nongamer reactions to your hobby

I was reading another boardgame site and saw a thread about boardgaming going mainstream. A bunch of the people in the thread were saying they don't want that to happen because they enjoy being "that guy with the cool game collection."

This blew my mind. The last time a bunch of non-gamers saw my board game collection, their reaction was literally "please don't kill us and cut us into little pieces." I have also heard "where are the bodies?" and "I cast magic missile" from people that watch youtube.

I was just curious if my experience was the norm or if the experience of people from that other board game site, where apparently they are viewed as cool cats and kitties, is the norm.

What say you, F:AT?

Tom, I'm in your shoes. I don't say anything to people about it unless they are curious. If they're better friends, since I am a normal person who picks up on social cues, I know if they'll enjoy trying a game or not. Usually not so it never comes up.

Nothing pulls chicks like a hot game collection!

The people at work know I game only because we had a "biggest geek" contest at work. They've even asked me questions about it here and there. I would never think that anything about gaming was cool. The best I hope for is a "that's nice".

"What the fuck is this shit???"

At this point in my life, I only associate with my girlfriend and three types of people:

1. Co-workers. Nice people, but I don't have much in common with them. The CEO and I are both comic book fans, but we don't even talk about that much. The only games that I talk about at work are classic PC games like Fallout.

2. Friends. All my friends are gamers of one sort or another. RPGs, LARPs, CCGs, or boardgames, we somehow met through gaming, except for the friends that I grew up with, who all got into gaming after we were already friends.

3. Family. Nice people, but I don't have much in common with them aside from DNA. Even so, I tend to find some kind of common ground that I share with each of my relatives, so we can talk. The uncles and aunts on my dad's side are mostly serious business world types, so we talk about business and economics. My mom's side of the family is more into creative pursuits, so we talk about art and popular culture stuff. Many of my relatives know that I designed a board game that got published, but otherwise we never talk about games at all.

So the only real feedback that I get from a non-gamer about my hobby is from my girlfriend. She seems conflicted about my games. She is a huge anime fan, so she doesn't judge my hobby as being strange. And sometimes she likes to open up my boardgame boxes and look at the components. It bothers her that almost every single game that I own has a violent theme. But when she wanted to make it up to me once for being very wrong about something, she asked to play one of the more descriptively violent games that I own, The Hills Rise Wild. And when I beat her, she demanded a re-match the following week.

I've never pushed the idea of her playing board games, though I've gently hinted that none of my friends would mind. She seems to be intimidated by the complexity of the games, and doesn't want to look foolish. Besides, she's taking college classes again, so she doesn't have much free time. Maybe one of these days...

I never actively broach the subject, and have come to the conclusion that people fear you'll invite them to a game and they'll have to fake an illness. I generally have enough paraphernalia lying around for people that are interested to twig on to the hobby.

When some unsuspecting soul falls into the basement I generally get more of the "why on earth would you spend all that money on board games you dweeb" sort of question.

I have to agree with the premise of not actively pushing the hobby though. At my age I'm done breaking in virgins.

Sag.

I'm not a collector, so I have a fairly small number of games when viewed by nerd gamer standards (under 3 dozen). They're on shelves built into a wall of our basement (nicely finished basement, that is--where we spend all our time)...so they're not exactly hidden away.

Most of the people who would ever be over to visit already know I'm a nerd. Reactions to the games on the shelf have varied from not noticing at all to "Wow, you have a lot of games" to "Pew pew pew!" The less said the better, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm certainly never going to prompt someone for their opinion.

People would definitely be more unnerved it was shelf after shelf of floor-to-ceiling stacks of game boxes, like I've seen pictures of elsewhere on the web.

My little brother asks if Ken and I pull these games out of our asses. He's often just amazed that there are so many different games out there. Ken and I've also been able to introduce a few light board games during lunch to a lot of nongamers. The reaction has been positive as we've played games at work now for about 2 years.

The bulk of our games have always been kept out in the open on bookcases. Anyone that comes into our house will see them. Most common reactions:

"I didn't know this many game existed"

"Have you actually played all of these?"

Most of them assume that we play them with our kids and that it is really cool that we are spending so much "family time" together. Even if I mention that we have an adult game group they still think it sounds fun although by this point I think that they are just being polite.

Now my family just plain thinks I'm weird. But they knew that long before I starting gaming. :-P

I've never gotten a how-can-you-spend-this-much-money-on-games reaction. Some of them spend an ungodly amount on scrapbooking or stamping, not to mention their husband's golf habit, the boat, and the big SUV that they drive. A few of them had huge Beanie Baby collections back in the day. (Now that was fad for weirdos).

Of course, the non-gamers that I usually rub shoulders with are of the soccer mom variety and not 20-somethings still concerned about being cool. After reading the profiles on the "Regulars" I noticed that a lot of you are practically still in diapers. Guess I need to go hang out in the Old Folks corner with SouthernMan.

I suppose method of storage is relevant. If I had one, I could possibly fill a single floor-to-ceiling bookshelf with my games. Instead, I store them in a stack of plastic milk crates, a few of those big under-bed tupperware deals, and some cardboard boxes in our storage area. I'm not hiding them, but they are generally out of sight except when we are playing them.

Kerrist - even the nooby harlot is getting her boot in !

I'm quite accepted of the fact that this is a not-well-known hobby and is basically regarded as being nerdy/geeky/just-plain-strange, so I don't even bother telling people - life's too bloody short to get into frustrating discussions/arguments over it.

I keep my gaming enthusiasm under wraps around non-gamers and visitors to my home wouldn't get any clues as the games are all stored away in a closet. Only the non-gamers within my own family know of my boardgame collection [sigh]and even they call me geek for it[/sigh].

If non-gamers ask about my interests, I usually throw in the generic term "gaming" and only get more specific if they ask. They usually don't.

Other than my parents, the only person who knows I play boardgames is my best friend, and she thinks less of me for it. I'm not embarrassed by it, but, like Southern says, it's not worth the hassle of the discussion. And, yes, everyone will think you're a loser for it. ("The guy with the cool boardgame collection"...fucking hilarious.)

All my friends know I'm a videogame junkie, but so are they, so that's cool. Videogames = normal male, boardgames = loser.

I guess part of the reaction to what is going on in my basement is the pure and utter shock of it.

I'll tell this story, hopefully some people see the humor!

We bought a house last year after the housing market collapsed, got it on the cheap. So naturally, when friends or family come over we are still in the "tour the new house" phase.

We have a finished basement with a nice, non-geeky TV room that my wife has spent a lot of time on. Most people get freaked out when they walk out of that normalcy into a huge section of unfinished basement with no windows and a decidely silence-of-the-lambs feel. I have Empires in Arms set up on a massive 4 foot by 8 foot table, along with a couple of 6 foot 40k tables, plus of course shelf after shelf of game stuff. Add in the fact that my wife and her friends are in their early 20s and you've got a recipe for nerd jokes.

So thats what elicits all the "are you a serial killer?" comments. That and the bathtub full of dead hookers.