"Not hip enough for this hobby ?" Topic

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An interesting discussion about RPG's, with one salient feature, at some point they talk about how kids are afraid to join D&D games because they are under the impression they are not hip enough !

I've had similar experiences about Wargaming many years ago before I was really into the miniature hobby rather than a side venture to a multifaceted hobby, I still recall young people telling me that that they would rather roleplay because they felt that "proper wargaming" was very serious involving a suit and tie, with port and cigars done in chateaux libraries and everything was done with military precision …

But still the very idea that kids would feel excluded from a hobby which was once the refuge of the damned, boggles the mind !!!

RPGs as hipsterish is truly bizarre. It certainly doesn't jibe with my experience of playing since the early 80s in which gamers are 90% nerds. As to miniature gaming, I had to explain my hobby to some twentysomethings recently – their reaction was one of indulgent pity.

When I was first introduced to D&D--1975 or '76--I described it as a blend of improv theater and skirmish wargaming. I think that might hold.

But I remember wargamers with ties.

But I remember wargamers with ties.

Even when painting :

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I have been in wargaming since about 1960. Over these decades the only wargamers I have seen in ties were either in photographs in publications, or those that showed up for an evening game straight from work.

Tom

I am increasingly finding the idea of suit and tie with a glass of port to be rather desirable.

Exhibit one : Charles Grant link

Donald featherstone : link

And surely the clincher – Callan, wargaming :

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More concerned about perception than excercising their mind and imagination.
Not much you can do about that attitude. It has been around for both war board gamers and RPG players since the 1970s.

Swampster, I couldn't agree more.

I remember when D&D was considered by parents as the Dark Side. Now it is not hip enough. Each generation has its own things. When you are old, all is a laugh.

Good work 20th Maine! I'm remembering 1969-72, more or less, in the old Midwest Napoleonic Wargaming Confederation--a lawyer, a judge, a schoolteacher, a couple of industrial chemists. All old people too--maybe early 40's or thereabouts. I'm not sure I ever saw some of them without ties.

If you look at the groups that stream their D&D games you see a LOT of Hipsters

Nearly every hobby activity is filled with highly skilled, experienced people. Entering that type of social environment is always intimidating. This type of fear tends to get reinforced when we see experts in a specialist enveavour fail when trying to cross-over to one that we would expect is closely related.

On the other hand, nearly every hobby activity is also rife with people who are eager to help someone gracefully enter the field.

The only hip in wargaming and rpgs is hip replacement.

Cloudcaptain for the win.

> I am increasingly finding the idea of suit and tie with a glass of port to be rather desirable.

Change the glass of port to a Diet Dr. pepper and I'm good. Suit and Tie? Not a chance in hades.

If hip means trendy then yes, you're bound to be disappointed.

Not all the natty dressers are gone from wargaming, nor are the port and cigars. Witness this photo from our game back in November:

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The scruffy-looking one on the right is me, but Chris (on the left) often shows up for a game attired in the grand tradition of Gentlemen Wargamers.

And no, that's not his professional garb (he's a tennis pro).

An Ascot is much cooler

I never wondered if I was cool enough before. Now you've got me worried…

My son laughs about a video he watched where they were mocking the old anti-RPG tracts. One of the points was that all the cool kids were playing D&D. Oh, yeah. That's what happened.

andy

To long a vid for me. When you say "they are not hip enough" do you mean the two presenters aren't hip enough, or the kids aren't hip enough, or the D&D games aren't hip enough?

As in 1) "You are not hip enough for me to join your activity."
2.) "I am not hip enough to join your very hip activity."
3.) "That activity is not hip enough for me to join it."

1 and 3 were the attitudes I encountered back in the day. While things have certainly changed regarding the perceived hipness of D&D, I have a hard time believing that 2 is now the case.

Well, it seems in Britain, if you can believe the period dramas set in mid to early 20th c., FARMERS wore ties to do their chores!

While I'd like to see a return to ties, port and cigars, these days I would settle for long trousers and sports shirts.

When has D&D ever been hip? It wasn't hip at all when I was in High School in the early 70s.

I will add that D&D now seems to be at least more acceptable socially than back in my day. (For one thing, it's sold in Target(!)).

My evidence is that I am a Teen Librarian, and have led a one-man effort to promote D&D (and even strategy gaming) in our department. It's taken hold, with three groups now meeting regularly in our department, and others that I know of meeting in players' homes. On top of that, our most regular group consists of 2 boys and 3 girls, and at one time had 5 girls until 2 moved out of state. I've even had parents specifically ask me about our D&D program and how to get their kids involved (imagine *that* happening back in 1980!).

But the real proof to me is when I overhead a D&D discussion of alignments among our after-school crowd— all of them very much "hip" teenage girls! (If my own high school group had heard girls talking about alignments we'd have either fainted or fallen in love!)

I don't know if D&D and RPGs are completely hip, but at least the days of total disdain (if not hostility) appear to be over.

Back in the day, I tried to describe wargaming to a neighbor, her only reaction was to call me a warmonger.
However, somewhere in the dusty archives of a now-defunct Minneapolis based whos who magazine is a photo of me gaming ECW in a three piece suit and tie, getting my Parlimiterian butt handed to me I might add.