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Any good role-playing game will cause the player to go in and out of character and an immersive flow throughout play. Of course this flow is not constant and can even last for fractions of a second as the outside world brings forth its distractions via ringing phones, yelling moms, and nagging spouses. Especially good games can cause a mingling or bleeding between fiction and reality, sometimes to the determent of the player, causing him to get slapped for hitting on a girl in “tlhlngan Hol.”
Some may underestimate the actual power and seduction of fantasy and the dangers of this bleed. Though embarrassing to speak of today, I can only look back to my younger days as a teenager with a smirk. Reading punisher comics, I played the secret role of Frank Castle, The Punisher; a badass vigilante, taking pop shots at old j-walking grannies and litterbugs on the streets of New York. Of course preventing more serious crimes through very effective and mostly violent and unlawful techniques. But who the hell cares? They deserve that form of punishment for what they did to my wife and two kids. Mind you I had enough trouble getting a date to the dance in our local gym, let alone have time for a wife and children.
Fortunately for me, 7th grade middle school in the suburbs of Delaware was far from the mobs and back alleys of New York. Here the double layers of foam pad that I had sewn under my T-shirt bearing the Punisher skull were my Kevlar. It may not stop real bullets, but at least the punches of the local bullies who wanted to steal my lunch money. But in my mind, it was the most powerful protection known to child-kind. When wearing it, I swore I felt more powerful. I was in the flow! Unfortunately all good things must come to an end. Someone finds out my secret identity, and notifies the local bully-mob and my days as Frank Castle, the Punisher of playground bullies is over, as well as not having any lunch money for the rest of the year.
Was I playing a game? I probably was. Where winning meant I had lunch that day, and losing meant I would go home with a growling tummy. Even though I was playing alone, the role did bleed into my normal life, and I did act differently. But at the end of the day I was still the little guy that acted and reacted the same way to things that I had learned throughout my life growing up. So this brings me to the point, are players responsible for their actions when they are “only role-playing?” This is a definite yes! If I were to have taken one of those bullies, tied him up to a chair, and bitch slapped him silly, it may have felt good, and probably been what The Punisher would have done, but alas, I was not Frank. I was Arash John Sammander, 7th grader and bully lunch money vending machine.
So I would have probably gotten a suspension from school (Giving vacation time from school to bad children is probably one of the stupidest inventions of the US educational system. But I digress.) and my parents would have been notified, etc.
So for all you people out there that stab your friends in the back or cheat on your significant others during role-playing games because you are playing a different character, the only person you are fooling is yourself. Take it from me, I have the scars, and lack of lunch money to prove it.