nongamer reactions to your hobby

Bullwinkle wrote:

timeLESS wrote:

its funny (in a not so funny way) how present ultra-right groups/sentiment/politics play the victim-role so well.

?

Bringing politics into a discussion that's not about politics makes you a wanker. When you can flip the political group mentioned with its opposite and it reads the same, it makes you a double wanker with cheese.

I brought politics into the discussion.

And Neo-Nazis do complain about the Dresden bombing a disproportional lot.

I thought Schweig's points about germans' views on nazis, war, etc. were more cultural than political. timeLESS was the one that decided to make a generalized political comment about "right wing" groups. Bullwinkle is 100% correct on the double-wanker-ness of politicizing a cultural discussion.

Seriously, going political should be instant thunderdome material... lets keep it clean in here and continue talking about why my wife's friends think I am Jeffrey Dahmer because I have Empires in Arms set up in my basement.

Schweig! wrote:

I brought politics into the discussion.

And Neo-Nazis do complain about the Dresden bombing a disproportional lot.

Your original point was relevant to the issue: German politics is what makes it problematic for Germans to display wargames, regardless of your sentiments. Even when you started to digress, you were still mostly on point. What that has to do with timeLESS's comments on ultrarightists in general escapes me, because it's true for every group. As for the Dresden bombing, EVERYONE complains about it from whatever their perspective is. And pretty much everything else.

EDIT: Naw, I'm not too touchy. Fuck politics.

Bullwinkle wrote:

Shellhead wrote:

Death and Taxis wrote:

Nerd is very much a derogatory term applied to the large-brained but socially inept among us while Geek is a mild and friendly term used to describe a fan of anything not considered mainstream.

I've encountered this distinction before, but it honestly sounds like something that that borderline nerds came up with to make themselves feel superior to the other nerds.

Every subculture arranges its own hierarchy. Even moreso if that subculture is itself considered less acceptable than others.

I'm sure we've all seen this before:

http://static.mmoabc.com/my/P/u/n/ch/2007/12/13//1197585855086.gif

Amazing and accurate! I had not seen this one before so thanks for sharing it.

Bullwinkle wrote:

Schweig! wrote:

I brought politics into the discussion.

And Neo-Nazis do complain about the Dresden bombing a disproportional lot.

Your original point was relevant to the issue: German politics is what makes it problematic for Germans to display wargames, regardless of your sentiments. Even when you started to digress, you were still mostly on point. What that has to do with timeLESS's comments on ultrarightists in general escapes me, because it's true for every group. As for the Dresden bombing, EVERYONE complains about it from whatever their perspective is. And pretty much everything else.

Eh. I'm too touchy today. I've been bombarded by politics nonstop lately and it's driving me nuts. Apologies to you and timeLESS.

OK, I understand your point now. No problem.

And what I meant with Neo-Nazis disproportionally complaining about the Dresden bombing is that they compare it to Auschwitz.

Cool. Godwin's Law is true!

sensitive lot! didnt intend to start some politix derailing of thread, instead i was merely remarking on previous post. Actually I agree on how Politics sucks! my comment came naturally. take it or leave it. if it hurts your eyes reading it, i offer you my excuses. no biggie

Death and Taxis wrote:
The fact that we know enough about board games to subset ourselves in the gaming community is just even more reason for ridicule to the non-gamer. I tried explaining the whole Ameritrash/Euro/Wargaming/RPG/Everyotherfuckingthing to my wife and she gave me a look that was part pity and part "I'm gonna call the men in the white coats now". (insert appropriate emoticon here)

You know, actually, to go against the grain, I was talking to my wife (she noticed I had switched sites) and we had just played BSG. So I explained the divide and she totally thought it was cool. Especially the part about not furrowing your brows over a game, but instead yelling at each other and having a lot of fun.

hancock.tom wrote:

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?

Christ, the one time I mentioned I was a wargamer--in passing to the person whose fucked-up project and desperate plea ["why aren't you in the office todaaaaay? Where aaaaare yooooooooooooou?"/whine]for help cut my planned WBC stay from 3 days to *just* the auction [and even then I was on the phone or blackberry trying to unfuck her proposal about half the day]--I had to spend 20 minutes explaining that, no I wasn't a Civil War Reenactor.

Lots of folks in my office know I'm a hardcore geek because we have a full-on color printshop that I use to print things like the Bonaparte @ Marengo "historical" map (love having a plotter and commercial laminator at my disposal) all the time. Most don't care enough to ask, though, shit like the Jack The Ripper map and cards do raise the occaisional question and/or eyebrow...

All, bar a couple, of my friends are gamers, the majority introduced to it by me. The only real altercation I can recall is when my friend got a new girlfriend, and the conversation turned to boardgames. The exchange went thusly.

MARIE: Board games are sad.
BRAD: I don't totally agree, but I'm going to meet you half way here.
MARIE: Okay...
BRAD: I don't understand how any hobby that requires you to meet up with your friends, spend several hours socialising and having a really good laugh can be called "sad".
MARIE: Yeah, okay.
BRAD: On the other hand, I have to agree that taking photos of yourself playing boardgames and posting them on the Internet...yes, that is sad.

My girlfriend was sceptical of games at first, but she started to like some light Cheapass stuff, like Kill Doctor Lucky...then she had a bash at RPGs with Call of Cthulhu...now she plays Descent regularly and just played in the group's first bash at Android.

I'm sure that a lot of people think I'm sad for playing board games. There's also probably a lot of people who think I'm sad for playing ukulele. They are wrong.