Are gamers really that pathetic?

[Plane Sailing]

It's great to see that this long (and potentially divisive) thread is staying civil - thanks to everyone for keeping it polite, long may it continue.

Cheers!
Plane Sailing
(Moderator)

 

[Desdichado]

I'm saying that there is no "good of the hobby." There are no common interests vis a vis the type of people you game with, and I find opbsessing over it to be an odious habit in of itself that is just a facet of the same old struggle for geek cred.

OK, now that I can agree with.

I see the GSF quoted all the time.

I'll take your word for it.

If you're complaining about it in a fashion that does not describe specific cases but appeals to a purported trend, then you are, to be frank, part of the problem with gaming, not the solution. I met precisely *one* purported CPM that lived up to their reputation -- and I guest at cons pretty regularly. The rest are just at the wrong end of particularly juvenile social games.

And this I can understand as well. I think, however, that the scope in this thread is not as broad as all that after all. Nisarg seems to be saying that he doesn't like cat piss man (then again, who really does?) and thinks they bring down the reputation of the hobby to outsiders. You seem to be saying that you doubt there really are that many CPMs, and the gaming snob tries to establish "geek cred" by being less uncool than CPM is a bigger problem.

I guess now that I understand where you're going, I tend to agree more with you. Cat piss man is a near mythical creature whereas folks who appear relatively normal (if somewhat nerdy) and who don't smell, yet who are incredibly socially immature and obnoxious are the bane of gamers in my opinion much moreso that a mythical loser who can't find work, can't stand the sun, can't leave his basement, can't find a shower, etc. I mean, I agree with Nisarg too, but I don't think the problem is nearly as big as he makes it out to be, and in addition, I think it's pretentious to go about "cleaning up the hobby." I don't do anything much "for the sake of the hobby."

 

[Nisarg]

I guess now that I understand where you're going, I tend to agree more with you. Cat piss man is a near mythical creature whereas folks who appear relatively normal (if somewhat nerdy) and who don't smell, yet who are incredibly socially immature and obnoxious are the bane of gamers in my opinion much moreso that a mythical loser who can't find work, can't stand the sun, can't leave his basement, can't find a shower, etc. I mean, I agree with Nisarg too, but I don't think the problem is nearly as big as he makes it out to be, and in addition, I think it's pretentious to go about "cleaning up the hobby." I don't do anything much "for the sake of the hobby."

Well, it could be that I've had more firsthand experiences with the CPM; but I can (and have, in this very thread) described encounters with them on many many occasions. Those weren't just generalities: I really have seen guys intentionally hanging around FLGS trying to "freak the mundanes" or giving off a horrid funk, or screaming for no good reasons (said FLGS later had,unfairly, the problem of being labeled "unfriendly" because it had a policy of kicking out some of these people). I have really seen grossly overweight, literally dirt-encrusted guys hitting on a 16 year old girl at her first con (I would guess she won't be going to a second one, I wouldn't really blame her). At my university undergrad club there were at least 3 seperate CPM. The guy who tried to join every game, didn't bathe and was overweight and unkempt. The guy who was fat and had moderately questionable hygene and started screaming and throwing tantrums in games. And the guy who was thin, bad hygene, seemed to have no concept of appropriate sexual modesty in public, and tried to steal RPG books from the club library.

In my decades of gaming I have also had dozens of catpiss men try to get into my gaming groups, all of which have been promptly shown the door.

The reasons for why I might have had more experience than others could have to do with regional issues (maybe western canada has a much higher degree of socially dysfunctional individuals joining RPG activities than other regions of north america?); or it could have to do with the mere fact that I've always made a point to be as active as possible in gaming at the local community level, and so I've been active in the places where CPM show up and become a problem (stores, clubs, and cons).

But remember, to me the fundamental problem is not the mere existence of the CPM, it is the way the CPM and our tolerance of them are allowed to become the poster-boys for role-playing as far as society and the popular media are concerned. While we can do things regarding society, at the local level, or the media level, to try to change this awful stereotype of gamers, part of the responsibility is ours. Part of why CPM is seen by TV shows, movies, news reports etc. as the face of roleplaying is because we in roleplaying all to often tolerate him to the extent that he is allowed to dictate the hobby's attitude and image overall.

Its happened in other kinds of fandom, most notably in furry fandom, but in trekkie fandom and others too.

Nisarg

 

[Desdichado]

As always the disclaimer: "Individual experience may vary" applies. However, if CPM were really that common, more people would have experiences with him.

 

[Crothian]

I had one CPM try to jion my game once, I flat out told him no. People have to realize this type of behavior is not accepted especially at convnetions and gather points like gaming stores.

 

[Nisarg]

I had one CPM try to jion my game once, I flat out told him no. People have to realize this type of behavior is not accepted especially at convnetions and gather points like gaming stores.

The conventions are what draws bad media attention often, but in a local, gamer by gamer basis, the worst problem is with the FLGS.. some mom brings in her 13 year old son because he played a game of D&D and wants to buy his first book, and she sees a room full of catpiss-men, she can't be blamed for turning the kid around and doing her utmost to make sure he never ends up having anything to do with this hobby.
Or some teenage girls are getting into comics or gaming, but when they go to the FLGS the CPMs freak them out/hit on them or what have you, and bingo, no new female gamers.

Nisarg

 

[Numion]

I read this thread and thought "Gee, I've been really lucky, gaming only with friends who are all pretty normal, never meeting these asocial and weird cases". We all have steady jobs, don't live home, have GFs (average age 25), half of the group owns their homes (FWIW, mentioned earlier in the thread).

Soo .. to the point. That stirred a supressed memory. I was around 15, and an acquintance recommended a local RPG club for me and a friend. We go there, find a bunch of nerdy looking guys creating characters, most older than us by 2-10 years. Nothing wrong with that. There's a game opening, and we're free to join. Great.

Then the guys start to gleefully explain about their characters. They had a theory going: no sane people would really start to be adventurers, with the risk of death and all that. Ok. The shocker is that in their mind insane really means sexually abnormal. Every damn single one of their characters was anything but a heterosexual. And deviant in some other way.

So they're having a blast telling us about the intricasies of Ogre-Halfling breeding and completely miss that for us RPGs aren't really about that.

The experience really weirded us out. We never visited that club again, nor any other RPG club for that matter. And I can't understand why anyone normal would either.

So I'm with Nisarg on this one. Way to get new people into gaming when the clubs are infested with scum like this.

 

[Crothian]

The conventions are what draws bad media attention often, but in a local, gamer by gamer basis, the worst problem is with the FLGS.. some mom brings in her 13 year old son because he played a game of D&D and wants to buy his first book, and she sees a room full of catpiss-men, she can't be blamed for turning the kid around and doing her utmost to make sure he never ends up having anything to do with this hobby.
Or some teenage girls are getting into comics or gaming, but when they go to the FLGS the CPMs freak them out/hit on them or what have you, and bingo, no new female gamers.

Nisarg

Then the people who own these stores need to take action or other people who shop there need to complain to the owners. I've refused to shop at storeds who had bad customer service, and we've had threads here complaining about how bad customer service is not that uncommon. Perhaps people need to ban together to help in this area.

 

[Kalanyr]

So if I have a fungal infection in my foot I should be shown the door so I don't degrade the image of the hobby ?

As for a few of the other criteria used to judge the value of a gamer to the hobby, I fail to understand what being overweight has to do with anything at all.

If you don't want to game with people don't game with them. This however gives you no right to attempt to evict them from the hobby.

 

[Lichtenhart]

Meeting people like that can drive people away from the hobby but I wouldn't say the contrary is true. For example, maybe the club owners did exactly what you advise, they banned those customers, but since you never set foot in the club again, they haven't recovered you as a customer.
In my area, we built a fine roleplaying community organizing a lot of one-shot adventure tournaments, with simplified rules and pre-made characters, we asked for permission to LARP in our town streets, and often invited the media. A lot of would-be gamers thought that 4 hours of an adventure just to try it couldn't have hurt too much, and got hooked into the hobby. People appreciated the novelty of seeing boys and girls dressed in funny ways acting on the streets, and in more than one town the municipality offered roleplaying clubs a seat for a little price or even for free.
People got together, founded a society called '25th edition' that translates, prints and ships 3e-3.5e books all over the country, allowing so access to the hobby to non-english speaking players too - all of this from my city, that is hardly one of the biggest in Italy.
Sure it took a lot of work, but if you want to do something 'for the sake of the hobby' do something that matters.

BTW, Crothian, when you told your CPM he could not game with you, did you tell him why?