mhacdebhandia
Explorer
Whenever I've encountered someone with negative preconceptions about D&D, I've generally succeeded in defending the hobby without being defensive.
An acquaintance of mine, for example, seemed to have vague ideas about roleplaying games being unpleasant in some way, or having a negative effect on those who play them; I shrugged and said "They're fun and I've never known anyone to get weird about them."
While it's true that "regular Joes" can get excited about, say, sports, to an extent which mirrors my own excitement and passion about the Legend of the Five Rings freeforms my friend Gareth ran at university this year and the year before, or any of the excellent tabletop D&D games I've played, I'm not sure that it's necessary to point it out - it comes off as defensive.
Your "average Jane" isn't necessarily going to accept the equivalence either, even if she thinks intense involvement in sports is weird and incomprehensible; it's simply a question of proportion. More people she knows are likely to be really into sports (or clubbing, or Jane Austen, or classical music) than roleplaying, and the reality of our hobby's niche appeal translates into a perception that it's odd because any activity pursued by few people seems odd.
Australia has a smaller proportion of evangelical Christians and other minorities likely to have a preexisting negative opinion of D&D, so I've never run into any overt bigotry; the closest my university gaming society has ever had is people attempting to denigrate us for being geeks when we explain what the club is about at our orientation week stall, and we're contemptuous of people with nothing better to do during O-Week.
I remember a few years ago we had a Christian fantasy card game around on the stall because someone had bought it for amusement purposes, and we ended up inviting a member of the Evangelical Union (a Protestant group vying for the title of "Most Conservative Religious Group on Campus" with the Catholics' Society of St Paul) to play it with us, and he won easily. Freaked a few of our members out, actually - if I recall correctly, the ones best corresponding to the earlier-mentioned stereotype of the Christian-hating gamer.
An acquaintance of mine, for example, seemed to have vague ideas about roleplaying games being unpleasant in some way, or having a negative effect on those who play them; I shrugged and said "They're fun and I've never known anyone to get weird about them."
While it's true that "regular Joes" can get excited about, say, sports, to an extent which mirrors my own excitement and passion about the Legend of the Five Rings freeforms my friend Gareth ran at university this year and the year before, or any of the excellent tabletop D&D games I've played, I'm not sure that it's necessary to point it out - it comes off as defensive.
Your "average Jane" isn't necessarily going to accept the equivalence either, even if she thinks intense involvement in sports is weird and incomprehensible; it's simply a question of proportion. More people she knows are likely to be really into sports (or clubbing, or Jane Austen, or classical music) than roleplaying, and the reality of our hobby's niche appeal translates into a perception that it's odd because any activity pursued by few people seems odd.
Australia has a smaller proportion of evangelical Christians and other minorities likely to have a preexisting negative opinion of D&D, so I've never run into any overt bigotry; the closest my university gaming society has ever had is people attempting to denigrate us for being geeks when we explain what the club is about at our orientation week stall, and we're contemptuous of people with nothing better to do during O-Week.
I remember a few years ago we had a Christian fantasy card game around on the stall because someone had bought it for amusement purposes, and we ended up inviting a member of the Evangelical Union (a Protestant group vying for the title of "Most Conservative Religious Group on Campus" with the Catholics' Society of St Paul) to play it with us, and he won easily. Freaked a few of our members out, actually - if I recall correctly, the ones best corresponding to the earlier-mentioned stereotype of the Christian-hating gamer.
