Identity Loss (not the "roll for pick pockets" kind)

[Mark CMG]

I do recall a big hubbub in the early eighties about losing our personality by playing D&D and having it replaced by the personality of our character. All that went away in the early nineties, though, when we discovered that while playing computer games we could lose our personality and have it replaced by a career.

 

[pawsplay]

Dissociative identity disorder is more commonly known as "multiple personality disorder"- it is very, very rare, and I don't know of any one in the 80s who claimed it as caused by D&D.

True, but there are a number of dissociative disorders, including fugue disorder, personalization disorder, and so forth. And saying DID is multiple personality disorder is a simplification; there is a reason multiple personality disorder was discarded as a current diagnostic category. DID would describe a theoretical situation where a feeling came over someone that their "character" was taking over their actions.

However, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or brief psychotic disorder are much, much more common causes of strange and delusional behavior. Also, drugs. And severe personality disturbances, especially when aggravated by concealing your guility homosexual longings from your emotionally distant and disturbed mother.

 

[Mexal]

Back in the early 1980s someone at the BBC picked up on the D&D = devil worship angle and sent a reporter from one of the religious radio shows to Game Fair, at that time the biggest national RPG convention in the UK, held at Reading University.

Some bright spark at TSR remembered that I happened to be a Methodist Local Preacher and I got hauled out of a game to be interviewed.

The reporter's grip on Christian doctrine was about as feeble as his knowledge of role-playing, and I still remember the look of surprise when I told him that the Bible - not my D&D books - told me that the Devil existed, but holding that there WAS a Devil was not the same thing as worshipping him!

This interview was aired breakfast time on Sunday morning. Quite ruined my enjoyment of my sausages...

... but the best bit was my Dad who said, "I never listen to that show, it's boring!"

 

[Wolf1066]

There are screwed up people everywhere in all walks of life and they go off the rails from time to time. Per capita of world population, they are in the minority, but they make the headlines.

If one of said screwed up people happens to like RPGs or Heavy Metal or Acid Punk or decides to pattern the killing spree on a movie that seems to reflect how (s)he personally feels (and felt long before the movie came along) or something else that "safely" puts the person into some minority pigeonhole and makes him "one of them" so far as society is concerned, then the movie, the music, the RPG gets blamed and people say "it made him/her do it".

They conveniently ignore all the hundreds, thousands, millions of others who listened to the same music or played the RPG or watched the movie as they are still a minority and can be safely marginalised for the "greater good" of making the rest of society feel superior.

So long as Joe and Jane Average can say "oh, that's one of them, it could never possibly happen to us", society as a whole is happy - they can act out their personal prejudices and bigotry, safe in the knowledge that they are "better" than someone.

And if you can cash in on that and turn a quick buck in the process or grab your 15 minutes of fame as the moral crusader who "knew all along that this stuff was dangerous", then all to the better, eh.

Ever notice that if it's a supermarket clerk who has led an otherwise dull and humdrum life that goes of the rails, people never turn around and blame working in a supermarket for his behaviour...

Sadly, it's impossible to beat because there are never going to be headlines/10-o'clock-news stories along the lines of "And again today, 10,000 RPGers had a quiet time and didn't commit suicide or slaughter anyone, that makes this the 10th outbreak of exemplary behaviour in the last month."

Frankly, we're not newsworthy enough for our natures to be widely known.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Why? Because if I'm going to be hated and reviled by idiots, I would prefer it to be because I'm an obnoxious, opinionated bastard that points out how unbelievably stupid they are - rather than because they think they know what I'm like because some loonie zealot wrote something in the paper. I'm an old fashioned sort that prefers to be vilified for his real faults, not imaginary ones...

Personally, if I was going to be hated and reviled by idiots I would prefer it to be because they are, well, idiots!

I'd prefer to be a reasonable, informed person who is willing to explain things to people who are interested in listening. Just makes more sense to me!

I'm pretty sure you'd be better off being vilified for imaginary faults rather than effectively glorying in real ones, surely?

 

[Plane Sailing]

"And again today, 10,000 RPGers had a quiet time and didn't commit suicide or slaughter anyone, that makes this the 10th outbreak of exemplary behaviour in the last month."

Love this line!

 

[Umbran]

What happened was the Rona Barret, Pat Pulling, Jack Chick, et al saw a chance to make some quick bucks without bothering to do any research, and dove right in.

I cannot speak to the others, but let's have a little compassion. Pat Pulling's son took her revolver and shot himself in the chest.

I sure hope that if you ever lose a child to violence in your own home, that nobody accuses you of trying to profit off of their death.

 

[Umbran]

True, but there are a number of dissociative disorders, including fugue disorder, personalization disorder, and so forth.

Yes, but none of them are dissociative identity disorder.

And saying DID is multiple personality disorder is a simplification;

The references I find show DID being that which we used to call MPD - but the disorder is even more complicated than we used to think of MPD. I recognize MPD is not generally accepted as a diagnosis these days, but since I'm not talking to psychologists, some use of the vernacular seemed appropriate, to give people some handle on the issue that they'd recognize.

DID would describe a theoretical situation where a feeling came over someone that their "character" was taking over their actions.

Okay, now I guess we have to get picky. I am by no means a mental health professional, but as I understand it, a "feeling that someone was taking over their actions", is not consistent with DID. DID requires that multiple personality states exist (as well as significant lapses in memory - state A not remembering what happened while state B was dominant). The feeling that someone else is in control is consistent with several other disorders.

 

[Festivus]

I am usually very careful to say things like "My character" or make references like "Chadeaux jumps across the lava pit". I don't really say "I just across the lava pit." The only time when I do refer to myself is when I have having the character say something, and then it's pretty clear that I am doing so, e.g. "Chadeaux will address the vampire prince: 'I don't care about any of the yakkity yak you have to say, I am going to kick your butt and there ain't nothing you can say to stop me... did I mention my dagger is silvered?' and snarls meanly."

I don't know if this is a holdover from the 80s or not.

 

[cdrcjsn]

I cannot speak to the others, but let's have a little compassion. Pat Pulling's son took her revolver and shot himself in the chest.

I sure hope that if you ever lose a child to violence in your own home, that nobody accuses you of trying to profit off of their death.

I'm sorry, but that woman was a monster.

Her illogical and erratic thinking was probably directly responsible for the environment that led to her son's suicide.

I feel sorry for the son and the situation, but based on her actions, I have no compassion for Pat Pulling.