Continuing to play the extreme sport of mentioning that I play D&D while at work, I discovered that one of the women gave up the game in high school because, as she put it, "the DM was awkwardly in love with me."
Would that this were rare.
Sadly, I can remember when I inviegled a group of girls to come play in my world (cleverly fielding an invite while in the school cafeteria) ... and the disastrous wag-fest that followed when eight very nerdish social lepers blocked and passed pathetically at three young waifs. Worse still when the waifs made up their minds and all hell broke loose. Ah, 1985, what a year that was.
I have it on good authority that you still can't mention D&D on the job. People really don't allow it on the level of say, Nascar or craft shows ... which I suppose has something to do with the extreme nerdiness of the participants out there. There's one girl at a tea shop that serves me occasionally, who is so deep in e4 that the air turns noxious once she gets going. She's blissfully unaware that there is another edition coming, because she is non-Internet based.
The gentle reader cannot imagine how many non-internet based D&D players are out there. I know of one group here in town representing 400 players (so they told me) without any internet presence--no email, no website. That has to be the kookiest thing I've heard this last year.
Anyway. Everyone I work with knows I play D&D. They occasionally ask if that's what I'm doing for the weekend. I don't talk about the games; I don't describe what happens. I don't even try to explain what the game is. Why bother? All I say is that I play it and it takes up my time.
Which is as much as most people can handle. Shame more talkative players don't get that.
Spot on, Alexis. I had a similar experience back when I had just graduated college. I had a cute high school age co-worker (at a book store, so talking about D&D was OK) who wanted to try RPGs. I invited her to play with me and my girlfriendless buddies. She managed to stay the session, but never came back and never mentioned gaming again at work. Of course, she did set herself up by having her female fighter invest in leather armor and a whip.
ReplyDeleteNow, at my workplace, I'm like you. People ask what I'm doing on the weekend, I tell them I'm gaming. The WoW player occasionally asks about details, but not usually. And I don't really offer up much in the way of details either.