thread: 2005-11-28 : Closeted
On 2005-11-29, Blankshield wrote:
I'm fairly "out" at work. A bunch of factors in that, but the two big ones are:
1)I book off Gencon every year about 10 months in advance. People see this, and ask, and I tell them I'm going to a gaming convention. "Role-playing games, board games, card games, improv theater-like stuff. 50,000 people. It's huge. I'm going down to run [and sell] some of the games I've written." The "and sell" is new this year - previous years it's just been Brick Battles, which is free online. This approach totally gets me past the awkward "it's kinda like D&D thing." People seem much more willing to give something credibility when it has big conventions and finished product.
2)I've been working for the same company for 6 years now, and with a lot of the same people for about a decade. Hobbies get outted over that much time exposure; it just happens. The (local) newspaper article with my picture in a big pile of Lego was stuck on the bulletin board for months.
But I also don't typically get into describing what they are, because 99% of the time, they aren't really interested beyond knowing "James writes games" as a neat tidbit. If they do seem interested, or don't need me to explain "role-playing" or say "GenCon! Damn, I'm jealous." then I'll get more involved. But otherwise, i'll leave it at "I design games" the same way that I appreciate it when other people leave it at "I watch sports." instead of getting into the boring details about balls and pucks and seasons and stuff.
James
