Life and the Game

[Drkfathr1]

Sales and Marketing for a Utility supply company.

Formerly a Quality Control Tech in the Engineering department of the same company.

Worked in a couple of different restaurants many moons ago as a teen-ager.

 

[Jack99]

Teacher

 

[Wombat]

I split across three lines...

I am an editor/proofreader. I work with technical reports, with business letters and presentations, and with authors' writings. For example, in the last month I polished up the introductory essay for a collection of Beat poetry, formatted and cleaned up a test report on a small rocket engine, and cleaned up an IPO letter (that probably won't be released until later this summer).

So, I kinda fall across lines

 

[Nellisir]

You need another option for craftsman/physical labor, and another for service industry (waitress, etc).

I majored in writing in college, worked in construction as a carpenter and project manager for 12 years, and am now a grad student studying landscape architecture. I'd put construction as my career/job, but it doesn't fit in your categories.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Voted business. I am an accountant for a small computer/tech research company.

 

[Nimble Goodbarrel]

I work as an Employment Specialist with a non-profit organization. In the past I was in IT and retail. I don't think that there their is a correlation between vocation and a-vocational activities.

 

[TerraDave]

Way back when the mods cracked down on "off-topic" polls like this. But it was a long time ago.

Results are not too surprising: gamers tend to be (other sorts) of geeks, and technically minded. I seriously doubt there is much correlation with broad game theme (and fantasy themed games are so dominant, I don't even know how you differentiate) and even less with class or other player mechanics.

There might be split on game type, ie rules lighter old school, indy experimental, WW story telling, 3E and 4E crunchy, Gurps and champion/hero super crunchy. But even here, I don't expect too much of a corelation.

 

[Jack7]

You need another option for craftsman/physical labor, and another for service industry (waitress, etc).

Personally I'd consider jobs like that to fall under business.
Again, I'm not specifically interested in exact jobs as much as the relationship between occupation and avocation.

Way back when the mods cracked down on "off-topic" polls like this.

I'm not really sure how this is off-topic. I'm examining the possible relationships, if any, between gaming and the real world (in the form of occupation).

I know some (not saying you, I don't know) seem to think there is no real relationship between rp gaming, or gaming in general, and the real world. I suspect that is far from the truth, but knowing exactly how, that's a matter for investigation and inquiry.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I work as an Employment Specialist with a non-profit organization. In the past I was in IT and retail. I don't think that there their is a correlation between vocation and a-vocational activities.

I agree. Those of us older folks who have been gaming since childhood and have been through several types of jobs all while maintaining our hobby interests seem to prove that to be true to some degree.

 

[Jack7]

I agree. Those of us older folks who have been gaming since childhood and have been through several types of jobs all while maintaining our hobby interests seem to prove that to be true to some degree.

To a degree, I also agree. But just because one has held different kinds of occupations does not either necessarily negate, or prove, correlational linkage. It would depend upon how wide (or how narrow) were the professional connections in a given individual, if any, how wide were the corresponding and related game interests - I personally am not narrowing gaming interests just down to D&D, or even just to RPGs, though RPGs were my main focus of inquiry, and so forth and so on.

For instance some occupations might be undertaken out of necessity or opportunity, but might have little relationship to avocational interest, but other jobs might be related to vocational interests to one degree or another. Then again using the some of the examples above one might have gaming interests that include military, business, detective, fantasy and sci-fi games. So in those cases the correlation linkages might be very wide, though not necessarily direct. (It would depend a lot upon how exactly such linkages, if they exists, are manifested. Do linkages show up just in gaming interests, in designing games, in genre preferences, in designing scenarist or adventures and campaigns, etc, etc?)

Without a discussion of exact occupational interests (either actual employments, or desired employments) related to avocational interests, you can only draw some very general conclusions, and most of those would probably be highly speculative at best as far as real accuracy of investigation goes.

Someone though might wish to discuss their occupational interests or dream-occupational interests in relation to their gaming interests. See if they can discover any linkages, or not. But it would not be instructive or useful to just say, "yeah, in my opinion, there is no linkage or correlation in my experience between real world occupations and gaming interests," or "there is a definite linkage or correlation based upon my experience," without thoughtfully and actually examining your own experience and looking for clues that seem to demonstrate one point or another. (I am speaking in general terms EW, not to you specifically.) In other words, as with all human behavior, it will never be as simple as a Geekish "numbers race" but will require a thorough examination of how human behavior relates to human interests, motivations, and actions. And it will require an examination not just of numerical or statistical tendencies, but an investigation of what those numbers actually really represent in relation to actual behavior.


In my case, for example, I can see a definite and demonstrable link between my avocational interests and my professional/occupational interests (I don't have time right now to explain in detail) in respect to some of the occupations I have had in the past. in some cases they were sort of extensions of one another. I have even used gaming to develop occupational training scenarios and simulations as practice for real world skills outside of gaming. However that's not true in all cases as far as my occupations go. However I have often "written-in" my occupational experience into various gaming scenarios and adventures and missions I have developed.

I've also written-in my professional experience into milieus and used such personal background and experience for imaginary world-development.
But not in every case, at least certainly not directly. For instance my first job was working at an auto-parts supply store. Later I became a delivery driver at the same place. Never really worked in auto-parts to my game scenarios or milieus, however the job did give me the opportunity to go to many seedy sections of the city and to visit many areas I probably never otherwise would have. This increased my target list of "Vadding targets" of abandoned places that I discovered at work and later went back and surreptitiously explored. And I've often worked real life Vadding experiences into my game scenarios and even world design. Therefore no auto-parts in my games per se, but a lot of Vad-scouting while being a delivery driver that explored extensively has worked its way into the games, and even the characters I've written. For instance with crime and military and espionage (and even pulp and sci-fi and fantasy) games I've often used people I really came across during Vads or during cases or investigations that were used as the basis or template for NPCs. So the situation varies by type of employment with me.

In some cases, and in some respects, it's like a scenario of Six Degrees of Separation. In other cases and in other respects I can easily see the linkages. They are obvious. But that is my personal case, and so I'm trying to see if the same sort of situations apply to others.

I'm sure I made plenty of typos and mistakes in my reply, but I gotta roll and get ready. Revival at church tonight. And I gotta help out.
See ya guys later.

By the way, "Word" to Hardcore D&D girl.
Thanks for the XP, and yeah, we gotta roll togetha!
Security guards for life!