Taking away the shame...of Roleplaying!

[beldar1215]

I agree with everyone else. Game on!!! I'm not afraid to tell people that I game. I love the hobby and would not give it up.

Beldar

 

[Reika]

hehehe

I just remembered my office last year when I was excited about going to GenCon for the first time. Should've seen their faces when I told them what type of Con it was. But they shouldn't have been so surprised, they already knew I was a big sci-fi/fantasy nut.

*still snickers at the memory of their expressions.*

 

[bolen]

which is more nerdy to be a gamer or a physicist?

 

[Holy Bovine]

I think I probably would act that way. I'm a closet gamer, through and through. The only ones who know I game are gamers themselves.

Just out of curiosity about how old are you Droogie? Teenager, 20's, 30's? I have found that when I was younger (under 18) I wouldn't tell anyone that i was a gamer. I was already ostracized at school for being too 'bookwormish' and didn't need the extra ridicule. Oddly for a brief time in grade 9 and 10 I was at a school that had a very robust gaming club headed up by a couple of teachers. We played everything from D&D to Traveller to Thieves World - that was one time when I was a teenager that i wasn't embarrassed to tell people I gamed.

As I got older I realized that gaming was just another hobby like railroad building or stamp collecting (well may not stamp collecting - those guys are freaks )and got into the habit of telling people if they asked. Since my university days I haven't run into any kind of discrimination because I've gamed but I do tend to have friends who like to game as well (be it RPGs, board games or card games). Games have always been a great social activity for me and I will never give it up.

You can have my dice when you can pry them from my cold, dead fingers

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Heh, well I don't care one way or another what people think. I'm only 17 and I'm pretty much labelled a Geek at highschool. But, hell, who cares. I don't. I'm the kind of person to ignore the idiots and go about my life...Though it is fun to bring out a D&D book in class and work on some NPCs for an upcoming came and get a few thousand questions. Its amazing how gullible most teens are to things that are "normal".

 

[Merlion]

In my experience when I say "DnD" most people have no notion what I'm talking about. When I clarify to "Dungeons and Dragons" some have heard the name...but less than I would think. Many other people in my general age bracket(I'm 21 I consider my age bracket mid teens to early twenties or so) tend to assume its a video or computer game. same when I use the term RPG...I encounter surprisingly few people online and elsewhere who are familiar with tabletop RPGs.
Related to the topic although it wasnt about me and I dont know how much shame was invovled I did have one experience I'd like to relate. Although I dont really remember the details clearly as it was a while ago and it made me so mad I couldnt think straight(or in my case, clearly)
I used to work in a GameKeeper store(for those of you who dont know the Gamekeeper started as primarily a boardgame and standard cardgame chain..expanded...got baught out by WoTC) and one day a kid(about 16 or 17) came in looking for the DnD core rolebooks. I pointed them out to him told him the price gave him info on the game. Later he came back with his mother. thats when things started getting unpleasant. I dont remember the details as I was busy trying to be polite when I felt like cussing her out but first she brought up all the usual concerns...Dungeosna dn Dragons is Devil worship etc. then she complained about the price(and this was I believe when the core rulebooks were still $20 a peice if I remember right). then at some point she told me outright that her son "uses his imagination to much". of course I had to bite me tongue...nearly off...to refrain from screaming at her. She went on in this vain talking about how he spent all his time thinking things up and using his imagination instead of doing homework...if I remember right she also consitently refered to the products as "crap, garbage, trash" etc. Their was more but I've blocked a lot of it out. she DID buy him the books though. It took me about 20 minutes to calm down afterwards. Ohh if I remember corectly she also called him "stupid" several times...she was never super rude to me but she was horrible to him. He seemed like a bright kid and was very polite to me, but she seemed to think he was stupid and darn near worthless.
Like I said a little off topic...but I tought it fit.

 

[Thresher]

Some people should need a license or something to have kids Merlion, I hope the young fella uses that imagination to good effect it sounds like he'll need it.

I dunno, games and roleplaying are just another hobby that keeps my mind active in an otherwise endless cycle of work, bills and day to day drudgery that is life. You could call it 'escapism' but Im not exactly running away from it anytime soon and if I was every truly ashamed of it then I simply wouldnt do it.
A lot of the corporate training, rehabilitation and adult-education centres use 'role playing' as a way of teaching people now a days so its not like the actual educational aspects of the hobby are to be underestimated.

 

[Angcuru]

In all honesty, I don't parade around the fact that I'm a gamer, nor do I hide it. If they ask I answer, if they don't, I don't bring it up unless it would add to the conversation. I honestly think that being a gamer gives you an edge over the average joe. Gaming is intellectually, emotionally, and socially stimulating, and much better than butting heads and tossing a ball back and forth...just for the hell of it.

I'd also like for people to drop the stereotype that all gamers are short, pimply, snivveling, cowardly momma's-boys. I have only met a single gamer like that in my life, and that was just seeing him in a hobby-shop at the same time I was there. It is this sort of image that causes non-gamers to try to shrink away from and criticize anyone who games.

Just look at it this way. Actors are not criticised, they are applauded. Authors are not criticised, they are praised. So when you have a combination of the two, I.E. gaming, you get something better, well worth praise.

And besides all that, if anyone tried to pick a fight with me, thinking that because I game, I am a snivelling weakling, they have another thing coming. I haul heavy buckets and beat things with a hammer for a living(part-time), and I know more than a dozen ways with which to kill a man bare-handed. BRING IT!

Let me give a final word. I know a guy who is in the top ten of the President's One Hundred, (which is a list of the top 100 Snipers in the United States Armed Forces, for who don't know). This guy has gone through everything from Vietnam to Desert Storm, has seven purple hearts, and is the most critical hard-ass whom you will ever meet in your life(nice guy, by the way). If you have a fault, he will drill it into your skull with endless rhetoric to make you never forget it, etc. And guess what? He actually PRAISED me for being a gamer. Said that he even knew a few of the other guys on the list who gamed.

Something to be ashamed of? I THINK NOT!

 

[blackshirt5]

That's horrible. I think we should hold our heads proud. At least Roleplayers can meet women(a lot of them both hot AND creative) through our hobby(not to mention that they're around legal age, unlike the girls you meet going to a Pokemon tournament at the local WotC store).

I hope that that guy's girlfriend was proud of the fact that he's a D&D player. It's a mark of distinction.

 

[Angcuru]

Merlion, I think you should have pointed out the fact that if she though her child used his imagination too much, that she should look at those who though the same way. Ever heard of the Third Reich? Over-Imagination was rewarded with death(unless it involved the development of new weapons or Jew-slaying methods.)

Imagination is what seperates us from the animals! That and porn.