Is it true that FRPGs promote violence, such as murder, arson, torture, rape and armed robbery?
One of the objections raised against role playing games is based on a curious effort to connect convicted criminals with such games. This emotional appeal is often very effective, as anecdotal evidence connecting one or two “bad apples” to the hobby is viewed as indicative of the state of all others. One only needs to look at the number of professional athletes in consistent trouble with the law to see that if one is able to demand banning role-playing games because of some coincidence of a gamer committing a crime, then one must certainly ban football, basketball, and definitely boxing because the statistics are far higher in those recreations than in RPG. Even some Boy Scouts go on to commit violent crimes, despite the excellent work Boy Scouts of America does in the main. It is reported that somewhere in the neighborhood of a million people a year become new participants in role playing games world wide (about half that in the United States); viewed in that light, the number of case
