D&D 5E Dungeons and Dragons and the RPG Stigma

[Gnarl45]

I feel so sorry for your guys... I've never had any problems telling people that I love D&D. There was my grandpa but that's because I started when I was 10 and back then I insisted on having my brothers call me Master when playing .

I can't believe that D&D still has a bad reputation. Nowadays, everybody has at least heard of the Lord of the Rings movie or World of Warcraft. Bigotry really is a plague...

 

[Celtavian]

Besides my mother bringing up D&D making people into murderers because she watched a special that made the claim there was a correlation between the two, no stories I can think of one way or other. I live in Washington. Nerds are extremely common in Washington State. Most people are video game nerds, but video game nerds generally don't discriminate against D&D nerds. The one area where I do avoid D&D talk is with women. Women still don't find D&D attractive, at least most women (though more women play D&D today than in the past for sure). When even the owner of your football team is a nerd (Paul Allen of Microsoft) and your state is well known for tech, very hard to find nerd discrimination. Not to mention all the people walking around with tats and piercings and using drugs, regular folk often feel relieved to find out you're just a nerd in Washington.

I'm beginning to think Washington State is an oddball place that is sort a nerd/strange people mecca in the United States. When you grow up here, you don't notice the commonness of nerds or strange looking folk. I've heard from people from other parts of the United States that we're odd people, a bunch of hippies, nerds, goths, and other strange names. To sum it up, no, I've never felt nerd discrimination where I live. My friends and I used to play D&D at parties. Everyone there just left us to our business.

Heck, I was a heavy weight lifter in high school and my early twenties. I loved playing sports. I loved reading fantasy. I enjoyed all my subjects in school. And I loved playing RPGs. It was all accepted where I lived whether at work or when socializing. Still is today.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I live in the Bible Belt, it's never been anything but a plus for me at work or any of my social environments.

I did draw the line at inviting my boss to play even though she expressed an interest. We invite her in for Artemis, but a regularly activity where you're directing a supervisor sounds tricky.

To more directly address a detail of the OPs story. I would be careful in terms of how you interpret the MDs advice about Med School interviews. I've sat in on a fair amount of advising sessions for med school applicants through my job and... not being able to divert to a conversation on literature, art, history, or other 'serious leisure' topics certainly puts you in a position to miss an important opportunity in the interview.

He may be right that D&D isn't a great topic for an interview - unless you can relate it to something apropos - but it's hard to believe going a little nasal in your topic choices is a bad strategy.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I never brought it up in my years in corporate life because of the risk of being stigmatised. And while I didn't (and don't) really care about the social impacts of being stigmatised (simply because I have a strong network of friends going back decades), I cared about the potential damage it would cause to my income.

Despite having left corporate life behind - although I return from time to time to keep certain skills sharp - I effectively maintain two profiles online even to the point of using two browsers. Scrivener of Doom + Firefox is my nerd life. My real name + Google Chrome is my real life. I also have different social media accounts on my two browsers to accommodate this.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Most people who don't have any direct experience with RPGs don't have any idea what they really are like. Sometimes they think they do, but they are usually wrong.

Here's an experiment. Next time someone asks about things you enjoy doing, describe role-playing games without ever saying "role-playing" or "D&D" or "Dungeons & Dragons." People who actually have an idea of what they are are likely to say something like, "oh, you mean like Dungeons & Dragons?" But I've found it much more common to hear, "that sounds kind of cool." Sometimes it's expressed with actual interest and curiousity, other times you can tell it isn't for them. Either way it demonstrates how little idea most people have about what RPGs even are.

Another example. I was telling someone about how my young nephews had asked me to let them play D&D with me, and how much they enjoyed it and such. She thought it sounds like a fun thing to do. But the funny thing is that in a later conversation about the topic, she was under the misconception that its primarily all about role-playing evil characters. (I then explained to her that playing evil characters and evil themed games has always been a minority, with playing heroes or at least not villains being by far the majority experience.) Here's the thing though--even though she didn't have a bad impression of the game, she still misunderstood it because she thought that playing the bad guy was a major part of what the game was all about. (Evil characters definitely have their place in D&D, but that isn't what "the game is all about" by any stretch.)

Now think of how many people with that same misunderstanding will have a bad impression. General acceptance of role-playing games isn't going to come until they are actually understood, which means people generally need to actually sit in on a good session, if not play themselves.

Myself, I rarely bring up role-playing games unless I know ahead of time that I'm in the company of others who play them. I mean, I'm a single guy, and I'm not going to potentially shoot myself in the foot. I fully intend to attempt to convert any non-gamer significant other to the game, but I'd rather not miss out getting to know some great people because they aren't already RPGers. The same goes in any other aspect of life where initial perceptions are important.

I think RPGs are slowly becoming more accepted. It's going to be a while though. We're at a point now where almost anyone under 50 can admit to liking superhero movies or video games and not have it negatively impact them. Role-playing is still further out in most people's mind's though.

But that makes me think. I was going to say that role-playing acceptance should eventually follow--but it occurs to me that it might, in fact, not. It very well may be that we can't achieve real RPG acceptance unless another hobby can take its place as the superunaccetablyalmostscarygeekynerdyareyousureyouaren'tworshipingthedevildorkhobby. It might just be the way human brains are hardwired for survival that we need an unacceptable "other" so that we can have a psychological location to place our boundaries at.

 

[Klataubarada]

I'm no better than he is.

I make fun of people that don't play RPG's.

 

[wedgeski]

From the way you described the situation, it just seems like he wanted to make fun of someone in front of the nurses, and your hobby was the open door he needed.

That nerd stereotype is just too easy. It's a massive target and is likely to hit across the board to whomever is listening. There are stand-ups who I've watched come to the fore in the UK over the last ten years or so with comedy that plugs right into geek culture, and they *still* can't resist the "guy in the basement" pantomime whenever the jokes they're making start hitting on WoW or roleplaying. It's depressing.

 

[JWO]

I can't imagine something like that happening. I tend to shut down anything like that by laughing and saying something like 'Yep, I'm a massive geek'. It doesn't really leave them with much ammunition when you take ownership of it.

 

[S'mon]

has anyone else had similar issues recently?

No, not recently - I did get a slagging off from a security guard while visiting the Imperial War Museum a few years ago when he found my D&D stuff in my bag.

I bring my D&D stuff to work when I have after-work games in town. I might mention I had a game that night and the stuff might be visible in my open bag, but I wouldn't take it out at my office desk and start working on campaign stuff (I wouldn't read most non-work-related books or magazines there, either). Personally if I were you I'd leave the D&D stuff in my bag while at work.

 

[Shasarak]

A curious thing happened to me today that I'm guessing has happened around a dozen times ove the last year. I work at a hospital essentially as a unit clerk, and as such I have quite a bit of time on my hands. Recently, I've taken to bringing my 5E books to prepare for material for upcoming sessions, and generally work on my campaign setting. I've recieved a few comments on it, generally curiosity, with very little of it being negative (in fact, a coworker recently has wanted to start playing, which I found extremely pleasing.). But today, a doctor approached who I hold in high regard, someone whom I hope will write a recommendation for me for medical school. The second he saw the book, he seemed incredulous that I would play it. Contempt was dripping from his voice, and he warned me to not bring up this hobby to the admissions boards under any circumstances. Not only that, but he went on, speaking in a stereotypical nasally nerd drawl, to the laughter of many of the nurses around.

This isn't something entirely new to me. I've had to deal with prejudice against nerds all my life. But in all those cases, it was children or teenagers doing the teasing, not adults, and it floored me how derisive he ws towards a simple hobby. With a resurgence of nerd culture into the mainstream, comic books and sci if action films being the highest grossing films, Skyrim and World of Warcraft being incredibly popular, I had thought maybe some of the stigma attached to D&D might have disappeared. It made my blood boil, and I truly had to take a moment to collect myself before I said something unprofessional.

has anyone else had similar issues recently? Any stories of good? I'm sincerely hoping that this is an isolated incident, but it doesnt make me hopeful for the brand or for RPGs In general.

Dont worry about it too much. Once you get to meet a few medical students you will learn to take what Doctors say with a grain of salt.