über goober

“Dallas native Steven E. Metze directed, produced, and financed the feature length documentary Über Goober, and is currently on deployment to Iraq until 2006. Über Goober focuses on the often-misunderstood, sometimes-controversial, and always-kind-of-geeky world of gamers. Not the computer kind of gamer, the in-person-dice-rolling-and-sometimes-dress-up-in-costume kind. Metze examines several different groups including historical miniature gamers, role-players, and those known simply as “LARPers.” The film also explores opposition from religious groups, negative media portrayals ranging from sit-coms to post-Columbine news coverage, and some of the meanest ‘man-on-the-street’ interviews ever committed to video. Meet the gamers, learn their exotic language, see their bizarre rituals, gasp at their semi-authentic costumes, and thrill to the painting techniques on their miniatures!”

oh. my. god. much as the thought of it makes me squirm, i have to go see this. it is going to be so painfully uncomfortable to watch. i was never into miniature gaming or hard-core play-by-the-rules role playing, but i did play dungeons & dragons from about the ages of 14 to 18, and occasionally did LARP. if you don’t know what that is, i’m not going to further embarrass myself by explaining it.

so, 14 years later, i still have my dragon dice, and i still know where they are, and that place, for some reason, is not a box in the back of my attic. they reside in my desk, just in case, you know, i am faced with a situation in which i must immediately determine armor class.

honestly, although there’s a little part of me that’s embarassed to admit i used to play RPGs (with that little voice in the back of my head going “i strike at thee with my plus five battle axe!”), the bigger part of me doesn’t care if anyone knows. as rich said, there are some positive social benefits that come from this form of entertainment, especially for those who are socially awkward to the point where they might not otherwise get too many social benefits. and i certainly was such a socially awkward person, (although by now i think i’ve grown out of it to some degree and become much more comfortable relating to people), and so i’m grateful that i found a group of similarly socially awkward friends.