Community

I'm a 40yr old Science teacher in a prestigious private school here in Sydney. I have a Degree in Biology and and a Masters in Education. I am involved in a number of programs with education, such as Tournament of Minds, liaising with University school programs and patron for one of school "houses" (a little like the ones found at Hogwart's for the uninitiated).

I'm married to a current non-gamer (she has played in the past) who happens to be a craft-olic. She also loves literature, sci-fi and fantasy. She still battles to get me to play boardgames. Kids are planned down the track and we both dabble in the property market.

I closet away my gaming habit from most of those I work with, although some of my closer colleagues know I game. I throw elements of gaming into my lessons where I can which appeals to the dramatic leanings of a number my students. My students don't know I game as it doesn't really seem to enter their social mindset although they do know I'm a geek and kind of like it (one got me Star Wars lego last Xmas).

Feb 4, 2010 -- 4:32PM, imaginaryfriend wrote:

Hmm so if I now claimed I live in my parents basement and am unemployed, financing my D&D addiction by being a volunteer for medical testing (psychoactive drugs), that would not be believable anymore? Dang.

You are Dutch. The moment you use "basement" and living in one sentence made it somewhat unbelievable (Yeah, I know they do exist, but still...)

I am a software engineer for a large European IT company, although in practice, I have been working almost exclusively for a large Dutch mobilephone company being the incident, problem and changemanager for various software applications involved in getting the bills to the customers. Of course, I probably could also call me a parttime D&D developer considering the time I spend on it and the fact that on occassion I do get a paycheck from Wizards 

My collegues know about my hobby. First of all, I need to tell any secondary income to my boss (to make sure there is no conflict of interest) and secondly, traveling to the States at least twice per year does tend to draw some attention. Most are curious about the game and a few have been poking me to run a trial sesssion sometime during work hours as the next team trip. Note that with the proper wording it can also look great at a resume, after all, I am managing small groups of people as a DM, I am heavily involved with people all over the globe and in my case I edit English texts (although admittedly not perfectly). D&D also does not have the same bad reputation here as it apparently has in the States. Most people don't fully understand what it is, which is something that gives you something to talk about at a job interview and which sets you apart from the rest (just make sure you do in a positive manner by impressing the useful skills you use in a game).

This thread makes me feel a bit guilty. I'm a doctor, (GP - even on the national executive medical committee) but I'm not good at telling people I play D&D.

Been playing over thirty years, no question that D&D helped make me LESS geeky, and what I've learnt in handling small groups as a DM has helped a lot when chairing meetings.

Not sure it's helped that much in medicine directly, though the gamer ability to memorize multiple books verbatim has been hellish useful at medical school and continuing education:-)

(Though to stick with the IT stereotype I was a Fortran 77 coder to make money to get through med school.)