[tortasaur]

> There was a bone-chilling moment when my (very young) kids were playing with toys together and when asked what they were doing, they responded with "role-playing."

If this was bone-chilling, I have some bad news: there's a whole genre of "role-playing games" that have been around for decades.

[jstarfish]

Come on, I know what RPGs are.

This isn't about role-playing games, it's about the specific term and act of role-playing-- and kids barely out of diapers describing it as such. It used to be the domain of therapists, then pedophiles.

My point was that they were way too young to know what D&D even was, and is a product marketed to boys (up until 5E anyway). Mine were still playing with dolls at the time.

[dragonwriter]

> My point was that they were way too young to know what D&D even was, and is a product marketed to boys (up until 5E anyway).

D&D started marketing to women and girls before AD&D/1e, actually, but more to the point, “role-playing” as a term for make-believe play in which one assumes fictional/alternative roles, a usage radiating out to general use fairly directly from both entertainment (CRPG/TTRPG) and therapeutic and educational use of the term.

The idea that “pedophiles” are involved i is such a bizarre (but totally 2020’s, where “pedophiles are the explanation for everything unfamiliar or different from my childhood” seems to be a common and actively propagandized belief) take.

[add-sub-mul-div]

I've never heard of "role playing" having this sort of connotation you're jumping to that would be troubling to see from children.

[BulgarianIdiot]

Bone chilling.