I don’t know if I count anymore because I haven’t played in a while, but for two years, my roomates and I would get together with a couple of our friends and have “Game Night” every Thursday. Sometimes it was board games (Risk, Conquest America, Axis and Allies), but for a good long while, we ran a loooong ass game of Vampire. Because we three lived together, we’d sometimes play on days other than Thursday, but we always kept it to the board. No dressing up, no going out and acting, just simple pen and paper. Aside from that, we were students, went to work, bathed (Well, I did, my roomate went through bouts of depression, so sometimes he would slack off a bit), and did everything else college students do. Eventually, we got sick of the game, slaughtered most of our characters, and never looked back.
But it was fun, it was good entertainment, and for people with overactive imaginations, it’s a nice way to spend hanging out on a Thursday night.
34 years old, in the ‘burbs of Chicago. I haven’t found a gamin’ group up here, yet, but my highschool gamin’ group had Dorkfest 2002 at my house a few weeks ago. We had 3 lawyers, a PhD and a theatre techie. The theater dude (my brother) is somewhat socially inept, but not a freakshow by any means.
We don’t roleplay much anymore, tending towards Avalon Hill titles, like Dune (Bene Gesseret: “You will play your lasgun”, Circus Maximus “Whippy, whippy, side slippy”, Dragonhunt (Draaaaagon, come out and play-ay", Illuminati “A peaceful group! Kill it!”, etc.
I guess I went a little into freakshow status there, but when you have been playing with the same guys for 40 years, you got a lot of inside jokes.
Any Chicago area gamers in the bunch? Maybe a MPSIMS thread?
oops. that should be 20 years. I’m not that old.
And I play Diplomacy, having been reintroduced by the SDMB after a very long hiatus.
Another normal gamer checking in. I’m well over 21, happily married with a good job as a tech writer, bathe regularly, and have a reasonable amount of social skills. In fact my whole gaming group is normal and successful–we have one senior-level software QA engineer (my spouse), one biochemist, two Ph.D’s in electrical engineering, and used to have a senior-level software development manager. We’re all geeks, but we definitely don’t fit the gamer stereotype.
Come to think of it, neither do most of my online gamer friends.
Weird. I must have found the good ones. 
I do collect swords, but only because I think they look nice on the wall.
Normal ex-gamer checking in. Mid-late 30s, financial professional. I consult, so good grooming is necessary for continuous work. Work in NYC, live in Queens. As much as I would like to game again, weekends are out (kids) and work kills a bunch of weeknights. However, my in-laws live with us so, in a sense, I live with my parents (in-law).
22 year old female gamer, here, going to a university and sharing a studio apartment with a roommate, no smokin, no pot, so there.
Now, as to whether I’m normal or not, that’s a whole different question …
Mmm, well, sortof. I’m not a gamer, but that’s mostly through lack of opportunity. Could I find other people who were, I hesitate to say normal, conscious of such concepts of socialisation and hygiene (and that wearing a cape and spiked shoulder pads is Not Cool) then I probably would be. However, I refuse to spend significant amounts of time with everyone I’ve met from my local gaming community. They’re umm… Well, I think you put it best.
I have no steady job at the moment, and I do live with my parents for half the year, but I’m a college student so that’s probably acceptable. I have impeccable personal hygiene and not-awful dress sense. I’m not ultra-sociable, but I do socialise.
Normal, however, I am not. Anyone who calls me normal is asking to be challenged to a duel - kippers at 10 paces.
Well, with one or two exceptions, everyone in my group is over 25, married (with spouses who play as well) and are IT pros or programmer types. We don’t do much other than 3rd Gen D&D, but we have fun.
Well, um…define normal.
My current gaming crew includes:
me (21, college student majoring in engineering and philosophy. Not normal, but I smell nice.)
my SO (33, construction worker, also smells nice, usually because he steals my peach scented shaving cream to shave his head. Not normal either, but a sweet guy.)
guy no 2 (um…late twenties, doing some computer thing, getting married to girl 2 in Feb. Likes comparitive religion stuff. Is an unashamed gun toting republican. Lots of fun talks.)
girl 2 ( late twenties? early thirties? social worker, just left youth drug rehab work to work with the handicapped. Italian, so she “throws something together” for gaming sessions at her place. Elastic waistbands suggested.)
guy 3 (college student, computers. Very quiet, but your basic nice geeky guy.)
guy 4 (probably the most notable of the bunch, as far as freak level goes. majoring in Chinese film, or some such, and runs a Mage LARP on off weekends. When his hair is short he passes for normal.)
guy 5, new guy (manager fo a drug store, has wife and adorable little girl.)
Eh, not normal, perhaps, but we have fun. I found them online, actually. White wolf has an old gamer group registry, and I e-mailed the ST. We play Mage and D&D mostly, with a smattering of whatever looks fun at the time. (Adventure!!!)
I had to drive by this thread a few times before posting.
You see, I am not working now, but only because of my failing health. I am posting this from a basement, but I own the house (and there are no parents here save my SO and myself.) As for the rest, no comment…
But I have been DM for a regular group for most of the last 22 years. I have played many other games for fun- from Risk and Axis&Allies to deeper Avalon Hill strategy games and world domination games like Supremacy. I own an extensive miniatures collection for tabletop wargaming. I also have my 2 computers linked with a network hub to play Quake II, Descent, Half-Life, Counterstrike, Starfleet Command, Starcraft, and now Neverwinter Nights and Warcraft III.
I will not try Diplomacy again.
In my experience, though, “normal gamer” is an oxymoron. Define “normal” and I’ll tell you if I qualify, I will not judge anyone else.
I’m a fairly normal gamer. It’s hard for me to find other gamers because I generally mix socially with people who don’t game and won’t consider it (sadly). I am currently playing a few campaigns with some folks I met through a sci-fi/fantasy club that I joined just to find other gamers. We usually meet once a week, though sometimes twice, sometimes none. I don’t mix with them outside gaming though. (I usually don’t have a lot of male friends, and I am the only female in the group.)
I am a pretty big geek, though, admittedly. I play a lot of computer games, and I do own swords (as props for a LARP-ish live action LOTR game, which is, to be fair, more Capture the Flag than role-playing, but you get extra points for weapons). I don’t hang them up, or anything, but then, they’re pretty cruddy swords. I got two of them from a garage sale, and the other one was bargain basement eBay for $15. I dig history and I like ancient and medieval arms and armor, though. I have even been learning how to make chainmail in my spare time.
However, I do engage in a lot of non-hardcore activities, and my taste in games is fairly focused. (I play RPGs and strategy games, with a couple of unclassifiable choices like The Sims mixed in. My favorites include Planescape:Torment, the Baldur’s Gate games, the Civ games, the Master of Orion games, the Age of Empire games, etc.) I don’t really dig FPS or war-games, and I don’t play MMORGs (though Star Wars: Galaxies really tempts me).
Wait a second. I also like Star Trek (just watching, no dressing up like a Klingon or anything, though I did go to one convention when I was in high school). I’m starting to get interested in anime. I was an X-Phile. I own an NES, an Atari 2600, a Super Nintendo, a Sega Genesis, a Playstation, an N64, and a Gameboy, and I’d own more consoles if I had the money. I go to Ren Faires when I can. I’ve played in a boffer-sword LARP.
Never mind, I really am a big royal geek. Carry on.
I know lots of “normal” gamers.
If I take the four people I game with most often and myself as examples.
We are all around 29-30 years of age.
All of us have college/university degrees (2 in computers, 1 in physics, 1 in statistics and I´m an economist)
We all have good jobs.
3 of 5 are married with children.
and we all shower regularly.
oh and we´re all LOTR, SW geeks of course.
Abe Babe, I’m in the Chicagoland area – if we had any room in our current gaming group, I’d invite’cha (unfortunately, we’re full-to-burstin’ already) but I wouldn’t be averse to forming a Dopers gaming group, if we could swing it… hmmmmmm…
I’m gonna go run off to MPSIMS and start a thread.
Normal, checking in.
Or at least I pass for normal well enough to have a job, a family, and friends that maintain some civilized level of hygene. Oh, and 38 years old.
Though it’s been awhile since I’ve played, I think I still qualify as a gamer. And sadly, I am quite normal. The plus side of normality is my good hygiene and my fulfilling social life. I’m 24, don’t work in IT, and thoroughly enjoy exercise.
Yes, I do have swords, but only because I train with them regularly at my fencing school. They aren’t exactly props.
Three or four friends and I are on the verge of starting up some sort of game, as we have all gotten too crotchety and too broke to sustain our former levels of social activity (boozing and wenching), so Saturday nights at the bar might just turn into Saturday nights with pizza, six-packs, and ten sided dice.
Me and my friends get together on Tuesday nights. We’ve all known each other for over 15 years. We all used to be freaks back in the day, but we’ve all more or less outgrown it.
We all bathe regularly, and most of us are career professionals. The others are in the “in-between-jobs” state, as they used to work for Web and Tech industries that went by the wayside. Most of us drink beer, but we don’t dress up, play with swords, and pass around joints. 2 are married, 2 are about to be, and we all have outside interests from gaming, like hiking, camping, zen buddhism, hang-gliding, etc.
But I know who you’re talking about from the OP. Last gaming convention I went to years ago, I saw a lot of blobby, pasty faced shutins rules lawyering each other. I also saw lots of cool, friendly sociable people who just happened to like gaming.
It’s not to say “normal” types can’t be freaks in their heads, though. I was in a gaming group a few years ago that were all seemingly normal, married with 2.2 children homeowners, but they were some of the most insecure, psycopathic nutcases I’ve ever been exposed to.