Deloitte's recent study examining the effectiveness of inclusion in the modern workplace, looks at how all kinds of groups "cover" to avoid being stigmatized. This is an ongoing question for gamers as their hobbies become increasingly more mainstream and thus require less "covering." An examination of how different groups engage in covering is instructive in how gamers of all stripes blend in with the crowd -- or don't.
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[h=3]How Covering Works[/h]The Deloitte study breaks down covering into four categories: appearance (how you look), affiliation (if you identify as a group), advocacy (who you stick up for in a conversation), and association (if you hang out with others who identify as part of the group). The study specifically looks at diversion and inclusion at work, but it's an interesting template that can be applied to how gamers express themselves. For example, if we segment different types of role-playing, tabletop role-players express themselves in a specifically-defined space (a table) which can make affiliation and association more private while Live Action Role-Players (LARPers) and cosplayers express themselves in larger physical spaces and thus tend to have a more visible affiliation and association.
Role-players understand covering well; it can range from taking on another role to editing out potentially stigmatized traits. According to the study, each individual must strike a balance between long-term covering and the potentially negative effects of reducing self-expression:
The issue is critical for organizations seeking to blend their membership:
For gamers, this topic applies to everything from who you play with (e.g., friends, strangers), where you play (in public, at home), when you play (free time, at conventions) and even how (cosplay, LARPs, tabletop, computer, gamebooks). The kind of gaming and the gamer's personality influences how these four axes are expressed, as we'll see below.
[h=3]Appearance[/h]A gamer's appearance can vary from wearing a shirt declaring one's affiliation for gaming to a full costume (e.g., some LARPers and by definition, cosplayers). The question of what is appropriate to wear and when is a contentious issue, particularly as more women have expressed themselves as gamers and geeks in public. The culture clash has given rise to the "cosplay is not consent" movement.
The fact that this is even a topic of discussion at all is due to the changing demographics of a traditional "gamer." Until recently, the media has portrayed gamers as white males. While this might have been true for some segment of the population, Jon Peterson has demonstrated that even the early roots of D&D were much more cosmopolitan because the fan base had its roots in sci-fi:
It is perhaps no coincidence that gender diversity was rooted in the creation of the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA). Females were rare in wargaming, slightly more common in tabletop gaming, and progressively more common in computer gaming -- and in online games, the ability to distinguish gender diminished further.
[h=3]Affiliation[/h]Increasingly, what constitutes a gamer is not an assessment that can be made merely by looking at a person. The definition of a gamer has diversified as much from who plays the game as to what type of game they play. Dungeons & Dragons, for example, has expressions in tabletop (role-play, board game, card game), gamebook, computer game, and live action formats. Because of the definition of a game tends to be fluid, the definition of gamers has blurred as a result. This generalization is sometimes detrimental. Brandon Sheffield discusses the challenge at Gamasutra:
Colin Campbell's article in Polygon builds on Sheffield's work:
Given this stigma, it's perhaps no surprise that many gamers cover their affiliation with gaming at work -- and it begins as soon as they walk through the door. This is one of the reasons why some gamers do not feel comfortable putting any kind of gaming experience on their resume.
Read an RPG Book in Public Week addresses this topic head on:
Of course, gamers affiliate with each other in a wide variety of forums, including ENWorld. The difference is that the affiliation can be segmented; unless you choose to self-identify in a public way, most non-gamers won't know who you really are on the Internet.
Blizzard learned an important lesson about affiliation when it decided to switch its forum users to Real ID, which would require posters to use their real-life names on Blizzard message boards. The change only applied to message boards -- players could still use aliases within the http://Battle.net gaming network -- but that didn't quell the vociferous response from Blizzards' membership. Three days later, Blizzard rescinded the decision. Edward Castronova, author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, said:
Blizzard found out the hard way that one's affiliation with a game is not determined by the game alone.
[h=3]Association[/h]In tabletop role-playing games, it is much more difficult to not associate with a group; by definition, an adventuring party requires more than one person (and at least one game master). This association morphed over time as the industry matured from local players (Gary Gygax, co-creator of D&D, had games of up to 20 players at a time!) to game conventions, which greatly broadened access to those with like-minded interests.
Gygax quantifies the types of convention experience a game master might have in Master of the Game. Beyond just game mastering for one's own group, Gygax recommends "guest GMing" in which the GM subs for another group he doesn't play with regularly. The next level is game mastering open events at conventions, in which the GM doesn't necessarily know any of the players. The third level is game mastering official tournaments, which are usually restricted by a time limit. The final stage is running a game in public:
Most game media that originated with tabletop gaming requires association as well (LARPs, for example). Tunnels & Trollswas the first to address the fundamental challenge that D&D had to be played with a group by creating solo game adventures and later, gamebooks that could be played by just one person as described by Shannon Appelcline in Designers & Dragons -- The 70s:
Computer role-playing games would make solo play even more feasible so that the player could control an entire party of adventurers.
Just as computer media made it possible to play RPGs without associating with anyone, they also expanded a gamer's reach on the Internet to play with just about anyone. The Internet took it even further so that fandom could flourish worldwide, as described in my previous articles about D&D fandom. YouTube and Twitch have both made it possible to share the RPG experience of a small group with a much larger audience. It's easier than ever to associate with like-minded gamers.
[h=3]Advocacy[/h]Gamer advocacy takes affiliation and association to a new level. Gygax explains in Master of the Game:
As a Master Game Master you must consider what efforts you can make in the field of public relations for role-playing game activity. As an articulate speaker and author of informative material pertaining to RPGs and those who play them, your contribution might not receive immediate recognition amongst the community of enthusiasts, but the long-range effect will be positive, lasting, and of undeniable merit. Hopefully, we will have such Master GMs actively pursuing speaking and writing to such an extent that they will receive due recognition. Until then be prepared to accept the lauds of those who are immediately around you and little else.
There was another side to the public relations of gaming of course, which Gygax warned about when performing gaming demonstrations in public:
The Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games (Car-PGA) arose as a result of this Satanic Panic of the 80s, wherein D&D was characterized as luring young men into demon-worshipping cults. RPG Studies hosts The Pulling Reportby Mike Stackpole, an exhaustive response to critic Pat Pulling defending role-playing games. W.A. Hawkes-Robinson has also done groundbreaking work in cataloguing the value of RPGs in a wide variety of disciplines.
It's easy to forget that in a time of gamification of business, geek-speak on TV, and superhero movies everywhere that gamers had to battle for legitimacy.
[h=3]How Much Do You Cover?[/h]Increasingly, covering one's game interests has become less necessary over time. That doesn't mean everyone is comfortable with sharing their hobby -- there's a valid argument that some gamers prefer their hobby unexposed to public scrutiny and therefore more exclusive -- but nevertheless gaming is increasingly a topic of public discussion. As a result, all four of the covering axes have changed.
The appearance of a typical gamer now varies from the original young white male template. Gamers can affiliate more than ever before or, thanks to the anonymity afforded by the Internet, hide their gaming behind aliases. They can associate with gamers at huge conventions that are regularly sold out -- or choose to play solo with gamebooks and computer RPGs. And finally, gamer advocacy has diminished such that there's a question if organizations like the CAR-PGa are necessary anymore...even as gamer rights have become a matter of political and public debate. Ultimately, how you cover your gaming is up to you.
Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, and communicator. You can follow him at Patreon.
View attachment 76782
[h=3]How Covering Works[/h]The Deloitte study breaks down covering into four categories: appearance (how you look), affiliation (if you identify as a group), advocacy (who you stick up for in a conversation), and association (if you hang out with others who identify as part of the group). The study specifically looks at diversion and inclusion at work, but it's an interesting template that can be applied to how gamers express themselves. For example, if we segment different types of role-playing, tabletop role-players express themselves in a specifically-defined space (a table) which can make affiliation and association more private while Live Action Role-Players (LARPers) and cosplayers express themselves in larger physical spaces and thus tend to have a more visible affiliation and association.
Role-players understand covering well; it can range from taking on another role to editing out potentially stigmatized traits. According to the study, each individual must strike a balance between long-term covering and the potentially negative effects of reducing self-expression:
To assess this point, the survey specifically asked respondents about the perceived impact of covering. For each axis, the percentage of respondents who stated that the practice of covering was “somewhat” to “extremely” detrimental to their sense of self was high: 60 percent for appearance; 68 percent for affiliation; 62 percent for advocacy; and 73 percent for association. For many respondents, then, the effects of covering were far from trivial.
The issue is critical for organizations seeking to blend their membership:
Because organizations have operated under a melting pot ideal for so long, the first instinct might be to dismiss the impact of covering. Yet as the demographics of the nation change, it becomes ever more crucial to understand the implications of covering. The survey found that covering negatively impacts individuals’ sense of self and diminishes their commitment to their organizations
For gamers, this topic applies to everything from who you play with (e.g., friends, strangers), where you play (in public, at home), when you play (free time, at conventions) and even how (cosplay, LARPs, tabletop, computer, gamebooks). The kind of gaming and the gamer's personality influences how these four axes are expressed, as we'll see below.
[h=3]Appearance[/h]A gamer's appearance can vary from wearing a shirt declaring one's affiliation for gaming to a full costume (e.g., some LARPers and by definition, cosplayers). The question of what is appropriate to wear and when is a contentious issue, particularly as more women have expressed themselves as gamers and geeks in public. The culture clash has given rise to the "cosplay is not consent" movement.
The fact that this is even a topic of discussion at all is due to the changing demographics of a traditional "gamer." Until recently, the media has portrayed gamers as white males. While this might have been true for some segment of the population, Jon Peterson has demonstrated that even the early roots of D&D were much more cosmopolitan because the fan base had its roots in sci-fi:
The release of Dungeons & Dragons triggered a crucial intersection of two fandoms: wargames fandom and the group collectively known as science-fiction fandom, which included fantasy fans. This is significant because science-fiction fandom, while predominantly male, had far more gender diversity than wargames fandom. Exactly how much diversity has been a matter of some scholarly debate; a recent study suggests that as of 1960, science-fiction fandom was perhaps one-fifth female. Other data points show finer divisions: while subscribers to a hard science-fiction magazine like Analog might have been only one-tenth female, a survey of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction — which published many of the fantasy stories that inspired the creators of Dungeons & Dragons — revealed that around a third of its readership was female as of 1966. Fans of that era, most notably Diana Paxson, invented the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medieval recreation group which offered dramatically segregated, yet appealing, roles for male and female participants. However we measure it, science-fiction fandom attracted far more women than wargaming.
It is perhaps no coincidence that gender diversity was rooted in the creation of the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA). Females were rare in wargaming, slightly more common in tabletop gaming, and progressively more common in computer gaming -- and in online games, the ability to distinguish gender diminished further.
[h=3]Affiliation[/h]Increasingly, what constitutes a gamer is not an assessment that can be made merely by looking at a person. The definition of a gamer has diversified as much from who plays the game as to what type of game they play. Dungeons & Dragons, for example, has expressions in tabletop (role-play, board game, card game), gamebook, computer game, and live action formats. Because of the definition of a game tends to be fluid, the definition of gamers has blurred as a result. This generalization is sometimes detrimental. Brandon Sheffield discusses the challenge at Gamasutra:
...popular opinion was now firmly established -- these things were for kids. Then these game players grew up, and they kept playing games. This was viewed as regressive -- people still playing with children's toys. From here, you got games as villainous, creating a Peter Pan syndrome in our youth, or the "basement-dwelling manboy." The impression is that "gamers" are just playing with their childhood toys. In the 90s, there was a mainstream view of the older game player as a deviant.
Colin Campbell's article in Polygon builds on Sheffield's work:
A section of "gamer culture" has sought to take ownership of the word as an identity of belonging, which has made the tag seem all the more exclusionary, particularly to those on the outside. And so we are left with the problem of "gamer" holding two meanings; one cultural and one descriptive. Ultimately, those meanings cannot long survive side-by-side.
Given this stigma, it's perhaps no surprise that many gamers cover their affiliation with gaming at work -- and it begins as soon as they walk through the door. This is one of the reasons why some gamers do not feel comfortable putting any kind of gaming experience on their resume.
Read an RPG Book in Public Week addresses this topic head on:
The point is to make the roleplaying hobby more visible, to get it "out of the basement" and into public areas where more people can see it. This will make others more aware of the hobby - some may ask you what your book is about, giving you the opportunity to explain the hobby to them. A few of those may be interested enough to try it themselves. Former gamers may see what you're reading and think about the great times they used to have with roleplaying, and possibly even try it again.
Of course, gamers affiliate with each other in a wide variety of forums, including ENWorld. The difference is that the affiliation can be segmented; unless you choose to self-identify in a public way, most non-gamers won't know who you really are on the Internet.
Blizzard learned an important lesson about affiliation when it decided to switch its forum users to Real ID, which would require posters to use their real-life names on Blizzard message boards. The change only applied to message boards -- players could still use aliases within the http://Battle.net gaming network -- but that didn't quell the vociferous response from Blizzards' membership. Three days later, Blizzard rescinded the decision. Edward Castronova, author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, said:
What I think [happened] here is when people go on forums, it's kind of a sub-game of World of Warcraft. It's like a community that's somewhat tied to your in-game play; it's a place that's been part of the gameplay. Any time you redefine boundaries after people are already invested in a certain way of doing things, that's going to be problematic.
Blizzard found out the hard way that one's affiliation with a game is not determined by the game alone.
[h=3]Association[/h]In tabletop role-playing games, it is much more difficult to not associate with a group; by definition, an adventuring party requires more than one person (and at least one game master). This association morphed over time as the industry matured from local players (Gary Gygax, co-creator of D&D, had games of up to 20 players at a time!) to game conventions, which greatly broadened access to those with like-minded interests.
Gygax quantifies the types of convention experience a game master might have in Master of the Game. Beyond just game mastering for one's own group, Gygax recommends "guest GMing" in which the GM subs for another group he doesn't play with regularly. The next level is game mastering open events at conventions, in which the GM doesn't necessarily know any of the players. The third level is game mastering official tournaments, which are usually restricted by a time limit. The final stage is running a game in public:
Expanding your GM-ing to neophytes, that is, virtually totally ignorant individuals, might seem both trying and unrewarding. Well, it is and it isn't! If you can manage the opportunity, do so. Are there places in your locale where some purveyor of roleplaying game products will let you GM in demonstration games? That is, is there a shopping mall or center with a game store or book shop which sells RPGs, which might be interested in sponsoring a special event some weekend with you teaching potential enthusiasts how to be an RPG player? Talk to your suppliers and see if they are interested. They'll have to advertise the event, provide a space for play sufficient to seat you and about a halfdozen player participants, with extra room for spectators. You, in turn, will have to provide your knowledge and expertise as GM. This means a simplified scenario which is highly entertaining, demonstrates the major features of the RPG system used, is easy to understand, challenging nonetheless, and relatively non-lethal.
Most game media that originated with tabletop gaming requires association as well (LARPs, for example). Tunnels & Trollswas the first to address the fundamental challenge that D&D had to be played with a group by creating solo game adventures and later, gamebooks that could be played by just one person as described by Shannon Appelcline in Designers & Dragons -- The 70s:
Meanwhile Flying Buffalo was determined to support Tunnels & Trolls, and they did so in a rather unique way. After a Phoenix science-fiction convention, Rick Loomis, Ken St. Andre, and several of St. Andre’s friends were talking at a restaurant. Steve MacAllister suggested that someone should make a dungeon adventure like a “programmed text” math book — where you picked an answer among four solutions, then went to another page to see if your selection was correct. Loomis liked the idea, and when he got home he wrote Buffalo Castle (1976), “T&T Solo Adventure #1.” By writing Buffalo Castle, Loomis created a whole new genre of publication, the solo adventure.
Computer role-playing games would make solo play even more feasible so that the player could control an entire party of adventurers.
Just as computer media made it possible to play RPGs without associating with anyone, they also expanded a gamer's reach on the Internet to play with just about anyone. The Internet took it even further so that fandom could flourish worldwide, as described in my previous articles about D&D fandom. YouTube and Twitch have both made it possible to share the RPG experience of a small group with a much larger audience. It's easier than ever to associate with like-minded gamers.
[h=3]Advocacy[/h]Gamer advocacy takes affiliation and association to a new level. Gygax explains in Master of the Game:
As a Master Game Master you must consider what efforts you can make in the field of public relations for role-playing game activity. As an articulate speaker and author of informative material pertaining to RPGs and those who play them, your contribution might not receive immediate recognition amongst the community of enthusiasts, but the long-range effect will be positive, lasting, and of undeniable merit. Hopefully, we will have such Master GMs actively pursuing speaking and writing to such an extent that they will receive due recognition. Until then be prepared to accept the lauds of those who are immediately around you and little else.
There was another side to the public relations of gaming of course, which Gygax warned about when performing gaming demonstrations in public:
...have anti-defamation materials ready. That is, there are many false and damaging claims and assertions about role-playing games, especially fantasy. Because DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is a world-renowned name, it is attacked most frequently. Whether your game is that one or any other, the generally baseless attacks and so-called dangers attributed to role-playing activity must be answered intelligently, honestly, and as clearly and completely as possible. Have your own answers ready for the casual inquirer. If there is someone obviously looking for trouble in this regard, however, it is best to have printed material ready to give to the individual seeking to cause you difficulty. Thereafter, avoid debate by all means. You are there to demonstrate how to play an RPG, show its fun and excitement, and to answer positive, normal questions pertaining to the activity.
The Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games (Car-PGA) arose as a result of this Satanic Panic of the 80s, wherein D&D was characterized as luring young men into demon-worshipping cults. RPG Studies hosts The Pulling Reportby Mike Stackpole, an exhaustive response to critic Pat Pulling defending role-playing games. W.A. Hawkes-Robinson has also done groundbreaking work in cataloguing the value of RPGs in a wide variety of disciplines.
It's easy to forget that in a time of gamification of business, geek-speak on TV, and superhero movies everywhere that gamers had to battle for legitimacy.
[h=3]How Much Do You Cover?[/h]Increasingly, covering one's game interests has become less necessary over time. That doesn't mean everyone is comfortable with sharing their hobby -- there's a valid argument that some gamers prefer their hobby unexposed to public scrutiny and therefore more exclusive -- but nevertheless gaming is increasingly a topic of public discussion. As a result, all four of the covering axes have changed.
The appearance of a typical gamer now varies from the original young white male template. Gamers can affiliate more than ever before or, thanks to the anonymity afforded by the Internet, hide their gaming behind aliases. They can associate with gamers at huge conventions that are regularly sold out -- or choose to play solo with gamebooks and computer RPGs. And finally, gamer advocacy has diminished such that there's a question if organizations like the CAR-PGa are necessary anymore...even as gamer rights have become a matter of political and public debate. Ultimately, how you cover your gaming is up to you.
Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, and communicator. You can follow him at Patreon.
