...loosing your dice bag would be a serious financial blow.
...you could paper you bathroom in character sheets.
...you could paper your bathroom in different versions of just ONE character.
...you are unable to walk past the latest
TSR supplement without leafing through it, even
though you know it's going to be bad.
...you have more entertaining "No-shit,-there-I-was-in-a-game"
stories than you do
anecdotes about your family.
...you talk about your characters as if they are real people.
...you alternate between referring to your characters in the first and the third person.
... and none of your friends gets confused.
...you've ever spent a significant fraction
of your life modifying game rules that you didn't
like... and, as soon as the system worked
to your satisfaction, discarded it.
...when someone says "The blue books," you
don't automatically picture the kind that
they give you during a college final exam.
...you worship idols of Gary Gygax in your basement.
...you burn Gary Gygax in effigy in your back yard.
...you will not buy comic books with the Dragon Strike (tm) logo on the back.
...you've ever seen the old AD&D tv series.
...you're still reading this list.
...you hang out with people you actively dislike because they give good role- play.
...you've ever gotten into a screaming match
over something that happened in a game...
(You are so dead! I am not dead!)
...you've ever neglected to buy the new
edition of your favourite game because you
already have three.
...you have more than one photocopied bootleg of a gaming text.
...you keep old characters around just in
case someone might run that system again.
(Never mind that its TS: SI)
...You knew what I meant when I said TS:SI.
...you have a PhD in manipulating point
systems to the best effect, even though you
failed high school geometry.
..you can consume your body weight in junk food in one gaming session.
...you consider Altoids, Salt-&-Vinegar
chips, and blue Teeni Hugs a balanced diet. (or
even an acceptable combination.)
...you have been known to drive to far away
places where you paid enormous amounts
of money for the privelege of sleeping
on floors, eating crap, buying little pewter statues
of Gandalf, and meeting dozens of psychopathic
members of the alternate (or similar)
sex who will follow you around for months,
merely for the pleasure of playing with gamers
you don't know.
...and then signed up en masse with all
of you friends to play in games with game
masters who you've known since high school.
...you own your own weight in gaming books.
...the owners of local hobby stores take
your checks without ID because they know
where you live.
...you can do AD&D money conversions in your head.
...you could wallpaper you bedroom in Dragon Mirths (tm).
...you consider the demise of "What's New With Phil & Dixie" a blow to great literature.
...you consider the resurrection of "What's
New With Phis & Dixie" the redeeming
feature of Magic: The Gathering.
...you consider the 20th century a state of mind.
...you have a random NPC generator, written
in BASIC, designed to run on the Trash-80
or the Commodore 64.
...you've ever designed your own character sheets.
...you can be more that three NPCs at the
same time without generating more than
reasonable confusion in your players.
...you have ever played a Dwarven character
who did not have "axe" or "beard"
ANYWHERE in his or her name.
...you know how to sex dwarves. (chromosome
typing- required a blood sample. I'M not
getting it...)
...you've ever tried to explain gaming to
a school counselor, parent, or other PW/OC
(Person With/Out Clue).
...you've suceeded.
...you've played Talisman more than once.
...you've finished a game of Talisman.
...more than once.
...you're STILL reading this list.
...you can quote extensively from the Wandering Damage Tables.
...you've mistaken a d12 or a double d10
for a d20 while playing AD&D and had a
THAC0 low enough to hit the 8HD monster,
anyway...
...you understood that.
...you carry AD&D insurance.
...your AC is so low that even you can't hit yourself.
...an 87 point Balrog is no big thrill anymore.
... you bring your dicebag even to diceless roleplaying events.
...you've ever discovered, after gaming
with your significant other, that you like their
character better than you do them.
...you have friends or acquaintances who
regularly refer to you as "Og." (Or something
similar.)
...you've ceased responding to your birth name.
...you spend more money on dice than on food.
...you sometimes forget what century this is.
...your first response to any frustrating situation is, "I bash it with my axe."
...you know a lot of gaming jokes that used to be funny once.
...your friend(s) who does not game feels very left out of all of your conversations.
...you have more gaming books than the local hobby store.
...you've discovered that spare dice make good beanbag filler.
...you knew that that last question was a ringer: who has more dice than they can use?
... you have a copy of "Dark Dungeons" kicking
around somewhere because a: you
thought it was funny b: your parents got
concerned that you were living in a fantasy realm.
...you're sortof dissapointed that you haven't
reached the level where they start teaching
you the real spells (as described in the
above "Dark Dungeons" pamphlet) yet: You're
sure you must be a high enough level.
...you've been gaming for more than half of your life.
...you still laugh when someone says "Hey,
Dave, I think the barbarian in the corner
wants another beer."
...the phrase "Collect Call of Cthulhu" brings back fond memories.
...you can quote the whole "Trolls! Mutants!
Trolls! Mutants!" strip from "what's New With
Phil & Dixie."
...you knew a female gamer once.
...you were a female gamer once.
...you tend to play characters as different
from you in race, religion, sex, sexual
orientation, and what have you as possible,
just to confuse your friends.
...(For New Englanders only) You were able to find stuff at "Flock, Stock, and Barrel."
...you've been known to have in-depth conversations
about the relative merits of
Champions, V&V, Marvel, and DC heroes...
ignoring the fact that all superhero systems
are intrinsically sucky.
...you like one of the above systems enough
that you yelped when I called them all,
"sucky."
...you've thought of four or five additions to this list.
...you actually bought TSR's "Dungeoneer's Survival Guide" when it first came out.
...you've ever tried to discover the strengths
and weaknesses of a haemophiliac
werewolf.
...someone is attempting to explain the
floorplan of a building to you and you
immediately start thinking in terms of
10X10 squares.
...or 6'x6' hexes.
...your first though upon walking into a
friend's domicile is to reflect on where you'd put
the machine-gun nest.
From: [email protected] (Jay Knioum)
Subject: Re: You might be a gamer if...
Date: 18 Apr 1995 04:45 CDT
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (James T Gleason) writes...
>[email protected] (Kevin
Mowery) writes:
>
> *
Everything you see, hear, or taste translates into some form
>of stats for a game. ("Wow!
That move was cool...that means he's got
>Swing S
On the same note:
..you and your friends have spent a screening
of "The Crow" assigning vampire clans to
the various characters.
..you actually wear that little ankh that
comes in the Vampire Live-Action box...in
everyday life.
..you've ever gotten wierd looks from other
customers at places like Denny's or IHOP
because of the nature of your conversations.
..a friend of yours screws something up
and you respond with, "looks like you failed your
_________ roll."
..you've actually paid to have custom fangs made.
..you wear these fangs in everyday life (not to mention Renaissance festivals).
..you've ever argued against a combat rule
based on your experience in the
SCA/Military/Police, etc.
..you have a dozen things in mind for when you come across a magic lamp.
jk
From: [email protected] (Kevin
Mowery)
Subject: Re: You might be a gamer if...
Date: 17 Apr 1995 23:35:47 -0400
Matociquala ([email protected]) wrote:
:
: See what I mean? If anyone has
any further additions to this monster, send 'em
: along. If I get enough....
:
: There may be a whole new other list happening...
:
: I reserve the right to edit for clarity.....
:
Okay, how about these?
- when you talk about the "good old days"
you mean when games cost $12 and came
with their own dice.
- If you played a different game every night,
you'd need a fifty-day week to use your RPG
collection to its full extent.
- The six-siders in your dice bag have been
worn down to the point that they look like
20-siders.
- your car and/or home is falling apart,
you're wearing the same clothes you wore in the
1980's, and you miss meals regularly, but
you've got the money in the bank for the next
year's worth of <insert favorite game
company>'s products.
- If your computer broke down, your biggest
worry is how you'd print out your character
sheets.
- you can cite the differences between "official"
Star Trek, and FASA Star Trek, and Star
Fleet Battles.
- your character has more close friends than you do.
- you have more Star Frontiers modules than you have close friends.
- you could write a biography of your character
easier than you could write your own
autobiography.
- you think that such a biography WOULD BE an autobiography.
- you can't find your favorite shirt, but
you know where all the dice that came with your first
D&D set are.
- you remember when games gave you tips on "inking" dice with crayon.
- you can give no fewer than six different
speeches on "what is roleplaying?", verbatim,
from the introductions to different games.
- you've bought a game even though you didn't
like the genre or the rules, so that you
could fix the rules and convert them to
a different genre.
- you've looked into how much it would cost to build a castle
- there is virtually no game that you can't
name the genre, company, or country of origin
for (Hunter Planet, anyone?).
- your most important criteria for a mate is that they're a gamer, too.
- you're a hetero male and you've considered
changing orientation just to find a mate to
meet that criterion (that's a word, right?).
- you've ever written a speech for your
character to make just in case he should find
himself in such a situation.
- you remember when all games referred to characters as "he".
--
Kevin Mowery --- [email protected]
---
Imagine a world with no hypothetical situations...
From: [email protected] (James
T Gleason)
Subject: Re: You might be a gamer if...
Date: 18 Apr 1995 00:44:53 -0500
[email protected] (Kevin Mowery) writes:
>Matociquala ([email protected]) wrote:
>:
>: See what I mean? If anyone has
any further additions to this monster, send 'em
>: along. If I get enough....
>:
>: There may be a whole new other list
happening...
>:
>: I reserve the right to edit for clarity.....
>:
> Okay,
how about these?
* Your idea of a fun Friday night consists
of getting the gang together and playing for
eight or more hours.
* The only reason you want a lake cabin
is so you and the gang can go up there and play
non-stop all weekend without any distractions.
* You finally get to the point where you
look at everything on the shelves and say "*I* can
do a better job than these bozos!"
* You actually get a chance to do just that.
* ...and you succeed!
* Everything you see, hear, or taste translates
into some form of stats for a game.
("Wow! That move was cool...that means
he's got Swing Sword +20 and Look Cool In
Armor +15.")
* You write a parody of the RPG industry, and it's also a game.
* ...and one of the companies you slam picks
it up for its "Mature" imprint and distributes
it gleefully.
* You go into business as a consultant on the RPG industry.
* ...and you actually are *hired*! (Neener-neener!)
* You branch out from RPGs into the stuff
that game was derived from so you make
better sense of the bloody thing. (Gamers-turned-Otaku,
Gamers-turned-occultists,
Gamers-turned-goths, Gamers-turned-military
personel, Gamers-turned-martial artists,
etc.)
* ...and you *still* don't stop playing! (Loyal man! I like you!)
* You remember when there was none of this "no exclusively (fe)male viewpoint" bullshit.
* ...or when there was none of this "no cussing" crap either.
--
------------ ----
/// -- \\\ | ||||
.sig under construction
[email protected]
JT :)
From: [email protected] (Nana Yaw
Ofori)
Subject: Re: You might be a gamer if...
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 95 08:30:32 GMT
In Article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (James T Gleason)
wrote:
>[email protected] (Kevin
Mowery) writes:
>
>>Matociquala ([email protected])
wrote:
>>:
>>: See what I mean? If anyone has
any further additions to this monster, send
'em
>>: along. If I get enough....
>>:
>>: There may be a whole new other list
happening...
>>:
>>: I reserve the right to edit for clarity.....
>>:
* You make up songs like "Livin in the Kaer"
and "Fun Fun Fun (Till the Horror took her
Free Will Away)"
* You've written character histories that are longer than most novels...
* ...For Paranoia Characters.
* You Watch war documentaries with GURPS
Vehicles so you can tell how much
damage the 4-inch Naval Gun using an APX
shell does.
* You spend five hours converting Modern Aircraft, when you run a fantasy campaign.
* You can quote the exact chance of a 1st-level
Mage defeating an Umber hulk from
memory, though a Voydanoi takes a little
work.
* You break your leg, but insist on using a 'Recovery Test' before calling the ambulance.
* You have a list of what all the potions taste like.
* Your resume descrivbes you as a '5th-Level Civil Engineer'
* Drac's Raving at you.
* You've figured out that the Average AD&D
Great Wyrm Red Dragon has 7 cubic feet of
treasure.
* You Demand Experience points after winning a fistfight.
* You have a nickname that makes no sense because one of your characters had it.
* You Buy Dragon Magazine "For the Articles."
* You Worship TSR.
* You Detest T$R.
* You've ever constructed yourself as a character.
* You've got more tables than all the restaurants in town.
* You know how to use dice as weapons.
* You use phrases like 'Save vs. Graduation or go insane for 1d4 days.'
* You know how many hit points every member of your family has.
* You know that you can fit 20 d4's together
to make a large d20 because you've actually
tried it.
* You are not cleared for this information.
* You're up until 5:30 in the morning posting to rec.games.frp.misc.
"Yes, I have fond memories
from the phrase 'Collect Call of Cthulhu."
What of it??"
===============================================================================
_________
___ _________ ___ ___ ___
|"There are 3 types of peo-
>K> / ______/| / /| /
_____/| / /| / /| / /| | ple: Those good at math,
/ /|_____|// /
// /_____|// /_/_/ / // / / | & those who aren't."
/ ____/| /
/ //_____ /| / _____ / //__/ / |==========================
/ /|___|/ / / /_|____/
/ // /|__/ / /_|__|/ |"Collect Call of Cthulu,
/__/ / /__/
//_______/ //__/ / /__/ //__/| >K> | Mr. Smith. Will you
|__|/ >K> |__|/ |_______|/
|__|/ |__|/ |__|/ | accept the Charges?"
lB)
===============================================================================
Lucas "The Fish" Kale: "Life's a Fish,
then you Fry." [email protected]
===============================================================================
From: [email protected] (Tim and Stacey Dunn)
Subject: Re: [Silly] You might be a gamer
if...
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 14:02:42 GMT
Matociquala <[email protected]>
wrote:
>If anyone has any further additions to
this monster, send 'em
>along. If I get enough....
Trivia:
You know what the following names originally
stood for:
(easy) SPI, SJG
(med.) FBI, FGU
(hard) TSR, FASA
You know the following acronyms (feel free
to append, and credit the game)
AD&D's THAC0
Hero's 1d6 AF NND AE w/14- act
--
Laws of Japanese Animation: [by rshellit|[email protected]]
#5 - Law of Mechanical Mobility, Second
Law of Anime Motion
The larger a mechanical device
is, the faster it moves. Armored Mecha
are the fastest objects known
to human science.
From: [email protected] (Jay Knioum)
Subject: Re: You might be a gamer if...
Date: 18 Apr 1995 04:32 CDT
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Patrick David Dixon) writes...
> ---
You own a copy of "Metamorphosis Alpha."
..you spend hours poring through this newsgroup,
but just can't find the
time to read Book IX of Paradise Lost for
your Milton class tomorrow.
jk
From: [email protected] (Michael Bauser)
Subject: Re: You might be a gamer if...
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 95 19:11:08 EDT
In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Astrid Tops) writes:
>- you own Dragon magazines below number 100
Gorsh, is that all it takes nowadays?
--Your subscription copy of Dragon shows
up in the mail one month, and you realize it's
the hundredth consecutive issue you've
bought. (In my case, it was 187).
--You own consecutive issues farther back than that.
--You've read every issue from 55 on up.
--You're still looking for the rest.
--You've almost hit this point with Polyhedron.
--You remember when White Dwarf was an AD&D magazine.
--You bought a copy of the French-language
edition of Dragon, even though you can't
read French, because it had Second Edition
rules for the Anti-Paladin class, and even
though you don't like the class, you know
that having that issue will really annoy the
Anti-Paladin fans in your gaming club.
And for a completely non-magazine one....
Game dealers at Gencon recognize you and
know your name, even though it's your first
time at Gencon.