Quote from: BalbinusJocelyn's good people.

Agreed!

Where's my list of Balbinist games? Only James has submitted any!

-clash

Quote from: BalbinusIt took me a while to realise Jocelyn was serious, I wasn't sure at first and I didn't want to kill the thread with an apology.

Mate, Jocelyn does roleplaying as therapy. I shit you not - he's got threads about it on rpg.net.

Anyone who says, "let's pretend to be elven princesses, it'll help you deal with your traumas" is obviously Master Geek Level of obliviousness. Don't sweat it.

What if it's male elven archers instead?

I'd like to believe that your friend Jocelyn was just shit-stirring. If he was, that's funny.

If he wasn't, that's just sad. 'Goddam psychological violence'? Wow.

As a child I was subjected, by other children, to psychological violence. I know psychological violence. Jocelyn wouldn't know psychological violence if he read Pundit for a week.

Actually Jocelyn is a social worker. So he knows all about psychological violence, both treating it and giving it out. No, wait, social workers don't deserve that... what's the difference between a rottweiller and a social worker? You can get the baby back off a rottweiller!

Does this mean I shouldn't update the GNS Wikipedia entry?

I fail to understand all that mess. Jocelyn is IMO a clever and sensible poster. Balbinus' post is clearly a joke, to me (one has to love the British wit). What a shitstorm about nothing.

And yet another resident of a former colony becomes a victim of the Mother Country's sense of humour

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we cut the umbilicus much too soon

Jocelyn is a social worker, as such he is I suspect more used to encountering and having to deal with psychological violence than most of us and didn't realise he was off duty as it were.

I think to be fair his rp in social work thing is not simply being an elf, but to be honest it's not a topic that interests me so I've never looked into it much.

I do think people are a touch quick to reach for counselling these days, there's a lot to be said for stoicism and all that and realising sometimes life's just a bit shitty, but that's off topic even for this thread.

Quote from: JimBobOzMate, Jocelyn does roleplaying as therapy. I shit you not - he's got threads about it on rpg.net.

Anyone who says, "let's pretend to be elven princesses, it'll help you deal with your traumas" is obviously Master Geek Level of obliviousness. Don't sweat it.

Did you even read the thread, or is there just too little cross-board bitching and sniping going on for you? 'cause this right here is rather classic JB-level spin bullshit.


For anybody else, it's actually a rather interesting project in the course of his job, handled exceedingly carefully if his account is accurate (last I read, during the planning stages). It's more "planning your future" therapy than "fixing your past", and he's rather embarrassed because he's spoken out on numerous occasions against the idea. If fairness, he's done so in the context of refuting the Swine claim that "all good roleplaying sessions are therapy". I'd post a link, but the big purple seems to have gone out for me. Cessna, I think your shit's broke.

Hell, I did roleplaying therapy a (long) while back. Anyone thinking it's stupid, overly geeky, or whatever is just too stuck on their beliefs of how smart they are and how if they don't understand something it can't be good.

Laugh at those people and move on.

At JimBob -> HA HA HA HA HA, bye.

The method of roleplaying has been used for therapy and education, military planning longer than there is a chap named Gygax.

Add to that:
Every leisure activity reduces stress, and games can give people confidence and social skills and whatnotelse.

But RPGs as we talk about them here are not set up for anything but some flesh wounds of the soul. Deep shit takes deep measures, RPGs aren´t up to it. Most likely because you game with your friends, and your friends are also not up to the task.

A real psychiatrist might use whatever he wants, could as well be D&D. But he´s a trained professional, and stuff like this needs supervision.

Quite true, Set. Apparently Jocelyn is a professional, and I know the lady my dad paid way too much money too was one.