Quote from: Mishihari on December 05, 2022, 01:40:10 AM

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Quote from: jhkim on October 31, 2022, 01:09:44 PM
Children aren't taught right and wrong from D&D alignment. My son grew up sometimes playing D&D and other RPGs, but while they were positive and creative, I think his moral center came from real-world living and instruction, and not at all from game mechanics. Neither D&D alignments nor the non-alignment-using mechanics of other RPGs were important either way in his learning to be a good person. I think trying to use D&D alignments to teach real-world morality is a bad idea, because the real world is vastly different than most D&D worlds.

I think your comment here misses the point.  Using vanilla D&D to teach actual morals would indeed be a bad idea.  However playing D&D, with its objective good and evil, accustoms and gives practice to kids in thinking in terms of right and wrong being important in making decisions,  and good and evil being objective.  That's all good IMO.

I've never seen an RPG influence anyone's moral worldview one way or the other, and attempting to use them for such is a fool's errand. Games are inherently about choice, and as such horrible tools for indoctrination.

Just because you didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen.  Things that influence sense of morality and worldview are generally subtle and slow acting

All of this still rests on the unsupported assumption that RPGs (and specifically, going by your claims, the use of alignment with the assumption of objective good and evil) can influence people's morality. Telling people that just because they didn't see that doesn't mean that it didn't happen still begs the question. And in my experience using alignment only led to arguments about how other people are supposed to play X or Y alignment, and imposing someone's subjective opinion on how that should be done on other players, which if anything highlights how subjective these concepts are.

Roleplaying is proven as a tremendously powerful technique when used in therapy to change feelings and behavior and overcome various problems.  Positing that it has no mental effect just because it's in a game rather than a counseling session is just silly.

Except that I made no claim that roleplaying can have no mental effect, but merely called into question the idea that it—and specifically the use of alignment (which are themselves a questionable game mechanic that have been the subject of numerous debates for decades, since the inception of RPGs)—can influence people's morality. Further more, the idea that RPGs can be used in therapy does not necessarily support your claim, since such uses of RPGs are very specific, and involve  a trained therapist who modified the game for therapeutic purposes and playing the game in a clinical context and environment. You're making the leap that, since RPGs have been used in therapy (which is something done by trained professionals who have modified the game for therapeutic purposes) you can therefore attach these additional claims about the efficacy of RPGs and the use of alignment to influence morality. And then placing the burden of proof on others to disproof your claims.

Quote from: Mishihari on December 05, 2022, 01:40:10 AM

Roleplaying is proven as a tremendously powerful technique when used in therapy to change feelings and behavior and overcome various problems.  Positing that it has no mental effect just because it's in a game rather than a counseling session is just silly.

Not really.  The "roleplaying" used in therapy only shares the label and a surface resemblance to "roleplaying" as used in a game.  Using the techniques from a game session as therapy would be useless at best, more likely counter-productive, and would run the risk of doing actual harm in some cases. 

Now, if someone were to abuse gaming roleplay in a misguided attempt at therapy, you could certainly exacerbate and already present, negative behavior.  So that would have a mental effect.  But that's not what's being discussed here.

Quote from: Mishihari on December 05, 2022, 01:40:10 AM
Roleplaying is proven as a tremendously powerful technique when used in therapy to change feelings and behavior and overcome various problems.  Positing that it has no mental effect just because it's in a game rather than a counseling session is just silly.

Only with professionals using it and not in the way it gets thrown around now.

Just playing an RPG is not therapy and can actually make situations worse as we have seen time and again.
This while movement of "RPGs are THERAPY!" is a dangerous lie.