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- TORONTO (CP) -- Can donning
green skin paint and acting like a sword-wielding troll for a weekend cause
a teen to lose touch with reality and commit a real-life crime?
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- Fans of live-action and other role-playing games don't
think so, insisting their hobby inspires harmless, creative fun rather
than violent demonic delusions.
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- "Role-playing games draw the dispossessed -- people
who aren't happy with their own lives and want to fantasize," says
28-year-old Gregory Small, who has been playing the games since he was
10.
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- "There are a lot of misfits, outcasts who play.
But I don't believe for a minute it's a cause for violence."
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- But to the uninitiated, the games can be difficult to
understand.
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- One of the first and best-known is Dungeons and Dragons,
in which players use a rule-book and dice to create medieval scenarios
where forces of good battle evil.
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- "My big brother got me into it when I was seven
or eight," says David Larocque, 13. "I thought it was fun. We
played Dungeons and Dragons, fought monsters, found treasures."
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- Leon Emmett of The Hairy Tarantula reads next to a figurine
at his Toronto store Thursday January 13, 2000. (CP PHOTO: Kevin Frayer)
Since the game was developed in the mid-1970s, it has spawned hundreds
of others which vary according to setting and historical time period. Some
of the games include maps and miniature figurines. There are even live-action
games, where players dress in costume and play for an entire weekend.
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- "People get caught up in it, get quite emotional,"
says Mike Kolbuc, a Grimsby, Ont., teen who puts on a troll costume once
a month to engage in live-action role-playing.
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- "I enjoy the interaction with other people -- you
work together to solve a common problem."
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- Many players say they have made new friends and become
more outgoing because of the games. But because game plots sometimes involve
evil forces, gamers say they have often been misinterpreted.
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- "In my opinion, people don't understand what the
game is," says George Bonilla, who works at the Hairy Tarantula, a
store which sells game books and paraphernalia. "People think it's
demon-worshipping, a cult. It's not that. It's a fantasy."
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- Recently in Brockville, Ont., the games came under scrutiny
after a scanner intercepted a phone call of three young men allegedly conspiring
to kill a police officer.
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- The mother of one of the suspects has said the incident
was a misunderstanding and that the teens were participating in a role-playing
fantasy game called Rifts.
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- That comment has prompted the latest flurry of interest
in the games, but Kevin Siembieda, who created Rifts 10 years ago, says
role-playing games have an overwhelmingly positive effect.
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- PRIMER ON ROLE-PLAYING GAMES A game-master usually
navigates the storyline with the help of a rulebook outlining setting and
various probabilities of actions.
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- Players go through a character creation process, choosing
weapons and tools. The players keep track of these imaginary items with
pencil and paper.
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- Players roll dice -- which can have as many as 30 numbered
sides -- to determine their actions. For example, if a character wants
to open a door by picking a lock, the dice determine whether they succeed.
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- Game ends when characters "die" or become unbeatable.
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- Games often have no clear winner, but players can successfully
complete a mission.
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- Games can also use visual aids such as miniatures and
maps.
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- In live-action role-playing games, players dress in costume
and assume their role for longer periods.
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- Role-playing games for video and computer systems are
another spinoff, allowing single players to battle enemies and immerse
themselves in mythic fantasy worlds. "When you're done playing the
game it's like you read a good book or saw a cool movie," he says.
"That's one of the unique elements of the game."
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- Rifts, like other role-playing games, takes place in
a fantasy setting. Players can travel to different dimensions through rifts,
or tears through space and time. Although Siembieda did not want to comment
specifically on the situation in Brockville, he acknowledged that it is
possible that a game could "go evil."
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- "It can get out of hand," adds Small. "People
can forget they're playing a game, and take it too seriously."
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- To make matters worse, gamers say there is a perception
that they are maladjusted misfits.
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- "There's a view that the typical gamer is a largish
kid with a Tolkien Rules T-shirt," says Andre McInnis, also a clerk
at the Hairy Tarantula. "The image is geeky, not too worried about
girls."
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- But Small says he knows women who play the games and
that the friends he played with as a kid have grown up to be bankers and
stockbrokers rather than mass murderers.
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- "I'm far better off, more sociable than I would
have been otherwise," he says.
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- Players say the games are not just about dragon-slaying
and sword-fighting, but about the politics and societies involved in the
games.
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- "I've learned a lot from the games," says Trevor
Kolbuc, 12. "Most people when they play it, they understand it's a
game."
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