Psionicist
Explorer
Hello there friends.
I just read some threads here at the message boards as I use too, when in all of a sudden I got an idea. At first, it was a pretty odd idea, but after a while it developed to something rather interesting. There are two points, or two statements, that made me think. The first statement is...
Role-Playing Games are immature and childish!
There was a thread some days (weeks perhaps?) ago about whether or not Dungeons & Dragons and role-playing games in general are childish and immature. Most of us (say, all of us) here agree that it's not the case. It CAN be childish and immature but it totally depends on the players, the DM, the gaming style or a combination of these.
However, this is not the point. What does the average Joe Six-pack think about gamers? Some months ago there was a thread about Dungeons & Dragons over at hardforums.com. HardForums is a computer related message board with no less than 50000 members. Heck, there are tons of gamers over there but the general mood was, that D&D and RPGs are "odd", or perhaps "weird". Some thought it was childish and a very few percent actually played the game.
Okay we have one board. So I decided to post the same question over at anandtech and ars-technica (two other huge computer message boards), with the same result. I figured talking about D&D and RPGs on geek-message boards was a bad idea.
I had to find a message board with mostly non-geeks. So, I stumbled over a car-related forum and some sort of Swedish community for kids 10-25 years old that write like your average AOL-user, plus two other "generic" chat-boards. For the record I also asked five or so random people-persons at the local store.
Go figure in all of a sudden I was childish and immature, possible a "freak" and a wee bit "odd", "silly" or "weird"...
Message boards in general
Okay, statement two then, about Internet bulletin boards / forums. Something I noticed during my "research" was indeed something worth to write about here. All of the above message boards I visited were AWFUL compared to the EN World boards, with tons of immature and childish people, posts and mood, something that I never ever see here (although I used to be awfully disturbing myself, but that's another story).
My point is, and THE point is, how is it possible that something that is so childish and immature as role-playing games and dungeons & dragons, have one of the finest message boards I have ever read and visited dedicated to itself?
I find this... hard to believe actually. Heck EN World is far from the most mature and "serious" boards online but it's da*n nice people over here and it's not wrong to post jokes and things like that, and still keep the general great feeling of a mature board (in a good way that is). This is very, very rare I tell you...
Comments?
I just read some threads here at the message boards as I use too, when in all of a sudden I got an idea. At first, it was a pretty odd idea, but after a while it developed to something rather interesting. There are two points, or two statements, that made me think. The first statement is...
Role-Playing Games are immature and childish!
There was a thread some days (weeks perhaps?) ago about whether or not Dungeons & Dragons and role-playing games in general are childish and immature. Most of us (say, all of us) here agree that it's not the case. It CAN be childish and immature but it totally depends on the players, the DM, the gaming style or a combination of these.
However, this is not the point. What does the average Joe Six-pack think about gamers? Some months ago there was a thread about Dungeons & Dragons over at hardforums.com. HardForums is a computer related message board with no less than 50000 members. Heck, there are tons of gamers over there but the general mood was, that D&D and RPGs are "odd", or perhaps "weird". Some thought it was childish and a very few percent actually played the game.
Okay we have one board. So I decided to post the same question over at anandtech and ars-technica (two other huge computer message boards), with the same result. I figured talking about D&D and RPGs on geek-message boards was a bad idea.
I had to find a message board with mostly non-geeks. So, I stumbled over a car-related forum and some sort of Swedish community for kids 10-25 years old that write like your average AOL-user, plus two other "generic" chat-boards. For the record I also asked five or so random people-persons at the local store.
Go figure in all of a sudden I was childish and immature, possible a "freak" and a wee bit "odd", "silly" or "weird"...
Message boards in general
Okay, statement two then, about Internet bulletin boards / forums. Something I noticed during my "research" was indeed something worth to write about here. All of the above message boards I visited were AWFUL compared to the EN World boards, with tons of immature and childish people, posts and mood, something that I never ever see here (although I used to be awfully disturbing myself, but that's another story).
My point is, and THE point is, how is it possible that something that is so childish and immature as role-playing games and dungeons & dragons, have one of the finest message boards I have ever read and visited dedicated to itself?
I find this... hard to believe actually. Heck EN World is far from the most mature and "serious" boards online but it's da*n nice people over here and it's not wrong to post jokes and things like that, and still keep the general great feeling of a mature board (in a good way that is). This is very, very rare I tell you...
Comments?
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