You're a gamer???

[Parlan]

"Dear Dragon, I've read your stories, but I never thought this would happen to me....."

You, sir, have earned a Laugh Point.

I shall go clean the coffee from the moniter.

 

[Banshee16]

One day last week I was at work and a co-worker and I were talking about role-playing games. Who would walk past us but our CEO who obviously heard a portion of our conversation. He stopped and said to us. "Are you guys talking about D&D?" We paused, not knowing what to say. I said yes, and that we run separate games. He asked what edition we played and whether or not we tried Castles and Crusades. He was up to speed on OSRIC and was actually thinking about getting back into gaming. He was the very last person I would suspect of being a gamer. He's always Mr. Business basically.

My question is, have you ever discovered someone to be a gamer who does not seem to fit the normal mold? Someone who you just assume wouldn't think of playing such a thing as a role playing game let alone even hear of such a thing?

Heh heh.....I've had that before...I found out that half the guys in my division of the company were gamers.....then I found out that the owner of our company was a huge WoW player. Funny that it's so rare that we actually talk about it. It was kind of an accident that I just found out about one coworker, then starting find out "and that guy and that guy, and that guy", etc.

Banshee

 

[jgbrowning]

nope. i've met all kinds of gamers.

diaglo "but i do fit the mold" Ooi

You are the mold.

joe b.

 

[Tamarantha]

Quote:
Originally Posted by roguerouge
Dude, you're missing a golden opportunity: do a 1 PC game with her! You can shower attention on her, make her feel magical and special, and have a creative life TOGETHER.

A bit off the topic, but I'll advise against this. At least to start.

A former roommate of mine did this. When he then tried to integrate her in with other players, she had a horribly skewed view of party dynamics and game balance. She was used to always getting her way, in dramatic fashion, and it took her years to internalize how more team-oriented and cooperative gaming works.

It depends on the girlfriend (or boyfriend). My husband and I manage to mostly keep our relationship from affecting the game when we play with a group.

When we play alone It's special. I don't feel pressured to hurry up the roleplaying in order to get on with the hack. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to hack, but its nice have a rich background emerge for your character, not just a list of kills and swag.

 

[boerngrim]

Transmute bully to gamer

My old game group in Atlanta was made up of a group of African American guys who had known each other since middle school, and me a white dude from out of town who posted an add at LGS looking for a group. I had been in a diverse gaming group during my time in the Air Force, but this was my first time as the minority. It was a rich and rewarding experience. These guys are some of the best friends I've ever had.
Anyway one of the guys, Craig was a very large and intense guy, 6ft6 350lbs , tatooed, and a former semipro football player. I asked the guys how they started gaming together. Turns out Craig was their bully. One day he was chasing them after school when a D&D book fell out of one of their book bags. Craig picked it up and asked them to teach him to play. They were all inseperable friends after that.

 

[Ravilah]

I had a my students write their own fairy tales during our folklore unit, and one kid turned in something cranked right out of Greyhawk...and even used the iconic Dnd heroes from the Players Guide. I called him on it by identifying the various spells (i.e. magic missle) and special abilities (i.e.sneak attack) in the margins. At the end, I wrote, "Will Mailee and Soveliss be in the next adventure?"

Needless to say the kid was stunned.

 

[Rabelais]

We were gaming in my garage. Lots of open space you see... anyway, we were playing Mechwarrior, 'bout 2am on a Saturday night. Let's just say that nobody was fit to drive home that night. We weren't soaked, but pretty spongy by that time... anyway, it got a little warm, so we opened the garage door. One of Portland's finest drove by, saw a bunch of guys standing around in the Garage/driveway smoking and drinking. (cigarettes I swear, anyway I gave those up years ago).

The cop looks in, sees a metric arseton of Geo-Hex and pro-quality miniatures and LOTS of beer.

We promised the Cop that nobody was going anywhere that night, then he said "I prefer Warhammer, myself"

I left that group a couple of months later, we were in the middle of the transition to 'hammer, and I don't play it... The cop does though, and may still be playing with them.

 

[Theron]

The funniest one for me was a few years ago, when one of the social workers at the Clinic I work for came in with a Vampire: The Masquerade supplement under her arm. This woman was not gamer material so far as I could tell, but I had to ask.

Turned out her son had written it and she was showing it off. Which is how I became familiar with the work of Ari Marmell.

 

[Edgewood]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and (now I'm not stereotyping here) say that when I think of the typical mold of a gamer I normally visualize some who is in the military or is in law enforcement. My thoughts are influenced by this because I live in Halifax where the Canadian Navy is stationed on the east coast and by and large alot of the gamers here are military men and women.

What I find amazing however as I grow older and more mature (an extremely relative term I might add) is that there really is no mold and that anyone could be a gamer. Gaming used to be something that the reject nerds in high school would do (at least that was the popular thought way back in the eighties) but now, it's everywhere. Of course, it was always out there, we just didn't see it as much.

 

[Nepenthe]

The funniest one for me was a few years ago, when one of the social workers at the Clinic I work for came in with a Vampire: The Masquerade supplement under her arm. This woman was not gamer material so far as I could tell, but I had to ask.

Turned out her son had written it and she was showing it off. Which is how I became familiar with the work of Ari Marmell.

Aww, that's sweet! (And sounds like something MY mother would do, too - "I have no idea what this is, but my son wrote it!")