Personality profile of a magical being

A 1993 study on the personality of Dungeons and Dragons players finds kinda what you’d expect.

The personality of fantasy game players

British Journal of Psychology
Volume 84, Issue 4, pages 505–509, November 1993

Neil A. Douse, I. C. McManus

Players of a fantasy Play-By-Mail game were compared with matched controls on personality measures of decision-making style, sex-role, extraversion, neuroticism, empathy, leisure interests and personality type. Most players were male. On the Bem Sex-Role Inventory the players were less feminine and less androgynous than controls. They were more introverted, showed lower scores on the scale of empathic concern, and were more likely to describe themselves as ‘scientific’, and to include ‘playing with computers’ and ‘reading’ amongst their leisure interests than controls.

Obviously, times have changed since 1993 and now that RPGs are hip I’m sure that the personality profile of gamers is completely different. And anyone that says different will taste the cold steel of my vorpal sword. No saving throw.

Link to study abstract.

View the original article here