Does story-writing and p&p RPGs help socialization?

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This post is primarily directed at those people who are very acquainted with Pen & Paper RPG's, or are avid multi-character story writers. I emphasize the 'written medium' because things like video games do not promote the fleshing out of a character.

For the past 9 years, I've been pretty big into pen & paper role playing games (They're TONS of fun - don't knock it 'till you try it). In that time, I've drawn up innumerable different character concepts. They started out very rudimentary, lacking any particular personality beyond a crass stereotype (Tough, mean, and stoic barbarian, etc). I moved on to modelings of existing characters - a Han Solo knock-off, or Bruce-Lee with a different name, or Michelle Rodriguez in every role she's ever played. They got more complex and deep over time, and more original. By now, my characters' personalities are shaped by their history and family(who are also conceptualized), which also shapes their code of ethics, which also shapes their quirks, which all comes together to amplify certain elements, and cancel out others, etc etc. In any given moment that I play a character while taking in new data (dialogue, an event, an idea, etc), the character's logical, emotional, and behavioral response is wholly derived from this matrix of things that comprises the character's life and sense of being. They don't represent what I would think or feel(though certainly the lens of my mind colors it), it is a near entirely different person.

So I found myself pondering, today, if this represents a valid emulation of the kind of mental practice one gets from person-to-person interaction(albeit, very watered down).

Now, for reference, I'm a somewhat socially successful person. Although it took practice to achieve my level of aptitude, I don't have a huge trouble making friends, I can navigate new, uncomfortable, and difficult social situations with some success, and I can mostly tell what other people are thinking if I'm interacting with them directly, and focusing on them. So I'm not completely theorizing in the dark, here, and have a basis of comparison.

But anyways. I'm curious to know if this is a novel idea to anyone else, or if it's just outright silly? Can story writing and RPG's help give you practice in inferring people's thought process? While it's admittedly far inferior to 'the real thing,' does character writing/imagining help with understanding others?

If it's patently absurd, do tell me why.
But if you think it's a possibility, speak up.

I doubt one could actually do that if one is not aware of emotional states.
Other than copying others it would be impossible for me.
I could make some very shallow characters with no family or friends.
I think you need a grand level of social competence to write such a story, so the idea seems sort of backwards.

I have a great deal of trouble writing stories. I wrote my first story when I was eleven, and the characters were utterly flat. I started another at fourteen, and didn't finish it until I was nineteen. It was... maybe fifty pages long. Not much longer. The characters started to have a little more depth at that point; you could tell them apart from each other. After that, I started writing more often, and regularly do so now.

I've been writing essays since I was very small--I can remember being eight or so and putting my ideas down on paper. I've kept diaries since I could write; and I still keep a blog. Writing essays and research papers is easy for me. Writing stories is very, very difficult.

I can definitely make complex characters now, though writing stories is one of the most difficult things I regularly do; and yes, that counts classically difficult things like wiring up a circuit or mapping the human circulatory system.

The trick to writing stories, I've found, is not necessarily to know a lot about people, but to know a lot about fictional characters and plots. Fiction has many patterns to it; and if you follow the patterns, and mix them up in unexpected ways, you can create original fiction. It's very much like what you can do with music--themes, variations on themes, competing or harmonizing melodies; only with people instead of with songs.

Good fiction is often not realistic. The dialogue, for example, if spoken out loud would sound very pedantic. There are too many coincidences, and the plot is much too coherent for real life. Archetypes are much too preeminent. People take sides much too clearly. Newer fiction tends to be more realistic; but as fiction gets more realistic, it becomes less and less interesting. Fiction that was a true copy of everyday life, seen the way an everyday person sees it, would never get published. It's simply not entertaining. At the very least, one has to put a unique perspective on it, or a unique way of describing things; and that really only lends itself to short stories. An entire novel done in that style wouldn't find many readers that weren't in it just for its cutting-edge literature-snob qualities.

At about twenty years old, I started playing D&D. I made some friends doing it; but it didn't increase social expertise any more than any other form of interactive activity would have. It was, however, very much fun to create stories together, and I highly recommend it.

I make toy bodies with neat swords or cool powers, and play with them.

Palladium Books system mostly, one of my obsessions, probably rolled up something like 5 or 6 thousand characters in the last almost 20 years?


Still not as good at the social aspects, but with a hyper-developed visual imagination like mine, what more do you need than a sword you can't break which can cut through steel?

If it was not for D&D probably would not have any outside social cobtact.

It did help my oldest learn turn taking and some cause and effect, which is helpful in conversations at the very least. We only did it over a month or so while we were "borrowing" a friend of our's oldest during the summer. Even so there was an improvement.

So I think that if it were done on a more regular basis, guided by someone who was a little more socially adept especially, it could make quite a difference.

PnP RPGs can certainly help. If that's what you're after, I particularly recommend GURPS, provided you can find a good GameMaster (GM). There are specific rules governing social interaction in GURPS, with modifiers for your character's personality and appearance. (Unlike a Certain Other Game, having high Charisma in GURPS doesn't automatically mean that you're beautiful, and being Beautiful doesn't automatically mean that everybody's going to love you - in fact, it's going to make some people dislike you on that basis alone, which is kind of realistic.)

I also like GURPS because if you're an experienced roleplayer, the rules let you build pretty much the character you want, within the limits of the game. (If you're playing a gritty noir-detective story, you don't get someone with Superscience or cool Powers, unless that's what the GM allows; Dungeon Fantasy generally doesn't include your character with the private starship and collection of energy pistols - you know, fairly common-sense limitations.) I mean, my D&D characters are pretty cool in their own right, but, for instance, Big Phil's combination of a tragic history (his parents were killed by an orc tribe) and amnesia (so he has no idea which tribe he wants vengeance on, meaning he pretty much wants to kill them all) is something strictly in my head - the D&D game has no mechanic to cover it. In GURPS, he'd have the Limitations of Amnesia (Can't Remember Childhood) and Hatred (Orcs In General), and if I didn't roleplay those flaws, I'd be docked xp for the adventure.

Sounds as if you have had some lack luster Dungeon Masters... or you are only considering the D&D for Dummies that is out now. We played Version 2.0 and my husband has won multiple awards for DM'ing at conventions.

Dungeons and Dragons is as complex and realistic as the DM decides to make it.

In my experience of tabletop RPGs, no. I find them a very difficult environment to handle, and certainly not beneficial in any way.

MmMmMmmMMmMmm...Michelle Rodriguez...OoOoOooOohHhHh YeEeaAaHhh...



Uhm...what was the question?



Oh, yeah - fleshing out fictional characters and ToM. It doesn't help me, no, and I've right in the middle of a whole gaggle of characters with all sorts of overlapping backstory, but if what you're asking is does that help me in RL to intuit how others might be thinking? No, not in the least. Not in any way.

When I'm writing a fictional scene, I'm injecting the motivation, therefore any tells I give a character that might allow another character that sort of insight is manufactured from things I have observed in the past in RL situations - things I may have been oblivious to the first thousand times I witnessed them. So anything I've learned that facilitates my ability to read others comes from long series' of trial and error in living, not from practicing on paper.

Last edited by Willard on 24 Apr 2010, 2:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This depends ask me if I know what the meaning of feelings are and I can give you the definition. Ask me to tell you how I'm feeling and some times it's hard to do I sometimes really mix up happy, sad, mad, and so on. Ask me to tell you about other people aside from my parents and sister who I have know my whole life I can't do it very well.

So ask me to put it down on paper and I would just coyp most of what I read and ever one just has the same feelings and emtions. When it comes to anmails or robots it's really easy to do. Which expalins why I'm obsessive with Transformers at times. That and they come from space and I have always like books about outerspace or anything to do with outerspace for that matter.

I don't do RPG but I do write fiction (who says people with AS aren't creative?!) and I do think this has greatly helped me to develop my social skills and understanding of how others interact, and has helped me present myself as "normal" much easier.

I think because when we write multi-character fiction it forces us to actually analyze the situation. We have to ask "what would a person actually do in a situation like this?"

I co-wrote my first feature screen play with my brother using toy figures to act out the scenes as we wrote them and it worked really well. I don't know whether this counts as RPG"s. I don't play Dungeons and Dragons or anything.
I couldn't figure out what the hell was meant by RPG at first I thought you meant 'Rocket Propelled Grenades'

Also on paper, you decide everything.
In meatspace, you decide only your own actions.
You can manipulate, sure, but only to a certain extent and that varies per person.
So no.
Again, I guess.

First off, I'd like to question why you would limit this to pen and paper RPGs. It isn't as if you can't roleplay in games that aren't pen and paper.

I've done pen and paper RPGs, it hasn't helped me with social skills. In fact, I was only hindered by my own personality! I didn't roleplay much in those though, I was more interested in the development of character rather than personality at the time.

Now, I have done a lot of text games, such as MUDs. I don't think this has helped me socially either. Also, I found it difficult to roleplay somebody who is socially normal. It was interesting roleplaying and figuring out how I want my character to act though. It may or may not have helped with theory of mind. I seem to have more theory of mind than before.

No. The DM may limit the complexity and realism of a campaign to a greater degree than any of the other players do, but most of it is actually up to the players. You may have the best DM in the world, but if the players are all out to get Infinity Plus One Swords with their cardboard-cutout characters, then you won't get anywhere much. Just like the outcome of a basketball game isn't up to the coaches and referees, the quality of a D&D game isn't just up to the DM.

If you play D&D anything more than ultra-casually, the players need to do their homework, too. As in, write your character's backstory. Talk to the other people in your group about how your characters are going to interact. And stop it with the Paladin-in-an-Evil-group nonsense (or vice versa); that never ends well.