Does "Fantasy Role Playing" attract people who have a hard time in reality?

[PwrMnky]

I was thinking about this today.

"Does 'fantasy role playing' attract people who have a difficult time in reality?"

Does it attract people who are passive aggressive, or who would like to control EVERY aspect of their lives?

I understand this is not a blanket statement. That I'll receive responses that start off with "not everybody in D&D is ..." or "there are some people ..."

But instead of playing the line, do you think there is an identifiable amount, that is large enough to warrant this observation?

... just thinking.

 

[apoptosis]

I have noticed with certain people that when life is going bad they tend to game a lot more. I think there is a section of the gaming population that uses gaming as way to empower themselves.

Past that, I think it is hard to say. While I have been gaming for a long time, the data set is still confounding

 

[Piratecat]

Oh, sure. But so does sports and MMORPGs. Everyone has their obsessions, and I'm sure fantasy role playing is no exception. If you're miserable in real life, kicking butt in a fantasy world is kind of fun.

It's not mutually exclusive, though. Lots of RPG players have great social skills as well.

 

[rounser]

I think it attracts systems thinkers.

Aspergers syndrome is a continuum, with autism and it's savants who specialise in an extremely discrete system at one end, and I suspect that many of those called geeks and nerds are somewhere on that continuum.

Aspergers and autism have been called hyper-masculine thinking, because the male brain tends to be wired to specialise in systems thinking. The "pocket universes" of fantasy, sci-fi, a programming language or a computer are a lot more discrete than the real world, which is just too big a system to fully understand, and full of things that seem to happen quite randomly and (yes) uncontrollably.

This is why emotions exist, I think; they provide a roadmap in what can sometimes be an illogical-seeming world. Without them you end up with the social equivalent of mutually assured destruction Dr Strangelove situations, or have no barometer of how far to take others into your trust, or empathise with them (which is basically understanding how they think and feel - something that autistic people are notoriously bad at).

For a systems thinker aka a geek, RPGs offer some recreational relief from that. No worse than wasting your life watching TV, and more social and creative to boot.

 

[DragonLancer]

I was thinking about this today.

"Does 'fantasy role playing' attract people who have a difficult time in reality?"

Does it attract people who are passive aggressive, or who would like to control EVERY aspect of their lives?

I think it attracts people who, for whatever reason, need escapism.

 

[pawsplay]

I do it for stimulation. I tend to throw a lot more energy into gaming when life is going well. I guess I find regular life a little boring.

 

[Mallus]

Of course it does. "Fantasy Roleplaying" attracts all kinds of people, some of whom have coping issues.

Now does it attract more of them than other, more popular forms of escapism, like sport, substance abuse, nationalism, or an unhealthy devotion to Oprah Winfrey? Who knows?

 

[jdrakeh]

Oh, sure. But so does sports and MMORPGs. Everyone has their obsessions, and I'm sure fantasy role playing is no exception. If you're miserable in real life, kicking butt in a fantasy world is kind of fun.

It's not mutually exclusive, though. Lots of RPG players have great social skills as well.

Great social skills don't preclude an ignorance of reality or a desire to indulge in escapism, of course. Otherwise, I nearly agree with you (I don't think that sports are used as pure escapism so often as purely fantastic activities such as playing tabletop RPGs or MMORPGs are).

 

[tzor]

No I think it is the opposite, people who have an "easy time" in reality often find it hard to get enough time for "Fantasy Role Playing" because they have so many other activities they wound up volunteering for.

 

[pawsplay]

But instead of playing the line, do you think there is an identifiable amount, that is large enough to warrant this observation?

... just thinking.

I think a problem with this question is that most people, everywhere have some "problems with reality." A fourth of the general population is going to qualify for a diagnosis of a major mental illness at some time in their life. Most people have unrealistically high expectations of professional success. Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. Most people don't like their jobs very much.