the future of the game is yours

[Rashak Mani]

12. when someone points out that 'the game' is evil, stop and think, can they be swayed by a peaceable argument? if not, walk away, don't make it worse

RIGHT ON !!

These kind of people are a complete loss of time... dont kill yourself talking about anything rational or fun with them....

14. If your a gamer dont carry pens, pencils and calculators in your front pocket. Get contact lenses or a laser surgery and take those glasses off.

 

[alsih2o]

14. If your a gamer dont carry pens, pencils and calculators in your front pocket. Get contact lenses or a laser surgery and take those glasses off.

i, respectfully, disagree here, nerds and geeks are holding the economy and the keys to technology on their scrawny little shoulders, be proud!

that said..

15.when with newbies back off on the subculture vocab for just a minute.(it is hard enuf to swallow hit dice, armor class, and the difference between a sorc and a wiz without 'crunch, fluff, munchkin' and whatever 'roxxor' means getting in the way)

 

[Voneth]

newspapers love human interest stories, your local gaming shop and your game group are a great human insterest story, contact them and they will come.

I bet my five years as a newspaper reporter that local newspapers DON’T find game shops to be human-interest stories. The only reporters interested covering game shops would be those with an agenda pro or con.

I was at one newspaper for a year and I could tell by the comments by staff that gamers were seen as one step above the people who dress up at conventions, which is not very flattering mind you. On the other hand, they have a good-natured laugh about the “freak” who paints his body in team colors for the local game.

I have, however, managed to help get games press. I am now a PR professional who can occasionally slip a news lead to WotC and others when I see them. While the local papers could care less, the national Associated Press had a news lead on a story on how kids whine to get their way. I managed to get them to come to my local game store on the premise of Pokemon. (they didn’t care about the DND angle)

Guess who ran that story, my old local paper that I had left two years ago. Did they did it more as an in-joke about a former employee (they knew my son was bossy and it was regular joke at the office) than anything game related.

I can also see getting a reporter to a game store if there was a real human-interest story related to it, like a store manager who’s in a wheel chair. But then again from that angle he could be running a Dollar Store for all that matters.

Lesson learned, the only time a game store gets in the news is the same way any local business gets its name in the news - by association with a real story, not as the focus of the story.

I also spotted a weird article about fan fiction. I sent to WotC with the suggestion that Raymond E. Feist and R.A. Salvatore are “fanfiction” writers who are now making a decent living.

Alshi20, you had some great suggestions for grass roots efforts for improving the image of gaming. The newspaper suggestion was a little off base, that’s all.

On a national level, something else has to be done. Problem is, who’s going to pay for it?

 

[alsih2o]

Alshi20, you had some great suggestions for grass roots efforts for improving the image of gaming. The newspaper suggestion was a little off base, that’s all.

did you read all the posts in thew thread? did you see storminators?

i too spent several years at a newspaper(admittredly, doing photos, i didn't decide the news) and i can tell you, anything CAN BE MADE interesting enuf for an article. i am under no delusion that just sitting on your gluteus maximus rolling dice is goning to make the paper, but if the other suggestions are followed, it will. and that is when you plant the game aspect in the publics mind, and the papers.

 

[Tewligan]

6. join a local improv group. slowly explain the game as an exercise

Being a dual citizen of both camps, I can tell you that a lot of improv performers are already gamers. Five out of the six members of my troupe are gamers. We went to an improv festival this year, and there was a sizable group of people who had just met enthusiastically discussing D&D as they drank at the after-show party.

Of course, a lot of performers AREN'T gamers, and probably aren't going to fall for this exercise trickery. If they aren't already into fantasy and/or games, they aren't going to want to break out the dice at workshops instead of just doing an open scene. I suggest NOT joining a troupe with the intent of winning over gamers - if you're trying to join a troupe, do it because you want to perform, not to find new people to game with. Nothing's more aggravating than being in a performing group with someone who's there just for social time.

(Sorry, the improv guy in me just had to vent a little bit. Carry on, carry on.)

 

[Mistwell]

Movies inspired by D&D settings are good.

I agree with most of the premise of this thread. However, I think that movies can be an important part of "legitemizing" an industry.

Right now, movies are revolutionizing the comic book industry. Movies based on comic books are THE NUMBER ONE SOURCE FOR MOVIE SCRIPTS right now. It's insane, I know, but it's true. And most of the movies based on comic books you probably are not even aware of (such as Road to Perdition and Men in Black). Both Marvel Entertainment and Warner Brothers owned DC Comics have publically announced that many of their comics are now viewed as the testing ground for movie scripts, intentionally. The comic is treated as a test baloon for story concepts, the bugs are worked out there, and if it flys with the comics community, then it is adapted to screenplay. The impact on comics has been extraordinary. Since this started, comics in the form of graphic novels and trade paperbacks have become more widely accepted by bookstores. Sales of comics are rising, not on a trend boom-bust basis, but on a gradual long-term basis. And the popularity of the national comic book conventions (now viewed as pop arts conventions by many) has skyrocketed.

Sure, comics still have many negative perception problems to overcome, but this perception problem is getting rapidly better for the first time in memory. And a lot of the thanks goes to Hollywood.

D&D has some similarities with the comic book industry. D&D also has some really great stories to tell, by some fantastic writers and artists. If those stories could be adapted to the screen, in a manner appreciated by the general public (unlike the D&D movie), I think it would help the perception of D&D. Already I am seeing some perception help from the Lord of the Rings movie. It's much easier for me to explain what I do when gaming when I can relate the non-player to events in the LOTR movie. What's a dungeon? It's the mines of Moria. What's this about monsters? It's orcs, and goblins, and cave trolls, and balrogs. Why is pretending to fight them fun? Same reason pretending to see the heros fight the monsters in the movie was fun. Those are concepts a non-player can appreciate.

I'd like to see a Forgotten realms movie, and a Greyhawk movie, and a Dragonlance movie, and a Kalamar movie, and a Scarred Lands movie, and a Legend of the Five Rings movie, and all kinds of movies based on the story ideas found in D&D. Done right, and I think non-players would like to see them as well, and that some of those folks would become players partially because of that movie experience.

 

[alsih2o]

Re: Movies inspired by D&D settings are good.

I agree with most of the premise of this thread. However, I think that movies can be an important part of "legitemizing" an industry.

no disagreement from me, but i think acting while waiting is the smartest move

for people who play heroes alot, i think we are all being a little rapunzel-ish

 

[Mark]

Brilliant!

16. Organize local conventions and gamedays so that people know who each other are. These types of events can sometimes attract people who would like to play but have yet to become involved.

 

[alsih2o]

16. Organize local conventions and gamedays so that people know who each other are. These types of events can sometimes attract people who would like to play but have yet to become involved.

excellent! being an agoraphobic loner with multiple superflous nipples i would have never hit on that one!

all hail the mind on the mountain! (creative mountain that is)

 

[Mark]

a20 - You're too kind.

Tried to reply to your Email but it bounced back to me. Might be a router problem. I've heard Chicago became an island for part of the last week. It suffices to say that "I concur" with your thoughts on the matter.