Are you in the RPG closet?

[Umbran]

Most of my coworkers don't know I play RPGs, but they don't know I enjoy white water rafting, either. I don't actively hide it, but it doesn't generally come up in workplace conversation.

 

[nedjer]

I've put up a blog post on this same topic, but since I'm genuinely interested in community input and I don't see all that much traffic on my blog, I wanted to ask the EN World community as well.

Do your friends, family and work colleagues know that you play role-playing games? Obviously the people you live with and game with will know, but what about casual acquaintances or family members you only see a couple of times per year? More to the point in my case, what about colleagues from work?

I work for a big financial services company in a well-respected position. Yet I've never talked to anyone at work about my hobby (let alone the fact that I blog about it). It's a big chunk of how I spend my free time, but I never bring it up.

Granted, I'm not close friends with any of my colleagues, but I know about some of their hobbies and they at least know that I enjoy bowling and that my wife and I take care of foster kittens for the local shelter (and to be clear, I do get some gentle teasing about both of these things). My colleagues don't know that I play D&D.

At work, I'm in the RPG closet. Are you? Is it wrong to hide your hobby if you think people will look down on you for it?

I'm President of a large finance services company and I got my job by identifying and grassing up TRPG workers, including a fellow who actually runs an RPG blog. How we laughed

But seriously, I'm paid to deliver active learning via roleplaying, design gaming, case-based learning and critical thinking exercises. I like nothing more than taking an unenthusiastic headteacher, lecturer or similar and explaining how any forward thinking tutor interested in preparing students for an uncertain future is undermining learning outcomes and lowering exam results by failing to use these methods. So much so that they should seriously consider their role in education if they aren't prepared to connect with and support students effectively. Then I drop a ton of exemplars and research on them and smile brightly. When that's done I go off and blog on the topic. Come to think of it I reckon a post on design gaming should be topic of the day . . . on my way to Wordpress right now

 

[Nadaka]

Not in the gaming closet here. One of the advantages of working in Software is that everyone likes games of one kind or another.

I used to be in the gaming closet when I was younger. My mother was a very conservative christian and believed that D&D was a form of devil worship. It didn't help any that it was also a hobby of my older brother who was a screw up, unemployable and a pagan (shaman). Once I was in college, I decided not to hide it anymore and she eventually agreed to stop bothering me about it.

 

[jimmifett]

I've never bothered to hide it. My dad played in and out of the army while I was in the womb, mom hated it bc he played it with his friends, grandmother is of the Jack Chick variety, but no one likes her anyway. My wife plays now, my daughter plays and she is only 5. A couple co-workers played before they moved to different office. At work, I refer to game nights as Nerd Nights.

I don't care what others might say, because i'm unapologetically manly and don't see the need to hide anything from anyone. If they can't handle my aura of manliness, they can avert thier gazes and cowardly slink away.

See Image

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Double post.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I'm open about it if it comes up naturally but I don't go out of my way to talk about roleplaying with people who don't roleplay.

In college I was the Baron Administrator of Publicity for the Gaming Club (and later the Emperor of the Gaming Club). Each year we had a club festival for new students so they could see what clubs were available, so I was more public with my roleplaying then.

(My favorite time at the festival was when two girls came running up to our booth. "The Gambling Club!! Oh wait, "Gaming". Nevermind.")

 

[the Jester]

I'm completely open about being a gamer, and in fact I often recruit new gamers.

Edit: Not making any kind of judgment here, but it just seems like a weird thing to hide.

 

[Dimitri Mazieres]

I consider myself "discreet": I won't deny liking and playing RPGs if asked, but don't go out of my way to tell the world about it. Family and friends know that I used to play, but not always that sometimes I still do. And I literally have my RPG books stashed in a wooden chest. With a padlock

(The padlock is incidental. I didn't have anywhere else to put it. Or so I tell myself )

 

[scruffygrognard]

I only hide it from co-workers... with whom I share only minimal details of my personal life (my colleagues are a petty, gossipy lot).

My family, friends and wife (as well as past girlfriends) all know of my geeky ways.

 

[El Mahdi]

Nope, I let my rainbow D20 flag fly proudly and publicly!