IN A crowded field of shameful dork hobbies, there is still a top dog. Dr Helen Archer details the subtle hierarchy which makes one nerd feel superior to another:
Magic: The Gathering players bully Warhammer players
Card game Magic: The Gathering was released in 1993 while anyone halfway cool was growing Kurt Cobain hair or gurning in a warehouse. Its socially inadequate teenagers use it to interact without making eye contact.
Nonetheless, Magic players are required to have an income to buy cards, which means a job, which means leaving the house. Their chronic eye conditions are from masturbation, not painting Necrons. One participant said: “Compared to Warhammer cultists, we’re jocks. One guy in my last tournament even wore deodorant.’
Warhammer players bully LARPers
Warhammer 40k is a war game played with hand-painted figurines, like chess with spiked shoulderpads. Players assemble an army, glue it together, paint it, inkwash it, drybrush it, and do it all in their childhood bedroom because it costs too much to afford to move out.
When they’re not being shoved at board game cafes by hunky Magic: The Gathering players, Warhammer freaks hurl abuse at LARPers, otherwise known as Live Role-Players, otherwise known ‘men who dress as wizards’ and ‘avoid that house.’
LARPers bully other LARPers
Dressing up as an elven paladin to run around the woods pretending to fight with swords and cast spells? Congratulations. You are at the bottom of the bullying barrel.
Battle re-enactors for battles that never even happened, these born victims need outfits, a total lack of shame, and enabler parents willing to drive them to magical woodlands that double as dogging sites.
The only respite a LARPer can receive from being shit on by Warhammer players, who spit on their capes and stamp on their wooden swords, is to mock other LARPers who are ancient mages with Dudley accents.
Olly O’Connor, a 14th level bard and proud of it, said “You see that guy playing the alchemist? I pushed him over and kicked his cauldron into a ditch. F**king dork.”
