Bad Behavior In Game Stores

[Brass Scorpion]

I've met so many nice people since I started spending much of my hobby time at local game stores about 5 or 6 years ago, yet I don't know what it is about Warhammer that brings out so many badly behaved people too. I didn't see so many problems when I played historical simulation board games years ago and I've never seen strategy board game players behave in certain ways in game stores that are common with Warhammer. In the past week alone I've seen the following in local game stores strictly from Warhammer players:

1) One kid knee another in the butt and send him crashing into the painting/hobby table.

2) An adult with an obtrusive and obnoxiously loud ring-tone who also made babbling noises while assembling his models. The same loud voiced guy also complained that someone threw their dice at him in a game the day before. Since I've rarely ever seen him in a store where he wasn't either thoughtlessly or deliberately rude to employees, customers or both it's no surprise. Then he actually at one point made disparaging comments about the intelligence of someone else in the store. Amazing.

3) A kid who gets out of his seat dozens of times, sometimes multiple times in just a few minutes who bumps you every time he gets up and sits down. Even after moving my chair an additional foot away the problem persisted and I also had to ask him to stop kicking me, twice! Needless to say, it's fairly difficult to paint under such circumstances. Of course the parent just dropped him off and left him there with no supervision. Ugh.

4) Two, yes two different adult customers who talked continuously for several hours while in the store on two different days. Neither of these guys ever stopped talking for more than a few seconds in the space of 2 to 3 hours. Neither of these guys brought any models to work on or game with, they just talked incessantly for hours. Many people in the store, including the manager in one case were ready to pull their own heads off after a while just to end the pain.

5) A kid repeatedly cursing at and in front of other kids during a multi-player game.

I'll be glad when the new Battle Bunker opens, at least in the larger stores it's possible at times to move around to "hide" from bad behavior till it passes. There's no escape in the smaller GW stores once the dung hits the fan or worse, sits down next to you!

[Cyberscape7]

I suppose this is just how things are. Theres always gonna be some inappropriately behaved people. Just gotta try your best to ignore them I guess.

[fuzzbuket]

2 18+s getting into a fight arfter someone loaned models/borrowed and didnt give them back, swaering and fistycuffs ensured

yay for GW store managers ( and the 'kids' were a) fat b) probably bad at fighting and c) scared of the manager!

[Drew da Destroya]

Well, with my internet-granted degree in child and social psychology, I'll explain these behaviors away!


1) One kid knee another in the butt and send him crashing into the painting/hobby table.
- Simple. Kids are jackasses. I hope the other kid was ok.

2) An adult with an obtrusive and obnoxiously loud ring-tone who also made babbling noises while assembling his models. The same loud voiced guy also complained that someone threw their dice at him in a game the day before. Since I've rarely ever seen him in a store where he wasn't either thoughtlessly or deliberately rude to employees, customers or both it's no surprise. Then he actually at one point made disparaging comments about the intelligence of someone else in the store. Amazing.
- Also simple... some adults are also jackasses.


3) A kid who gets out of his seat dozens of times, sometimes multiple times in just a few minutes who bumps you every time he gets up and sits down. Even after moving my chair an additional foot away the problem persisted and I also had to ask him to stop kicking me, twice! Needless to say, it's fairly difficult to paint under such circumstances. Of course the parent just dropped him off and left him there with no supervision. Ugh.
- Not too hard... babysitting is expensive, game stores are free.


4) Two, yes two different adult customers who talked continuously for several hours while in the store on two different days. Neither of these guys ever stopped talking for more than a few seconds in the space of 2 to 3 hours. Neither of these guys brought any models to work on or game with, they just talked incessantly for hours. Many people in the store, including the manager in one case were ready to pull their own heads off after a while just to end the pain.
- Admittedly, it depends on what these people were talking about... if it was just mindless babble, then see point number 2. If they were there to talk rules, fluff, modelling, painting, or something otherwise game-related, then it's cool. It's sort of a natural gathering spot for talk of that sort, after all!


5) A kid repeatedly cursing at and in front of other kids during a multi-player game.
- See point number 1, and as an addendum, Cursing is Cool (when you're 14).

[FTE-Charge!!!]

hahaha, which store was this? In MD I presume?

The ranting is quite annoying bc it often takes the subject of some extremely odd dorky thing (even odd-er than warhammer) and takes it to an annoying "I dont care" level. My local shop has several extreme anime fans that will talk about it for hours louder than the store music. And its so obscure that I (a self admitted dork) cannot follow.

Sometimes I feel that social awkwardness is a must have on your resume when applying to play GW games (not work there, just play).

[Lerra]

Try being female. It can be so much worse.

There is one dude who is a regular at a certain FLGs in my area. He is in his 40s and wears a ratty old undershirt with holes and sweat stains. One armpit of this shirt is entirely missing, it's covered in food stains, it is so worn that it's halfway to being transparent, and his chest hair pokes through the fabric. It seems like he wears this shirt 24/7 and rarely showers. I'm pretty sure he could curdle milk with his breath alone. The guy also uses the worst one-liners I've ever heard and thinks he's God's gift to womankind. And he will talk for 4 hours solid to anyone who will listen about how good he is at playing his army (note: he is terrible). This dude actually asked my boyfriend if he could "have a go at that piece of meat."

Then there are the guys who get all offended that a female is intruding into their gaming time because it's supposed to be a place for dudes to escape their wives. Look, I'm sorry you married a terrible person, but it's really not my fault. Please don't take it out on half the human species. Also, if you refuse to play me at a tournament because I'm female, and the judge rules that you forfeit, don't tell all my friends that you only forfeited because I cheated.

Then there are all the guys who "accidently" bump into me and cop a feel while they're at it.

Thankfully 95+% of guys I've met in the hobby have been great, lots of fun to game with. It's just the few bad eggs that give the hobby a bad reputation imo =/

[Gotthammer]

My local GW has a great policy: act up and get banned for 2-4D6 minutes (re-rolling low numbers at will). They also have most of the regular kids' parent's numbers on hand.
Also it's located in a shopping centre, which seems to keep the crustyness to a minimum.

My preferred tactic for getting away from annoying people is to pull out my mobile and go "uh oh, gotta call work, 'scuse me", then go out and get a drink or something.

[Uncle Nutsy]

Well, with my internet-granted degree in child and social psychology, I'll explain these behaviors away!


1) One kid knee another in the butt and send him crashing into the painting/hobby table.
- Simple. Kids are jackasses. I hope the other kid was ok.

2) An adult with an obtrusive and obnoxiously loud ring-tone who also made babbling noises while assembling his models. The same loud voiced guy also complained that someone threw their dice at him in a game the day before. Since I've rarely ever seen him in a store where he wasn't either thoughtlessly or deliberately rude to employees, customers or both it's no surprise. Then he actually at one point made disparaging comments about the intelligence of someone else in the store. Amazing.
- Also simple... some adults are also jackasses.


3) A kid who gets out of his seat dozens of times, sometimes multiple times in just a few minutes who bumps you every time he gets up and sits down. Even after moving my chair an additional foot away the problem persisted and I also had to ask him to stop kicking me, twice! Needless to say, it's fairly difficult to paint under such circumstances. Of course the parent just dropped him off and left him there with no supervision. Ugh.
- Not too hard... babysitting is expensive, game stores are free.


4) Two, yes two different adult customers who talked continuously for several hours while in the store on two different days. Neither of these guys ever stopped talking for more than a few seconds in the space of 2 to 3 hours. Neither of these guys brought any models to work on or game with, they just talked incessantly for hours. Many people in the store, including the manager in one case were ready to pull their own heads off after a while just to end the pain.
- Admittedly, it depends on what these people were talking about... if it was just mindless babble, then see point number 2. If they were there to talk rules, fluff, modelling, painting, or something otherwise game-related, then it's cool. It's sort of a natural gathering spot for talk of that sort, after all!


5) A kid repeatedly cursing at and in front of other kids during a multi-player game.
- See point number 1, and as an addendum, Cursing is Cool (when you're 14).

1) doesn't matter if they're jackasses. they need to know that either that behaviour stops or they get kicked out. no arguments, no 'but but but', nothing. that's how it is and if they don't like it, too bad.

They're not the only one in the store, and to act the way they did shows a HUGE disrespect to others' enjoyment of the game.

2) same as 1.

3) again, same as 1.

4) yeah, it all depends on the chatter. but at least tell them to try and keep it quiet.

5) see 1.


oh and if a fight is about to break out, it's the manager's responsibility to step in and tell them if they want to fight, to do it outside. Otherwise I'll be doing that myself.

[wittdooley]

Wait Wait Wait..... Lerra is a lady? Well I'll be darned.

Anyways... I don't think social awkwardness is a requirement. Go to Adepticon and you can see there are plenty of "normal" dudes playing 40k. It just so happens that, like any vocal minority, ours happens to be an obnoxious, smelly, socially inept vocal minority.

With all of that in mind, my wife would rather be around the 40k folks than the M:tG folks 8 days a week. She refuses to go to ANY LGS on a Friday. It's pretty funny.

Thing that drives me the most nuts is the people that let their kids run around with reckless abandon at one of our local LGSs. Then again, any kind of public crappy parenting gets me up in arms.

[Lane]

[QUOTE=Brass Scorpion;134073
2)Since I've rarely ever seen him in a store where he wasn't either thoughtlessly or deliberately rude to employees, customers or both it's no surprise. [/QUOTE]

We have a local that almost always insults the store manager. GW store so he "can not be banned". Fortunately he rarely shows up, mostly when they have painting competitions where he enters the category that nobody else entered. Less frequent now that they do not have prize support.

[QUOTE=Brass Scorpion;134073

2)Then he actually at one point made disparaging comments about the intelligence of someone else in the store. [/QUOTE]

I do that all the time, but they deserve it.

[QUOTE=Brass Scorpion;134073
3) A kid who gets out of his seat dozens of times, sometimes multiple times in just a few minutes who bumps you every time he gets up and sits down. ...Of course the parent just dropped him off and left him there with no supervision. Ugh.[/QUOTE]

How about the kid that sits at the painting table and kicks it every few seconds, on purpose.

[QUOTE=Brass Scorpion;134073
4) Two, yes two different adult customers who talked continuously for several hours while in the store on two different days. [/QUOTE]

Do this as well, though generally 40k related. Sometimes I go to the store to work on minis and when I get there do not feel like working or no space at the table. Others I just went to pick something up and ended up BS'ing with someone. Occasionally the BS session will result in a cool idea for a conversion or paint scheme.


[QUOTE=Brass Scorpion;134073
5) A kid repeatedly cursing at and in front of other kids during a multi-player game. [/QUOTE]

GW store, manager squashes that.