Mmmm. I feel dubious about attempting to defend role-playing, since it seems you seem to find the subject offensive!

Oooo, by the way, this isn't a flame, I'm just trying to give a balanced argument....ok!

You are, unfortunately right in part of your assessment, in that all too often a RPG is just an excuse to enact violence in a way you get a thrill from without the consequences of the action. Also it *is* the case that *evil* characters are played by, I believe misguided (by whatever degree) role-players.

I am of the opinion that any role-playing game should start on the premiss that the players are the GOOD guys, fighting evil, often evil of a greater power but in the end good is triumphant! Taking the position of evil from the start is flawed in the extreme, for to role-play evil will degrade into allsorts of depraved and vile acts.

BUT! It is wholely and unsupportably unfair and wrong to condem role-playing for these reasons when it *is* the case that just about all (in fact I cannot think of one that does not) RPG's *DO* begin with this premiss of the GOOD players against the evil, and whatever mechanism that certain RPG's (for example, the irrevocably flawed AD&D and its alignment system) use to include the possibility of evil for their players should be removed from the game by the GM.

Even the dark gothic games such as Vampire the Masquerade centres on the "good" guys within the vampire community who try and maintain their humanity above all other things and are encouraged to do so by the GM, the system and the basic premiss of the game!

Finally, and even more importantly, it is shockingly wrong to condem RPG's due to the few unfortunately, and yes very distressing actions, which have resulted in the deaths of certain individuals supposidly due to RPG's. To make an analogy, you would not condem the sport of fencing because, with regularity, four or five people die *each year* due to the foils snapping and a vital organ being mortally punctured!

I have read many articles about how RPG's should be banned (I am not saying that *you* are saying this) due to the terrible influences and without fail, those who call for it are misguided, misinformed and have blown a small situation out of all proportion.

Of course its a tradgedy when someone dies, but is it fair to blame an RPG? I think not!

I have been role-playing for almost 20 years and I have *NEVER* encountered anyone unstable enough to top either themselves of anyone else, because of the role-playing they have done. Nore for that matter have I, being a very well balanced person (even if I do say so myself), and someone who works in marketing for a large financial institution.

Yours

Padster