A Question of Leanings

[BiggusGeekus]

You want to know about leanings?

A couple years back some friends of mine and I went downtown to a club called, if I remember correctly, Club Chaos one weeknight for "Drag Queen Bingo". It was bingo moderated by three drag queens (all of whom obviously went to the gym and could kick my butt). Anyway, it was bingo and the prizes were various video casettes the titles of which I had never previously heard of, but the covers all featured strapping young men.

So anyway, a buddy of mine was late and apparently there is a penalty associtated with that in Drag Queen Bingo. For you see, even in normal bingo you have to make sure your cards get a "bingo" in some kind of line. Usually it can be any kind of line, but sometimes they specify vertical, horizontal, or diagnol. When my buddy walked in, the drag queens took one look at him and decided that the next game would be diagnol. But which way? To the left or to the right?

It was then that my buddy was called upon for a brief inspection of, well, his briefs. And shortly thereafter we were playing bingo with the goal being a diagnol line to the right.

Now that, my friend, was a lesson in leanings in gaming!

edit: but to answer the question, I've noticed no such trend. If there is a voice in one direction or the other I'd chalk it up to coincidence more than anything else.

 

[RangerWickett]

You want to know about leanings?

Sure! Sounds harmless enough.

. . . "How's it hanging?"

Oh God! I'm never playing Bingo again!

Me, I'm leftish, but if John Stewart were a conservative, I'd probably be one too.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

I am a rock-ribbed social conservative and republican. Politics has never been an issue in my games, though.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Like I said above, it is because the difference between myself and my gaming friends is not really in our values - we mostly agree

I obviously can't, and wouldn't, speak to you on political differences you have with your friends, but my experience is that political differences go way beyond trust in government, and into areas that -- well, that I simply can't expound upon, in consideration of the slight possibility that this thread isn't already marked for death. In other words, my experience has been that the difference between myself, my friends, and those on This Side and those on the Other Side is very much about values.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Me, I'm leftish, but if John Stewart were a conservative, I'd probably be one too.

Jon Stewart is on my girlfriend's List, and you know what? He'd probably be on mine, too.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Yeah, I'd never let that sort of thing come between friends. Like Torm said, mostly we all agree on the more general things.

 

[yangnome]

I' m one of those gamers on the conservative side of things. My groups have been comprised of people from both sides of the aisle, but have generally been more right leaning...then again, most of my groups have been comprised of a majority of military people. That isn't to say that there aren't liberals in the military, but being in teh military does rule out some of the far left ideologies... For example, someone diametrically opposed ot the military probably won't enlist. Even after being out, a number of members from my group have been comprised of the military...

 

[yangnome]

Oh, and just for fun, I guess I'll up the ante a bit.... I went to Jerry Falwell's University for a bit....and I'm a card carrying member of the Moral Majority. Then again, I helped playtest the BOEF. I guess I don't really like fitting in stereotypes.

 

[Captain Tagon]

All the gamers I personally know are pretty right wing. Very strict Constitutionalists and all that jazz. Then again, right and left, conservative and liberal, all depend on what kind of political background your country has anyway. In a republic like America socialists and their ilk are seen as left wing, or at least left leaning. On the other hand, in a communist regime, democracy would be seen as liberal because it is changing the status quo. These things shift too much to be good barometers. Then you have to accept the fact that most people only vote on two to four issues that they consider important which leads to situations where you end up with people voting for the same party and disagreeing on almost everything still. So I guess my point is I really don't care about political leanings. It's all transitory. Yeah.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Because politics is important to the people in my group, when we recruit new players we're very up-front about it: "[In addition to other stuff,] you must either be [this political persuasion] or willing to take a lot of crap for not being." And it's really not an idle warning.

It sounds like you have an exceptional amount of downtime at your table for this to even be an issue.

I haven't found any sort of overall leaning among pen and paper gamers. In my experience, MMORPG players are more likely to be more right wing to some degree than average and comic book readers are more likely to be more left wing to some degree than average. Why this should be, I don't know.