thread: 2009-05-07 : Roleplaying Sinner, Repent!
On 2009-05-07, Vincent wrote:
I know a guy who's a big fan of Twilight. He identifies with the vampire. He wants to have that relationship with a girl, he spends a lot of time looking or wishing for that girl to have a relationship with.
I think it's a terrible relationship.
If he were playing a roleplaying game where he practiced that relationship over and over, uncritically, as wish fulfillment, that would bother me. His fandom of Twilight bothers me for the same reason. I think he'd be better if he got that relationship impulse challenged, not modeled and affirmed.
Some battle-adventure roleplaying bothers me the same way. Like, when my oldest was 10, he got really into the imagery of Warhammer 40K. It's easy to see why: it's designed to appeal to adolescent boys. It's also pretty problematic imagery - as J says it, it's humanity consumed by the machinery of war. Reconciliation between factions is impossible, to seek reconciliation is to betray your own, the highest good aspiration is to kill and die in the service of hierarchy.
I want him to be thinking critically about those things, not celebrating them uncritically by enacting and reenacting them.
So there's some subject matter plus player attitudes that bother me.
