Attack of the Mainstream

[geneweigel]

A few days ago they had "Garycon" featured on a show called THE BIG BANG THEORY. I had every relative from here to Nevada saying "thats the thing Gene does... Oh...he's one of these people...". Its bad enough that THE HOBBIT just puts in everyone's face that that thing you were hung up on was just as superficial as Monday Night Football. Trying to explain that I never went to or cared to go to Garycon to too many people over the weekend while hinting that I don't relate to anything that happens on THE BIG BANG THEORY (all the while wearing various sci-fi/fantasy or comic book t-shirts, of course. ) is just exhausting.

I think this is energizing to the degree where I feel like the rats have taken over the ship so much that they've taken on human form and attack nightly from their damp reverse ziggurats under all the major cities...

From my perspective, I feel that long ago I had dropped the ball on the Lake Geneva get-together and it really came down to scheduling and money. I had talked about it so much on the internet that I believe that I had made the idea of a Lake Geneva nostalgia convention seem cool. Which eventually morphed into this "off season crappy GenCon" (specifically why did it become a lesser GenCon? I believe the backers are the same hardcore nerds that were behind LGGC. How do I know this? There was a guy on the LGGC/GARYCON forums who was having his ass kissed routinely who had the charm of a moth.) and its not worth going to anymore.

I recall saying we need something else and a Texas convention popped up around some vanity fair nostalgia clone RPG (I don't even remember the name of it.)

I feel like I've rebooted back to GenCon but what would be the point of that?

[geneweigel]

I think to put it specifically, what would be the reasoning behind a sort of "pro-Gary anti-GaryCon"?

The RPG industry is "all about that bass, no treble" as seen from the post-Gygax TSR years output. Using Gygax's name in any way has proven to be akin to tweeting "#freementaldisordermedication" but if you were to use "D&D" its like "#freementaldisordermedicationandbabysitting" while "RPG" is like "#freementaldisordermedicationandtraumaticreenactment".

Some elements of what caused D&D have never congealed into anything solid to base a gathering on. If anything people get stuck on Arneson's contributions and it just hits the wall when one realizes there was nothing really there. Sure he may qualify to be in the halls of the Sword Sorcery Game Hardcore with Gary but lionizing any of them is a fucking nightmare as we've seen. If it fails with Gary then Arneson is even worse off.

A con thats all about lets say the documentary of the founding of D&D has the same foibles as the above.

If one was to put together a LANKH-CON then you would have angry Leiber relatives who never saw a dime of his money coming down on your heads.

Its frustrating that you can't even celebrate what you enjoy because the majority associate it with the majority.

If I were to call it straightout "GORDCON" I'd probably get sued.

[GRWelsh]

I can sympathize with being disappointed in cons, in general. I've never been to a con that I wasn't in some way disappointed with. And even if you started a new one with what you thought was the "right approach" it would inevitably draw competing influences that would frustrate you. I've never been to a Garycon or LGGC, so I can't comment on them, or how they compare to the old days of GEN CON in Wisconsin. I think a con dedicated to EGG's memory is a fine basis for a con, but yes, of course, you're still going to get competing interests attending... which may be enough to ruin it for you, depending on your tolerance level for others...

I'll always be disappointed I didn't make it out to Lake Geneva before EGG passed away, but that only makes me realize it wasn't GEN CON or LGGC that I wanted to go to -- I just wanted to have the chance to meet EGG in person and maybe chat with him a bit, say thanks, hope to get invited to a session exploring the Greyhawk Dungeon, etc.

The Big Bang Theory is a very strange premise for a show: essentially we in the audience are invited to laugh at Sheldon's quirkiness which is evidently a result of autism. So, we're all making fun of an autistic kid?!? Yet somehow they walk that fine line and get away with it.

[geneweigel]

I think to summarize GenCon 2002, it was walking around seeing lines as compared to an expo, trade show or a science conference (all of which I've been to) and adding cute girls to draw people in. I had seen "girl lures" to some degree in mid-90's comic cons. They had an art show. Preplanned rented tables. The open tables were essentially a fourth grade cafeteria times 10 with little kids playing cards. Lots of dapper but awkward guys in polo shirts with company logos on. Gygax himself was in full glib mode, I think he had gone into a trance for the whole weekend. There were hobby shop type sellers here and there trying to move product. Lots of gaming companies with books for sale on the spot some of them not well thought out. The big "D&D" area was this colorful but sanitized area filled with ultra-quiet type guys with big guts and big napsacks.

To summarize LGGC the difference was there were two or three vendors compared to a 100 or more at GenCon. There were a few events that you could view or readily participate in. They also had "GARY THE RIDE" the bus tour with Gary as the tour guide. I jokingly called it that to Gary and he thought it was funny. The average person was there for unknown reasons but I knew GT, Grodog and the guy who ran the Chainmail games. They later went to Gary's house and was not aware of that until after I came home when Gary was asking where the heck I was. I went with my cousin who had a run-in with someone at the con that he described like the ending of AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999). At one point a crowd of what looked like women with beards came on the second day which totally freaked me out. All the people playing Kuntz seemed to know who I was but aside from the above mentioned I nobody registered in my mind as an avatar that I had seen.

[geneweigel]

Mar 3, 2015 9:58:40 GMT -5 GRWelsh said:

The Big Bang Theory is a very strange premise for a show: essentially we in the audience are invited to laugh at Sheldon's quirkiness which is evidently a result of autism. So, we're all making fun of an autistic kid?!? Yet somehow they walk that fine line and get away with it.

I think you're spot on about the autism. Its a catch-22 or rather is it double standard? Or both perhaps?? That is, is the spectrum of autism more inclusive and should competent autistics receive the same polite exceptions? Are people who argued with fringe autistics retroactively vicious bastards? etc,., etc., etc....

[GT]

Interesting... I rather liked the LGGC's and two Gary Con's I went to; and I somewhat relate to Leonard on Big Bang Theory, as I have a couple of friends who are exactly like Sheldon (one was a roommate...). I don't find it derogatory; simply an observation on "Nerd life" of which I am a part.
"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." Oscar Wilde
"Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive" Elbert Hubbard

[GT]

BTW; GenCon 1981 at Racine was one of my favorite Cons ever... SMALLER and accessible; maybe I'm somewhat elitist? We were proud to be gamers/sci-fi & fantasy nerds, and didn't care what anybody else thought. Same thing with founding the Purdue Animation Club...

[geneweigel]

Well, the status quo in those Wisconsin cons is literally the same here in the tri-state area and therefore not worth a long trip. Thats what really matters is pointing out that these things are not worth a journey. However, if they were all about the flavor over whatever some awkward random person thinks is great "nerd" company then it might be worth a go and repeating.

[geneweigel]

I think what originally turned me off GaryCon was the interaction on their discussion forum. I figured if the forum was dead in the water then what would the con be like. Like I said if it was down the road I might go for the ultra-weak classic TSR presence. But across country? It has to %100 Gygax TSR only and no "geeks/nerds" who can't tell the difference..

[geneweigel]

Heh, this is the last GT thread?

I don't know. This was like whats on my mind at the time.

I still think there is something to a theory of nerd's hijacking everything that is abandoned by mainstream and repackaging it.

Besides the convention trips, mentioned above, the history of D&D being considered nerdy can be seen in DRAGON MAGAZINE:

MAY 1978 DRAGON #14: “A real bunch of nerds. They obviously didn’t know anything
about dungeons and almost got themselves killed off the short time I
was with them. When a Hobgoblin king sent them on a quest I figured I
would be better off on my own again.”

The term here is equivalent to "asshole".

MAY 1979 DRAGON #25: “Yeah, just the six,” he continued. “A real collection, too. A couple of cannon-fodder fighters, Bruce the Bold and Evel the Lesser, or some such. A fellow named Rood, who was supposedly a heavy-duty fighter from the castle Penncon, and an elf mage named Snafu. He paused and gave a little laugh. “I imagine that with a few years of hard practice he could have lived up to his name.”
“That’s four,” I said, reaching for a poker. “What about the other two?” He waved me back to my seat and stretched a leg out to the hearth. “The only two with anything on the ball,” he said, stirring the embers with a toe. “Moose was a fighter type, kind of a cross between a lamppost and a battering ram.” “I know the type,” My thoughts flashed to a fighter named Fred that I had once heard of. “A door opener.” “Yeah,” he continued. The other was another elf. A thief, named Leof. Not too good with traps, but man! Could he pick pockets!” I pushed the 10W-30 chaser a little closer to him. I find that my guests are a little more talkative if I keep their tonsils lubricated. “Nice place you’ve got here,” he said, sucking at the lipid liquid. “Thanks,” I acknowledged. “But just how did you get involved with this bunch?’ “Well,” he replied, with a yawn, “the dragon who created me sent me on a scouting mission after he wiped a passel of goblins. I slipped on the gore and landed face-down in the goop. Before I know what’s happening, here’s this fighter fellow, Rood, sitting on my shoulders, wiping the word off of my forehead. He rewrote the word, with the necessary change that put me under his control.” He shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid he didn’t know the language as well as he thought. I had a little trouble with my motor reflexes, and found that I couldn’t talk. By the way, thanks for straightening me out.” “It was nothing,” I declaimed. “Glad to give you the word.” “Anyway, that’s how I ended up going with those nerds.”

Here the term is equivalent to "losers".

AUG 1985 DRAGON#100 While I've been lucky enough for it not to have happened to me, many kids that play the D&D game are considered nerds.

Even this kid is pissed at being called a nerd.

APR 1987 Worse yet, the girls who are free enough from peer pressure to try out novel ideas are outsiders, seen as "weird," and are the least likely ones to incite a trend; the very fact that these girls engage in an activity, whether chess club or D&D games, can often label the activity as something only for nerds.

This girl is pissed off as well.

The modern label perhaps is too broad. If I could go back in time and avoid all the nerd run D&D games, that I stumbled upon over the years, I wouldn't because how would have learned anything?

There is always going to be the "all things nerd" people being a nuisance to a D&D game. How can you even have a conversation, much less a game, with someone who thinks babbling obscure media references crudely and/or exudes socially disgusting behavior?

The more this is seen as a problem that needs to be addressed and not a social crime by "bullies" then we're all better off.

They have to be identified then dismissed. Looking the other way is not something that I do. If someone is in trouble by some babbler going off about the SyFy channel and rolling their eyes at any interjection then you can't just let it go and passive aggressively and politely wait 4 hours or so until the game is ended. They need to be sent packing or there isn't going to be a game.