D&D Social Stigma

[DonTadow]

It seems to be expressively forbidden by the author. From a thread regarding this topic on rpg.net:

"WotC has the rights to do a Potter RPG, but Rowling has stated she feels RPG "rot kids brains." That's a direct quote from the woman at WotC in charge of flying to England and trying to covince Rowling otherwise."

Talk about social stigma .

Yes all the covervettes and mercedes that pull up at gencon, Sure it rots brains. I need some of that brain rotting.

Thats such a hypocryptical statement for her to make. Honestly I thin kshe lucked up on an idea (enclyclopedia brown I tell you) and has great editors now. If wotc has the rights to it, I'm sure she could publish it without her consent.. I hope wotc isn't going to wait until its over, thats another missed opportunity. As much as I hate them (and try to express it every chance I get), her books provide a wonderful campaign setting and is ready made for rpgs. I had a DM one time whom had a planar tower complete wiht doors to every dimension. One of my favorite adventures was warping into Harry Potter land. Well we didn't know we warped in there at first. And we saw this flying train. We tried to catch p with it to see where we were and they started firing magic missles at us. We went on the defensive and then the offensive ant our mage torched the train. As we searched tothrough the dead bodies our DM told us we found the cremated remains of harry potter and his friends and we warped into their magic land. Fun times.

Back the subject, Honestly, i wouldnt be surprised if Rowlings played a little and then was scorned for some reason or another.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I think it's possible, and in fact likely.

Inevitable, even.

Computers and the games that can be played on them? Largely unnacceptable to the wider community, only decades ago.

MMORPGs and other CRPGs with huge amounts of PnP RPG influences? Immensely popular right now, and not only with geeks/outcasts/losers/whatever else the clichés apparently are (were?).

Some movies based on computer games have made decent sales too.


This is the way things tend to go in general, I think.


There'll be more and more references in popular culture too, probably. Maybe even some better movies based directly and openly on RPGs. It's only a matter of time...


Viva la conspiration!

 

[fusangite]

I'd tend to agree with this statement. There are nut jobs in every hobby, but for some reason gaming seems to attract a higher percentage of creeps and weirdos than other hobbies I've seen. It's actually kind of ironic: D&D is by nature a social game, but it seems to attract a lot of people who lack even the most basic of social skills.

That's because people who lack social skills tend to lack an intuition for what to do next in an ambiguous or complex social situation. Subcultures with rules for social interaction attract people who are confused or disoriented by the highly informal, unstructured social interactions that typify our modern society. You will find the same over-representation of people lacking in social intuition (and thereby social skills because our culture doesn't teach people formal rules for interacting, nor does it apply them) in any hobby with spelled-out rules, like the S&M community or the SCA for instance.

 

[Ranger REG]

yes. it is possible to lose the stigma.

how?

stop acting like cowards who are too embarassed to admit you roleplay.

every day you live in fear, the stigma continues.

It's not acting like cowards, it's acting too proud and too moral, not giving into peer pressure like smoking and drinking and party late at night. Had I known these were crucial social skill material in high school, I should have given in.

Of course all of the above would have taken much of my RPG hobby time.

 

[Aaron L]

yes. it is possible to lose the stigma.

how?

stop acting like cowards who are too embarassed to admit you roleplay.

every day you live in fear, the stigma continues.

It's very easy to say to "not be a coward" when you haven't been pummeled by life repeatedly every time you try to be a normal person. Lets just say I'm not overweight and have no facial hair and I dont like Sailor Moon, but the rest... well, Ive tried. And I keep trying, but damn it's hard to overcome an entire life of things.

Ive been ostracized from my chruch for playing D&D, and this was only about 5 years ago. So its still going strong.

 

[wilrich]

But on the topic of this thread: generalized opinions about Social Groups for around a kernel of truth. they aren't accurate 100% of the time, but they are more often accurate than they aren't or--simply by observation of enough contrary examples--the Steretype will change.

What I'm saying is that, in my experience, for the most part groups earn their stigmas.

Quoted for its excellence. When gamers cease earning their stigma, it will go away. In addition, in my experience (based on what I have observed over my 20 plus years of gaming, going to FLGSs, and Cons) I believe, like Billy, and contrary to what some people have said above, that, for the most part, gamers DO earn their stigma.

 

[Wayside]

That's because people who lack social skills tend to lack an intuition for what to do next in an ambiguous or complex social situation. Subcultures with rules for social interaction attract people who are confused or disoriented by the highly informal, unstructured social interactions that typify our modern society. You will find the same over-representation of people lacking in social intuition (and thereby social skills because our culture doesn't teach people formal rules for interacting, nor does it apply them) in any hobby with spelled-out rules, like the S&M community or the SCA for instance.

So what you're really saying here is that socially skilled gamers gravitate toward rules lite systems?

 

[jones4590]

Where do you poeple live?!?!? I liv ein Atlanta and I've the balls to only tell one person, my best freind, that I game. Actulay, i don't game! Because everyone outside of the social wrecks and outright creepy people here think that D&D is somthing that only, well, social wrecks and creepy people play. My freind is intriguied but too aprehensive about the stigma to even game 1 on 1 at my house, in secret! He's (and, admittly, i am too, to an extent) too worried abotu what would happen if someone were to find out, by perhaps comign over and coming upon a misplaced rulebook. It's terrible. D&D is often the butt of jokes and dispariging remakrs are made of those who do openly game.

 

[fusangite]

So what you're really saying here is that socially skilled gamers gravitate toward rules lite systems?

He he. Although game system really had nothing to do with my post, I do think that, as a generalization, that idea does probably work too. If people lack skills for resolving disputes in a peer group, systems that facilitate that resolution will be more popular with them.

 

[eris404]

I think another reason for the social stigma is that it's self-perpetuating. I've run into a few people who don't like to publicly admit that they play D&D because they don't want to have this stigma applied to them. If you want other people to stop seeing it as something to be embarrassed about, then stop acting like it's something to be embarrassed about.

Sniffles, you rock.

This also reminds me of that flowchart that demonstrates the geek pecking order (http://www.brunching.com/geekhierarchy.html). Geekiness is relative.