Every Store MUST Have One

Oh the humanity! 

This is Game Gorilla again.

I have been trying to think of what this newest guest blog was going to be about, and began to think about other “types” of gamers. 

The first blog I posted on my page. Was this:

The Gamer who wouldn’t leave.

Now, some will scream out, “How can you typecast?! How can you make stereotypes?!”

I’m a gamer, of course I typecast and so do you. You play a Paladin? Posh, I’m a fighter, I’m a much better Tank than you! (Never bother to ask whether you’re a healer, or perhaps, your particular character is a Tank!)

So, today we’re going to discuss the necessity of each and every game store finding their “fool.” Because they can’t survive without one. 

As gamers, we are more tapped into the primal realm of magic (call it the Warp if you will), and we worship the The Pantheon of Dice gods. these include the Great Lady of Luck, the Smith of Ivory, the King of the Dice gods, the Ace of Spades. A new dice god has recently arisen with the heralding of Warmachine, his name is The Boost. But one god is spoken of very little, he is like the laughing god of the Eldar. If we do not appease him, our doom, our fate, is sealed. He has no name, but we all know of him. He is the Fat Gamer.

His avatars must exist in a game store for it to exist. And they embody all that he is.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This is not simply a mention on his weight. There is a great difference between his avatar and simply a jovial gamer. I have known plenty of great guys who are largish, but nice. The Fat Gamer is a spirit. I have known “fat gamers” who are thin as twigs. But their personality is fat, and obese with the desire to destroy those around them. They are negligent of how they move their “weight” around and force others to leave. 

That being said, I will now bring up the village idiot. In the Middle Ages, every village had a fool. Understand, the fool was necessary. He was believed to suck up the bad luck of the village. As you walked by, you rubbed his head. Not for good luck, but to wipe your bad luck off on him.

In this way, we too require the Fat Gamer to look down on us, and grant us one of his minions.

It is an unfortunate thing that we need them. We see them coming a mile away. Those gamers that have played, indeed, those that work behind the counter groan as he approaches. The door clangs open, and the loud voice booms. “HEY EVERYONE!! I HAVE CREATED AN AWESOME DUNGEON!!” Behind him, three little lackeys carry all his stuff for him. Those lackeys are those younger gamers who are thrilled to have someone who wants to run a dungeon for them. The Avatar if HIM knows these gamers are malleable, and will twist them to HIS will until they are old enough to realize the path they have been led down is a lie.

The problem, and necessity of the Avatar is this, he will make or break a store. If given enough power, he will drive every gamer from the store, destroying the business. But if the balance is maintained, then your store will thrive. How? Because people look at him and say, “Boy, I never want to be like him.” And thus, good gamers are bred.

Who will battle these necessary forces of darkness? The Paladins of the True Game. I myself was one. I worked in a game store, in which I battled the forces of evil first-hand. Our one true Fat Gamer is well known in our city. In fact, he’s been kicked out of every Game store in town. You can listen as he leads his followers down a path and springs a red dragon on their level 5 party. You can hear him as he loudly banters with his nasty, other-side-of-the-tracks accent. You can tell he’s trouble because he’s fifty, and wearing sweats. As he calls to his minions on their way to McDonalds, “Buy me a triple-stack Big Mac, and two extra-large tubs of fries!”

But there was another victory I must gloat over. A Spawning Avatar of HIM was developing in the ranks of our younger gamers. He was a nasty rules lawyer, who was younger than most by a year, and had the entire Warhammer 40k book memorized front to back. He would state rules that just weren’t right. And how could those other boys find that small passage hidden in the texts? I took it upon myself to fight this menace. I would stand nearby and watch, and when would come up, I would argue with this kid, half my age, and then walk away look up his folly in the rule book. Then I would return to inform him of his evils, much to his embarrassment. Why? Why do this? I could have made him quit the game all together. Because those rules were the source to his power and his social life. His only joy was winning, and he had no friends. I had to take the risk; make him realize that he needed to play for fun and make friends, or become an Avatar. No one wanted to play with him, and he was only 12. If I forced him to quit, he might go find life and joy elsewhere, or if he changed, he would become a healthy gamer, and make true friends. 

I ran the risk of being hated by him, but that is the lot of a Lawful Good Paladin. Oh well.

I am glad to say he got better. And I consider his redemption my victory. 

We gamers must rise, and hope to find a day when the Fat Gamer is removed from the pantheon, and no longer necessary; for on that day, we gamers shall rule the civilized world, and HE will have to find another pantheon to join. 

Game Gorilla, Paladin of True Game.