You said your parents taught you to distinguish reality and fiction but do you think, a teenager who didn't have this education could have been lost between the fantasy present in the game and his/her real life? Could he/she have been pushed to do things he/she wouldn't normally have done?
Again like my parents, I also don't think that D&D is the factor. Teenagers who cannot separate fiction from reality (in any era, not just the 80s) are prone to influence by anything, even a song on a radio, a short-sighted speech, or a generic motivational poster to "just do it" for something that they probably shouldn't do. To claim it is any specific thing other than a lack of individual development is just creating a scapegoat, and the greater problem will never get addressed and never get fixed.
A question I have is, "How many were not taught about fiction and reality but still figured it out on their own versus those who never learned the difference through teaching or experience?"
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
For me dungeons and dragons has been mostly positive. At least to the extent of not causing me to think I'm some sort of fantastical character in reality. However, I happen to be the kind of person that sort of obsesses on one or two topics for about a year on end, so dnd has also had another interesting facet: it's never been obsessive, at least in a negative way. For the three years I've played dnd for, I've never lost interest either though, so it's been a unique experience. It's always just been a way to relax, either socially, or in the act of creating characters, worlds, and adventures, especially now that I have a stable weekly group.
I'm sorry I didn't answer directly to all (or really any) of your questions, but I thought this applied.
- Do you think RolePlays like Dungeon and Dragons could influence teenagers' behavior and how?
I think any activity that you do with your peers can influence a teenagers behavior. It can be positive, negative, or negligent depending on how invested the person is with those peers, their background, particular level of functioning in various domains, beliefs, morals etc. I don't feel that DnD is any more or less impactful than other activities you might do as a teen with your peers.
- Did Dungeon and Dragons had a positive or a negative influence on you?
It was very positive for me as I was a very shy child. It gave me an outlet to roleplay as someone else which gave me an outlet for expression and creativity. it also gave me an opportunity to design lush worlds and characters that lived in them. it was a great place to explore, create, express, and experience things I wouldn't have been able to elsewhere.
- What would you say to people who say that D&D droves teenagers to loneliness and insanity?
I think that the widespread (and it was I was born in 1973 so lived fully through this) satanic panic forced those of us who loved the hobby underground, thus creating somewhat the thing they were saying it was causing. I can recall very clearly me and my couple of friends being very secretive about our love of DnD lest our peers find out and we be persecuted for it. I even had to hide it from my grandmother because she thought it was the work of the devil.
It's super interesting, thank you for sharing!
Would you be persecuted by adults "only" or did there exist a "satanic panic" among teens too?
It was other kids too, my two friends and I that played were very cautious of letting anything know as it would have more or less ruined us socially at school.
I'm currently writing a thesis for my degree about the 1980s in the United States. I would be super glad if someone could answer some of my questions about Dungeon and Dragons!
It won't be too long and it will help me to add some content lol
- Do you think RolePlays like Dungeon and Dragons could influence teenagers' behavior and how?
- Did Dungeon and Dragons had a positive or a negative influence on you?
- What would you say to people who say that D&D droves teenagers to loneliness and insanity?
Thanks folks!
Point 1:
I think just about anything can influence behaviors, and not just of teenagers. So yes, I think if you play RPGs and specifically games like D&D, it will affect your behavior. How? Well there is a lot.
First, RPGs teach teamwork, because usually it is played as a group, and the party has a collective goal and each character has different abilities that can be brought to bear. Assuming the DM has challenged the players appropriately, they will need to work out which abilities to use when in conjunction with which other skills to accomplish their task. The Barbarian will quickly learn he can't just run into the room before the wizard and cleric are ready... if he expects to live very long. Consequently, I think I became a better team player thanks to D&D.
Second, RPGs teach attention to detail. As a GM, you have to learn to pay attention to those details like minor/little-used character abilities. As a player, you have to listen to all the details the GM describes so you can respond to the situation appropriately. Missing that one little thing means not finding the secret door, or the concealed chest, or the escape route from the dungeon, etc. Consequently, I became more detail-oriented as a result of playing games like D&D.
Third, table-top RPGs (but I would argue, NOT the video game variety) teach the value of patience. You're not going to start a level 1 character today, and be level 20 by next week. You play once a week (say) for 3 or 4 hours, and when the hour strikes 11 (or whatever your quitting time is), the DM says "OK, guys, same time next week," and wherever you stop, you stop. You have to wait a full week to find out what happens next... And maybe a couple of months to gain your first new character level. I know people whose level 1-20 campaign lasted them 3 or 4 years of real time. That means you gain maybe a level every 3 months, etc. Getting back to video games, this is why in MMORPGs, my guild-mates are often level-capped in a couple of weeks (because you can play MMOs 24/7 and grind levels super fast) and I'm still level 12 enjoying the low level content -- because I learned that there was no need to rush through low levels. When SWTOR came out, in December of '11, I had friends who by Feb of '12 were level cappped on more than one character, got bored, and quit the game. I did not hit level cap until May, on just one character, and I played the game for nearly a full year. Why? Because I was patiently enjoying the content instead of burning through it, thanks to having learned to do that from D&D and other TTRPGs. Consequently, from playing D&D, I learned that good things come to those who wait, and I became a more patient person.
Finally, table-top RPGs made me much more creative. Thanks to playing D&D, I learned to make up fantasy settings, populate world maps, and dream up fictional characters. I discovered how to put myself into the shoes of a fictional being, and figure out how that person would think and act. From this, I developed an abiding love of creative writing, and I have, as a result, written two (non-published) fantasy novels set in completely invented worlds, and parts of two others. Again, they're not published -- not good enough to be. But I still found great joy over many decades in this creative endeavor and still love to make up world maps, invent cultures, etc. Consequently, D&D was the spark that ignited my creativity for the rest of my life.
There's more -- way more -- that TTRPGs (and specifically D&D) can influence behavior, but those 4 come to mind right away.
Point 2:
Did it have a positive influence on me? Yup -- see above, 4 ways.
Point 3:
Does D&D drive teenagers to loneliness and insanity? I'm not sure where this comes from but I don't think I've ever witnessed such a thing. In today's culture where people are more isolated than ever thanks to smartphones and social media decreasing the need for face-to-face interaction, I think a TTRPG would be more likely to increase your sociality not your loneliness. And insanity? No... a game cannot make you insane.
D&D helped me and my friends come together and have fun playing a game. It encouraged us to learn about history, religion, mythology, science, engineering, and various cultures from around the world. It encouraged all of us to read both fiction, and nonfiction more than we probably would have otherwise. It encouraged us to find fun in basic arithmetic as well as higher maths such as statistics. It encouraged creativity, planning, and organization. It gave us something to agree on as a basis for understanding our differences and helped us bridge the gap formed by those differences. It gave us an outlet for us to form long-standing friendships that have lasted decades in some cases.
1) I hope it encourages people the same way today.
2) I would say it has been a positive influence on my life.
3) D&D is an explicitly social hobby that encourages interpersonal communication and social interaction.
Let's turn this back to the topic of sharing experience of D&D.
Again like my parents, I also don't think that D&D is the factor. Teenagers who cannot separate fiction from reality (in any era, not just the 80s) are prone to influence by anything, even a song on a radio, a short-sighted speech, or a generic motivational poster to "just do it" for something that they probably shouldn't do. To claim it is any specific thing other than a lack of individual development is just creating a scapegoat, and the greater problem will never get addressed and never get fixed.
A question I have is, "How many were not taught about fiction and reality but still figured it out on their own versus those who never learned the difference through teaching or experience?"
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
For me dungeons and dragons has been mostly positive. At least to the extent of not causing me to think I'm some sort of fantastical character in reality. However, I happen to be the kind of person that sort of obsesses on one or two topics for about a year on end, so dnd has also had another interesting facet: it's never been obsessive, at least in a negative way. For the three years I've played dnd for, I've never lost interest either though, so it's been a unique experience. It's always just been a way to relax, either socially, or in the act of creating characters, worlds, and adventures, especially now that I have a stable weekly group.
I'm sorry I didn't answer directly to all (or really any) of your questions, but I thought this applied.
I did NOT eat those hikers.
It was other kids too, my two friends and I that played were very cautious of letting anything know as it would have more or less ruined us socially at school.
Point 1:
I think just about anything can influence behaviors, and not just of teenagers. So yes, I think if you play RPGs and specifically games like D&D, it will affect your behavior. How? Well there is a lot.
First, RPGs teach teamwork, because usually it is played as a group, and the party has a collective goal and each character has different abilities that can be brought to bear. Assuming the DM has challenged the players appropriately, they will need to work out which abilities to use when in conjunction with which other skills to accomplish their task. The Barbarian will quickly learn he can't just run into the room before the wizard and cleric are ready... if he expects to live very long. Consequently, I think I became a better team player thanks to D&D.
Second, RPGs teach attention to detail. As a GM, you have to learn to pay attention to those details like minor/little-used character abilities. As a player, you have to listen to all the details the GM describes so you can respond to the situation appropriately. Missing that one little thing means not finding the secret door, or the concealed chest, or the escape route from the dungeon, etc. Consequently, I became more detail-oriented as a result of playing games like D&D.
Third, table-top RPGs (but I would argue, NOT the video game variety) teach the value of patience. You're not going to start a level 1 character today, and be level 20 by next week. You play once a week (say) for 3 or 4 hours, and when the hour strikes 11 (or whatever your quitting time is), the DM says "OK, guys, same time next week," and wherever you stop, you stop. You have to wait a full week to find out what happens next... And maybe a couple of months to gain your first new character level. I know people whose level 1-20 campaign lasted them 3 or 4 years of real time. That means you gain maybe a level every 3 months, etc. Getting back to video games, this is why in MMORPGs, my guild-mates are often level-capped in a couple of weeks (because you can play MMOs 24/7 and grind levels super fast) and I'm still level 12 enjoying the low level content -- because I learned that there was no need to rush through low levels. When SWTOR came out, in December of '11, I had friends who by Feb of '12 were level cappped on more than one character, got bored, and quit the game. I did not hit level cap until May, on just one character, and I played the game for nearly a full year. Why? Because I was patiently enjoying the content instead of burning through it, thanks to having learned to do that from D&D and other TTRPGs. Consequently, from playing D&D, I learned that good things come to those who wait, and I became a more patient person.
Finally, table-top RPGs made me much more creative. Thanks to playing D&D, I learned to make up fantasy settings, populate world maps, and dream up fictional characters. I discovered how to put myself into the shoes of a fictional being, and figure out how that person would think and act. From this, I developed an abiding love of creative writing, and I have, as a result, written two (non-published) fantasy novels set in completely invented worlds, and parts of two others. Again, they're not published -- not good enough to be. But I still found great joy over many decades in this creative endeavor and still love to make up world maps, invent cultures, etc. Consequently, D&D was the spark that ignited my creativity for the rest of my life.
There's more -- way more -- that TTRPGs (and specifically D&D) can influence behavior, but those 4 come to mind right away.
Point 2:
Did it have a positive influence on me? Yup -- see above, 4 ways.
Point 3:
Does D&D drive teenagers to loneliness and insanity? I'm not sure where this comes from but I don't think I've ever witnessed such a thing. In today's culture where people are more isolated than ever thanks to smartphones and social media decreasing the need for face-to-face interaction, I think a TTRPG would be more likely to increase your sociality not your loneliness. And insanity? No... a game cannot make you insane.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
D&D helped me and my friends come together and have fun playing a game. It encouraged us to learn about history, religion, mythology, science, engineering, and various cultures from around the world. It encouraged all of us to read both fiction, and nonfiction more than we probably would have otherwise. It encouraged us to find fun in basic arithmetic as well as higher maths such as statistics. It encouraged creativity, planning, and organization. It gave us something to agree on as a basis for understanding our differences and helped us bridge the gap formed by those differences. It gave us an outlet for us to form long-standing friendships that have lasted decades in some cases.
1) I hope it encourages people the same way today.
2) I would say it has been a positive influence on my life.
3) D&D is an explicitly social hobby that encourages interpersonal communication and social interaction.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Have you seen the movie Mazes and Monsters as part of your research into this topic?
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting