"Cool people don't play RPGs" (from the Enworld thread)

[Tommy Brownell]

It's just plain old dismissive bullshit.

First, we'd have to agree on a definition of "cool". Then, we'd have to agree that none of us know "cool" people playing RPGs beyond the anecdotal occurence. That's already a lost-cause type of statement.

It's just a cliché.

It allows people to call each other uncool, nerds, geeks, and dismiss whatever they're talking about because "nobody cares" or it's "nerdrage". That's typical internet BS fare, to me.

I'm with him.

I mean, I don't consider myself cool, and I have never considered myself cool...and I probably never will.

I'm a geek.  Pretty proud of it.  I pretty much play with geeks.  Not the socially-inept mouth breathers you tend to hear about, but not the classic example of "cool".

Vin Diesel was once considered cool, and he wrote the foreword to a D&D book.  Does that count?

[Tommy Brownell]

I hate to trot this one out, but Vin Diesel is cooler than the person who suggested that "cool people don't game", and...well, y'know...

This is what I get for not reading the whole thread first...=)

[Tommy Brownell]

I'm both Cool and a Geek, and a Pro-Wrestler (all true).

I also like to take long walks on the beach, with a set of dice in my pocket.

Just in case.

I'm NOT cool, I AM a geek, and I'm also a pro wrestler.

How weird is that?

[Benoist]

This is what I get for not reading the whole thread first...=)

Not cool, man. Not cool.

[Darran]

I get called a cool granddad.
Admittedly by my grandchildren but hey!

[jibbajibba]

Guys, guys, guys... we are not cool. Not only do we play RPGs we also post on a geeky website where we discuss geeky games geekily.

Suck it up, you are a geek, live with it. I don't care if you did a three way with the Sweedish women's beach volley-ball team, I don't care if you played base guitar with The Stones back in 85-92, I don't even care that you make a top selling movie in which you played an ultra-cool prison escapee with a shine job and an an amusing attitute to ultra-violence. You are still a geek.
We can all pretend to be cool we are role players pretending is in our genetic code it's hard-wired. But if you think that Monks have been severely nerfed since 3.5e, if you know instinctively that the average of 3d6 is 10.5 and not 10 or 11, if you have any sort of opinion on GM-fiat or worse still thaink that WoW players don't know what they are missing and if they tried pnp games just once they would see the light, hey actually if you knwo what 3d6, WoW, pnp or GM-fiat actually stand for, you are a geek.

Live with embrace it, buy a Dr Who tee-shirt, install linux (ubuntu probably) on your toaster, buy the entire first 2 seasons of Big Bang Theory on DVD (sorry that should have read download the entire first 2 seasons of Big Bang Theory from Pirate torrent) but please please please never ever try to pretend you are cool.

[Joethelawyer]

I'm both Cool and a Geek, and a Pro-Wrestler (all true).

I also like to take long walks on the beach, with a set of dice in my pocket.

Just in case.

I'm NOT cool, I AM a geek, and I'm also a pro wrestler.

How weird is that?

Steel cage match anyone?  Pundit, wanna promote it?

[beejazz]

Where have you been for the last decade or so? Geek is cool. Has been for... a long long time now near as I can tell. I'd set the start at the eighties at the earliest, late nineties at the latest.

Videogames, comics (of some kind or another), cartoons, and crappy sci fi movies are all pretty mainstream now, and among older folks than they generally have been.

The stigma only exists in the long memories of those to whom it's been attached.

[Age of Fable]

Role-players can't be cool, but we can potentially be k3wl.

[Tommy Brownell]

I get called a cool granddad.
Admittedly by my grandchildren but hey!

My son says I'm cool...

...NOW.

But he's five, so he doesn't know any better.

[jibbajibba]

Steel cage match anyone?  Pundit, wanna promote it?

(no offence to either participants is meant by this and I have  no idea what they are like but its just the idea of 2 geeky role-players in a cage fight)

In the blue corner weighing in at 120 lbs and wearing the slightly too large Spiderman costume, voted the virgin with the highest IQ in Cincinatti , a big hand for

In the red corner weighing in at an impressive 348 lbs, the bearded behemoth, the Collossus from Cologne, Heeeeerrrrrreeee's

[Silverlion]

I'm cool. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am. Of course, I don't need anyone else to define cool for me, because damn that, I know what I find cool, and I am it.

My dog and my fiancee think so too. I also get some props from my nephew and niece. It's all that matters really to me. Sure I like other cool people on the internet--friends I have and neat people I know, and I can call them cool too. Because in my world, that's all that matters. What I think about things.

[jibbajibba]

Where have you been for the last decade or so? Geek is cool. Has been for... a long long time now near as I can tell. I'd set the start at the eighties at the earliest, late nineties at the latest.

Videogames, comics (of some kind or another), cartoons, and crappy sci fi movies are all pretty mainstream now, and among older folks than they generally have been.

The stigma only exists in the long memories of those to whom it's been attached.

You see that just puts the nail in the coffin, nothing mainstream is cool, just cos we geeks are now in the majority does not mean we gained any street cred (hey I said street cred how geeky is that) and all the stuff you identify has a target market of 13 -17 year old boys (except for Watchmen way too much cock in that movie to let your kids see it) . Same demographic we were always in except now we are older. And don't tell me old is cool either. 30 is not the new 20, 40 is not the new 30, 50 is not the new 40, we are not special snowflakes.
Now do I watch Trueblood or fix the security permissions on that wiki?

[Age of Fable]

Someone would've posted this sooner or later:

[jibbajibba]

QUOTE]

That is the loudest I have ever laughed whilst reading the internet (including the whole 8 years when Bush was president)

That is getting printed and going up on my desk at work