International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Review

“Fantasy Role Playing Games” explores two intents; (1) to delineate the hypothesis which was the correlation between violence and aggressive behavior to fantasy role playing games and (2) to understand the impact these games have on players’ lives. The hypothesis was tested on the game Dungeons and Dragons while also referencing more modern day games such as World of Warcraft. The scope also extends to the profile of participants initially marketed to be between ten to eighteen years old but also includes on average up to the age of twenty one. Also, possible symptoms of obsessive involvement which include loss of interest in other activities and speaking in riddles were mentioned. An in depth description of these non-physical, mind control games is also presented. The method: dissemination of a questionnaire to one thousand people, built upon existing data from the Founder of Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons (B.A.D.D.), Pat Pulling. This provided useful information on the game and player characteristics. The questionnaire was structured to better understand the psychographics of players and their personal backgrounds. Fixed response categories were mostly utilized in the questions and the ultimate purpose was not revealed to the respondents. The conclusion was two-fold, such that though the nature of the respondents were not generally violent, the basis of the fantasy games were built upon violent acts, this then made the players more inclined to accept violent behavior as a norm.