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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6604988" data-attributes="member: 6677017">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.</blockquote>

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