Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT 4261-4265 Mon 11th to Fri 15th May 2020
Zebediah:
--- Quote from: Torlek on 13 May 2020, 20:40 ---
--- Quote from: shanejayell on 13 May 2020, 18:43 ---(Is it wrong I'd like to see a in-universe D&D club?)
--- End quote ---
Given they're in Northampton, said club would probably exclusively play AD&D (but ironically) because they believe it is the "pure" way to play the game.
But there's been an absolute sea-change in the perception of board games and (to a lesser extent) RPGs over the last 15 years that's correlated with the mainstreaming of nerd culture. There's also been a huge growth in the quality (production values and marketing, there's still plenty of horrible playing games) in a lot of games too. The ones that are more likely to require an adult level of cognitive ability look sleeker now and less like spreadsheets.
--- End quote ---
Given that I am likely the only person here who is actually in a D&D group in Northampton: This misses the mark by a fairly wide angle. :D
My group is actually more representative of your second point. The DM is a department chair at Smith and most of the players are either tenured professors or fairly high in the Smith College administration. So it’s not just a game for hopeless nerds any more.
BenRG:
--- Quote from: Zebediah on 14 May 2020, 06:14 ---My group is actually more representative of your second point. The DM is a department chair at Smith and most of the players are either tenured professors or fairly high in the Smith College administration.
--- End quote ---
I wonder if the students realise that their uncool peers with their uncool pastimes are the ones likely to grow up to hold the educational destinies of the cool kids' children in their hands?
hedgie:
There's also the strangeness of webcomic time. Given the age of the comic, by some reckoning, Marten was a teenager in the '90s, or at least an analogue of them back when D&D was all for nerds and "losers". Now, in today's real-life world, it's a pretty mainstream pasttime.
Gus_Smedstad:
--- Quote from: TinPenguin on 14 May 2020, 05:59 ---I agree. I don't think he's ashamed of playing D&D; he was quite relaxed and open (even a little proud, perhaps) about it in #134.
--- End quote ---
“I kind of outgrew it” isn’t pride. It’s viewing the game as something only children play. Also, QC isn’t always consistent; I suspect the way Jeph views Marten and his history now is a bit different from 16 years ago.
A little rant here - in high school I was the GM for a group (Traveller / The Fantasy Trip / GURPS, not D&D), and one of the players was a pain. Among other things, he was prone to throwing temper tantrums if things didn’t go his way. He once rage-quit a dungeon crawl because he put pretty much all his STR into a lightning bolt and rolled a miss. He wasn’t the worst player I ever encountered, but he was the worst I played with regularly.
After college he said he didn’t play games anymore because he “outgrew them.” So while Marten is hardly a condescending a-hole like that guy, it’s a phrase with strong negative connotations for me.
dutchrvl:
In my personal experience, many people seem to use the term 'outgrew' even when they simply mean their interests changed over time, so for me the term doesn't have the negative connotation.
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