New Blood

Creativity in writing settings is not going to recruit new players into the hobby. Neither are supplements, or campaigns or any other written material. The only thing that's going to get new blood into gaming is the same thing that keeps new blood out - gamers. The stupid, self-defeating, self-loathing of gamers drives me bughouse. Gamers keep their activities a secret, talk about themselves as if they were all 33 year old virgins living in their mother's basements, stinky catpissmen, losers with no lives outside their games.

I'm not a loser, and I don't hang out with losers. The vast majority of gamers I know are regular people, yet this stereotype flourishes in the gamer subculture. Gamers make movies about themselves, starring themselves as losers. Freaking masochists! Who the hell would want to be a gamer if that's the face we show to the world! Gamers think they will be reviled for being gamers, yet no one cares! Computer gamers think of themselves as gamers, period. They are at worst mildly interested in roleplaying, and at are at best very interested. my son is getting his masters in game design, and you know what his buddies at school are doing? Playing RPGs! I tell people I'm an RPG designer and player. If they're interested I tell them more, and if not I leave it at that. Nobody else thinks we are losers, just gamers themselves! I'm freaking sick of it!

I used to rail about this a lot until I realized no-one was listening. Now I just bottle it up until I can't stand it any more. In my almost four decades of roleplaying, I have never played with anyone who was even close to matching those stereotypes. They were all regular people - male. female, young, old, whatever. No-one outside the hobby thinks of us this way. It's purely a gamer thing. One thing I have always admired about the Story-gamer crowd is they don't do that self-flagellation much at all. They also aren't afraid to reach out and bring new blood in. Coincidence? I don't think so! They aren't embarrassed about their hobby and it shows.