:: Warning: This essay is going to seem elitist and egotistical, but it is genuinely something I wonder about. I'm honestly not trying to troll. ::

When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you. - Nietzsche

Most people that play role-playing games spend enough time doing so that it affects their personality. They don't just play the games; the games shape their personality. This is especially true if they start doing so as an adolescent, when personality is particularly malleable.

This frightens me a little, because I find the lives of many gamers horrifying. They have menial, low paying jobs, at which they kill time in order to make ends meet while waiting for the next game. This seems relevant to the issue of stance, particularly as addressed in the discussions about SOAP in which it was mentioned that some people have been made so dysfunctional by their gaming experience that without being led by the nose by the GM, they're incapable of coming up with anything for their character to do. I wonder whether this extends further than the character in some cases, to the player.

I had a large game group in high school; I'm still at least somewhat in touch with most of the people who were in that group, twelve years later. The majority are doing nothing at all; they work at 7-11 or as security guards. They're clearly waiting for the adventure to start. A couple have mature, responsible jobs, which they clearly hate, which they obtained mostly by following their family's expectations. These are all really smart guys; just about everyone in the group got a national merit scholarship. They're not doing nothing out of lack of ability.

Two of us have the sort of lives that I'd think everybody would want. Ed is a terraformer; he splits his time between jungles and tundras, designing ecosystems. In the former, he never wears shoes and is widely known as a witch doctor; in the latter, he e-mailed me once from well above the artic circle, deep in the Karelian forests where he'd been tracking a moose for three days. He gets paid to do this, by companies and governments that want to figure out how to build sustainable ecological systems in areas they control. Best of both worlds; cool job, socially valuable work. He always played a ranger. I shall avoid describing my very strange career trajectory in any detail, but I, too, have had a series of way cool jobs, with lots of independence and responsibility and, at least lately, socially redeeming value.

I used to think that it just showed that different people learned different lessons from the same game; some people took them as an impetus to become the sort of character they'd be interested in playing, while others decided that the point of life is to keep yourself entertained until you're dead.

However, the discussions here gave me a thought; what if the difference in outcomes is related to difference in role in the games. Both Ed and I were primarily the game-masters, which meant that it was up to us to make up the stories (this was a long time ago, when simulationism was king). Both of us knew that if we didn't make it happen, nothing was going to happen. The other players knew that their job was just to be reactive to whatever happened around them. And that's the way we've all lived the rest of our lives, as well.

You may scoff at this - it is just a d*mn game, after all. But it is what we all spent a majority of our time doing during the period in which we were learning how to be adults.

The reason this seems an important issue to me is because

(1) People here treat role-playing as an unqualified good thing, and believe that they are not harming teenagers by getting them to participate. While gaming has given me a massively 'can-do' attitude, that doesn't seem to be the effect it has on most. To a large extent, taking up gaming seems to have the same effect on life-path as taking up drugs.

(2) If the difference in life path -is- related to difference in approach to gaming, then, at least for teenagers, perhaps difference in gaming style -ISN'T- just a matter of approach and personal taste. Perhaps there genuinely -IS- a concrete 'best' way to play, at least when you consider gaming as a learning experience. (Note that the -point- of games, in any species, is to learn. Most species stop playing as they approach adulthood because they have already learned everything their species needs to know. We, on the other hand, can reasonably continue to play games in adulthood because we're a species in which learning never has to stop.)

(3) If (2) is true, perhaps we ought to be concerned about social responsibility. Let me clarify here: it is not sex and violence in games that are to be avoided (or at least, I'm not making that argument at the moment), it's behaving in a reactive manner.

In summary, it isn't just a d*mn game - it's what you spend a big chunk of your life doing. And that's inevitably going to have an effect on the way you think about everything else in your life.

- James

[ This Message was edited by: james_west on 2001-06-05 20:40 ]

[ This Message was edited by: james_west on 2001-06-05 23:13 ]

interesting thoughts. of course really impossible to draw conclusions based on such a small sample. An alternative explaination to consider, is not that playing trains us one way or the other so much as it sorts us. In other words being a GM didn't train you for success. The traits that lead you to stand up and succeed, also led you to stand up and GM. Those whose traits lead them to follow in life also led them to follow while gaming.

Looked at in this way it is no different from most other activities. Most adolescent activities are designed to sort us into leaders and followers. Athletics have their stars and captains, and their second string and benchwarmers. Cheerleading has its captains. School projects have their leaders who do most of the work to get the grade and those who just mooch the grade. Dating has its casanovas and its Erkels. Cliques are all about those who lead and those who follow. Drama club has its leading roles and its extras, and at least in my school which actors were which was pretty consistant regardless of the play.

I don't know that RPGs are any different.

I think that Val is right here. I think, James, that you may be confusing cause and effect. I became the eternal GM at the age of 10 because I liked it. Others did not. The basic trait of being an entertainer or an entertainee was already in us. From my reading of child psychology (I have a six month old, so...) these sorts of things are hammered out very early. Curiosity especially. I've just been told by my wife that we should keep one of the kitchen cabinets un-childproofed (with just tupperware and other harmless stuff in it) so that he can get in there and investigate. Stimulates an explorative sense.

Interestingly, despite being the GM I was in general a shy and awkward child. This contrasts with many anecdotes that I have encountered where GMs claim that they were the most outgoing of their group. So the skills that I learned as a GM were not particularly helpful in making my way socially. My underlying personality still dominated; RPGs did nothing to change that.

Many of my passive players have gone on to much better (at least higher paying) carrers than I have, and were much more well adjusted as a whole in school. The subset of passive players I have played with (probably over one hundred) now have careers ranging from Janitor to Corporate VP. I see no correlation, there.

It seems much more likely that role-playing in the 80s attracted only those sorts of social misfits who had little to lose by participating in an activity that would end up getting them labeled geeks. That was me all over. Heck, I liked being different (if not the lack of acceptance). And most that I have met who are players share this characteristic.

Being as these individuals are not well socialized to begin with, is it any wonder that they turn out to be unsuccessful in other endeavors on occasion? I think that the rate of escape from this plight is made higher by the fact that gaming also seems to attract a lot of rather intelligent people (and note the correllation between intelligence and geek status) who are able to overcome this lack of socialization later in life. But there will be a percentage that don't.

OTOH, most of these individuals genuinely like their hobby and at least have that going for them. I know a lot of miserable corporates who come home to nothing, and look forward only to work, wich is a fate worse than poor socialization, IMHO. There are better and worse in both groups.

One thing that I agree with you on is that people, in general, would do well to expand their horizons. No startling insight, that. This means that I'd suggest to role-players that they try different styles. Sure. Why not? They might learn some new and interesting skills for use in their everyday life.

But if a player tells me that they can't join my new Narrativist RPG because they don't have time due to joining a volleyball league, who am I to argue with their choice of horizon expanders? They might learn some new and interesting skills for use in their everyday life.

Mike Holmes

Mike,

I'm going to avoid the central issue for this post and just mention my take on a side issue you brought up: the common belief that gamers are more socially inept than most people.

This seems like a strange belief to me: gamers have a far more social pastime than most - you'd think it would make them BETTER at social interaction than most people.

And, I think it probably does. In my experience, most people don't have a clue how to socially interact with people in an unstructured environment; the majority of the population spends most of their time not at work sitting at home in front of the television, flat terrified at the prospect of speaking to strangers.

To recap: the reason gamers seem socially inept to you is because you actually deal with them. All those people you don't deal with are far more frighteningly socially inept, you just don't notice 'cause they never leave their houses outside of work (which is a sufficiently structured environment that their total lack of social skills is masked.)

- James

Back to that central issue ...

James' proposition appeals to me, but I think that's because it floats my ego. Since I don't correspond to the "loser gamer" model, and since I favor Narrativist play, the whole idea makes me look real good.

And that makes me wary.

So I guess the most I can legitimately say is the following.

1) This issue is valid. We should talk about it without anyone feeling attacked (or if they do, putting a lid on responding AS IF attacked). If no conclusion is possible at present, given all the confounding factors, then at least every individual ought to consider the issue and arrive at a personal conclusion.

2) As usual, the RPG issue shows massive correlation with my experiences with both martial arts and academics. The same pattern of personality-profiles appears, and the same pattern of positive and negative relationships to the highly-detailed and demanding activities appears.

Further speculations as events warrant ...

Best,
Ron

I think this is an interesting topic, and I think the issue also applies to other ‘often termed geek’ hobbies.

Rather than waffling on here, I’ll point you to this url: http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/gaminglife09may01.html

I hate doing that, but its easier in this case.

As a few people have pointed out though, I’m sure this is a symbiotic relationship, rather than gaming having a complete effect on someone’s personality.

On 2001-06-06 01:44, james_west wrote:
Mike,

I'm going to avoid the central issue for this post and just mention my take on a side issue you brought up: the common belief that gamers are more socially inept than most people.

This seems like a strange belief to me: gamers have a far more social pastime than most - you'd think it would make them BETTER at social interaction than most people.

And, I think it probably does. In my experience, most people don't have a clue how to socially interact with people in an unstructured environment; the majority of the population spends most of their time not at work sitting at home in front of the television, flat terrified at the prospect of speaking to strangers.

To recap: the reason gamers seem socially inept to you is because you actually deal with them. All those people you don't deal with are far more frighteningly socially inept, you just don't notice 'cause they never leave their houses outside of work (which is a sufficiently structured environment that their total lack of social skills is masked.)

- James

Hello all,

I think there are a few too many variables kicking around to be clear on James' central point. I ask for clarification.

The proposition: some modes of role-playing are associated with or perhaps even contribute to social ... (hm) incompetence.

[Clarification of my own: I do not speak of overall social conformity or lack of such conformity; I am speaking of those who are notably unhappy or socially-dysfunctional in ANY social group.]

What I'm not clear on is the "mode" that may be the key.

- GM vs. not GM?
- one of the G/N/S categories as opposed to the others?
- role-playing at all vs. not role-playing at all?
- something else?

James, help me out. Which are we talking about?

Best,
Ron

P.S. At the risk of going off-topic, someone asked me last year at GenCon (my first) whether I thought "we all," at the entire con, were a community of some or any kind. I emphatically answered, "No."

On 2001-06-05 20:35, james_west wrote:
:: Warning: This essay is going to seem elitist and egotistical, but it is genuinely something I wonder about. I'm honestly not trying to troll. ::

When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you. - Nietzsche

Most people that play role-playing games spend enough time doing so that it affects their personality. They don't just play the games; the games shape their personality.

John,

This is all well and good as advice. It's excellent advice. (And for what it's worth, it's nice to see a post which uses "free will" in a sentence and makes sense.)

However, James has raised a point, rather than asked for advice. I think the basic issue is still open.

Your point about things affecting oneself is absolutely correct. Yet cocoa butter or what-have-you are not social interactions like role-playing activities are. It's not too unreasonable to suspect that if the AFFECTED VARIABLE of social competence is the concern, that social activities like role-playing might be included in the RELEVANT CAUSAL VARIABLES.

So let's look at all manner of social stuff that might affect social competence. We have ... oh, sexual and romantic interactions, early childhood experience, job and money stuff, alliances like friendships and clubs, current family stuff ... damn, that's a lot of relevant material affecting one's social competence! Is it possible that little ol' role-playing could even be in the running?

I suggest that the person's "profile" of role-playing (whatever aspect of it is of interest) is perhaps a MARKER of social competence than a CAUSE. In other words, those other things I mention above would be the causes of interest, and the effects are noted throughout the person's social activities, including (if applicable) role-playing.

I remain curious as to WHICH elements of role-playing are being suggested as the markers. It's probably not "role-playing vs. not role-playing at all," and I'm quite certain it's not "GMing vs. player status." I hesitate to claim that it's any aspect of G/N/S (boy, talk about drawing accusations of elitism, eh?), although I'm willing to bat that one around if we can all keep our hair on.

One thing's for sure - as a marker, it'll probably have a loose correlation with the issue at hand, rather than a full 1:1 correspondence. That's going to make discussion very hard, as individual instances that deviate from the suggested pattern will not have much meaning.

Best,
Ron

On 2001-06-08 10:57, Ron Edwards wrote:

Your point about things affecting oneself is absolutely correct. Yet cocoa butter or what-have-you are not social interactions like role-playing activities are. It's not too unreasonable to suspect that if the AFFECTED VARIABLE of social competence is the concern, that social activities like role-playing might be included in the RELEVANT CAUSAL VARIABLES.

Hi John,

We're together on this. I'd picked m'monkey already - this whole thread requires the non-free-will assumption. For present purposes, personality is a physical outcome from physical causes. I presume James is OK with that one too (given the initial post); correct me if I'm wrong.

(For anyone who has a problem with that, think in terms of percentages, OK? What teeny-tiny percent you'll admit that a person is affected by his or her organismal and social makeup, that's what we're discussing. That percent.)

No problems there. So you're absolutely right, no "But I'm a Free Being!" arguments are going to be relevant.

Well then - what do people think? Are social competence and some aspect of role-playing related to one another? What aspects of role-playing should be relevant here? Am I right in my "marker, not cause" notion (admittedly some feedback-reinforcement could be involved)?

Best,
Ron

My little brother started playing AD&D because of me and he became interested in and plays other games as he gets nearer to 20 years old.

Our father never dissuaded him from playing those wonderful all-nighters we all love, down at the local shop. "It's a clean and healthy hobby," our dad would say. "Looking at the news, I'm glad these games exist. Kids make friends, they have fun..,"

He's right.
Games like these don't subtract, they only 'add' to a person and where they go from there is the other 99%

I see no 'monkey' and no downside.

Jeff

...or one could always reject rigid dualism and propose that free will and outside stimuli are two forces that interact, affect each other, and contribute to the reasons behind everything we do. One can believe in free will and still believe in blinking, I should think.

Sorry for posting so off-topic.

It seems much more likely that role-playing in the 80s attracted only those sorts of social misfits who had little to lose by participating in an activity that would end up getting them labeled geeks.

Interesting discussion...

I would also say that maybe we need to define what exactly our test cases our... Are the individuals we looking at anybody who has/does game? Or are we only considering the "junkies" who gamed in high school, still game, and want to game all the time? If they are not gaming with a group, are they still gaming in some manner - a multiplayer crpg, other video games, boardgames?

I would say that my girlfriend for instance who has only begun to game probably would not be a good testcase. On the other hand, a friend of mine, who has been gaming now for close to year, has dived in fullheartedly to the extent that he spend $40 on a new gaming supplement realizing he will broke until the end of the month.

Another longtime gamer friend of mine, I recently discovered, quit college for the third time to get a menial job and counseling for social anxiety disorder. He revolves around gaming - if it is not D&D or Deadlands, it is Ultima Online or some computer game or whatever...

Who are we looking at here? All gamers or just the ones who spend more than.. say 24 hours.. playing/thinking about games in a week?

Nathan

Hello, all !

My original point was more

AFFECTED VARIABLE = passivity
CAUSAL VARIABLE = stance

rather than

AFFECTED VARIABLE = social skills
CAUSAL VARIABLE = ... whatever it is ...

John Wick - so far as I can tell, your response condenses to, "If you don't believe in free will, everything you do affects your personality, so role-playing games do too. So what." I technically agree with the first clause; the so what is the idea that perhaps personality may be affected differently, positive or negative, depending upon how they're played.

Most everyone else - at this point, my opinion tends towards a 'stochastic resonance' model. People start with minor variations, tend to be attacted to things they're good at and avoid things they're bad at, which reinforces those variations. I think this is a bad thing, for the same reason Heinlein did: specialization is for insects. Ian and Greyorm - so far as I can tell, I am in this sense in agreement with you. Both of you have stories in which having to GM (and thus be director) reduced your levels of passivity, and made you more socially confident.

Jeff - the possible downside is reinforcing passive behavior. I do not personally believe that it destroys social skills, although I do think that it's clear that it creates identity with a subculture which has 'geek' social expectations (i.e., you're considered weird if you don't know who Picard is, rather than, um, who(insert famous sports person's name here)is. This part I don't think is bad, although in some circumstances it could be a disadvantage (one I'm willing to live with, obviously).

Nathan - the more one games, the more the issue is relevant.

On the peripheral issue of social skills, or lack thereof, among gamers, I'm once again going to defend gamers. The reason I was absent for the past few days is because I was at the invitation-only 44th Annual Aspen Pulmonary Conference. This is an exclusive event held on the priciest real-estate in the continental U.S. at which about a hundred high-profile middle-aged M.D.s spend four days at a demented marathon frat party with an unlimited budget (the drug companies are footing the bill). It consists of lots of liquor, people trying to convince each-other to shave their heads or get tattoos, trying to screw anything in a skirt (skirts kindly provided by the pharmaceutical industry), lots of penis-size comparison both literal and figurative ... and if there's time, talk a little medicine. I mention this because I find their behavior appalling, and was more offended by it than just about any social faux pas I've ever seen a gamer make. While I think it's certainly true that gaming attracts introverts, I think that most of the 'social ineptitude' you're seeing is more related to normal differences in social rules in different subcultures than to any absolute standard of social skill. So they're only socially inept when judged by the standards of a different subculture.

(I really felt dirty leaving there. It actually went on another day, but I couldn't take it. I have to say, you guys are -WAY- more intellectually and socially ept than these guys are, in my book ... ).

- James

P.S: I was going to say something like, "How would you like it if your players started acting like this while you were trying to run a game" but thought better of it.

[ This Message was edited by: james_west on 2001-06-09 02:11 ]

[ This Message was edited by: james_west on 2001-06-10 01:55 ]

At the risk of adding more anecdotal evidence when what we're looking for is interesting generalizations . . .

I was Vice President of my high school D&D club. It meant nothing more than my participation in the school newspaper, the fact that a couple of the women were in the Drama club, or that other members played chess, baseball, or the oboe. Yes, my high school had the same "clique" atmosphere you always hear about, and there was *some* hierarchy, but to tell you the truth, the "in" crowd were so few and so more "in" than the rest of us could ever be (examples - Steve Young, the future 49er QB, Christy Fitchner, who became Miss USA and runner-up Miss World), there wasn't a lot of "geeks are worse than freaks but better than losers" stuff. And D&D club was a place where a lot of these folks mixed - like I said, Drama club women, proto-technogeek guys, Tolkien-loving, drug-using, Pink Floyd-listening long-hairs . . . all played D&D together. Generally had fun, too.

So, I guess that just goes to say that as far as the "formative High School years" thing goes, I didn't see any correlation between RPGs and particular personalities. Now, for some reason in my prolonged and much wandering college years, I only ever met the classic inept and unwashed gamer-types (and I wasn't exactly fully "ept" myself - for various reasons, I found college particularly disorienting). My current group is more like the old mix, with perhaps just enough of the sterotype to keep it alive, but not with so much of it that I can really say "I see x correlation between gaming and real life behavior".

Sorry that doesn't really help . . .

Gordon C. Landis

I thought I'd be more specific about what I think the best-case scenario about positive effects of role-playing:

(1) Become comfortable speaking in groups. This is only true if you weren't comfortable doing this before, and you're in a group in which everyone is encouraged to participate. More generally, develops social skills in an unstructured environment.

(2) Encourages creative problem solving. This is only true in a game that's sufficiently sophisticated that it's even possible: I have been in D&D games (not for long ..) in which it was a matter of "open the door, fight the next monster" and doing anything except rolling to hit was considered cheating. I suspect that strict gamism is contrary to this goal, since strict gamism tends to discourage 'outside the box' thinking (it's cheating).

(3) Encourages a pro-active stance towards life. This is only true for games in which the individual has a large responsibility for driving the plot; things only happen if the players make them happen. This seems far more likely to be true in narrativist and authorial stance games than in gamist, simulationist, or actor stance games. Alternatively, this seems to be a universal effect of usually being the GM.

(4) Become verbally quick-witted. This is probably only true in games with strong player directorial power ( SOAP, Baron Munchausen, etc.) (I know it didn't happen for me.)As an addendum (I don't know if this is positive) it can make you a very good liar; this is probably true in any game in which verbal interaction is important at all.

(5) Become morally/ethically sophisticated. This is only true in games complex enough for moral themes to exist. While Sorceror -exists- for this purpose, it can be true in any system or setting. I have to say that as a teenager it had this effect for me very strongly. I was the sort of teenager that Clint Eastwood would delight in shooting, and I largely credit role-playing games with making me more interested in being heroic than villainous.

(6)Encourages multicultural and interpersonal understanding. This is only true in games in which players are encouraged to get into the mindset of people that are culturally different from themselves (traditional D&D uses straight American morality, and members of other cultures are to be killed on sight.)So it's encouraged by immersive role-playing.

That's the list that comes to mind off the top of my head, along with the conditions that foster it. I purposefully leave off 'fostering a competitive attitude' which one might get from gamism, because I personally don't think that it does so nearly as well or in as healthy a fashion as many other competitive pursuits.

- James

Something that I've wanted to mention in response to John Wick's "Anything Affects You" spiel a bit ago. As true as it is, there's the degree of influence to consider.

That is, if you served five years in prison or took part in a war, even for a month, the influence is likely to affect you on a much longer basis, if not for the rest of your life, as compared to the current influence produced by a cup of coffee you had five years ago.

So, while I recognize the bit of tongue-in-cheek going on, I figured I'd be anal about it as well. Yes, everything affects you, but not everything affects you to the same degree or for the same length of time; some is temporary, some writes permanent changes in your personality.

To keep going with this, I think we need to define what social incompetence actually means.

I am the GM, I am a debater, I'm a nice guys. But I wouldn't call myself popular, I don't get invited to parties but I can still deal with people. That is, until they describe their glorious beer induced exploits. Joy. I am socially incompetent? I have no idea.

Also, some people are assuming that something has to be a cause or an effect when it can easily be both. Yes, some traits draw people to role-playing (we know that for a fact, everything everyone does is caused by something), and role-playing might diminish or reinforce these or other traits. It is both a cause AND an effect.

Secondly, the human brain is very complicated and the neural connections in each brain differ from one person to another. This means that different people will react differently to the same situations. So, while role-playing for some will turn them into intuitive thinkers, it might make other people depressed and world-weary.

I hate to bring statistics into anything, but when you're talking about the movements of complex social groups just thinking in terms of common sense is not helpful. People are complicated machines and their reactions are extraoridinarily difficult to predict. So... we should see some quite of numbers on this stuff before anyone pronounces sentencing.

What a great post.

I'm not really going to say much here, as I just finished reading and I have to chew on it. But I have seen some of these patterns in my own experiences. Those of us in my *original* DnD group (i.e., high school level) who DMed ended up being far more motiviated and concerned with our future. The players who never took up the DM seat seem to be doing nothing beyond working and playing Nintendo.

Interesting.

James V. West (finally, I get to interact on a post with the OTHER James West)