Could video games suppress violence, by allowing people to fantasize about virtual violence rather than experience it in real life? This is certainly an idea that makes some sense. And in the context of the brutal slayings at Fort Hood, I’ve often wondered if some kind of fantasy play or gaming could have prevented that “real world” violence by giving Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused shooter, a proper venue to express his discontentment and anger.

The power of simulations and make-believe have been proved. By play-acting scenarios—be it Civil War re-enactment, a model United Nations, the classic role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, or an online game like World of Warcraft—we can imagine different outcomes. We can pretend to be good and chivalrous, or evil or villainous, all within the safe realm of a play. And by role-playing, which is a kind of inhabiting other sides of ourselves and other possible personalities, we imagine how others live. Fantasy and gaming = empathy.

Contrary to the fears of a post-Columbine High School world, gamers don’t mix up reality with fantasy. Rather, gaming and fantasy play give us the chance to take risks in controlled ways. They let us sort out complex feelings of fear and anger. They let us blow off steam. And in a game like World of Warcraft, or a book (or movie) like The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, we are reminded again what is good and what is evil. These narratives ground us. They recalibrate our internal moral barometers. A swords-and-sorcery or futuristic realm has conflict, and when there’s a conflict being acted out, just like in all great literature, we learn useful stuff about the human condition. Perhaps by finding some venue to express these dark thoughts, Nidal Malik Hasan would have found catharsis. Perhaps, had he played a first-person shooter game in an imaginary realm, he would not have felt compelled to create his own first-person shooter game in the real world.

Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the travel memoir/pop culture investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks and the Psychology Today blog Geek Pride.