If someone at work sees your copy of [x-RPG product]...

[shouit]

I explain role-playing to them. Duh?

Ditto.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I've never had this happen, but I guess "Its a sourcebook for a roleplaying game" would work, and more details could be provided as needed....

Kahuna burger

 

[Numion]

usually they make some comment like, "What in the Hell are you reading freak-boy?"

Um.. let me get this straight: you think the first basic D&D as the only edition, which would suggest that you've gamed since early 1980's .. which makes you 30+, innit? And your co-workers call you freak-boy .. um geek-o-meter explodes

 

[beowulfe]

Not a problem here

Since most of my co-workers know I game my usual response is "gaming stuff".

They also know that if they see me working really hard that it must be on gaming.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Role-playing game. When whey ask what? DnD.

Once after that I found a bible on my desk.

 

[WizarDru]

I tell them it's a book for D&D. Everyone knows what D&D is, so that's not terribly difficult. At least a half-dozen of the people in my office have played it at one point in their lives (and several have played Baldur's Gate or NWN), so that's about it.

Apparently, I'm lucky enough not to work with chowderheads.

 

[kengar]

That specific situation hasn't occured for me, but I am slowly "Coming out of the dice closet" so to speak. I guess it's a lot of leftover emotional baggage for me. I was the skinny kid in jr. high & high school that was a DnD "weirdo." I was hassled by bible-nuts and jocks and all those things that so many of us probably dealt with to some degree.

Of course, now I'm mid-30's, married with a kid & house & job. I'm 6' & 190# so not too many people bully me any more. Not to mention I'm a computer tech at work so RPGs are actually a sign of my geek status Yet I still have to screw up my courage to read a gaming book on the train to work.

My wife never gamed as a kid (she started after we were married) so she has only experienced it as an adult. She would read the PHB on the bus and leave it on her desk at work without a second thought. She tells me I'm being foolish when I get self-conscious about gaming.

She's right, of course. I have gotten to the point where I will actually mention gaming -in general terms- now & again. One of my co-workers is a player in my game and I wouldn't feel right "outing" her, so I keep geek-talk to a minimum at work.

Two of my other players are adamant about keeping their gaming secret from other people. One of them tells his friends & family that he's "playing cards" on Thursday nights. Only his younger brother & wife know he games (he's 36, btw). I know I'm less paranoid about it than them, but I still have a ways to go before I'm 100% comfortable discussing gaming with non-gaming co-workers, etc.

 

[Guacamole]

It's happened a number of times, and frankly it can get to be a problem. Case in point. I used to sit next to this artist chick in our cubicle and she used to take my books and look at the cool pictures. Eventually she started asking me if I would write a book so she could draw the pictures. When she left, we ended up with a men's office and a women's office. In the men's office (we are teachers by the way) the computer teacher is just as big a gamer as I am, 50% of the time if you go into the lab and look behind his desk he is playing either with a game or with etools. If he leaves his gamebooks out on a desk I am likely to take it and read it and the same goes if I leave mine out so we keep our stuff hidden from each other out of jealousy and greed. The other English teacher is into drama and acting and creative writing. I have showed him some of my games and he thinks the stuff is pretty cool. The three of us are Christians btw, though we don't work at a christian school- juvenile detention facility. We don't bother people when we are talking about our games and plays and writing and what not- only when we are having a heated theological debate. Also, sometimes I sing and that seems to put people on edge. The other guy in men's office is a retired airforce sergeant who thinks the word "gaming" means gambling, horses and golf. He knows we play games, but as long as we let him drone on about being mechanic on the stealth bomber he doesn't give us grief although he has been known to look over our shoulders and say, "Are you sure you don't worship the devil?"

The women rarely come into our cubicle. It may be the trap-like piles of books and computer manuals precareously perched on the corner of a desk, or the evil looking books on our desks. I don't know...

Alot of people at church know I'm into gaming. Since I still teach sunday school it doesn't seem to be a problem. I don't go out of my way to talk about it with people at church because I don't need the headache. It's bad enough trying to weasel out of donut and coffee committee without having to explain why I think DnD is ok....

 

[WizarDru]

It's bad enough trying to weasel out of donut and coffee committee without having to explain why I think DnD is ok....

OK, curiousity force me to ask: what does the coffee and donut committee do? Is that a fancy way of saying they're the ones who solicit everyone for money for the coffee/donut fund, the ones who get it, or both? Any way you look at it, a thankless task.

 

[DerianCypher]

Last time this happened I waved my hand in front of their face and said, "You didn't see anything, go about your business"

and then they looked at me funny and walked away

DC