YOU MIGHT BE A GAMER IF...
....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-****,-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 it's 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 Phil & Dixie" the
redeeming feature of Magic: The Gathering.
....you want to marry Dixie.
....and you're female.
....you consider the 20th century a state of mind.
....you're a member of the SCA.
....just so you can get a better idea how to roleplay your fighter.
....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 sort of disappointed 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 play one of the superhero systems that didn't get listed above.
....you look at the sample characters in the V&V rules and advertisements and
chortle at how wimpy they are.
....you actually bought TSR's "Dungeoneer's Survival Guide" when it first came
out.
....you own first edition copies of "Gamma World" and "Boot Hill".
....and you've used the crossover rules in the AD&D DMG.
....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.
....or 3' hexes.
....your first though upon walking into a friend's domicile is to reflect on
where you'd put the machine-gun nest.
....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
Traveller: 97E8DD6C
GURPS: SS, 1/2D, Max, Rcl
Teenagers from Outer Space: RWP
Your reaction to a SF/Fantasy/Horror Movie/TV Show/Story is:
1) To say/think "Been there, done that"
2) To try and figure out which game system you'd run it under
2a) To try and derive the TORG Axioms & World Laws for it
3) To try and figure out which of your gaming friends would be running
each of the major characters
....you are DEFINITELY a gamer if you did all of the above for the O.J.
Simpson trial (GURPS Kato Kaelin?)
....you read Dragon Magazine in class...
....and your instructor catches you...
....and doesn't say anything because he knows you're still paying attention to
the lecture.
....you take Ancient Chinese History 320 just to make a campaign seem more
realistic...
....and you're not the only one in there with that idea.
....you carry dice around with you to help you make decisions.
....you carry more game books than text books around with you.
....you have an entire filing cabinet full of photocopied character sheets,
housing schemata, old characters and old games...
....and some of them even get used occasionally.
....your grocery list is written up as a random encounter table.
....the owner of the local gameshop gives you a discount because you have
spent more than $1000 dollars in his store...
....in one month.
....you own game books in languages you do not speak...
....but are planning on learning them because of your knowledge of the version
in your own tongue.
....you own and play four or more games that have been out of print for 10
years.
....GenCon staffers name a room after you.
....you have more insurance on your gaming collection than on your house. (or
in life insurance on your significant other)
....you've asked local gamestore owners if they would let you run a demo. (Or
they've asked you)
....you get mail about conventions in other countries.
....you get a paper cut and check the exact location on the Phoenix Command
Advanced Damage Tables.
....you are on a first name basis with game store owners in other states or
other countries.
....you've seen the cover of a Dragon magazine in 3 different books.
....you miss time at work while writing on this thread. (or reading it)
....you've written more checks at the local game store than you have to the
light company or to your landlord... combined.
....your mundane spouse starts quoting game material back at you.
....while having sex you utter a character name during a moment of passion...
....and your lover was not offended.
....you noticed that Trapper Keeper folders make handy book covers
....as opposed to those vinyl "Chaos" "Wizard" etc. covers put out.
....you covet the white crayons in each box of Crayolas.
....the grand social ball screeches to a halt as your DM friend proclaims, "I
lost a die! Stop the game!"
....you know your character's background better than your folks.
....or your own.
....you remember holidays by the conventions that occur then.
....including your weddng anniversary.
[author's note: ours falls on GamesCarcass weekend, err... Memorial Day.]
....you schedule events around your "gaming night(s)".
....including surgeries and births.
....you've used RPGs as the topic for projects and papers.
....such as Anthropology & Psychology.
....you read either literary or religious canon & classics (or other cures for
insomnia) and think, "Hey, what a neat idea for a game!"
....and you pull it off. [hey, jeff!]
....you find gaming gives you new insight into abstract art & movies, such as
"Naked Lunch", "Swimming to Cambodia" and Laurie Anderson.
....and you manage to explain the signifigance of this new perspective.
[author's note: being a gamer gave me new insights in reading "Do Androids
Dream ... (of electric sheep)" that made sense, but that five of my other
friends who read the book never saw before.]
....you assess everyday objects for their offensive & defensive values.
....and stat them out in your head in your favorite game system.
....you can stat things out in system X so well that it becomes a "language."
....that your best friend (and GM/player) understands your jokes in it.
....you have created yourself and those around you as either PCs or NPCs.
....one of your friends' writeup of himself costs more points than the rest of
you put together.
....you wish you were your character because s/he has a much more interesting
life.
....and s/he's a clubfooted, nearsighted, one-eyed hunchback, on the run from
the Pope, the King's Guard and a legion of Angels.
....you know the difference between a glaive, a guisarme glaive and a halberd.
....and you got the joke above.
....you read a "Murphy's Rule" and thought, "Hey, I used that once!"
....you read the credit and it's a friend's name.
....you've used the Random Pizza Generation tables.
....you took all the errors in "Arduin Grimoire" seriously. ("% Liar",
anyone? )
....you name your workstation after a character.
....and email the old gang from it, showing off.
....you've written either optional rules, or worse, corrected deficient rules.
....when you've shown them to the author, s/he agrees.
....and they show up in the next edition of the game.
....you try to coerce your SO to chauffeur you to gaming stores 50 miles away,
even tho she/he doesn't game.
....you only started going out with your SO after your characters slept
together.
....you refer to your SO by his/her character's name.
....s/he answers.
....you've written fiction based on your character(s) and/or their adventures.
....and shown it to your friends.
....and they liked it.
....so you submitted it to a publisher.
....and they printed it.
....you're still, even now, reading this list.
....and you can think of soooo much more to add to it.
---
(Written by various hands on rec.games.frp.misc)