I’m interested in starting to play D&D at the ripe old age of 27.
But here’s the thing - I really, really don’t like being around the type of people that probably make up 99% of the D&D gamer base - weirdos, nerds, and mutants who play it in their parents’ basement, smoke weed and listen to death metal, and nose-laugh at Aqua Teen references that they’ll keep making every seven seconds.
I want to play with the pretty blonde girl, the affable black guy, and the clean-cut white guy around a dinner table. I want us to have a pizza and maybe some sodas on-hand. I want everything to be well-lit.
Well, let’s see. At one point or another I’ve had a gaming group with a pretty blonde girl, an affable black guy, and a clean-cut white guy. I don’t think I’ve ever played with all of them simultaneously. I do, however, know plenty of very well-adjusted folks who game, including several who are raising families in upper-middle-class backgrounds with professional careers, and I know one guy who’s very smug about forming a gaming group comprising his wife and a bunch of airline stewardesses.
In the group I run, the youngest is 27, and the oldest is 40 something. We have pizza and soda, no one smokes dope (that I know of anyway), no one listens to death-metal (I think maybe one might, dunno), and anyone caught making ATHF references at my game gets made fun of. The only mutant is Mike, and that’s cuz he’s 6’ 8". We don’t have a pretty blond girl, but Angela is a pretty brunette, half black and quite affable, and the guy’s house we play at is a clean cut white guy, and so am I. You could probably say we’re all weird, in one way or another, but that’s just gamers for you.
If you are serious, you can find those people. I like to think I am my SO are one of them, (even if we are not white or black! ) But you have to weed through the rest of the mess to find them. And then you have to keep the core group. And once in a while you have to let those other people play, for your own sakes and for variety. (After a while you get to know how everyone plays).
Try joining the SCA. There’s a lot of weirdos there (but I don’t mind weird) but there’s also tons of nice people.
I’m not a gamer, but I am married to one (Hi, Left Hand!) Here’s the thing, VC03. Lots of adult gamers are in the closet, so to speak. Yeah, there are definitely the smelly, socially awkward basement dwellers, but there are also plenty of well-employed, socially skilled, clean-cut folks. But under most circumstances, you’d never know the latter were gamers because they don’t talk about it at work or in non-gaming social settings.
Home on the Strange has a funny (and accurate) take on finding fellow geeks at work.
I don’t have any good hints on how to find these folks in real life, since I’ve met them all through** Left Hand**, but other Dopers may be able to share their tips.
I second this. I’m part of a group of gamers who are all well-adjusted, low-drama, professional, blah blah blah. A few of our group are current or former SCA - it will give you a higher signal-to-noise ratio to find the good ones. You may also look for local gaming shops (like The Source in St. Paul).
You will have to weed through the maladjusted ones, but don’t give up hope.
Y’all need to work in the sciences – chemical industry, biosciences, or computers – where it’s unusual when someone hasn’t played D&D or Everquest or something similar at some point in time.
VCO3, are you one of those guys in the D&D commercial? If you want people to fit into the sterotype, you kinda have to fit into it yourself, you know?
And for the record: I can’t stand Aqua Teen Hunger Force, play with a bunch of mostly-white professionals (with tons of disposable cash, for lacking kids), and usually offer a selection of cheeses, fruit and raisins, and crusty bread with balsamic vinager and EVOO for noshing on. Pizza and soda, no thanks.
Let’s see…my gaming group (though we don’t play D&D per se, it’s the same idea) consists of:
A Ph.D in Electronic (or maybe it’s Electrical–whatever millimeter-wave technology falls under) Engineering.
A senior iPod QA engineer from Apple (I’m married to this one)
A Ph.D electronic engineer who designs boards for Apple computers
A biochemist who is in the process of shifting careers to software engineering
Me, a software technical writer who writes freelance material for the game we play.
All of us are in our 40s and have been playing together since college. We’re all boring and white-bread suburban so we couldn’t help you with an affable black guy (and I’m not exactly “the pretty blond girl”), but I promise you, none of us nose-laugh at anything, we all bathe regularly, and our parents (none of whom we’ve lived with for over 20 years) don’t even have basements.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t met plenty of the type you describe, though. Surprisingly, many of them are pretty nice people, once you take the time to get to know them. Some of them are…not. You learn to spot the not-so-nice ones pretty fast.
It’s not a hopeless dream–you just have to look a little harder.
Yeah, I’m pretty geeky even by the cute tech guy’s standards… so mostly I just don’t bother trying to explain. They all know I’m weird and that I’m a geek, there’s no point in making it more obvious.
Oh, and my former gaming group involved a huge variety of people. Construction workers, accountants etc right through to the ST who worked for Blizzard, the spectrum of geeks! The majority of which who had good personal hygeine… crazy ones got ejected from the group because it wasn’t needed or wanted to be around.
And this is coming from someone who doesn’t entirely fit in with the SCA! Yet they’re still good people. I heard it somewhere on this board, was it DianaG or DiosaBellisma who said SCA geeks are history buffs, and Ren Faire geeks are art/theatre buffs. Which makes sense to me because I don’t like history much.
But the greatest thing about the SCA is:
Whatever weird thing you are into they don’t care.
Whatever weird thing someone else is doing, you are welcome to go over and take a peek, prod it, ask questions.
Whatever weird thing you are into, someone else there also is.
Sorry about my slight hijack, but I do think SCA’s the way to go to find the people the OP is looking for.
Thanks. “Home on the Strange” has become one of my favorite webcomics. (I think it was Miller who got me turned on to it.)
I’d say it depends on his tolerance for the weird and wacky. I’ve known plenty of SCA folks that I’ve liked a lot, but they’ve all been at least a little odd. Good people, like you said, but a touch different. Could be just the folks around here, though.
Heh. Finding a good gaming group takes as much effort as finding a good barber, or mate, or comfy chair for TV watching. The more effort you put into it, the better the results. If you find a group, try them out, and it doesn’t fit, you can try to find another one.
Our group is:
40 year old CADD designer, white male.
40 year old IT/Network supervisor, white male.
30 year old Executive Secretary, hispanic female
35 year old High-School Teacher, canadian male.
34 year old Game Designer, black male,
32 year old UPS Delivery driver, white male
36 year old Blockbuster manager, white female,
34 year old UPS manager, white male.
I’ve been with them for 2 years now, but the rest of the group has known each other for over 10 years. It took a bit to find them, but it was worth it.
I just left a group because of the psychotic munchkin-antics of one particular guy. I won’t spoil this thread with it. It seems to be very hard to find adult (socially as well as chronologically) players in this area. They’re either kids or have some of the classic gamer issues like hygiene or adult responsibilities.
I just wish I could take the good players from the various groups I have been in and form an elite “dream team” to play with. Hell, I might even DM such a group!
) But you have to weed through the rest of the mess to find them. And then you have to keep the core group. And once in a while you have to let those other people play, for your own sakes and for variety. (After a while you get to know how everyone plays).