I have had a strong opinion on D&D and similar role playing games for some time. Unlike popular opinion, my opinion is not a negative one. Pen and paper role playing games, like Dungeons and Dragons, can be highly educational. When played in groups (group play is typical), they also improve interpersonal skills like communication and team work. When played properly (role playing as opposed to pure hack and slash), they also help participants to look at things from other points of view. No computer game can compete with a face to face, pen and paper RPG.
There are some potential problems with role playing games like D&D. Occasionally, we hear stories about people who have become hopelessly addicted to the game. On even more rare occasions, we hear stories about someone doing something stupid that could be linked to their D&D game. These almost always get blown out of proportion (these are nearly always mentally unstable people, and there has never been any evidence that D&D caused the poor behavior), but addiction is a valid concern. Thankfully, there is no evidence that D&D or any other pen and paper RPG is any more addictive than similar video games. In fact, because pen and paper RPGs require scheduling play time around the schedules of several people, most groups play only once a week to once a month (the exception is high school groups which sometimes play 5 days a week during lunch periods and tend to have higher addiction rates as a result). People who play computer RPGs tend to play at least several days a week for a few hours, and many play several hours every day. Addiction to computer games in general has become a big enough problem to get specialized attention from the medical field. Addiction to pen and paper RPGs is so uncommon that people make a big deal about it when cases are discovered. (Ok, so part of the reason for this is that more people play computer RPGs, but the point still stands.)
Now, to get to the point. I have had this idea for over 10 years, but I have not really had time to do much about it. I just read an article that reminded me of it and gave me a very good reason to discuss it here. This article discusses seniors that gamble out of boredom. Evidently, a significant percentage of U.S. seniors gamble because they do not have anything better to do. Some claim they do it for the social interaction, however, upon observation, it is found that almost no social interaction takes place in the casinos aside from lunch time. The rest of the time is spent gambling on very non-social machines. The gambling itself offers no social interaction. All of the social interactions occur during the trips to and from the casino and during meals. In most cases, according to studies funded primarily by the gambling industry (red flag), most seniors gamble responsibly. The problem I see is that they think they are spending their money on a social experience, but they are not getting the actual experience. Besides the false advertising (casino ads typically show groups of people having positive social experiences, when in reality most gamblers are sitting at a machine, ignoring everything else), these people are craving social experience, but they are not getting what they need. In the article, one person is quoted as lamenting that her generation did not invent something better for seniors to do than squander their money gambling. She is wrong. Her generation (or maybe the one directly before her) did invent something superior to gambling.
Most older people choose to gamble out of boredom. When people get old, fun physical activity becomes difficult and painful, so the normal things younger people do for fun are either painful or even outright dangerous for older people. The current older generation is not very computer literate, and thus the computer games with good long term value can be very difficult for them to learn. They also grew up during a time when most social interaction was face to face, and they prefer that to the impersonal online interactions found in computer games. My solution is Dungeons and Dragons (or any other pen and paper RPG).
Dungeons and Dragons allows people to try new things by proxy. An 80 year old man may not have the physical capacity to travel much, but in an RPG, he can role play a 20 year old youth with very good stamina and strength. Through his character, he can experience things and places that he cannot experience in person due to his age. Even further, he can experience things through his character that no one can experience in real life. Though it is often frowned upon, women can play male characters and men can play female characters (it also tends to be more difficult to role play characters that are a different gender from the player). Further, addiction is less problematic for older people, in some degree, because they tend to be less susceptible to addiction, and because gaming addiction is far less likely to interfere with their lives.
Note that not all pen and paper RPGs are based on a fantasy environment. A D&D-like modern RPG system exists called Modern D20. Shadowrun is another RPG system that is futuristic (the genre is often called cyberpunk). There are also superhero RPGs, anime RPGs, steampunk RPGs, and nearly any other kind of RPG you can think of. And if you are worried about claims of a certain RPG being evil and demonic, the involvement of any brand of supernatural power (good or evil) is up to the DM (who hosts the game) and the players. (D&D has some seriously evil monsters, however, it has a selection of monsters so large that the DM must chose a subset of them to use in the game. In fact, a game heavy on role playing and light on combat might not include any of the fantasy monsters available for the game.) Ultimately, the direction and content of the game is up to the DM and the players. If they are really set on gambling, they could even play a game where their characters go on a casino road trip (a good setting for this might be the 1800s, when much of gambling was done face to face with a dealer and other players). At least this way, the money squandered would be fake.
Old people, especially those in elderly care homes, do not have much to do with their time. They often suffer from extreme boredom. Many have taken up gambling as a hobby, because they think it will provide social interaction that they crave. Unfortunately, it does not, and it costs money than many elderly people cannot afford to lose. Role playing games are less addictive and far cheaper than gambling. They offer a wide variety of possible social interactions. They provide good mental stimulation and experiences that can not be had any other way. With a good DM, even the learning curve is quite shallow (players tell the DM what their characters do, and the DM explains what happens in response; the DM can handle most of the rules). I think that we could solve this gambling problem for elderly people by offering face to face, pen and paper role playing experiences.
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