So I've never been to GenCon, but Smelly Gamers???

[stevelabny]

You guys keep talking about smelly gamers. If someone stinks sooo bad, and I'm not talking the stayed awake all night, hasnt showered in 36 hours so if you lean in close you get a bit of a whiff of funk, but the supposed never bothered to shower at all, ever type, doesn't anyone SAY SOMETHING?

Even if you don't tell the person directly, don't use just say out loud, "One of you guys at the table REEKS, why don't you go forage for soap and water while we play?"

I can't imagine NOT saying something.

 

[Crothian]

I find easier to just not deal with them. I imagine they'd get defense and be all pissy about it so I'll let them do what they want.

 

[Frozen DM]

I've only mentioned it once to a gamer, he didn't react all that well. So instead I'll usually just back away or find an excuse to move. The tantrum a comment can generate isn't usually worth the hassle.

Thankfully I didn't encounter a single Smelly Gamer at any of my events. Maybe hygiene is improving, or maybe I just got lucky.

 

[IronWolf]

Probably just not worth the hassle. Sometimes its someone you are passing in the hall or in the exhibit hall so the moment is past and gone quickly. At the gaming table, scootting a chair away or positioning yourself to be upwind can work. ::shrug:: I am not a big one for confronting strangers over something like this I guess.

 

[Hand of Evil]

It is not polite.

 

[Desdichado]

It is not polite.

It is also not polite to stink.

 

[stevelabny]

Yeah, what Joshua said.

The stinky guy is ruder.

And he started it

and yes, i know two wrongs don't make a right, but two wrights make an airplane.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I know that Buttercup was emphatic in the thread about manning the EN World booth that those who volunteered had to bathe. And didn't Peter Adkison put something about soap in a GenCon flyer? I thought I read a post that said something like that. I'm sure it was done tongue-in-cheek, but only partly.

 

[Buttercup]

I didn't encounter any stinky EN Worlders this year, but perhaps we're a cut above?

However, Thursday at just after noon as I was walking through the exhibit hall, a guy wearing cat ears and a tail passed me and oh, man what a stink. If he smelled that bad on Thursday, I shudder to think what he was like by Sunday.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

It's usually easiest to just get out of their range rather than confront them. I've luckly not been at a table with a stinky gamer, so I haven't had to deal with a situation where it would be difficult to leave. I suppose if push came to shove, I'd say something, as if it was bothering me I'm sure it would be bothering others as well. I don't think I'd really be able to sit there while someone stank up the table for a few hours.

Two years ago, someone was walking through the dealers hall passing out little bars of soap to all the stinky people they met. I initially found it to be funny, but thinking on it, it's one thing to tell someone they are being a nusience, it's another thing to blatantly make fun of them in a public place like that.

On a lighter note, maybe someone should print up some lime green t-shirts that say "Stinky Gamer" on them in a cloud of smoke?