Ashamed of being a Gamer?

[the Jester]

Why be ashamed of having a great time playing games? Or of being creative? Or of killing my friends? (Well, their characters, anyway.)

No shame. I have no second thoughts about declaring my gamerhood.

 

[Salad Shooter]

I have a fist-size D20 sitting on my desk at work, and I periodically get gaming materials delivered to the office. It'd also be hard to hide the shelves of gaming books from my wife...

I also work at a Linux-based software company. I am far from the geekiest. Heck, I work with the guy that wrote Hack.

 

[Piratecat]

I don't particularly like t-shirts with words on them, so I don't necessarily look the part, but I'm a game designer by trade. Discussing and analyzing games is downright fun! Computer games, board games, RPGs -- so long as it's not the only thing I'm talking about, I'm happy to bring them up in conversation if it seems relevant.

We keep most of the gaming gear up in the third floor game room. Easier to keep track of it that way.

 

[Water Bob]

Can you clarify this term? I'm thoroughly lost.

Outed? You've never heard that before?

Check out definition #2: Urban Dictionary: outed

That sucks. I mean, I find it kind of ironic, because I am not sure I would want anyone who got that hung up on another person's hobbies managing financials. I mean, if you cannot judge relevancy properly, how good is your judgement at all?

Yep. I used to be a little more open about it. Fresh out of college, I went to work in Medical Sales. I made the mistake of telling my boss and fellow representatives that I played D&D. They all seemed to enjoy my stories of what happened the game session before that had taken place on the weekend.

Then, I was in my office one day. I had been late into work that day (it was one of those jobs where I worked from home a lot). My boss and one of the other reps didn't realize I was in, and they were wondering where I was. My boss said, "You know, he probably stayed up all night playing that game and couldn't make it in on time."

At that moment, I realized how much I'd hurt myself in the office politics by admitting I play D&D. It was a good lesson. My boss could have been talking about an alcoholic who went on a bender the night before and his intent would have been the same.

The entire time I worked at that company, the stygma followed me.

Never again. I'm very careful about who I tell that I game since that time.

 

[darkwing]

My boss said, "You know, he probably stayed up all night playing that game and couldn't make it in on time."

Luckily for me, my boss was the DM.

 

[jorgeo]

I'd be more open if the word "role playing" didn't have a sexual meaning. I've had people think I'm into dressing like a furry or a french maid when I said I like "role playing games".

I have to list my hobbies for a work presentation, I'm thinking of using "tabletop RPGs" to avoid confusion and potential shame

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Not really. I just don't speak about it normally anymore than I speak what computer games I play. It's not often something I put into my job-application, but not only thing I skip (I don't mention computer games either).

I've run into some misunderstanding that it refer's to sexual role-playing, which is same word really. Lucky for larps they used different word, since it actually does include costumes. When costumes come up, I usually get the misundustanding part.

Roleplaying games are really sub-sub-genre and kinda expiring job here. People who used to play/still play stat to be 30+. Some are teching to their kids, some not.
So most of the people have no clue what it is, and I kinda hate explaining it. I suck at explaing myself, so that's just not something I like to do.

So unless it somehow appears in topics talked about I usually don't start one. Not even with friends who used to play and haven't for years, who know I still do. I mean, they aren't really that interesting about roleplaying games anymore, or especially about other people's characters.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Like so many others of you, I don't advertise my hobby but neither don't conceal it.

Not being a fan of funny apparel with slogans helps the first part, of course.

A long time ago I had my proselytizing phase where I preached the gospel to a lot of people. I learned that many people just "don't get it" and turn down any offer to just try it. Well, their problem, they are missing the fun!

Working for a software development company, a lot of colleagues have at least a passing acquaintance with RPG and/or have formerly played. If the topic comes up I don't have a problem to discuss gaming regardless of who might hear it.

A year ago one of our testers, who had learned from my hobby when I was discussing our last sessions with to colleagues who are playing in my group, asked me about it and expressed interest in giving RPGs a try.

I offered to run a demo game for the testers if he could garner enough interest from the group. The result was disappointing: of the 14 people, one wanted to try it, two gave a lukewarm "yeah, why not", one turned down the offer because RPG take too much time, and the other ten people weren't interested at all. And we are talking about university students, a group which produced a lot of gamers 20 years ago. Sigh.

So I stay on my island of gamer happiness and let the rest of the world wallow in the mire of the uninitiated.

 

[Jon_Dahl]

I hide it.
I feel that I'm not surrounded by open-minded or welcoming people. I hide almost everything from everyone, including gaming.

If people ask about my hobbies I just mention jogging and reading. It goes well enough with everyone's fragile comfort-zones.

 

[Li Shenron]

Never been ashamed, and never really understood why I should, or why some people are.

I'm not a geek about D&D. I don't wear t-shirt or buy any merchandize. In fact, I've never done that for any of my hobbies past to present. I am interested in doing the damn hobbies, and then talk about them with fellow hobbysts, but not to make it/them a "lifestyle" or fashion style.

D&D is just a game over here. If spending a few hours per week playing a RPG game with friends should generate shame, then so should playing repetitive computer games a few hours per night, which is a lot of people do. And so should be playing poker, lotto, slot-machines and any other money-winning (read: money-losing) game. I know a couple of people who lost their house or shop because of gambling games. Nobody has ever gone bankrupt because of a RPG, AFAIK. If someone dared to raise a brow on me playing D&D, I would ask how much time or money he wastes on those above (or smoking, or drinking, or call-girls...) and I am pretty confident that I would be very effective on making them much much more ashamed that they think RP gamers should be.