Two Books On Gamer Lives

I have recently finished two books gamer life style and have different reactions to both of them. Both of the books are written from a UK point of view rather than a US one, but the core of the books, the parts about the hobby translate well enough regardless of the country. The first is Achtung Schweinehund!: A Boy’s Own Story of Imaginary Combat by Harry Pearson, a writer for the Guardian newspaper in the UK. The Guardian is  one of the best written papers in the world, even with its hard leftwing bias, and Mr. Pearson’s book also very well written and easy to read. It does carry that slightly apologetic tone that you hear when a wargamer talks to nonwargamers. He knows the hobby is odd but the author is clearly having too much fun with the hobby to simply give it up. He leads us through the story of how he first got into playing wargames, then he takes us through the modern hobby and the types of people he has met as he chased down the perfect figures for his collection. Many of the characters seem stereotypical, the clever cabbie friend, the kindly gentleman, the snooty french gamers, but all the characters are written with honest sympathy and when that is combined with Mr. Pearson’s love of the hobby the books is an enjoyable read.

The second book I have more mixed feelings about, it is The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange by Mark Barrowcliffe. This books is about overcoming an obsession with Dungeons and Dragons. It is funny at points and painful at points. It mostly reads true, if you have been to a game convention you have seen people who would fit into Mr. Barrowcliffe’s story very easily. My discomfort comes from fact that this will be perceived as the normal D&D experience, and clearly it isn’t.

Most people who played, or play Role Playing games will admit to awkward moments the games have brought on, but almost everyone gets through them and lives pretty normal non-obsessed lives. The Role Playing game is new to society and still widely feared and misunderstood so it is easy to blame obsession on the game, but obsession comes from the obsessie. I have met football obsessies, car obsessies, sex obsessies, political obsessies and many others but there is a a particular scorn society has for the D&D nerd that this book feeds straight into. This scorn causes people to hide their hobby or to be embarrassed by it and that is sad. I have met people who over focused on D&D, but I have also met many more people who used D&D and similar hobbies to bring themselves out of their shells and learn to socialize more normally.

I guess in the end I can’t blame the book for the stereotypes. It is at times a pretty funny read, but I do fear that there will be many who read it who have their view of what Dungeons and Dragons is validated by the book and that is why I left The Elfish Gene feeling much colder than I did when I finished Achtung Schweinehund!. Achtung Schweinehund! didn’t deny the odd nature of the hobby but it dosen’t leave you with the impression that the hobby is all about the odd parts or that hobbiests should all be seeking treatment. I am glad Mr. Barrowcliffe got over his obsession, but I wish he made it plainer that this was his journey, not a required journey.