From: dseal@armltd.co.uk (David Seal)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: Hostility in Gamers toward Certain Games
Date: 8 Sep 92 12:01:12 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: A.R.M. Ltd, Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambs, UK

In article <1992Sep7.145031.7734@oz.plymouth.edu> sos@oz.plymouth.edu
(Steffan O'Sullivan) writes:

>bsrae@warwick.ac.uk (Dave Lockwood) writes:
>>My observation (which may be biased or unfair) is that most role-playing
>>gamers have never had to work (outside academia) in the real world. Having
>>done ten years in industry before becoming a mature student, I had to
>>do enough role-playing and making up the rules as I went along 
>>during working hours to want something more mechanistic as a hobby (see above).
>>There is a definite tendency to give up RPGs at graduation. 
>>One (very rude) view is that most people have
>>to grow up at that point ;-) Another (equally rude) is that once you have a
>>salary coming in you can afford something better :-). 
>>It might be interesting to note how many flames
>>of this paragraph have .edu or equivalent addresses ;-)
>
>Well, this isn't a flame, just a response, but my address definitely
>has .edu in it.  Some of us work in such institutions, you know.
>
>Since I graduated from college before the first RPG was published, I
>don't fit your (self-admitted) rude views about RPGamers.  I'm not sure
>what your point is, though, except that I gather you feel hostility
>towards not only RPGs, but also RPG players.  Correct me if I'm wrong,
>but it seems to be just an example of my earlier post.

First, please be careful about attributing views to other people. Dave
Lockwood described two rude views of why people give up RPGs on graduation:
he did *not* say they were *his* views. I don't know whether they are in
fact his views or not, but please wait until he says they are before
attacking him for them or inferring he feels hostility towards RPGs or RPG
players. As far as I can make out, what he has actually said can be
paraphrased as (a) he gets quite enough "role-playing" at work and wants
something different as a hobby; (b) he doesn't like the quality of the
simulations provided by RPGs. Both seem reasonable to me: indeed, quite a
lot of the rec.games.frp.advocacy traffic seems to be caused by people who
agree with him about the quality of the simulations! :-)

Secondly, I don't know whether there is a culture difference here, but I
haven't really noticed people here giving up RPGs when they graduate or
leave academia. I am a role-playing gamer who works in the "real world"
(i.e. outside academia). In the same small company (about 25 employees),
there is (completely independently) another role-playing gamer. Of the
people I regularly play with, only one third (4 out of 12) are in even
partially academic jobs. Originally, the proportion was more like a half,
but the change is due to people moving from academic to non-academic jobs
and remaining role-players - not to them actually abandoning RPGs.

What I have noticed is a tendency for role-players to stop or at least
substantially reduce their role-playing when they get married and especially
when they start a family. But I'd have thought this showed a healthy sense
of proportion rather than that there was anything wrong with RPGs!

David Seal
dseal@armltd.co.uk

All opinions are mine only...