D&D causes murder/suicide?

[Col_Pladoh]

I've read somewhere that suicide rates among RPGers are something like 10 times lower than the average. The reason being, the game promotes social relation and problem solving.
Unfortunately, I cannot give a source, since I read it years ago on a website.

I have seen three university stuidies that indicate the likelihood of violent anti-social behavior in the RPG audience is cnsiderably less likely than the norm. WotC should have copies of those studies done in the 1980s.

Articles against D&D always cite the same 12 cases, yes, and of those 12 cases only in ONE the court did actually prove a connection to D&D. Personally, I think the murderer claimed "D&D made me do it" only so as to save his sorry a$$ from what could have been a death sentence. Even if the game really did bring him to murder... 1 case on 2.8 millions is not bad, is it?
[/B]

None of those "cases" has ever been legally proven D&D was so much as a cause of, let alone the proximate cause of suicide or murder.

No court has heard such an argument. Such arguments have been dismissed.

I received two letters from the mothers of two of the young men who commited suicide. Both strongly denied that D&D had anything to do with their killing themselves.

60 MINUTES wold not print those letters.

They should be on file with WotC.

Even if, and it's a big assumption, all those 12 cases were actually caused by D&D, we would STILL be 12 on 2.8 millions, orders of magnitude below average.

The other 11 cases are all of the "he played D&D" type. The reasoning behind is "the guy played D&D, so he commited the crime because of D&D, and definitely not because he was a druggist/was beaten by his parents/was alcoholic/etc."

Of course, this kind of reasoning luckily doesn't stand in court. No connection has been found to D&D in those cases.
[/B]

No connection between D&D and any such thing as suicide has ever been established in any court in theU SA.

A curiosity... Pat Pulling once estimated 8% of D&Ders to be Satanists. This would make Satanism the 8th religion in the USA. When asked the source of this estimate, the answer was "I figured 4% of the young, 4% of the old, and added the two". [/B]

Ms. Pulling earned her livelihood as an "expert" on D&D and Sananism after her organization, Bothered About D&D failed to bring in sufficient contributions. She blamed D&D for her son's suicide, even though she is quoted as saying he played the game for two years without her knowledge. Read between those lines, good people...

She never contacted me, TSR, or any knowledgeable RPGer that I can ascertain.

As for Satanism, I've played D&D since 1972, and to date not one person playing the game has ever identified themselves to me as a Satanist.

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[Voneth]

The only guy I ever bumped into who claimed to be a Satanist said he'd never play DND. It was where everyone was looking for him to be.

scary thought that.

 

[bolen]

I would say that if a person is unbalanced enough to commit suicide there are many factors involved. Playing a game has no more or less effect then others. It is very naive to blame this on one factor.

 

[Impeesa]

Well, basically everything that I could add has been said, so I'll just say that I always get a good laugh when I see a topic heading like that.

--Impeesa--

 

[MythandLore]

D&D causes murder/suicide?

I thought you were talkingabout Enron for a moment there.

I wonder, if you compare murder and suicides with "things" most people think is okay, like say Alcohol, what the numbers would be?

I've known alot of gamers, and none have ever killed themselves or murdered anyone (though I do know gamers that have died in car accidents).
But when I went to school I knew of people who killed themselves or someone else, none of which were gamers.
But at the same time I don't think if those people played games it would have changed much, but then again I don't know maybe it would have changed things.

 

[Rashak Mani]

Bla bla bla yadda yadda yadda... for Moradin´s sake...

Do any of you really believe "The Press" really cares about statistics... even if you should show them a bona fide statistical report that D&D players smoke, snort, kill and suicide 10 times less than the average citizen... the next time a young screwball kills himself they will splash the local papers with D&D related death...

I wont even mention the crazy zealot religious groups... they dont even wait for a suicide to happen before spreading this kind of thing...

It would be neat of course if we could statistically show anything... but I find it very hard to do so... a suicide might be killing himself for a thousand reasons... most unrelated to the bloody fate of his long time Player Character... a murderer might accuse the game or anything else to get an insanity plea...

My opinion is that RPGs in general help socialization which in itself must have stopped many a suicide bent kid... if anything at all playing helps more than it hurts... except as relates to adult relationships... I always have problems with girlfriends and I am almost 30... but thats another thread...

 

[eXodus]

in my days as a gamer i have known two fellow gamers who killed themselves, but none who killed anyone else.

one was a friend from my soccer team when i was 12. we played d&d together. one evening he ended up with some older kids and got drunk. when he got home his mother was quite irrate with him and called his father who was divorced from his mother. before his father could arrive, he shot himself with a .357. the local newspaper pointed out that the boy played d&d and that he listened to heavy metal music. they however never pointed on the fact that his father was an abusive alcoholic and that is mother was clinically depressed.

the second person i knew who was a gamer and a victim of suicide was a friend of mine in high school. he and i gamed weekly for over two years. following high school after heading off to college he died of hanging. his family wanted to believe it was his d&d. they did not want to believe that their son was gay and unable to deal with it. that is why my friend killed himself.

it has been a long time since i have thought of these two....

 

[William Ronald]

eXodus: I am sorry that this topic brought up some unpleasant memories.

First, I would like to suggest using the website of the Escapist as a source of information on the claims against gaming. It is at http://www.theescapist.com/index.htm.

Secondly, as an ex-reporter, I was pretty meticulous about getting the facts straight. However, not everyone I knew was as devoted to this ideal. Sometimes people just assume that an urban myth is correct or have a bias that they are unaware of. (I tend to be a bit skeptical of electronic journalism, because of the time constraints.

I find it depressing, in a world of intolerance, hatred, hunger, and disease (it looks like AIDS may end up killing more people than the Black Death), that gaming is viewed by some people as a problem. I have seen no credible evidence of gaming related murders or suicides. At the risk of sounding cynical, I suspect that the people who are trying to cast a bad light on gaming are doing so as they have no real issues to pursue their own path to power.

 

[Berandor]

For those who are interested and speak German, there is a presentation of a psychologist, Dr. Jeanette Schmid, who was asked by parents and teachers of a school to present an argumentation against role-playing to warn other parents.

In the course of the examinations, however, Dr. Schmidt came to the conclusion that this suggested view was not correct; in fact she claimed that role-playing was no more dangerous than any other hobby that is done overly much.
She claimed that perhaps, RP'ing would have positive sócial effects, but she was lacking conclusive data...

...or something like that. Been a long time

http://www.rpg.net/252/quellen/schmid/vortrag.html this is the actual presentation

http://www.rpg.net/252/quellen/schmid/umfrage.html this is her study

Berandor

 

[Zappo]

None of those "cases" has ever been legally proven D&D was so much as a cause of, let alone the proximate cause of suicide or murder.

I thought the court believed one of them when he said "D&D made me do it!". Good to see that I was wrong!