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Vegan Dungeons and Dragons: How One Student is Using Gaming to Promote Animal Rights

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Nicholas Vincent is a passionate environmentalist and freelance writer. He is deeply committed to promoting... Read More

Canadian student Ethan Kowalchuk is developing “vegan” campaigns for the game Dungeons and Dragons in collaboration with Toronto’s new Animal rights center. His aim is to challenge entertainment’s inclination towards violence and encourage people to consider veganism as a lifestyle choice to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock farming is responsible for about 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Kowalchuk’s “vegan Dungeons and Dragons” games are storylines that fit into the pre-existing world of the game. Some quests offer storylines that can be solved without fictional lethal violence. Others, Kowalchuk said, will have players complete fictional Animal rights campaigns, like freeing several captured mythic beasts, in what Kowalchuk calls “role-playing the revolution”.

Kowalchuk’s parents are organizers of Wishbone Animal Rights Lab, a new Animal rights center in Toronto. The center provides free equipment like megaphones, loudspeakers, a recording studio, a kitchen set and an organizing space to Animal rights activists. According to Sue Spahr, a co-owner of the lab, they want to bridge the gap between people wanting to do activism and actually doing it.

Spahr hopes the Animal rights center can help creators in Toronto make more vegan art and entertainment. “Art and creativity and repetition are really highly effective in breaking through and influencing society’s acceptance of new ideas. We would love to see veganism be the new normal, so it’s important that we give vegans and animal activists the edge over their non-vegan counterparts,” she said.

Kowalchuk believes that games are a very effective way to approach activism, and that an in-your-face approach is not the way to go. By creating “vegan” Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, he hopes to encourage people to consider veganism. His campaigns also offer players the opportunity to complete Animal rights campaigns in a fictional setting, enabling them to engage with the issues in a more creative way.

Kowalchuk’s work is particularly relevant given the findings from Dalhousie University, which suggest that the media can convince Canadians to reduce their meat consumption. Nearly a quarter of Canadians who considered eating less beef were influenced by media that demonstrated alternatives, and almost half were concerned about cattle’s contribution to Climate change.

Kowalchuk plans to complete his game by May, and hopes that it will be a fun and creative way to engage people with Animal rights activism and veganism. If more people consider the impact of their food choices on the environment and animals, it could have a positive effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the negative effects of livestock farming. We can all play a part in making this happen by making more sustainable and ethical choices in our daily lives.