De-geeking role-playing games

[benlehman]

This comes up, maybe, every month or so in the online conversations I follow. "role-playing games need to be less geeky!"

I just wanted to record here that I think that the entire idea is ridiculous for the following reasons:

1) Perceptions of role-playing games by our culture at large are generally positive: that they are fun, but very time-consuming and potentially obsession forming. Which is about accurate.

2) Since, oh, 1996, geeky things have been hella cool. Hello gamers? I know that you live under a rock, unexposed to the culture at large. But srsly.

I'm posting here because I don't want to have to write this same post, like, 80 times only to have it fall (again) on totally deaf ears.

Comments

[benlehman.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but if I'm meeting a new person, and they're like "what do you with your time" and I'm like "I'm a total geek: I design role-playing games" without flinching they're like "Neat! I used to play (/used to know someone who played) those games. Do people still play them?" and we have a pleasant short conversation.

I bet I'd get a similar response if I was like "I'm a total geek: I argue on the internet about how much Spiderman can lift. It's fucking hilarious."

yrs--
--Ben

P.S. This is all assuming that I'm well groomed and well dressed. A repugnant person remains repugnant, no matter how awesomely cool their hobby is.

[misuba.livejournal.com]

Right: it's not about content, it's about what you do about content.

When people say "geek" in the positive sense, they're usually talking about content: Spiderman or whatever. When they say it in a negative sense, it's usually the activity that's a problem: arguing about how big Spiderman's balls are, etc.