thread: 2005-11-28 : Closeted
On 2005-11-28, Iskander wrote:
Well, as a big homo (TM), who's totally gay out at work, I've been coming out as a roleplayer for a while, too... and it's not so hard. One thing's for sure, though, the news about being gay gay travels way faster than the news about being roleplayer gay, so whereas with the gay gay thing, you pretty much only have to come out once for the whole 20,000 person company to know you're bent as a spring, with the roleplayer gay thing, it's everytime I have a casual "what did you get up to this weekend?" conversation and I decide not to gloss over Polaris being a highlight.
Another point of distinction, though: when you say "I'm gay" these days, most people know what you mean. When you say "I spent 24 hour writing a roleplaying game for fun", they immediately think you wrote a CRPG or a boardgame, or don't get it. Every conversation therefore gets a loaded frame of reference right of the bat:
Me: I wrote a roleplaying game this weekend.
Them: A computer game?
Me: No, y'know, like D&D, only...
They run away
Me: Wait! Let me explain about Dogs in the...
- Alexander
This makes Chris go "Not like D&D..."
I've decided to drop D&D as a reference point- aside from imaginary events, it's nothing alike.
This makes Isk go "What else, then?"
Hmm. Maybe How To Host a Murder?
This makes NinJ go ""No, y'know, like putting on a leather maid's outfit.""
I look pretty good in a leather maid's outfit.
No I don't.
I dunno, Chris. This is an interesting avenue of discussion. I mean, D&D is a subset of RPGs, but what's the superset? Because if what Ron says is right ??? that the "mainstream" concept is reversed, there's something bigger.
"No, like telling stories, with rules about who can say what when."
Maybe it's more like the Surrealists' word games?
This makes Chris go "Well..."
This is what I mean by my Shark-boxing vs. Swimming commentary. I don't know about superset, but what we do is definitely different from D&D- as much as boardgames are differentiated from wargames.
This makes RE go "Ha ha!"
That was funny & excellent.
