(How the heck have I not noticed this thread yet!?
)
I uhhh, apparently...accidentally...may have, you know...stream of consciousness'ed a bit here. A wee bit monologue-esque so to say.
Hehe..oh boy...please don't boot me out the forum!
Like the
OP, my game of choice is Magic, I play regular Friday Night Magic from 7 to midnight, and after go to a restaurant and play casually with a group of 4-8 on average and play till 4am. I've been playing for 15 years and until an actually all around better card game comes along that's going to be where I'm at, 'Spoils' was close, 'Ascension' also close. I too average out high in the rankings, 'round fifth place out of a usual crowd of 20, special events we pack the store to 64 players at a time. (I'll get back to this, it is important not just "BLAHBLAH
WE"RE AWESOME!", give me a sec
) Weird thing though in the area I'm in there are 7
FLGS in the 20 square mile area, roughly, kinda guessing the radius. The difference is the super chill laid back players all congregate at one of them, (there are a few other stores that don't have seating room.) which is, after many pilgrimages to the other six, the 'cool' one is the one I go to now. There USED to be 4 'good' stores and three 'bad' stores. (personal opinion, shared by others, put the pitchforks down.) Now it's six to one. SIX 'bad' store and ONE 'good' store. Every
day someone wanders in and we get to talking and they'll stop and say "Gosh, your store/people/event is so nice, we were at __________ last week and we didn't have a good experience there and yada-yada-yada." and all we can do is nod our head and say "You aren't alone."
DO YOU GUYS BELIEVE THAT!? THERE ARE GAMING REFUGEES IN OUR CITY! WHAT-THE-
!?
Then we'll get some guy/gal come in and play and stare dumbfounded at us when we quietly ignore their attempt at proving a point of some rule or what not, then walk out the store after winning/losing with some net-deck or net-list against whatever crazy bananas junk we're running and say on their way out the door that we're not 'competitive enough' or some bull. (To our credit we get an satisfying win rate against them, not perfect of course but good enough to satisfy honor
) From time to time someone within the store will go out and gauge themselves against the other stores and come back with stories that frankly baffle some of us. And occasionally a sweet victory/placing story
You all have stories like these I'm sure.
Do we have animosity between the war gamers and card gamers? No. Why? Because they are chill mature peeps, that's why. What problems do arise are when the war gamers come in on a pre-release weekend and find standing room only through most of the 1200sq.
ft. store. Then they get shown the sign in the window that said that this was going to happen from three weeks back, grumble, buy a model or paint or something, and go get pizza. Because they are mature, chill, peeps. And they know that the lights stay on because the card guys spend money like it was their job (told you I'd get back to that!
). And the card guys know that its the wargame guys that will hang out all day and help direct customers when the card gamers are out. And then they stop and watch each others games. Because they are awesome respectful brothers and sisters. That's why.
But you know what we have found? As far as 'animosity' goes? We've found it insidiously hiding within the groups themselves. But not within the subset of regulars! (or at least most of them) Its when some
comes strutting in and starts acting high and mighty in that passive-aggressive way that we nerds tend to do, and rubs everyone the wrong way, and then the arguments let fly. And don't you say that it is just in one or two categories of gamers! I'm a jack-of-all-games, I've seen this stuff first hand in ALL the categories. In the scheme of things, over the past five or so years, am I the only one that's noticed the increasing number of superiority complexes in nerds? I was guilty of being one of them for six months before the guys at the store called me on it! It's easy to get into. It was frighteningly easy for me, I'm still trying to get my gamer head back on straight. Its like we've gone from being the picked on or ignored minority to prissy alley cats trying to guard the worthless ground we stand on. We have more competitions now than we did before, so now we can be more competitive. We have more players, and that challenges us to establish our identity with in the growing herds, even through squabbling. We have become what we once despised. Gangs of bullies. That's my opinion. I'm seeing a few similar stories through out the thread. I'd wager I'm not alone In my observations.
Moral of the story? It's not the games, it's not the store, it's not even the interaction of the groups. It's the people. Always has been. Always will be. We need to have a meetin' and get ourselves set straight, 'cuz this
be getting real old. Proceed to be awesome brothers and sisters, and remember to keep an open mind!
