Information about roleplaying-games
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Introduction
Inspired by several prejudices ([[1]]) referring to dangers coming along with playing fantasyroleplaying-games (named FRPGs or RPGs in the following texts), I wanted to find out more about the character of people who play FRPGs.
• First, I wanted to discover if there are persons who are predisposed to become a FRPG-player. More precisely, I took interest in the question if FRPG-players can be characterized by special character-traits, age or sex.
• Second, I investigated if playing a roleplaying-game improves special character-traits such as creativity or emotional instability.
• Third, I felt like analyzing my own experiences to find out if playing role-playing-games has changed some of my personal character-traits. This analysis can not– of course – claim to be representative, but it is nevertheless interesting for me, and - hopefully - for you as well. Linked to my experiences concerning RPGs, I will give you some information about violence in roleplaying-games.
If you want to know why people play FRPgs at all, see this link [2]. It contains a lot of reasons why people play games in general and therefore many reasons why people play RPGs as well.
Procedure
Motivated by my nosiness I read up on several potential texts. Finally, I chose to work with the following texts:
- Schmid, Jeanette: „Persönlichkeitsfaktoren bei Fantasy-Rollenspielern – eine empirische Studie“, 1995
- Cardwell, Paul Jr.: „The Attacks on Role- Playing Games“, 1994
- Antrack, Michael: „Flucht vor der Realität? Funktion und Reiz von Fantasy-Rollenspielen unter sozialarbeiterischer Betrachtung“, 1996
- Douse, Neil A. and McManus, Ian Chris: „The Personality of Fantasy Game Players“, 1993
Before I go on presenting my results, I want to give a hint to those of you who do not play RPGs about what roleplaying-games are about. To get to know more, klick this [[3]]
Results
The average player
Referring to the studies I have already mentioned, you can describe the average RPG-Player as follows:
He is male, 21, 8 years old and began playing at the age of 14, 8. More probably than not, he was introduced to RPGs by his friends, as have been 69% of RPG-players. Furthermore, he is likely to be a student or pupil of a school that leads to a high level of education as 75% of RPG-players belong to one of these groups. The reason for this is supposed to be the larger amount of free time coming along with being a student or pupil and the assumption that people with a high education are supposed to be more capable of getting along with the various numbers of rules of RPGs when beginning to play this type of game. Moreover, the average player keeps in touch with other RPG-players with the help of special shops, journals, the internet or by visiting big gatherings of RPG-players, named „cons“.
Before getting to the character traits that characterize RPG-players, I want to inform you about the circumstances that led to the study about these traits. The author of the study about characteristics of RPG-players – Dr. Jeanette Schmid – is a RPG-player herself. Being angry about many prejudices concerning RPG-player in addition to the fact that a former study about this subject was often critizised made her produce her own study. The former study – accomplished by Simón in 1987- found no differing aspects between the character traits of RPG-players and the average commoner. RPG-players have an average character-profile with one exception. Simón found out that there is a difference between new and experienced RPG-player regarding a parameter measuring the degree of independent thinking and a person’s fondness of experimenting. As you would have guessed, the experienced RPG-players achieved better scores. But one of the critiques on the study mentioned above was that this result can also be a result of the age of the players, assuming that experienced players are more likely to be older than new players. All these aspects motivated Jeanette Schmid to arrange a study on her own. For those of you who are interested in academic working, use the link to see more details about the scientific approach. Scientific approach
To conclude the results of her study: RPG-players seem to be more self-confident, sociable, agreeable and more open to new experiences than non-RPG-players. Furthermore, a person’s openness for new experiences is supposed to increase with the period of time he ore she has played RPGs. At this point, I am asking myself if we should suggest that every person is bound to play RPGs to make the world a better place ;)
My own experiences
I do think that playing RPGs has influenced some of my character traits and skills. In detail: I hold the opinion that playing RPGs improved my creativity, imagination and social skills such as working in a team, being communicative and empathetic. Furthermore it seems as if playing RPGs together for a long time has shaped several of my friendships in a rather positive way. It has also tightened my love towards fantasy in general. Besides that I learned a lot about myself, because everyone will have to think about his own values and his own behavior if he wants to create a character he likes to play for some time. Moreover, I often heard speculations about violence in fantasy-games and I have to confess that in my opinion some elements of RPGs can indeed be called violent. Thinking about games I played myself, I would call some parts of the games “Shadowrun” [4] and “Dungeons & Dungeons [5] violent, but there is always the possibility to play these games in a non-violent way. Therefore I have to conclude that RPGs are not necessarily violent. The level of violent depends on the game as well as on the situation that possibly leads to violence elements in the game. Furthermore, the players themselves play a major roll. That is because they are influenced by their own interests and the way they are feeling at the day of playing. Beyond that, it is important whom they are playing with.
Subject-based theories and constructivism
Subject-based theories claim – among other things - that persons choose games by their own interests as well as by experiences they have gained in reality or media. Therefore the way a person copes with violence is mainly influenced by his former experiences with violence, no matter if they are real or media ones. Hence it depends on a person itself if a game can be called dangerous for this person. Connected to subject-based-theories is another one called “constructivism” [[6]] . Constructivism describes a psychological theory that says that the way a person experiences and learns is based on processes of construction which are influenced by cognitive and social proceedings themselves. It is therefore up to ourselves if we learn and how we learn under certain circumstances.
I conclude that RPGs can not be called dangerous in general. If you want to know more about studies analyzing the danger of RPGs, see this link: [[7]]
by Anjuli
