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There's been no end of them - the shrill cries about how video games have been corrupting our youth, teaching them to be cold killing machines, inundating them with graphic violence, and generally making them bad members of society. Odd, though, because the more I think about how RPGs have affected me, the more I come to the conclusion that they've made me a better person than I ever would have been otherwise.
Think about this for a second - in RPGs, almost without fail, acting like a nice guy gets you rewards. If you help someone out, chances are you'll get an item or a skill for doing it. Have a choice between buying something and grabbing it for free? Nine times out of ten you'll be rewarded for your honesty. Ditto if someone asks you a question - never lie, unless they're a shifty character to begin with. Conversely, if you act like a tightwad or cad, mess people up, or engage in other antisocial behavior, you'll often be punished in some way.
What makes this all so much more visceral is the fact that you "role-play" the person whose decisions you're making. The "knowing is half the battle" condescending morals that pervaded '80s cartoons might have done the same sort of thing - but at a large distance. In RPGs, you're the one making the decisions, and you're the one reaping the rewards or paying the price. Even in modern RPGs with well-defined heroes (rather than the nameless protagonists of early offerings) you still identify with your hero far more than any other media.
Of course there are exceptions. Grabbing people's treasure chests is smiled upon, but that's part of the gaming system - FF10 has treasure chests everywhere and they look amazingly out of place. There are games like KOTOR and Ogre Battle which allow you to choose a villainous path. And there are grey areas as well - letting Lone Wolf out of jail in FF5 will lose you some items later on, but Lone Wolf arguably belonged in jail to begin with.
I have noticed a marked difference in my own behavior over the years. I am not by nature a brave man - but I've seen RPG heroes "do the right thing" so often that I honestly think I just might do something heroic if push comes to shove. Lying in important situations is now almost unthinkable to me (to my detriment, sometimes). I'm sure that not all of this is due to the influence of the games I play, but I don't think I'm wrong in saying that, instead of the Jack Thompsonesque negativity circus, games really do have educational value, and in areas far more important than math or science. Someone should commission a study on that.
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