Sunday 15 August 2010

My Dad's Bigger than Your Dad

What is it with guys who play role playing games, and talking about how much they know about martial arts?

I consider myself to be moderately masculine. I never cry, drink a lot of beer, don't mind stinking of sweat, watch and enjoy most sports, and I like ogling women at the gym, but on the other hand I'm not interested in cars and I quite like Sex and the City.

I also have done a bit of Tae Kwon Doe in my time, and got okay-ish at it - enough to know what becoming good at a martial art entails anyway (and enough to know I'm much too lazy to get there).

But I can never get my head around those conversations that some blokes have. You know the sort of thing. "I have this friend who is a black belt in karate and he showed me this move where you punch somebody in the chest and actually stop their heart!" "Well, I did kung fun for 20 years, and I know how to kick you so hard in the goolies that you end up coughing them out of your own nostrils." "My dad taught me aikido, and he learnt it from the modern founder of aikido who visited him from beyond the grave!" "I'm so utterly hard that every time I take a shit the muscles in my glutes break the toilet!"

For obvious reasons, these conversations always seem to crop up during role playing game sessions. Every time they do I have to just sit in the corner rolling my eyes. It's so utterly moronic; surely it would be simpler and more efficient if everybody just took their cocks out, compared sizes, and had done with it?

You get it with guns too, of course. Listen, I'm a WWII history buff, and I can compare the performance of a 37mm and a 47mm anti-tank gun with the best of them, but I never do so in public, or at least outside of the insanity of the turn-based WWII tactical wargames I play. The next time I hear somebody talking about how a .45 calibre round does x to your torso whereas a .44 one does y, when really it's just a matter of one doing d6+2 damage and one doing d6+3, I think I'll start strangling people.

20 comments:

  1. I've never had a conversation like that at role-playing!

    There is a variant amongst martial artists, of the "My old teacher could..." or "have you seen the guy who can..." followed up with comparisons of weak and strong points of various arts. After you've been through a few of those conversations they all seem the same, and I'm thoroughly over them.

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  2. These conversations also come up on the various forums, only there they usually spring up without context. So you might be following a thread about second level druid spells in D&D, then some numpty starts going on about the relative merits of a Druganov vs the Barrett. Or something.

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  3. I hear you on the whole martial arts thing and firearms thing. I get that one all the time. Same situation, more experience in martial arts, but the gist of it is still there.

    What also happens to me also is stuff on military service. I am a veteran, didn't serve in combat but did do Bosnia/Kosovo since when I was in that was the big hot button issue. I hear "I almost was able to serve" or "I was in but booted out because of [insert BS excuse but make it sound bad ass] or some other one. What I find funny and offensive at the same time is when I get lectured about how the Army is and more so when told about the cavalry.

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  4. ARRSE call this type Walts; a breed of wannabes, neverweres and Internet Tough Guys with many strains. They are *all* worthy candidates for the "explosions in space" test and the "don't game with dickheads" rule.

    "Testosterone Poisoning: it doesn't just ruin your life."

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  5. Is the title from a Mclusky lyric? Just asking because I don't run into many people who listened to them.

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  6. Scott: "My Dad's bigger than your Dad" is a British expression, sort of what people say when they want to take the piss out of two men doing the sort of thing described in this post.

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  7. I'm sorry I didn't read your entire post. I was too busy bench pressing, like, 140 kilos while watching some ultimate fighting and cleaning my gun collection. Then I had to sharpen my katana.

    So what were you saying again?

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  8. I haven't seen this type of thing in a long time. Do grown ups do this?

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  9. Yeah, I think mini-lectures on katanas and Japanese sword smiths are in the same category. Fortunately, I don't play games with those people.

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  10. "Alpha spamming," Trollsmyth calls this. And yeah, adults do it. It's more common amongst teenagers, because it's basically something that guys do when they don't understand the "right" ways to figure out hierarchy in a group. Being indicative of a lack of certain social skills, certain geeks never quite grow out of it.

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  11. Most men aren't in touch with their inner phallus to realize that what they really want to do is whip it out and compare with his mates.

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  12. Fortunately, I'm well aware of my constant, overwhelming urge to drop trou.

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  13. I have to agree with Matt. My experience of dick-measuring generally revolves around knowledge of ancient Japan - specifically Samurai, Ninja and how sharp Katanas really are.

    Fortunately none of my current group participate in this sort of thing.

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  14. I am so glad that I have never experienced any of this . . .

    However I think I'm missing out on a whole new type of entertainment.

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  15. It's funny, you'd think the Legend of the Five Rings RPG (feudal Japanese-based fantasy) would be particularly prone to this stuff.

    Well, it is, but the community wiener-waving is not about martial arts or katanas. It's about who has done the most extensive study of historical Japanese culture or has the best grip on the Japanese language, so you can deliver the most informed disquisition on whether it is historically accurate to allow homosexual liaisons or maple syrup in your campaign (ahem, feudal japanese FANTASY here guys).

    For proof, see here. If your own gaming community is infested by such numptys you may wish to paraphrase my stickied post, "On Authenticity" at them.

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  16. Haha, sounds like the storm of butt-hurt unleashed on the Columbia Games forums a few years back over whether Harn has potatoes.

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  17. @ Noisms: I hear everything you're saying and totally agree its tiring (plus it makes me wish *I* had kept up my tae kwon do so at least I'd be in better shape!).

    But more than one-upsmanship, I feel like it stems from overall insecurity. Though perhaps all one-upsmanship stems from that...

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  18. A less virulent strain is the one where (usually ex) practitioners will put you on the spot for every general and highly qualified comment you make about martial arts as if you're claiming you're a Fifth Dan of Wang Fu.

    I've been allegedly shown up for saying, on separate occasions:

    "Mate, everyone knows what a roundhouse kick is."
    ("Well why don't you show us one?")

    "I hear there's a lot of snake oil salesmen amongst martial arts instructors." (The context being I was asking this guy whether he had an opinion on the particular one we were talking about.)
    "How many martial arts do you do? Well then do you really think you can judge?"

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  19. Clearly, the solution is mixed-gender groups. I've never had this happen, however all but my (intentionally) very silly Girls Gaming Night group have been mixed gender.

    Usually, there might be a tangent where everyone compares notes on something, or an expert on a particular topic is consulted, but these aren't pissing contests. My groups just like consistency, which is usually easiest to achieve by basing things on reality; realism also makes the fantasy elements that much cooler.

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  20. In my group its all about bows; everybody is an expert on bows and crossbows, even though I don't think anyone in our group has ever handled one.

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