"Should Conventions refuse entry to gamers who smell? " Topic

Or to put it another way, the great unwashed or mingers who seem to manage to gain entry no matter how bad they stink, and then you find yourself having to stand next to them at the crowded B&B or flea market queue. There was one example at Derby Worlds this year, you could smell him downwind from a good 3 metres (10 feet in old money) away, and it made you seriously feel ill.

Yes.

Yes. I'm there to game and have fun, not smell someone's body odor. Now this hasn't happened a lot but it has happened where everyone around a table is trying to stay away from him, it's gross plain and simple.

Charge everybody a $5 USD surcharge to pay the salary of the designated "Gamer Sniffer" who will stand at the door and inspect each of them. (If she's a cute girl, they won't object. If she's in a skimpy outfit, they might even get in line twice.)

With 2000 attendees, that's $100,000 USD for a weekend's work… which is probably what I would demand, if I had that job.

I was playing a game with a guy who was constantly coughing without covering his mouth. I asked him a couple of times to cover his mouth and then had to pick up all my pieces and move to the other side. He still didn't get the hint. I Find it appalling how many grown men have no concept of common courtesy, hygiene and manners. I've stoped pplotless pretending that there is no problem and now carry mints and will move seats if I have to, I haven't gone so far as to carry spray deodorant though.

With 2000 attendees…

Put it into practice and there will be more lawyers than that in line to file a million dollar Discrimination/Civil Rights Violation lawsuit.

Cough into your hand? that will then touch everything on the board and more?

The proper doctrine is to cough into the inside of the elbow.

Sounds like a Regimental Bath could be the order of the day for some folks!

Tally Ho!

I Find it appalling how many grown men have no concept of common courtesy, hygiene and manners.

Welcome to America in the 21st Century. Everyone is entitled to behave anyway they want and if you don't like it you are a bigot and a "phobic" of some kind.

Free mints.

if you ban stinky gamers, you wont have a convention.

Worst is when you sit down for a six hour RPG and the person who sits down next to you is unbearable.

Some cons are worse than others.

Most cons around here put some good advice in the program, but there's no formal enforcement.

And that's the rub: whatever rule you make has to be practical to enforce. Probably the best idea is just talk to the person directly. That's the honest thing to do. After all, if your neighbor has a loud party do you want to call the police or go ask them yourself to turn it down a bit? Which course would you want your neighbors to choose if you're the offending party.

"After all, if your neighbor has a loud party do you want to call the police or go ask them yourself to turn it down a bit? Which course would you want your neighbors to choose if you're the offending party."

I work in law enforcement. I ALWAYS call the Police, mostly. There are laws and ‘rules' for honest people. If you can't obey these you need to hear it from the Police fast. Bad habits just keep reoccurring. If the people are your GOOD neighbors I will ask them once politely, one chance. The other people I don't know well I make a call. I don't break the laws/rules and everyone should follow suit as well. That's life. It is also common courtesy.

Spray and delouse folks on entry, say it's a WWI re-enactment.

Great idea, hard to implement.
Maybe a big sign, "Shower before entering"
Or "This is not a real war, stay clean"
Or " Deodorant is your friend, use it"

HI

Word of warning. We had a Stinky one at my previous job. We chipped in and bought him a box of personal body wash. He got really mad and sued the company and won a big pay out.

Andrew's right. It's objectionable, yes, but how on earth would you enforce it?

John T

Never ran into any.

Body odor is the next civil right. All you people are just being hurtful. Getting up and moving is a blatant micro-aggression.

Never had the problem of a smelly gamer (a couple annoying ones) in real life, even after a few Fall-in, Cold Wars, and Historicon trips. There was a water park once where the guy ahead of us smelled so bad (think manure x 1000) that my wife and I let him get roughly 100' away and he STILL stunk.

Have Right Guard sponsor the show with SWAG bags with spray deodorant in it.

Worked with a funky dude once. I figured his slogan was, "I stink therefore I am".

Every now and then there will be a nearly empty subway car during rush hour. Guess why?

I had a customer once who reeked so badly that I had to mouth breathe or I would've upchucked. The isle he was in had his own personal funk in it and it never dissipated for the remaining two hours I was open. At least at a convention, you can move, at a store, you're a captive audience!

On a related topic, I once attended a game at Historicon in which one of the players was continually flatulent. The worst part was that he didn't even try to hide it. It was let-r-rip and laughing about it. The stench was so bad that the opposing side deliberately ended the game quickly through a few suicide moves. The game host apologized after it was over but didn't know what to do outside of just telling him to leave ( which he didn't want to do).

I'm one of those people that has been desensitized to gore over time, but smells stick with me. I will not game with someone that has really bad hygiene. It's not something I want to be subjected to. Like hearing distasteful racial views, I reserve my right to leave and not deal with them. I have heard organizers of a popular Comicon joke about there being Type 1s, 2s, and 3s, they being 1: Normal people with good hygiene, 2: People who shower but get smellier as the day goes on, and 3: those who just don't seem to shower. They'd walk around and point at various people and give the number of fingers of the type they might be, place bets, then one of them would walk up and sniff them to see who won the bet. One of the main head people even participated. I thought that was quite shitty.

To me, equally bad, are those who don't seem to know quite how to use a toilet properly. I've been to 3 day music festivals that have cleaner facilities than a gaming convention does after 3 hours. people?!?!?!

YES…absolutely!

Its just staple of the hobby sadly, like 12 year old foul mouths that are obsessed with your mother in Call of Duty. At one convention I brought out the surgical mask (ones I have if I ever have the flu) douse it with a little eucalyptus and I was fine.

The greatest crime I think is chain smokers destroying the scents of great books. I have thrown away a book after countless tries to remove an overpowering cigarette smell.

It's not just the gaming convention. I took a colleague out for lunch at a nearby pub today and whilst waiting at the bar had to grit my teeth and close up my nostrils like a seal because of the sour smell of unwashed man-parts. I'm fairly certain that it wasn't me that was smelling.

I am considering suggesting the my wife, a Neal's Yard rep (fancy toiletries and cosmetics in the UK – nice blue bottles), get a stand at Salute next year. She might make a small fortune from the lady gamers and bored WAG's, plus I could don a Neal's Yard T-shirt, load myself up with some smellies in spray form and go on a stink patrol under the auspices of "free samples".

G.

When they banned smoking in pubs and clubs in England years back the first few days were a bit of a eye/nose opener.

It's amazing what thousands of cigarettes can mask the smell of…

I guarantee that I am more politically correct than the rest of you combined, and I don't see a problem telling people to get bent, if they don't observe minimum standards of hygiene.

If you ban the smelly one from the con….most cons would fold for lack of gamers.

Who decides who smells?

I once had a client who reeked so much that we seriously thought about digging a sheep dip in the car park. On the other hand I had another client who was an old style aristo and he so annoyed me I discovered on the web that there were plans on how to build a guillotine. I was then going to buy all the secretaries little white bonnets and smoke clay pipes while shouting death to the aristos.

Guy

The big problem is that you get the taste of the stench in your mouth and can't get rid of it the rest of the day. I hate that.

Many people are idiots and feel obliged to prove it every day. :-/

If you just cut off their noses they won't be able to smell.

Not only gamers. Years back I was in a ballroom dance class. We were in a circle. Dance with your partner for 2 minutes, then the guys would move one partner clockwise. I danced with an otherwise OK young woman who gassed me with funk for 2 minutes.

After all, if your neighbor has a loud party do you want to call the police or go ask them yourself to turn it down a bit? Which course would you want your neighbors to choose if you're the offending party.

I tried that once, in our apartment building; the gentleman smiled, said okay, then they turned it up.

Only took two policemen (plus several in the parking lot watching,) to convince the host and his guests that sleeping at home was a better option than arguing with Law Enforcement about the party being over.

They offered to let everyone go home (it was 0300'ish hours) in a taxi, in their car (with the caveat that they would be monitored until they were safely out of the parking lot,) or they could "provide a free ride downtown" in a police vehicle to a somewhat less comfortable bed.

The following day the Police came by and asked me to call them first for my own safety next time. They said drunken people, (not specifying the people involved involved were drunk of course,) could be unpredictable. I apparently met the "nice" drunk guest, they met the "less well behaved" host. No one took the "free ride downtown" option though the host came close.

Probably the best idea is just talk to the person directly.

That worked for a gentleman in a group locally. The GM, a RN, explained the facts of life (one person signed up but found another game – and clearly said why, the body odor – when the pregame briefing was in progress.)

The Person in question apparently now bathes, brushes their teeth, and wear food stain free clothing to the gaming sessions now. I think it is different from my party problem but when possible discreet counseling is a first option. If people are leaving because of the odor and no change occurs then banning from a private event is always an unenviable option.

I have seen it (counseling about body odor) done well and I have seen it done badly but I have never seen a lawsuit as a result of insisting people use common courtesy and decent hygiene.

I can say from my personal observation that all (2) of the offenders were white guys (which is natural since 99.9% of the local war game scene are Anglo males) and they have been amenable to cool headed but firm insistence about the odor problem stopping.

Nobody wants to hear about their body odor but so far the offenders locally were glad to be made aware that they were having an impact on other peoples' enjoyment of the hobby and willing to be more consciousness about others comfort zone (especially when the alternative was being asked to leave.)

I've met a few myself in the past.

If you banned all the gamers who smell, then no one would be offended by the stench.

If you ban the gamers who stink, does that include ones that reek of cigarette smoke, cigars, weed, beer, whiskey, curry, garlic, or body spray/gloss coat?

Personally I think it's a myth. Sure, I've bumped into one or two through the years but there's never been enough of them to accept that it's anything but an overblown joke. Anytime you have 2-4,000 guys in one place for ANY type of convention there are bound to be at least a few with serious BO problems…

I wasn't alluding to smells such as cigarettes or cigars, food, beer or others suggested by etotheipi. I think we all come across those in our daily lives anyway.
I'm a farmer with livestock so I know what I smell of all day, even though my sense of smell has been diminished over the years by strong ammonia from livestock manure.However I do manage to shower daily and put on clean clothes. Some gamers who I have come across at shows don't seem able to manage either of these basic functions.
My partner is a nurse caring for patients with severe learning difficulties and she attends shows with me and her young son. Because her patients are incontinent and wear nappies (diapers to you folk over the pond) she recognises certain odours, and their cause. At I think it was Derby last year she remarked on one person whose clothes she stated smelt of urine that had repeatedly dried but not been washed inbetween.
I think it should be up to the organisers to refuse entry to people who could be deemed to be 'antisocial'. They may get upset or angry, but if it is pointed out to them in confidence and not out loud in order to make a scene, and the reason is made clear in a sympathetic manner, then perhaps the offender will take note and do something about it. I mean, if you turned up at the entrance to a show dressed and acting inappropriately, and I'm not going to mention what that would be as I'll end up in the dawghouse but you can use your imagination (think WW2 Berlin bunker or current affairs in the Middle East) then surely you would be turned away? The same could be said for anyone who turned up inebriated if the case ever arose.

Every place with a door should refuse entry to people who smell.

There is NO EXCUSE FOR POOR HYGEINE.