Why RPGs are evil brainwashing machines

I'm a great fan of cRPGs, but everytime I look at another new one there is something that puts me of. I'm not talking about bad quality of the game, like storyline, gameplay, characters etc. Bad games happen like everything. It's something that's common for all the cRPGs. Both old and new. It's something that makes people think AWESOME just for no apparent reason and that tells them to stop thinking. It popularises taking everything as it is, without understanding it. It makes them stop thinking about many things. I'm talking about settings full of magic, gods, wizards and vampires. Authors of cRPGs don't want to think about something that would let the player do something to make him satisfied, so they make spells, magical abilities, supernatural events... People no longer try to understand the universe, the world. They just start to believe in magic. For example the most popular tabletop cRPG system called Dungeons & Dragons. Many computer games are based on it as well, or try to be somewhat similar. When you play as a thief it somewhat makes sense more-or-less, same with the (standard) warrior. What happens when you play as a cleric or a mage? A mage has "an awesome button", he just 'makes things happen', even if they doesn't make any sense at all. He is a Superman. How does he cast a magic missile spell? He transforms energy around him and manipulates it to make what he wants, in this case make an lighting orb that flies to the enemy and harms him. The question is - how does he transform that energy, how could it be possible at all? They don't even have an electricity and what he does no one even dreams about in today's world, and D&D is set in medieval-like times! What about cleric? In D&D gods just are. You can't deny their existence or superiority, they are there! It's an excellent propaganda that tells you "believe, there is no doubt in gods". This is just as bad as "non-aryans are subhumans". There are atheist in the D&D universe, mind that, but they end up terrible and there is no salvation to them if they won't believe in gods. It tells atheist that they have to believe in at least one god or they are unworthy subhuman scum. If it was insulting like that to ie. Christianity or Islam, the game wouldn't sell and would create an outcry when it came out. It didn't however, because taking a dump on atheist is cool, while we cannot agree to do something like that to our fellow believers! While I could stand monsters, they could be just an animals that evolved in a different ways than real animals, I just cannot accept gods or magic. Especially the magic - the most lazy idea to make things - is common in cRPGs and I could name only a few that did not have it.

So many games have multiple gods and sell. your point is quite moot.

I'd say that's why they're called 'role-playing' games. You play a role that stands out of the ordinary. There are all sorts of roles to be played, and popular demand made it that magic wielders got a big piece of the pie.

It's all subject to debate but other roles like Hitman for instance involve going around killing people and being taught that it has no consequence. Reload the game and the people you killed, or you if you were malled by a grenade, are alive again.

I prefer people believing in magic (although that point seems highly debatable) rather than people believing they can go Columbine and there won't be any consequences.

Fnord said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-leYc4oC83E

Click to expand...

...and we're done here.

I prefer steam tunnels.

D&D was very controversial throughout the '80s in the US. It was right up there with rap music. Many Christians said it was brainwashing to make kids devil worshipers. I was told by many church leaders I would go to hell just for playing the game.
LB

Could be an interesting topic though.

I think you underestimate the pressure video games have put on "heroic fantasy"

At start, heroic fantasy (a loose word here) was reality plus magic, people achieving thanks to magic what is done in the real world thanks to technology.

An approach that has changed due to computer games constraints. Games dictate their own framework to work and the one provided by classical "heroic fantasy" no longer fitted the bill.

In novels or the like, universes are (or can easily be) derived from the real world as stated but in video games, the universe has to obey to other constraints like gameplay constraints. Some explanations no longer fit.

For example, quick regen health vs non quick regen health. The approach to magic is different in both cases. Etc...