Are gamers really that pathetic?

[DrZombie]

Cat-piss men of the world unite, they try to take your hobby away. ROFLMAO.
So we have some south-american professor telling evryone to get rid of their cat-piss gamers, some self-proclaimed virgins who might or might not wash and might smell of cat-piss telling the prof to go to hell, and the rest of us reading and laughing their head off.

Btw, agamemnon, very touching, really, my heart is bleeding for you.
I mean, come on, what are you trying to say here. For all we know you're a 18 yr old blond babe having a laugh at the pathetic gamers. For all you know I'm a pathetic 35 yr old cat-piss fetishist still living with the mumified corpse of his mum feeding blood-covered ice-cubes to the local red-neck sheriff. I don't understand how anyone can get excited about what some complete stranger writes on an anonymous BBS. But, well, that's just me.

Oooh, and don't let me interrupt your well-founded discussion here, ladies and gentlemen. Btw, I like asian girls as well. Does that make me a pervert?

 

[Roman]

[Edit] I couldn't figure out how to use th PM function (is it possible without being a community supporter?) so I'm putting it here. Roman, try reading some of guides at this site. http://sucs.org/~nicholas/djb/index.php

You will find some advice that I don't agree with (many of the members swear that you have to be a jerk to attract women) but the Weapons of Mass Seduction and Boot Camp both have good suggestions for slowly ridding yourself of social phobias and gaining confidence. Also be sure to read some of the stickied threads available lower down on the page for additional tips.

Thanks I will give the site a look. Note: I do not actually know how successful I would be at attracting women since I never even tried...

 

[Lichtenhart]

This thread is amazing, really. Now my 2cp on the whole matter.

Let's face it, our hobby means, to a certain degree, pretending to be someone else. It's bound to attract people who are unsatisfied with their life, because it offers them evasion.
In a three hour window a week, they can be someone else, be it a powerful wizard, who has magic to solve all the problems of his life, a mighty warrior, who is strong, athletic, and attractive like we'd like to be, a sneaky rogue, who can backstab people he doesn't like without going to jail, and so on.
What I always loved about roleplaying games is that they help you put things in perspective. They make you think in more than one way. It's uncommon to meet a racist gamer, a religious fanatic gamer, a politics fanatic gamer. IMHO this kind of people can be incredibly more pathetic than a smelly guy.
Gamers can be pathetic. But usually they're pathetic in a harmless way. Even the catpiss man hurts himself more than anyone else. The catpiss man, and all those who have lesser degrees of social problems are exactly that: people who have problems. They are the victims here. As much as you can be embarassed being associated with them, you can never be hurt like they hurt themselves. And since they come to roleplaying games to escape their lives, the idea of escluding them just because they make you feel embarassed is... it sounds awful to me. I've met many people thanks to gaming that have become my best friends. It wouldn't have happened if I had let something about them prevent me from talking with them, or hanging with them. You think you have absolutely no social problems, good for you. Then you could do wonders helping them find solutions to their problems too, instead of showing them the door. Then people could start thinking that gamers are humane and understanding persons (like most of the gamers I know truly are) rather than smelly, pathetic social cases.

 

[Lichtenhart]

Btw, I like asian girls as well. Does that make me a pervert?

Only if your wife doesn't approve.

 

[Ghostknight]

Hey, this forum won’t let me type the word Es, En, Eye, Gee, Gee, Ee, Are

What about that well known town Shorpe

Well, it contains the " n i g g e r " word, so it removes that. I have a similar problem with my surname (it appeared when I tried to post an email address), except in my case it is the word "s h i t". What can I say, Eric's grandma is very sensitive!

 

[Ghostknight]

Hmm, well my experience is with South African gamers.

In twenty five odd years of RPG's I can only think of two individuals that were completely socially inept. Other than that my biggest problem is scheduling games around peoples family responsibilities (I have lost more gamers to marriage and kids than to any other cause!)

Of the people I know who game regulalrly all are married (ok, one is on his third wife- he just doesn't know how to keep his pants up!) And most have kids. Eevn when younger we often hit head banging clubs and alternative clubs regularly (hey- we were a amale group, we had to go out and find women, even managed to turn some of them into gamers. far more succesfully with Vampire and its heavy goth art work and the alternatives than with the head bangers!) As for personal hygeine, all have been pretty good (though after a marathon 48 hour straight session one weekend I must admit we were all fairly ripe! Never did that again (never mind the smell, 48 hours no sleep and you hallucinate the monsters!)

 

[Cerubus Dark]

Maybe its convention-goers that are pathetic

lol, I would have gone but it costs too much $$$ to go. Besides look at all the free stuff you get

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

I deal with the ‘public’ on a daily basis, every so often I have to remind myself that they’re not all idiots, but that it’s only the idiots that I remember.

I attended my first World Science Fiction con in 1979, the place was full of people like me, long-haired leather jacket & denim wearing blokes. Not smelly, not particularly scruffy (at least no more than was fashionable at the time). There were thousands of people at the con, listening to authors talks, buying books, drinking in bars. The TV cameras were there too.

There was a half hour documentary about the con aired a couple of months later (IIRC – it’s a long time ago). The documentary showed the one (rather odd) slim and moderately attractive girl-fan who walked around every day in a different costume, the couple of dozen overweight Trekkies in Starfleet regalia, and a few of the more eccentric (short, myopic & bald; grossly overweight; extremely tall; generally weird looking) attendees. The vast mass of normal folks were visible, out of focus, in the background.

Bottom line, it does not matter how reasonable you are
1) People (I assume that booth babes are people) only remember the out of the ordinary.
2) Any filmmaker will not want to make a film about normal people doing normal things, he wants wierdos and craziness, otherwise no-one is interested.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Okay.

I've gamed with a gamer who thought she was a werewolf. No. Really. I've gamed with a gamer who thought she had Brandon Lee's soul trapped in a crystal. I've gamed with a gamer who threw a hissy fit (a la a 2-year old not getting a piece of candy) when his character got slapped down as a result of his own action (what, he expected to be able to catch the vampire prince's chamber on fire and not have reprecussions?). I've gamed with people who thought they could really throw lightning bolts. I've gamed with a gamer who was so scared to death of girls that he told this girl that he really really liked that he was gay when *she* asked *him* out because of his social fears.

I don't game with those people anymore. I WON'T game with those types of people anymore. Call me an elitist if you want. I'm married with two kids, and a wonderful wife who, while not really a gamer, understands my obsession. Yeah, the people I game with have their eccentricities (myself included), but we're all socially functional people. Eccentricities are fine and even fun to a point, but some measure of "normal" is also important, especially since I don't want my daughters growing up to be pathetic social rejects (though if they wanna be gamers, that's fine..my oldest is very interested in gaming).

So, yes, they are out there. The nature of the hobby attracts eccentric and "odd" people; that's pretty much a fact. But there's "odd" (which I proudly proclaim to be) and then there's pathetic.

 

[diaglo]

i rountinely bite the heads off chickens.

i'm a gamer geek and proud of it.


i'm also married. and played varsity sports in high school of so, so many years ago.