The Elfish Gene - Another attack on gamers

[Melba Toast]

I read this book last year and loved it, but I was already a fan of the author before he wrote The Elfish Gene.

I find it hilarious that people are offended by the book though. It's really quite sweet. It was damned near the story of my youth.

 

[S'mon]

Oh, the story about Llandudno, that's the only one I had trouble believing. Bus stop "dryads"? Really? Life was never like that in small town rural New York.

Teenage girls waiting at bus stops is something you can see anywhere in the UK, even today! The guy does seem to be quite the ladies' man if you believe his accounts, but some people are just like that.

 

[haakon1]

Ah, perhaps the reason I never saw the bus stop dryad phenomenon is that there are no bus stops in the small town where I grew up. The only buses are for the disabled and for school. We're not big on public transport in small town America . . .

 

[S'mon]

Ah, perhaps the reason I never saw the bus stop dryad phenomenon is that there are no bus stops in the small town where I grew up. The only buses are for the disabled and for school. We're not big on public transport in small town America . . .

Yeah, it's a cultural thing. Think mall rats instead.

Edit: Or if you don't have a mall, well, on the strip outside the Dairy Queen? At the bowling alley? You have kids hanging around somewhere, right?

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

I got an advance copy of the book just before it came out in the UK and loved it. It's funny in places but pretty sad too, and rang very true to me as someone who played D&D in 1980 when I was 13. Highly recommended!

Cheers


Richard

 

[haakon1]

Yeah, it's a cultural thing. Think mall rats instead.

Edit: Or if you don't have a mall, well, on the strip outside the Dairy Queen? At the bowling alley? You have kids hanging around somewhere, right?

My hometown had no mall, no bowling alley, and no Dairy Queen (in our little part of the world, it's more often Friendly's or Carvel anyhow). Nowadays, there is a non-chain local place to buy ice cream and hamburgers, but the parking is in a shared lot in back, and nobody hangs out there.

I remember basically just hanging around at my neighbors houses, or hiking around in the woods, where you'd see more deer than people, guaranteed. Activities were pretty much stuff you stayed after school for and took the late bus home -- soccer and singing for me. If you took the early bus home, I'm not sure what you did.

Yes, there are places where there's even less to do than in Coventry. And it seems that D&D tends to be fairly popular in such places.

In the 1990s, some old lady tried to get Magic The Gathering banned in the local school district after school, but the local school board fought her and the NY State courts decided the school was right. Her logic? Separation of church and state, because MtG was teaching the religion of Satanism, as were the lessons on studying owl poo to understand what they ate to understand the local ecosystem, and a book called "Spies on the Devil's Belt" in the school library (it was about a local spy ring during the American Revolution, using a historical name for the group).

In my day, nobody even though of asking if we could play at school anyhow.

The one good thing out of the Satanism case? The media descended on our town, and asked my mom, who seemed likely to have a dummy opinion, what she thought of the accusations of teaching Satanism at school. And I quote
"In my day, we thought that Satanism was best taught at home." Needless to say, they didn't put that one on the nightly news.

 

[Adso]

Hello
Mark Barrowcliffe here, I wrote The Elfish Gene.

Hi Mark, and thanks for posting. I received your book for Christmas, devoured it, and have now passed it on to some of my coworkers. Page after page of The Elfish Gene reminded me of my own childhood here in the States. The emotion and the sense of wonder you describe when you discover the game--or rather some facsimile of the game—hit the nail right on the head. I remember after playing my first game of D&D, going home and creating my own versions of it just so I could share my excitement before I went out and bought the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide (I started a couple years after you). And it doesn’t stop there. I think you do an excellent job recapturing the wonder and awkwardness of growing up strange and with Dungeons & Dragons.

The Elfish Gene is not an attack on gamers. While Mark is brutally retrospective of his obsession with D&D and fantasy (and something I think he still "suffers" from today...I do too, but I am not as regretful as Mark seems to be at times), and sometimes that forced me to look back with the same brush on my own teenage years—something that was sometimes painful and awkward—I think that's one of the things that makes this a fantastic memoir.

Thank you, Mark, for writing such an entertaining look at your youth and providing me with some mnemonic milestones to reexamine my own. If you're ever out in the Seattle area, stop by the Wizards of the Coast offices. I for one would like to shake your hand, buy you lunch, and even tempt you with a game or two.

I'm sure I'm not the only one.

 

[Aeolius]

It's nice when you can laugh at yourself... particularly if you enjoy pretending to be an elf in your spare time.

Oh, this is an elf-help book, then?

 

[Aeolius]

I just saw a review of the book over at SCI FI WIRE

 

[Flobby]

Late as usual...

Little late on the thread (as usual..) but had to put my two cents in.
I think I read 2 or 3 posts from people that were open about D&D AND had a great social life, girls, etc... Can't say I can relate. I knew two guys who were totally open about the hobby in high school - one wore a hat that looked like something a hobbit should wear and a dice bag on his belt - pretty sure no girlfriend there!

My roommate was the other guy. After college we designed a d20 game and when we'd go to parties he would try to pick up girls by saying - Hey! me and my friend here are writing an RPG! No one ever came home with us at the time.

I was a bit of a dork, still am I guess - didn't go out of the way to hide D&D but wasn't very vocal about it either. My friends were either gamers or the guys who smoked in the back of the school (they would make fun of me for playing! Like smoking by the dumpster is so much cooler! )
Not that everyone that I played with was a dork. Or was a closet-dork rather. One of my gamer friends was on the football team but he wouldn't play at school with us and I'm pretty sure he would have killed me if I told his football buddies (are you reading this Rich?

Anyway I think more often than not is that most gamers were not one of the cool kids. And most of us tried to hide it.
Now that I'm older though and don't give a %$#! what people think, I'm pretty open about playing and looking back I think those two guys are the coolest, most hardcore people I know - total respect for them. They were proud of who the were. (And actually guy number 2 gets all kinds of action now.)

But I digress... the question was if the book would hurt the hobby? I'd say if anything it would help it. D&D is a GEEKY hobby, you're kidding yourself if you think its not. I think your more likely to get new players by just admitting it instead of trying to make it sound cool. So just be a geek and be proud of it - and there a lot of us from all walks of life with at least a little geek in us.

...that and the book just sounds pretty funny. I think what REALLY turns people off from D&D is how way too SERIOUS some us take the hobby more than the geekyness (word?) of it.

done.