RPG Overwhelm: Learning New Systems in Games and Life

RPG overwhelm is real, and new believers feel that same overload. Here’s how to teach gently and what to do when it’s you.

Blog Version

RPG overwhelm is something I know well. I have a love-hate relationship with RPGs and JRPGs. I genuinely enjoy the storytelling and world-building, but I sometimes get overwhelmed.

There’s nothing worse than when you’re trying to play a game with a really intriguing story, fighting monsters or conquering the world, and at the same time you’re having to manage this really complex system. You’re figuring out weapons and how things are linked together, managing your money, working out how the relationships between characters are put together. And if you don’t do this one thing correctly, then everything falls apart.

At the end of the day, you spend more time managing a system than enjoying the game. I genuinely can’t tell you the number of games I have just stopped playing because I felt so overwhelmed with the combat system. And it’s frustrating, because I do love this genre so much.

When life throws too many systems at you

Life throws us a lot of systems in the same way. You have to learn to balance relationships with people and finances and figure all these things out. If you’re a Christian like me, or you get thrown into the world of Christianity, you’re figuring out what to do, how to worship God, how to honor Him in a correct way, how to do life with people. Sometimes people are thrown into that situation and feel overwhelmed because everything hits them all at once.

That’s not good, because when we throw things at people all at once, they become overloaded and they just want to stop. They try to check out of everything. Depression hits, anxiety hits, fear begins to grip them because they feel like they can’t fit in or function within the guidelines. Unfortunately, that is the very situation Jesus came to free people from: the rules and regulations the Pharisees were heaping on people.

So how do we handle this? How do we help teach people? I wanted to handle that first: how do we actually teach people?

Why we forget what it’s like to be new

I think one of the biggest issues the church as a whole runs into is that people forget what it’s like to be new to things. They forget what it’s like to be new to faith, to walking this walk with Jesus. And they forget what it’s like to learn and to fail at the same time.

I had some really great mentors who helped me out, but I struggled. I flailed a lot because I was kind of scared to ask for help. I remember talking with a guy once who was frustrated with all the people who had come to the altar, given their lives to Jesus, and then walked away and ended up doing the same stuff they were doing beforehand.

I asked him, “Hey man, did you take the time to disciple them, to help them to grow?”

He goes, “Well, what do you mean?”

I said, “Well, did you go to them? ‘Hey, I’m excited for you. Can I walk with you through some stuff? Can I teach you how to read this Bible, how to pray?’”

He’s like, “No, I mean, it’s not hard. You should just know how to do this.”

I realized after talking with him for a little bit that this guy had no concept of what it was like to not be in church. He was kind of just raised in the system of Christianity and church life.

Paul’s example: milk before solid food

I like what Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter three: “As infants in Christ, I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready for it.” Paul’s dealing with a lot of really messed-up situations there, and he’s bringing some correction. But he reveals his methodology of teaching, of introducing people to a system of life. He says, “When I come to you at first, I’m going to give you small things, just some basics to help you to grow, to help you understand what it’s like to follow Jesus, to interact with the world as a Christian.”

So when people are new to the faith, we have to start small with them. We have to go, “Hey, this is so cool that you’re here with us. Can I walk you through this?” Let me introduce this thing called prayer. What does it look like? How do you do it? We don’t want to overwhelm them at one time. When you’re face to face with a worldview and a structure that’s completely different from what you’ve been living for however long, it’s hard to adjust. So we have to be gentle. We have to teach people in this fashion and raise them up step by step.

What to do when you’re the one overwhelmed

Now the second part: what do we do if we’re the ones overwhelmed?

When I was a teenager, my church used to sing a song called “Praise, Adonai.” I liked it, but I was so confused by it. Everyone was going for it. They’re singing, their hands are lifted up, they’re excited. So finally I went to the worship leader, who had gone out of his way to be kind to me and walk me through small things, so I felt safe doing something scary: asking questions.

I said, “Hey man, cool song, I’m vibing with it. I just have a question. Who’s Adonai?” He looked at me kind of like I grew a second head. He’s like, “What?” I said, “I know who God is, I know who Jesus is. I understand who the Holy Spirit is. But who’s Adonai?” He kind of chuckled, but he began to realize this was a genuine question. I’d never been told what Adonai means, which is basically another word for Lord. It was scary to go up and ask, because everyone else seemed to get it.

I had to get past the embarrassment phase of going, “Well, everyone else knows,” and be willing to go, “I don’t understand, can you help me?” That’s scary to do, but we have to do it if we’re going to work through things.

Sometimes I’ve been playing different RPGs and there’s stuff happening in the systems and I just don’t get it. So I’ve had to go on Google and go, “How do I do this?” There are a ton of fantastic YouTube tutorials on how to manage systems for different games. Metal Gear Solid 5 was one of those where I’m like, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” I watched several tutorials, and it became one of my favorite games of all time.

So what do we do if we’re overwhelmed? Pause, take a breath, and be willing to do something uncomfortable. Go ask for help. Ask questions.

Making it safe to ask questions

This links back to the first half. We have to make sure people know it’s safe to ask questions and that it’s okay to question things respectfully. And we have to be okay with going, “Man, I don’t know how to answer that. Can we work through that together?”

There are a lot of people who have gone through this journey of deconstruction, where they’ve kind of torn apart their faith, and instead of rebuilding it on biblical processes, they’ve just abandoned everything. In talking with a lot of people in that world, one thing that keeps coming up is that they had leaders who didn’t want to answer questions or got angry when they asked questions. Now, I’m openly going to admit that some of them weren’t asking honest questions. But the fact that some of them had honest questions and their leadership just refused to answer breaks my heart. It really does, and I’m sorry for those of you who had to go through that. We have to make an environment safe for people to ask questions.

And people who are asking questions, you have got to be brave enough to go ask. Don’t just go to the four corners of the internet to random people. Go to people who are biblical, who are trained in the scriptures appropriately, who are godly people, and ask your questions about the Scriptures and about what it’s like to live life as a Christian.

Start small, be gentle, and make it safe to ask questions. And if you’re the one who’s overwhelmed, go ask for help.