Mental stability and roleplaying games

[Dogbrain]

This is purely anecdotal, but the USMC has plenty of D&D players, according to my brother-in-law ("former" USMC, currently National Guard just shipped off to Kosovo.)

 

[Agemegos]

This paper defined "cultural estrangement" as "not watching lots of TV and not following sports".

 

[crueldespot]

Version 30

This study examined differences in feelings of alienation between 35 active players and 35 nonplayers.

See that's why they came out with version 35. Too much alienation in Version 30 players.

 

[Krieg]

This is purely anecdotal, but the USMC has plenty of D&D players, according to my brother-in-law ("former" USMC, currently National Guard just shipped off to Kosovo.)

Yep, and we have suffered our fair share of media accusations of mental instability as well.

PS- Torm, you certainly have my respect for overcoming adversity. Semper Fi.

 

[The Spectrum Rider]

I think you should tell your friend that you are concerned about her because SOME Christians - not all, by any means, but some - become obsessively caught up in their religion to the detriment of themselves and other people around them.

They develop delusions of grandeur, convinced that they and their co-religionists, of all the people in the entire world, have sole possession of the absolute truth, and that enyone who doesn't agree with them will burn in unimaginable pain for all eternity. At various points in history they have been known to torture and kill innocent, harmless people with different points of view (or who they even THINK have different points of view), or start wars on the basis of their religious beliefs. (cf. the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, and the Crusades.)

There have been a number of disturbing cases in which Christians have killed people - often young people - by using extreme froms of "exorcism," or by denying them medical treatment that is against their particular sect's dogma. Some will even vote to deny civil rights to people who don't follow their brand of religion.

Of course, MOST Christians are peaceful, productive, law-abiding citizens who draw strength and serenity from their religious views, and are not motivated to punish others on the basis of them. But why take the risk, dear friend?

Personally, it's not the D&D players I worry about.

The Spectrum Rider

 

[dren]

It's a game. A stupid, silly, fun game. Just like X-box or monopoly. How can anyone in their mind take this so seriously?

Do you really think, the supreme creator, the one who has guided existence since before time began, cares if a few geeks get together to play a game?
Where in the bible does it say anything like:

Thou shall not be a geek.
Thou shall not play games.
Thou shall not have any fun.

 

[Dogbrain]

"The Puritan's idea of Hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business."

"Puritan: An individual distinguished primarily by the great terror that somewhere, someone might actually be enjoying something."

 

[Whimsical]

Here's an excellent article by a Christian gamer for Christians.

Confessions of a Dungeons & Dragons™ Addict: "If you've ever been told that role playing games were evil or satanic and weren't sure how to answer, this article would have been useful. It examines most of the major arguments raised against games and shows why they fail, but does so in a format which acknowledges that it is right to be concerned about how we spend our leisure time and to raise such questions."

I suggest that any Christian (or Jewish or Islamic) gamer here check out his Faith & Gaming articles.

Heck, I'm atheist and I enjoy them.

 

[woodelf]

I got into an argument (although a friendly one) today with a Christian girl I know, where she said she'd hear that roleplaying games can turn people mentally unstable, and make them gradually "become" the role they play in the game, in real life. Of course, we all know that this is false, but I want to show her some better arguments than just my own. Some time ago, someone in this forum linked to an excellent article about things like these, but I can't find it again.

I'd appreciate it if any of you can link me to online articles about this topic, preferably well researched ones. She said she'd like to read any articles about this.

The Escapist, as others have said. Also, if you have access to old Dragon mags (or the CD compilation), one of the editorials was from a guy who was an army base psychiatrist in peacetime for quite a few years. In case you haven't heard, a *lot* of gaming goes on on army bases in peacetime: a whole lot of people with nowhere to go, coordinated schedules, and a fair amount of freetime. Anyway, if you don't need to cite the authority, i can sum it up by saying that he saw a lot of people lose touch with reality in that time. He never saw one person whose delusions had anything to do with RPGs. In fact, the most common basis for delusions was the bible.

When people lose touch with reality, they latch onto a something else, and usually a belief system is the most powerful thing in their life. And, in the US, that generally means religion, and usually Christianity. RPGs just can't compete with religion for importance to a person's fundamental outlook on life, at least for most people.

The actor analogy is another good one--especially soap actors, who might be in character for the better part of the day 5 days a week, most of the year.

And, preemptively, before it comes up, i'll point out the suicide statistics. First of all, AFAIK, in the final analysis, no suicide in the US has ever been linked, even partially, to RPGs. But, even if every suicide ever attributed to RPGs by anyone, regardless of how shaky their evidence was, were accepted as RPG-related, that would be far from proving that RPGs cause or contribute to suicide. In fact, taking a fairly conservative, but reasonable, estimate for the number of RPGers out there (the number of AD&D1/2 PHs sold--which should significantly undercount RPers, given the number who bought both, plus the number who play only other games, plus the number who play without owning their own rulebook), you find that the suicide rate among RPers is considerably lower than the national average. And the larger the number of gamers actually out there (since that estimate is very likely to undercount, and extremely unlikely to overcount), the better that rate gets. So, there is no evidence that RPing contributes to mental instability, and some evidence that it counters it.

Oh, and i believe one of the citations you'll find on The Escapist's website is a psych journal article that specifically analyzed a semi-random group of RPers and compared them to a control group or two, and found no measurable difference in mental stability.

 

[Umbran]

How can anyone in their mind take this so seriously?

It is quite simple, really. People fear what they don't understand. And fear is a mind-killer. Once you fear a thing, it becomes even more difficult to clearly learn about and understand it. Doubly so when that learning would run against some things you hold near and dear to your heart.

Lots of folks have screwed up ideas about RPGs, even without religion entering into it. Lots of folks have screwed up ideas about other things - like sexual preference, cloning, people of other races, and whether or not real men eat quiche.

Seems to me that RPGs are rather low on the list of major human misunderstandings.