say that they proclaim the gospel to be about, which one have you been shown in your spiritual journey? Which are you following? My hope is that it’s the one that can withstand every trial of life. Because any other gospel is a false one that should be abandoned for the only true gospel.

The gospel isn’t some feel-good statement that gets us out of hell. It’s the truth of Jesus that gives us the strength to continue on throughout every aspect of life. The hilltops, the valleys, and everywhere in between. It’s the truth calling us out of where we are and toward the best that God has for us, even when that good leads us to the valley of death-like shadow.

That’s what the gospel of Jesus is about.

Will you join him in it?