Little Girls with Candy





Many people have addictions. Indulgences can range from the inconvenient to the fatal. Often addicts become very protective of their vice of choice and their right to indulge. Our most common exposure to addiction normally involves “optional” addictions; mainly drug use. By “optional” I mean a desire that did not exist until after the object of that desire was intimately experienced. With a heroine addiction for example, a choice to take heroine is made and only after exposure does the continued desire for heroine propagate into an addiction. Before exposure to heroine, no physical or mental need for it existed.



What about those other addictions, the deep, dark compulsions that just don’t go away? Pyromania, nymphomania, pedophilia, and a whole host of other unquenchable hungers that lurk under the stairs waiting to feed with vile tongues. Such things are labeled as mental illnesses, which often form due to childhood trauma. Sometimes though, they come hard-wired right into a person’s psyche.



So, where am I going with all this talk of mental illness and addiction? Well, what I want to know is why they so rarely enter our role-playing games as anything more than a few simple notes on a character sheet under “quirks” or “disabilities”. Addictions often become reduced to nothing more than another monotonous modifier and the chance to use them to enrich the character and the story are lost.



Now, I’m not necessarily saying that a character’s addiction should become the prime focus of the game, although that’s possible, but how a person handles the struggle with their inner demons really shows what they’re made of and can be very interesting as well as entertaining in a game atmosphere. There are many ways to handle such delicate issues as well, and I don’t believe that a game need dissolve into depravity to explore them.



As an example, let’s look at pedophilia. Sexual attraction to prepubescent children. An ugly and distasteful subject in real life. But this is the game, and while we certainly don’t want to glorify it, we can take a character’s struggle with this unshakeable urge and use it to help weave an interesting tale.



Let’s forego a name and just call our character the Paladin. The Paladin is more than an upstanding guy, he’s a regular hero. He doesn’t just obey the law, he upholds it. He goes out of his way to help the downtrodden, rescue those that need it, and smite evil at every opportunity. The Paladin isn’t perfect, nobody is, but he tries damn hard. There’s really only one problem, the Paladin has a hankering for 10 year old girls. He’s always liked little girls, ever since he was a little boy. But when he grew up the desire to touch little girls didn’t go away. While it doesn’t feel wrong, he knows it is. Sooner or later though his control will falter.



Two nights ago, on his way to deliver an important diplomatic proposal to the Chancellor, the Paladin came across a young girl and her mother. They were hurrying across the piazza towards an inn, seeking shelter from the heavy downpour. He could see the girls eyes sparkling in the lamplight, the flush of her cheeks as she ran holding her mother’s hand. The need rose up inside of him, making his blood run hot, overpowering his sense of duty.



As the Paladin entered the inn he could see the mother and daughter taking seats at a table on the far side of the common room. The voices, laughter and music all became a blur as he found a table from where he could watch her. After what must have been an eternity the mother went over to another table to speak to an acquaintance and the young girl rose from her chair and went upstairs towards the private rooms. He paused only a moment before following her.



The sound of singing came to him as me moved slowly down the corridor. Ahead to his left the door was ajar and a young voice was chanting the verses of childhood. As the Paladin approached the door his heart began a vain effort to beat its way out of his rib cage. Looking ever so carefully through the opening revealed what he was seeking. The girl, splendid in her youth, singing lightly and making herself ready for sleep.



As he watched her, a cold unforgiving sweat began to bead on his forehead. The pounding of his heart became deafening. He couldn’t take it anymore. His hands shook violently as he reached out for the door… and closed it.



Back in the street, rushing towards the Chancellor’s villa, the Paladin tried very hard to forget about what he almost did. The cold, driving rain washed away all the worlds color, all the worlds stains, but it failed to wash away his stains. Only his tears were swept away as he moved relentlessly onward through the dark.



That was a very abbreviated example of how a subject like pedophilia can be handled. The idea is to highlight the character’s struggle, not to simulate the depredations of the mentally ill. And, since we work within a fictional reality when we game, we have the opportunity to introduce factors that might not exist for a person in real life. What if the Paladin were given a chance at redemption, some near impossible quest that would finally, once and for all, release him from the grasp of his undeniable hunger? The whole point is to highlight the rise and fall, and possibly the redemption, of a character with an intense personal struggle.



While role-playing the dark underbelly of humanity might not be for everyone, it offers an opportunity to examine issues that we might not want to dirty our hands with in real life. I certainly have no desire to be a drug addict but role-playing a character with a drug addiction might, just possibly, increase my understanding of why people do the things they do. Give it a try, and even if you don’t learn anything from the experience you almost certainly added depth to your character and helped weave an interesting and memorable tale.