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There are two big classes of misconceptions about roleplaying: those about the games, and those about the gamers. First, the games, because those are easy to deal with.

Roleplaying games have nothing to do with "real magic", Satanism, actual combat, or pretty much anything else to do with real life. It's all about sitting around a table, rolling dice to see what happens to a completely imaginary character. Even games that involve dressing up, called live-action role playing or LARP, depend on a set of artificial character statistics to get anything done; you may be a lifeguard in real life, but if your character can't swim he or she isn't going to be able to rescue a drowner, and it doesn't matter if you've never held a sword in your life so long as the character has the stats to use it like a master. Roleplaying games are for using your imagination, telling a story, experiencing things as another character. Anyone who says he's using a game to learn real magic is flat-out lying-or being played for a fool.

This isn't to say some people don't take their games too seriously, which leads neatly into misconceptions about gamers. Contrary to popular belief, not all gamers are overweight teenage boys with acne and a completely inability to talk to females. Women play roleplaying games; so do adults, even married adults. And most of them have perfectly good social skills, too. There are even gamers with children.

Some gamers do get a little too tied up in their imaginary characters, it's true, but every hobby has a few people who take it too seriously. The vast majority of gamers are perfectly aware of the line between reality and their games, and have reactions to the imaginary deaths of their characters that amount to "Well darn. Guess I'll have to make another one." A few bad incidents in the early days of roleplaying have given gamers and their games a bad reputation, but in general they're perfectly normal people whose get-togethers with friends just involve polyhedral dice and miniatures instead of darts and pool.

To sum up: Dungeons and Dragons is not Satanic. Vampire: the Requiem has nothing to do with actually drinking anyone's blood. Liking to game doesn't automatically lead to failure in the dating scene. And don't assume that the woman browsing the shelf in the bookstore is buying something for her son; she might well be a gamer herself!

Learn more about this author, Carrie Schutrick.
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