Why is DnD/Roleplaying the ultimate nerdy thing?

[Hollock]

A couple weeks ago I played a roleplaying game for the first time. Since then, I've told a few people and there responses have varied from "really?!?" "Whaaaaat?" and "OMG". It's weird because I'm a pretty nerdy guy, I play videogames, I read comics, I fucking MAKE comics, but Roleplaying is the kicker. And I get that it's seen as a step beyond videogames anime ect, but I don't really know why. Do you?
Also, do you do non video game roleplaying? (not SEX roleplaying people! Okay sex, but I'm talking DnD stuff too)
What's your opinion on the games and the gamers?

 

[Nathan Crumpler]

The more you play D&D the more you will learn pointless information. If you are just a player, you can skate on knowing very minimal information on different monsters, classes, races, deities, etc... Just play a human fighter and you are set for life if you like. If you are a DM or dungeon master, you will need to know a lot about the game and the world it consists in, in order to smoothly run a game. Not only that, in order to play a game of D&D, you, or the DM, will have to organize a time and place for all the players to get together and play for several hours. I believe movie bob said that someone being nerdy isn't what you like, it's the extent to which you like it. Any one can go the the theater and watch Lord of the Rings, or play the video games, but it is a major hassle to get a group of people together and pretend to be the characters from the movies.

Any way, that's my opinion on why people think D&D, or other table top games, are nerdy. Personally, I don't think 'nerdy' isn't an insult, so I don't really care if I or something I like gets called nerdy.

 

[Fappy]

Most the people who feel this way don't know what LARPing is.

 

[mechashiva77]

I REALLY want to play DnD, but I can never get a campaign going. My friends and acquaintances dangle it in front of me like a turkey leg in front of a starving dog, but they never seem to go through with it. Mind you it's not out of spite, but of eventual disinterest and more important matters that they must take care of. My previous role-playing experience would have to be on the World of Warcraft. With the universe they have built, it's just so easy to create a story and a character, not to mention they have entire servers dedicated to it.

As for why DnD is considered the ultimate nerdy thing, I cannot answer that objectively. My educated guess would be that it was a stereotype when the game first started coming out and people were getting interested. I mean hell, they made a movie about how "bad" it was for you. Eventually all role-playing got that shtick because it was seen as "like DnD" so that's why it's considered the ultimate nerdy thing.

 

[DoPo]

(not SEX roleplaying people! Okay sex, but I'm talking DnD stuff too)

I see you haven't picked up The Book of Erotic Fantasy, yet. XD

The more you play D&D the more you will learn pointless information. If you are just a player, you can skate on knowing very minimal information on different monsters, classes, races, deities, etc... Just play a human fighter and you are set for life if you like. If you are a DM or dungeon master, you will need to know a lot about the game and the world it consists in, in order to smoothly run a game.

From my experience, everybody in the game will learn tons of useless info all the time. Wanna know how exactly the bows work and how the weight listed is "not realistic" or maybe a brief lecture on physics and gravity as the characters are falling down. Or, heck, you may get trapped in a discussion about how feasible is to use intestines instead of a rope and which race would provide the best quality. A word of advice, don't bring people who do PhD in physics into a Mage game - one guy I knew managed to think up a very low level spell that would basically wipe out everything in quite a radius. Good thing he wasn't actually playing. On the other hand, same guy managed to, basically, wipe out all magic from the world "by accident" (IC) and "for shits and giggles, because he was bored" (OOC) in another game he played.

OT:

And I get that it's seen as a step beyond videogames anime ect, but I don't really know why. Do you?

Also, I play and like RPGs. The gamers are alright. Dunno what else to say about them, really.

 

[Folji]

Meh, I call stale old stigma that people just cling onto because why the hell not. From what I've experienced it always turns out that they've never ever tried it before, they're just treating it as weird because someone told them it's weird. Like... weird. Plus it's really made "my +number item of trait" one of the first go-to ways to joke about cheesy geekiness, hasn't it?

They should just try it out themselves before discrediting it. It's a fun way to be creative!

 

[370999]

Becuase it's very non-mainstream. Now for why I have to guess (WARNING: I'VE NEVER PLAYED A PnP RPG).
A) The Emphasis on imagination mixed up with rules. It's this quxtaposition I imagine would feel weird for most folks, really creative chaps wanting to be all free-form, and more competitive people playing chess or something.
B) the fantasy setting, which predominates in the genre/medium. Ths screams geeky to people.
C) the social stigma attached to it by all those BAD groups, that DnD groups were full of socially maladjusted folks. The idea of them being dangerous hs gone, but it being iffy is still there.

I imagine there are more.

 

[SaetonChapelle]

Really?
I suppose I might live in an open area, but where I am playing such things are rather common. We have entire stores dedicated to tabletop roleplaying in which myself and multiple others go and play ourselves for hours on end. I have found that over the years the playing of tabletop gaming, such as DnD, have become widely accepted and not so nerdy anymore. Most people don't comment, at least to my face, about how weird it is.

Of course that might just again be because of the area I'm located in. I also position myself with other people who are like minded, so perhaps there is a biased there.

 

[Ieyke]

A couple weeks ago I played a roleplaying game for the first time. Since then, I've told a few people and there responses have varied from "really?!?" "Whaaaaat?" and "OMG". It's weird because I'm a pretty nerdy guy, I play videogames, I read comics, I fucking MAKE comics, but Roleplaying is the kicker. And I get that it's seen as a step beyond videogames anime ect, but I don't really know why. Do you?
Also, do you do non video game roleplaying? (not SEX roleplaying people! Okay sex, but I'm talking DnD stuff too)
What's your opinion on the games and the gamers?

D&D is the "ultimate geeky thing" because it's SUPER complex compared to anything else you could play, and there's no computer that's going to hold your hand and guide you through it or do the math for you.
Incidentally, the complexity and lack of guidance also make the most immersive and versatile game you can play.

D&D is awesome, if you have a group of well-versed players.


I used to be part of what was almost certainly the largest, most experienced group of D&D players in Texas until last summer, when me and 2 other guys who between us essentially held the group together basically tore the whole thing apart.
One guy was annoyed at the other and basically kicked him out, and then I kicked out the other guy and pretty much the whole group went with them, falling to pieces.

As you might imagine, there were reasons for this. D&D players are a mixed bunch, but D&D groups seem to tend towards being fairly homogeneous.
Some groups ARE those horrible geek stereotype socially inept weirdo outcasts.
Some are completely normal people.
Some are art students or something similar.
Some are really casual and mostly social players.

My particular group was a crap load of fairly ordinary guys and girls with a general inclination towards loving geeky stuff in general.
My group also consisted of a lot of assholes, and while we were indeed friends (they were my primary group of friends just in general), there was always stupid petty crap, bickering, some backstabbing....eventually the backstabbing got worse, some major slander was thrown around, and finally I had enough and told almost all of them (aside from the girl who got innocently caught in the crossfire) to GTFO.

I know other groups who seem to really only get together for D&D, so they have less personal entanglements.

I know people who play D&D spontaneous with whatever people happen to show up at a game store on game night.

I know groups that mostly just play D&D as an excuse to sit around drinking.


In short, D&D players are just as varied as any other type of gamers.
D&D just seems like it has a MUCH MUCH higher bar for entry than pretty much anything else, so it intimidates people, and they see it as something only the geekiest of geeks play, or can even figure out HOW to play.

 

[Ishal]

Most things I was going to say have been Ninja'd but I'll say it anyway.

It is pretty nerdy to be in a dungeon and dragons group. However, I sill say that the amount of knowledge needed to run something like that is either below or equal to the amount of knowledge required to do super intense fantasy sports and other sports-nerd requirements. Perhaps I'm wrong, but as a sci-fi/fantasy nerd and not a sports one, i can say that I find it easier to get into D&D then to play fantasy football.

Piloting a character is pretty simple and requires a very limited knowledge of the rules, especially if you have a knowledgeable and nice DM. Nice being the operative word there, some nasty or vindictive DM's will exploit your lack of the rules and fuck you over BIG TIME. That said, the ultimate nerd in a D&D group is almost always the dungeon master.

In D&D the dungeon master is GOD. That really is how it works. There is also a set of criteria that best DM's have that make the game fun to play. Such as..

1) Having an intricate knowledge of the rules to move the game along, instead of stopping all encounters to figure out what happens when so and so does such and such with a monster. Many things must be looked up, yes. But there is a time and a place and the less it happens the better.

2) Being fair to the players. This is important for the more casual D&D group. You are a new player who spends lots of time making a character and you are just starting to unlock new traits for it when you fight a mummy, catch the mummy rot and die. Now what? Re-roll or just stop playing? A DM could be a benevolent or be straight up old-testament god to your characters.

3) The DM should be charismatic and be having as much fun as the players, at least this was my best experience of it. The only person the DM is not controlling is your character and your party members characters. Every NPC you encounter in the world is played by them. The monsters and the villagers, the king and queen, whatever the DM does it all. And what if nancy the tavern wench has a Scottish accent because everyone in the town you are in speak that? The best DMs do the accents and acting for all the npcs. It can be a blast if the DM really gets into it.

So yeah. It can be a bit nerdy, but it is also one of the most fun nerdy things I've ever experienced. I did it at college and so of course was ridiculed for it by many people, but it didn't matter because I would be laughing so hard at some of our games it felt soo good. Not to mention, our DM made sure we were aware of who some of the npc characters were supposed to represent from some of our real life dickhead college peers. He hated meta gaming though, so it was even more funny that he would do something like that haha. I recommend anyone who thinks they might have fun with it def give it a try, I doubt you will regret it.

3)

 

[Something Amyss]

Oh, come on, that's nothing compared to LAR...

Most the people who feel this way don't know what LARPing is.

Dammit. Uh...Has anyone mentioned the SCA yet?

 

[loc978]

Depends on just how serious you take the game world... so pretty much what Fappy said. LARPers creep me out, and I've been a roleplaying geek for going on two decades. If you have any question as to why LARPing can be incredibly creepy, go watch Spoony's video about a Vampire: the Requiem LARP [http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/11/06/counter-monkey-vampire-spoonys-jyhad/] (also, fuck the Requiem. Masquerade was more fun). People tend to essentially form cults around this shit... that's why I've never been able to stomach the SCA, despite my interest in history and swordsmanship (also, not to be a braggart, but my aptitude in swordsmanship... the local chapter wanted me, once upon a time. At the risk of paraphrasing a bad movie, I'm a rather gifted killer).

 

[Scarim Coral]

I just assume why DnD is regard the ultimate nerdy thing since it involve alot of number (status and getting the right number from the dice roll) which back to the old sterotype, nerd are suppose to be good at number.

As for me I never get the chance to play DnD but I want to but I don't know anyone who played it. Granted there is a Tabletop store over here that does do weekly RP (I think?) but I ain't going to walk in and say "Hey I would like to do some DnD roleplay, can I joined?"

The only form of rp I ever done is the forum rp on here but these days all of my free times goes toward games and most rp I've joined tend to alot of descriptive posts which were hard for me to follow what's going on (my English is never the best so I prefer to keep it simpler).

 

[Folji]

Oh, come on, that's nothing compared to LAR...

Most the people who feel this way don't know what LARPing is.

Dammit. Uh...Has anyone mentioned the SCA yet?

That massive medieval living history organization?

 

[Bigsmith]

Try thinking of it this way:
It's basically a group of people sat around a table doing math for fun. When it boils down to it all DND is about is who's predetermined numbers plus the random value on a specific sided dice is larger then the others. Couple that with 3/4 rule books that you at least need to know of in order for the game run smoothly. Plus that guy who not only plays female characters but does it badly (I don't mind cross Gender RP as long as it isn't bad).

LARP on the other hand is an completely different kettle of fish.

 

[TIMESWORDSMAN]

I believe someone once said, and I'm paraphrasing here, 'DnD is a magical adventure based around math and imagination.'

As an infrequent DnD player, I can assure that it is nerdy as hell, and also very fun and flexible.

I would also consider LARPing a step down on the nerd scale, if only because it requires physical activity and being outside.