Written by: Maryanne Cullinan
Why do children want to watch the world burn? If you’ve played any sort of tabletop RPG or video game with children, you’ve been there. One minute your cute little nine year old is talking about kittens, and the next minute they have attempted to burn down the entire orphanage they were tasked with saving and cackling gleefully. If the popularity of the Five Nights at Freddy’s universe, Goosebumps and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark tells us nothing else, it’s that children are attracted to creepiness and violence like moths to a flame. But why? And do we need to worry? Is it time to get out the pearls to clutch, or is this actually a problem?
Slapstick Violence
I grew up on The Three Stooges, Ren and Stimpy and Loony Toons. Our children grew up with shows like Spongebob and movies like Elf. Slapstick humor is timeless, and people have found it funny for generations. There is something about being able to watch terrible things happen to other people, with no consequences, that makes it fun to watch.
Scientists have studied this phenomenon. They suggest that when someone knows they are safe, it can make otherwise threatening stimuli funny. IE, the idea of being stabbed by a knife is not funny, but being stabbed by a carrot is (Warren, Barsky and McGraw, 2020). McGraw and Warren (2010) found that “moral violations that can be seen as benign are more likely to elicit laughter than are behaviors that do not violate a moral norm” and that “Slapstick humor also involves benign violations because the harmful or demeaning acts are hypothetical and thus psychologically distant.” So basically, you laugh because you know it is wrong, but since there aren’t the normal consequences that make it wrong you are allowed to think it is funny instead of bad.
Given this, it makes sense that children would like slapstick violence, not because they do not understand it is socially inappropriate, but expressly because it violates what we know to be good and moral behavior. Because we know the characters are not real, we find the violence they encounter funny in a way that they would not be if they were happening in real life. The humor does not come from wanting bad things to happen in real life, but from understanding the difference between the fictional setting and the real world.
Controlling The Environment
But what about wanton killing and violence that does not seem to have as much humor? I spoke with Jennifer Genova, veteran middle school teacher and RPG researcher. She said, “Simulated violence is attractive to kids because it lets them feel powerful and filled with agency over a situation, when they typically do not in their actual lives.” In enacting simulated violence, children gain control over things that can be very scary. It also allows them to do things that they know are naughty without any of the consequences that would come from doing it.
Several years ago, I had a D&D table of boys who truly wanted to watch the world burn. All week long, these six 5th grade boys did homework, raised their hands, acted politely and very rarely got into any kind of trouble at school. On Friday afternoons they wanted to raise hell and cause destruction across the fantasy D&D lands. We noted that instead of violence in-game creating children who were more violent outside of the game, the opposite was true. This gameplay was a way for them to blow off steam and impact their environment in a way that they were not allowed to do during the typical school day. Not one of them actually wanted to hurt anyone in real life, but it sure was fun to burn down the orphanage when no actual children were harmed.
In our 45-60 kid afterschool D&D group, barbarians and rogues are the clear favorite classes. These are classes that allow students to be strong and to directly address conflict with violence in a way that they absolutely cannot do in the real world. Playing these characters allows students to flirt with the ideas of power, agency and violence in a safe space. It is the same reason that children (and adults) are attracted to superheroes. Little Jimmy might have to go home and do his homework, but Jimbo the Barbarian has destroyed the evildoers (or maybe supported them!) and effected great change on this land.
Horror
Children are also fascinated with the horror genre. Jennifer Genova noted, “Kids love horror because it allows them to peer in through the window of big and complex emotions from a place of safety and security.” Through RPGs, books, movies, etc., children can experience fear in a controlled environment. When it gets to be too much, they can take a bathroom break, or put a bookmark into the book to hold their page, then go back to their real lifes.
Scientists who studied this effect said, “While frightening media may be initially aversive, people [who enjoy horror]…. brave the initially aversive response to simulate threats and so enter a positive feedback loop by which they attain adaptive mastery through coping with virtual simulated danger (Clasen, Kjeldgaard-Christiansen and Johnson, 2020).”
When It Goes Too Far
Violence in RPGs alone is not going to damage a child’s psyche or set them up for antisocial behaviors. However, in the unlikely case that a child has very maladaptive coping strategies, or truly cannot differentiate fantasy from reality, then these games may not be appropriate for that child.
It is important to have conversations with children about how to participate in games that might be on the edge of their comfort level. Safety tools and self-awareness can help a child experience big emotions and scary concepts while giving them an out if needed. If you notice that a child you play with repeats the same violent or scary ideas over and over again, it may be worth having a conversation with that child about why they enjoy that scenario. And remember, your comfort is important, too. Safety tools are for everyone, not just the children. Being part of an open, ongoing conversation about in-game content is a wonderful way for children to learn perspective-taking and grow their ability for empathy.
Role-playing games allow children to experience the fantasy of being someone else. That person has extremely lowered stakes for consequences to their behavior. They heal after a long rest, they have super-human traits, and they are not bound to respect the same rules and relationships the child themselves must adhere to in their lives. Consequently, violence and horror can be fun, cathartic and teach adaptive behaviors. With open communication and taking what happens with a grain of salt, you too can learn to live with the murder hobos in your life. Watch out, innocent NPC orphans, the children are coming to get you!
About the Author
Maryanne Cullinan is a middle school teacher, PhD student and Academic RPG Researcher. She multi classes as cleric/bard/cat herder. You can check out some of her work on http://www.culliopescauldron.com or say hello @culliope on Discord and Twitter.
Sources
Ashford, Mel. “How Horror Helps Manage Depression, Anxiety and Trauma.” Blood Knife, June 17, 2021. https://bloodknife.com/how-horror-helps-trauma/.
Clasen, Mathias, Jens Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, and John A. Johnson. “Horror, Personality, and Threat Simulation: A Survey on the Psychology of Scary Media.” Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences 14, no. 3 (July 2020): 213–30. https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000152.
McGraw, A. Peter, and Caleb Warren. “Benign Violations.” Psychological Science 21, no. 8 (June 29, 2010): 1141–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610376073.
Warren, Caleb, Adam Barsky, and A. Peter McGraw. “What Makes Things Funny? An Integrative Review of the Antecedents of Laughter and Amusement.” Personality and Social Psychology Review 25, no. 1 (December 21, 2020): 41–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868320961909.
Jennifer Genova can be reached at Jennifer.Genova@gmail.com
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