Does hack-n-slashing desensitize us to violence?

[The Shaman]

Does violent role-playing shape how we think and react to actual violence?

No, and anyone who thinks that should have his ass kicked royally.


. . . what?!

 

[Starfox]

Tabletop RPG violence is cartoon/ exaggerated, abstract, contextualised and, generally, impersonal. TRPGs offer 'fish tank' worlds that specifically remove 'violence' from the realities of violence. It's, therefore, more likely to offer a way to understand and re-evaluate violent tendencies than fueling them.

This opens a whole separate discussion. What desentesizes us more to violence; cartoon violence where no-one ever get hurt, or realistic, gritty, bloody, blood-curdling depictions of violence and its consequences?

 

[Starfox]

The central point behind all of this being that while it would be better perhaps if all wars were just fought on paper, that those that fight cardboard battles in the Temple of War are seldom err long content to stay there. And I have certainly noticed that whether by prior inclination or long exposure, that those that play war games are not among the least loving of war when it comes.

A counter-case: The Cold War - the devastating war that was never actually fought outside the Temple of War. It would seem that those scenarios never ended in a victory decisive enough to take the risks involved. Perhaps the bad thing about the Japanese war games is not that they were played, but that they were not played well enough?

On the same vein... Is it true that US carrier groups are considered invulnerable in modern-day navy war games?

 

[Jhaelen]

This opens a whole separate discussion. What desentesizes us more to violence; cartoon violence where no-one ever get hurt, or realistic, gritty, bloody, blood-curdling depictions of violence and its consequences?

I think it depends on something else (, too): context.

An (anti-)war movie uses the portrayal of realistic violence in a completely different way than your typical horror slasher movie.

 

[Celebrim]

A counter-case: The Cold War - the devastating war that was never actually fought outside the Temple of War.

What version of history did you read? To name just a few battles of the Cold War:

Korean War
Hungarian Revolution
Guatamalan coup d'etat
Congo Crisis
Cuban Revolution
War in Vietnam
US Invasion of the Dominican Republic
Indonesian Civil War
Soviet Invasion of Czechoslavicia
Chilean coup d'etat
Angolan War of Independence
Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
US Invasion of Grenada

Both sides of the conflict declared that they would intervene militarily whenever their preferred economic system was replaced in another country by that of their rivals. This lead to a very very large number of so called 'proxy wars' where both sides attempted to influence by force the government resulting from innumerable wars of national liberation that were occuring in the collapse of European colonialism, and both sides attempted to ferment revolution within the economic sphere of their rival. Even ignoring things like Spain and China which resulted from interwar military interventions, deaths resulting from the 'Cold War' numbered in the millions, and like many wars continued after the official war was over. Those fallout deaths are ongoing to this day. For example, the current war in Libya is fallout from the Soviet backed intervention in Libya, the current government being no more than a Soviet installed client dictatorship whose mercenary forces have origins in Cuba. The current war in Afghanistan is largely fallout from the Soviet Invasion of Aghanistan and resulting US push-back. Even the 'culture war' in America is by some reconning little more that the fallout from the propaganda war between the two nations as both sides spent billions on memetic weapons.

While direct conflict between the two rivals was rare due to the fear of the conflict escalating to nuclear, USA and USSR troops did on occasion directly engage each other. In most cases, both sides choose not to inform their public of the encounters for fear of inflaming their public. One of the most notable examples was that during the Vietnamese war, the USSR was not only supplying the planes but the pilots to fly the planes, which meant that when the USA engaged Migs over Vietnam often as not it was direct conflict between the two militaries.

Perhaps the bad thing about the Japanese war games is not that they were played, but that they were not played well enough?

I don't disagree, afterall, if everyone was agreeing with the bloggers thesis, I'd probably be disagreeing with it. I'm merely backing the idea that playing a war game could lead to glorification of violence and feelings that war was an appropriate and even desirable means of conflict resolution. In truth though, I definately don't believe that this is inevitable.

 

[nedjer]

Some say Tom and Jerry shouldn't be shown to kids due to Tom's extreme 'suffering'.

Others might say Tom and Jerry makes us more aware of our capacity for violence, shows that there are different types of violence and asks us to contextualise and evaluate violence.

So far Tom and Jerry's working out for me, as I've never yet felt the urge to slam a cat into an ironing board or even drop an anvil on one. I even let the neighbour's dumb cat inside if it's left outside in sub-zero.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Watching the News desensitizes me to violence.

Being alive and aware in any way can desensitize to violence. Nor is this necessarily counter to empathy. Since a car wreck a few years ago, I'm both more desensitized to violence directed at me, but more emphathetic to those who have flipped a vehicle, broken their nose, and lost a few hours of memory.

Heck, I took the family to see Kung Fu Panda 2 yesterday. The answer to the question was right there in a statement by "Tigress". She punched a tree 20 years so that she take things on her paw without feeling it. That didn't mean she felt nothing.

 

[DragonLancer]

We're surrounded every day by violence thanks to the media. It doesn't mean that watching violence on TV, the movies or in video games makes anyone violence and certainly not by playing D&D. If anything, it's all an outlet for people's violence.

 

[pawsplay]

I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to post a link, since I didn't want to make it seem like I was saying "hey, this guy's wrong! Everybody, let's tell him how wrong he is!"

Someone is being wrong on the Internet! They must be stopped!

But on a more serious note, the white, middle-class part of my background cringes a little every time I see a thread title on an RPG board with a title like, "Wht Race Do You Hate?"

Do I think RPGs affect our response to hatred and violence? I certainly hope so! If killing a few gnolls increases by even 1% the likelihood that some Cheetoh-eating nerd might oneday use her flipphone to document or report attack or abuse, or to shield a child from violence during a riot, or to march side by side by the hated minority du jour, I am all for it. The world needs more paladins, more Chaotic Good rogues, more delving wizards, and more monster slayers.

Do I think there's any realistic risk of D&D turning someone into a genocidalist, a school shooter, a drug dealer, a burglar, or the like? Absurd.

I think RPGs are an opportunity for self-examination. It need not be hard work, so to speak. RPGs are not therapy, or philosophical quests, or sociological gauntlets, at least, not as a rule. But they give use the opportunity to live inside a different skin for a while, and hence in my view, can only do good.

What is the consequence of playing a Chaotic Neutral fighter-rogue who steals from the rich and keeps it all for himself? A window into why that is not a viable real-life approach to life. It doesn't even take "realistic consequences." Playing as a sociopath can be fun without any risk of it seeming like an actually preferable existence. It's not like D&D is going to cause players to prefer killing and eating their own meat and use outhouses rather than flushing toilets. Does playing a bard make someone more likely to become a cellist?

 

[Starfox]

Does playing a bard make someone more likely to become a cellist?

Again, and this goes for all your less pleasant examples of what RPGs might inspire as well, someone natrually inclined to be a cellist might first try out being a bard. Not that the experience of a DnD bard and RL cellist are that much alike.