The Stigma of D&D OR Help! I'm Stuck in the D&D Closet?

[diaglo]

i tell the same thing.

"This new edition plays like a video game. Your kiddies will probably like it. But if you want to play real D&D. Meet me in the steam tunnels beneath MSU."

i also as a party trick at the annual Xmas party... now Holiday party... bite the head off a chicken just to prove my geekitude.

 

[SirKosh]

I'm not alone

Try being a teacher in a town where the think "Phantom of the Opera" is satanic. (no joke)

My wife doesn't mind because "It's cheaper to play than golf."

 

[reanjr]

Secondly, I realized that the people who would reject me out of hand over playing D&D were people who would never have been my friends anyway, nor would I want to be friends with them. You know who I'm talking about: the school's "cool kids", the football players, the cheerleaders, etc.

I think you are now bordering on rudeness, though. I associated (didn't really hang out with outside of school) with all those groups of people in high school. And I played D&D. And at last SOME of them knew it (it's not like I defined my life by playing, so it probably didn't come up a whole lot).

D&D and being "cool" are entirely unrelated personality traits. I think people who associate D&D with non-"cool" are mostly the D&D players who didn't happen to be "cool," and so they think that that's how D&D is.

 

[reanjr]

For the sake of pure knowledge, could someone tell me, please, what a GEEK exactly is?!

I tried search the Internet, and a website indeed told me that I am a "geek". Fortunately I just a "Geek", on the following table:

* Geekish Tendencies
* Geek
* Total Geek
* Major Geek
* Super Geek
* Extreme Geek
* Geek God
* Dysfunctional Geek

I ca now fathom a little more about Geekiness, but I would be glad someone explains the term to me. And by the way, the difference wth "nerd" if there is one...

Thanks.

Nerd implies social ineptitude or immaturaty. Geek implies eccentrism. A geek is also an old term for a person in the circus who would eat anything (we're talking bugs, live trout, etc.)

 

[Dogbrain]

Secondly, I realized that the people who would reject me out of hand over playing D&D were people who would never have been my friends anyway, nor would I want to be friends with them. You know who I'm talking about: the school's "cool kids", the football players, the cheerleaders, etc.

I played D&D with football players in high school. One of the regulars in my group was captain of the wrestling team, senior class president, and regularly dated cheerleaders.

 

[stevelabny]

theres no good way to respond without insulting the original poster, his friends, and the people who related to him. but ill try

if you dont like yourself, why would anyone else?

ANYONE, whos into ANYTHING that makes them embarassed and hide in the "closet" needs to seriously re-think their lives. There is NO GOOD REASON to be in the closet about ANYTHING. This is you. Stop acting like a timid child.

 

[Neowolf]

Maybe my comment about the football players and cheerleaders was going a bit far, and if I offended anyone, I apologize.

I was really trying to point out the archetypal "cool kids" that most people encounter during those four years of awkwardness.

I realize that not all of them are that way, and in fact had a good friend who was one of my high school's football players.

 

[CarlZog]

I was out of gaming for a long time because of work. Now, in my late 30s, life is settling down a little and I'm gaming again.

Even in the years I wasn't gaming, if D&D would come in up in some otherwise unrelated conversation, I'd expound on my enthusiasm for the game. Doing so, gave me a chance to really examine what it was about the game I liked so much, and to find a way to explain that to people with no interest in fantasy, sci-fi, or games.

Now that I'm playing again and have to explain to non-gaming friends and family what I'm up to, I find it easy to rely on my enthusiasm -- and a healthy sense of self-deprecating humor. "Oh yeah, I'm a geek!" I say with a smile, before explaining why it's so much fun.

To many people I meet, D&D was just an 80s fad, that in their minds is as dead as a Cabbage Patch doll. That ANYBODY is still playing is a shocker to them!

zog

 

[jmucchiello]

For the sake of pure knowledge, could someone tell me, please, what a GEEK exactly is?!

There is no one definition of geek that applies at all times to all people (and geeks).

Suffice to say that you are one because you seek the knowledge of what one is.

Let's see.... A geek is someone who speaks a jargon and enjoys expanding his knowledge of that jargon.

I know. So what's a jargon? A jargon is any subset of language which is used to discuss a specialized topic. A jargon consists of invented words or existing words redefined such that two people familiar with the topic can exchange knowledge without having to explain the jargon to each other.

For example: bases, shortstop, balls, strikes, runs, outs, batting average, WHIP, on base percentage, etc are all terms in the baseball jargon. When you speak baseball with someone, you use these terms and both participants understand that they have the baseball meanings in lieu of any normal meanings they might possess.

Does this mean that talking baseball can only take place between two baseball geeks? No, a baseball geek not only understands the jargon, but enjoys expanding his knowledge of baseball. A baseball geek finds obscure baseball stat facts interesting. Knowing who was on deck when the final out of the 1978 world series was decided is as geekish a piece of information as being able to name 10 batman villains.

There are geek doctors, geek baseball fans, geek cooks, geek knitters, geek comic book collectors, geek scifi television show aficiandos. Each of those groups have a jargon they share. And some members of those groups are far too into it, crossing into the geek zone.

Some people will disagree with me and say there must be some level of science to have a true geek. That involves earlier definitions of geek. If you go by the Jargon file (look it up), only computer science produces geeks.

Before computers, geeks were the ham radio operators. Before that, they were trying to build flying machines out of bicycle parts. Leonardo DaVinci -- Class A geek. But while these are all scientific pursuits, the common thread among them is that geeks are seekers. They seek knowledge because they just want to know. And while this lends itself toward scientific study, seekers can also search anime and scifi and even batting average against for knowledge. (Non-scientific geeks of the past: people who could read/write/speak latin AND greek.)

And that is why you should embrace whatever geekness you can. Because if you have no geekness, you have no desire to gain knowledge. If you fail to seek, you stagnate.

 

[Dogbrain]

I was really trying to point out the archetypal "cool kids" that most people encounter during those four years of awkwardness.

My geek mojo was on, I was one with my geekness, and many cool kids could grok that. Those who couldn't simply looked foolish in the face of me. I simply didn't care what they thought--and not because I had no clue about what they thought. I was in-their-face apathetic. I figured, after getting my arm broken as a "joke" in the first grade, there was no social thing that could be done to me at school that could be any worse. I was right.