Friends or Strangers...

[RFisher]

I can't imagine the people in my gaming group not becoming friends. We may initially be strangers, but nearly the whole point of it is to become friends.

Besides, once I know you're a gamer, I automatically kind-of consider you a friend.

 

[Wombat]

Half my group I knew before I started this game group; the other half I found through various geek-channels.

Those who mixed outside of gaming prior to the group still do so; one of the "strangers" now is also involved in the activities.

This seems pretty par-for-the-course over my years of gaming -- some established friends, some newbies, some "gaming buddies", some others.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

It's interesting that I make a distinction between my own campaign and game days/one shots. For my own campaign, I only want to play with people I really like (or who I think I'm really going to like.) We're all super-picky about who joins the group, choosing folks who we'd also want to socialize with away from the table as well. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

And I don't even consider that restriction when I meet new folks at a convention. There it's the luck of the draw, and that's half the fun. Sort of a weird dichotomy.

That's it for me too. Long term gaming means spending time with them, which means we are friends already. Con gaming is different.

 

[the Jester]

Well, they started off as a mix of friends and strangers, but the strangers quickly became friends.

I waffled between voting "mix" and voting "strangers at first," and settled on "mix"- if those two options had a love child, that would be my answer.

 

[Scribble]

Well, they started off as a mix of friends and strangers, but the strangers quickly became friends.

I waffled between voting "mix" and voting "strangers at first," and settled on "mix"- if those two options had a love child, that would be my answer.

The correct answer would have been chicken obviously.

 

[Oryan77]

My wife and I started out gaming with friends. Our friends always bail on us though. Now we game with strangers that I would now call friends.

 

[smerwin29]

I once tried gaming with strangers...

It's just too much work in my opinion... a lot of them were just... weird.

They say at every RPG table there is one complete freak. But I've never seen him . . .

 

[chriton227]

I used to be more willing to game with strangers (I met my wife by joining a Shadowrun game full of strangers), but now that I'm older with kids of my own, I only game with friends or friends-of-friends. There were enough truely creepy people I met gaming with strangers (the type that I don't want them to even know I have kids, much less have them ever meet my kids) that I don't want to run the risk of meeting any more. Plus, due to the kids the games are frequently at my house or at another close friend's house, and I don't generally allow strangers into my house without a darn good reason.

 

[Korgoth]

I used to be more willing to game with strangers (I met my wife by joining a Shadowrun game full of strangers), but now that I'm older with kids of my own, I only game with friends or friends-of-friends. There were enough truely creepy people I met gaming with strangers (the type that I don't want them to even know I have kids, much less have them ever meet my kids) that I don't want to run the risk of meeting any more. Plus, due to the kids the games are frequently at my house or at another close friend's house, and I don't generally allow strangers into my house without a darn good reason.

That's pretty sad. I don't mean you're sad, but that's a pretty sad state of affairs. Has society really disintegrated to the point that your house has to be treated as a high-security installation, or has the internet skewed our perception of the percentage of weirdos in the population, or have we culturally just become inhospitable? Or are gamers just in the main a bunch of hopeless screwballs?

I hope you're just being paranoid. I hope that it's just a product of watching too many episodes of Law and Order. If not we're in big trouble as a society, let alone the fact that any essentially social hobby is thereby doomed.

Speaking for myself, though I have a gamer's appearance ("fatbeard" more or less, though I think that's a disparaging term; I have a sedentary profession and I like beer and sweets, OK?) I consider myself quite "presentable". I have a profession, belong to a benevolent society (both with codes of ethics), attend church regularly and associate with respectable people. I don't consider my background to be all that remarkable... is it assumed that most gamers are "seedy" types? I don't assume that. I'm not the gaming elite. Are most gamers any different?

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

My first "true" group was in college, most of them I knew socially before starting to game, but a couple of them started as strangers and have since become very good friends (in fact one of them became my wife).

When I moved across the state I had to start over, though a friend referred me to a group in the area. They started out strangers and now I have to say I'm friends with all of them.

Sadly things have once again changed and I'm starting a new group. This time it's a mixture of friends and strangers. One is a very good friend from college (no, the wife doesn't play anymore) who has since moved up here, one is a friend from my former local group and one is someone that responded to an online post (read: stranger). BTW if you are in the Boise/Meridian Idaho area, I'm looking for players.

I've had hit and miss success with adding strangers to a group or gaming w/ strangers. Now I've taken to "interviewing" the unknowns before they actually get invited to the table. I'd like to think I'm able to weed out the ones that don't fit my (or my table's) style. Initially this was to maintain peace at my table, but now I've got a wife and 2 kids. I want to make sure that I'm not inviting an obvious nutjob into my home, that way I only have to deal with the clever sociopaths.