A Parental Guide to RPGs at Gamerdad

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Gamerdad has posted an article entitled Unplugged #21: A Parental Guide to Role Playing Games I, dealing with the parental concerns arising from roleplaying games. From game mechanics to moral issues, it's a basic outlook on roleplaying games from the point of view of a parent. Here's a snip:

Like movies, television, and books, role playing games are just another form of entertainment. In the most fundamental level, role-playing games could be compared to acting in an improvisational play. Television shows like Whose Line is It Anyway?, the tradition of storytelling to young children, or even playing make-believe all have elements that could be found at a role-playing game session. And who doesn't like playing make-believe? Grown men spend thousands of dollars to pretend to be sports athletes for a week or a day, why shouldn't little Johnny be able to pretend to be a big, strong barbarian battling the forces of evil. Who hasn't wanted to fly like Superman or foil an evil plan like James Bond? Role playing games provide a chance to live out fantasies and dreams where players, young and old, are the star of the show. In some ways, it is a natural progression from the early childhood days of playing fireman or cops and robbers in the back yard.

Read the whole thing at Gamerdad.

 

Interesting stuff. The main risk I see for kids playing RPGs is that it is not as physically healthy as running around outside. So long as they get some balance and don't sit in front of the PC for hours at a time, then they're OK.

 

The answer to that is called LARP