Report on Role Playing Games

Role Playing Games or RPG as some call it is a game in which you create a fictional character. Once a character is created he is then used to play in a created setting also called a Storyline. A storyline uses a group of characters in a quest or journey of some type. These characters will encounter different monsters and villains along the way. Each time a person plays a scene of the story he will gain experience for it. This experience raises a character’s level making him more powerful. There are many types of games available today including vampires, fantasy, and sci fi.

There are some who take this game to an extreme actually becoming the character. This is called Live Action Role Play and can sometimes lead to trouble. There have been a few who have been injured or died in this style of role play. Back in the 1980 there were stories on the news of groups killing each other in role play. Although these instances are extremely rare, they do unfortunately happen. This has led many parents to forbid such games believing them to be detrimental to their children’s minds. Some believe it will cause mental instability and lead to various mental disorders.

One such incident occurred in 1996 in Florida. Three teens were charged with bludgeoning to death a couple. The couple were the parents of a fourth girl in the group. The teens were heavily involved in a vampire roleplaying game. It was reported that they tortured puppies and even drank one another’s blood. In Virginia Beach a man received a 26 year sentence for sexually molesting and biting eight teenage girls. It was said that he recruited the girls for his vampire family through a vampire role playing game. The deaths of dozens of Italian teenagers was linked to a roleplaying game which called for players to act out executions.

The National Coalition on Television Violence and Bothered About D&D are two groups formed of concerned citizens. They have documented nine murders and suicides which can be attributed to involvement with the Dungeons and Dragons RPG or D&D. All of the death documented were men between the ages of 12 and 21. Dr. Thomas Redecki, a renowned psychiatrist and chairman of the National Coalition on Television Violence, has given expert testimony in numerous trials linked to role playing. He believes that it is not surprising that the desire to act out fantasy arises when one spends a large amount of time dreaming of how to kill opponents and steal treasure.

The counterpoint to this controversy comes from the game producers and the gamers themselves. Most point to other imagination games or entertainments such as such as the Wizard of Oz or Grimm Fairy Tales that use witches, magic, ghouls, and the like to entertain children. They also site the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis as well. A Committee was created by the Game Manufacturers Association to examine and respond charges of actual violence linked to certain roleplaying games. During their investigation they discovered the fact that gamers who commit murder or suicide do so for the same reasons other people do. Three associations, the Association of Gifted-Creative Children, the American Association of Suicidology and the Center for Disease Control, conducted extensive studies into teen suicide. They found no link between teen suicide and fantasy roleplaying games.

Many people play these games however with no ill effect. They maintain their ability to separate fantasy from reality. Most view these games as a pleasant diversion from the hassle of everyday life. They feel that this style of game allows one to become a part of the story they act out. Most game players never take to the live action gaming preferring to keep it a table top game. A majority of gamers are men between the ages of 18 and 30. Women make up less then 25% of gamers. A typical gamer is an intelligent person who prefers to spend their spare time playing mind games instead of sports. The vast majority of gamers are student but lawyers, bank executives and other professional have taken to the Games as well.

Sometimes the game is merely a reason for friends to get together. There is one such group in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The game takes place in a club designed around one of the vampire games. The club’s owner designed it specifically for gamers to gather and play. It provides a safe and secure environment for the game.

Some gamers view the games as a creative outlet, a place where they design and control the characters action. This allows them to shed their inhibitions and their worries, and behave in a manner they may not be able to do in life. It give them the freedom to be the hero of their dreams or the villains of their nightmares. Some storylines may even challenge the mind with puzzles, mysteries and riddles. It also give us our future game designers. Role playing exercises creativity and stimulates the mind.


But as they said before be not that it isn’t good or evil, it is the just cause on how far the gamer takes the adventure which has happen to many tragic times to recall. In short If you can’t separate, Real life from fantasy Don’t Role play. That is where Some of the gamers get their bad rep from.