The Battalion
LIFESTYLES
Monday, September 25,1989
Fantasy games not just for 6 fanatics
By Don Kopf
Of The Battalion Staff
Six figures dressed in medieval
clothes sit quietly around a table in a
small room that is darkened except
for the candles flickering gently in
the corners. The people take turns
casting dice and reporting the re
sults to the ominous figure sitting at
the end of the table. Typical Dun
geons and Dragons game, right?
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Although people who play role-
playing games are of a different
breed, they aren’t a pack of eerie,
dice-worshipping fruitcakes who sit
around in the dark while their
grades go to pot. In fact, MSC
NOVA, the gaming club on the
Texas A&M campus, tends to attract
extremely intelligent people, accord
ing to Gloria Aldredge, a NOVA
member.
Many National Merit Scholars and
other academic merit scholarship
winners are members of NOVA and
play games, she said, adding that
even those members who aren’t
scholarship recipients are typically
open-minded, creative, imaginative
people.
“Just because we play games
doesn’t mean we aren’t normal and
don’t study and eat,” Aldredge said.
The only thing that makes NOVA
different from another club is that
NOVA members enjoy playing
games for recreation, she said.
NOVA isn’t just a game-playing
group either, it is a social group that
throws parties and has get togethers.
NOVA members admit that gam
ing as a whole does have a bad repu
tation, but say the attitude toward
gamers is based on a few high-pro
file fanatics who let gaming domi
nate their lives. They stop studying
and exercising, and they sacrifice
their social life so that they can make
more time for games and the charac
ters involved in the games. These
are the people who play in darkened
rooms with candles and costumes to
enhance the fantasy atmosphere.
“We try to avoid fanatics,” Al
dredge said. If they want to play that
way, they can play at home away
from NOVA.
While members say they don’t like
fanatics, they do admit that there are
some dedicated members who have
memorized rule books a foot thick.
“Star Fleet Battles,” a futuristic sci
ence fiction game, for example, has
thousands of pages full of rules and
information about playing the game.
Other games aren’t nearly that com
plex and can be learned in a short
time.
As a group, gamers can be divided
up into two main bodies. There are
board-game players and role-play
ing gamers. The former play board
games that tend to deal more with
strategy and tactical thinking; they
are games that involve objective
thinking and logic in order to win.
Board games generally take less time
to set up and complete than role-
playing games.
Role playing games such as “Ad
vanced Dungeons and Dragons,” or
“Champions” are generally ongoing
campaigns that take a while to com
plete. In a role-playing game, play
ers have a character that interacts
with other players’ characters in a
scenario provided by a game master.
The game master runs the game and
tells the players what situation their
characters are currently facing. The
players then use their characters’ ac
quired skills or powers to deal with
the problem or challenge-.
Characters can be quite elab
orate and tend to be either a
reflection of the player or
the exact opposite of how
the player sees himself.
Wade Wallace, a junior
English major and
NOVA member, said
he likes his charac
ters to represent what he would be
like if he could be a character.
“My characters tend to be a little
nastier and bend the rules a little bit
more,
Mike Schiller, a senior business
analysis major and NOVA chair
man, said he is currently playing a
character who is a reflection of him
self. His character, Powerful Man, is
a superhero in the game “Cham
pions.” He is the ultimate nice guy,
Schiller said. Powerful Man’s friends
see him as a little insane because of
all the sweet and incredibly nice
things he does for everybody.
Aldredge, on the other hand, said
she sometimes plays characters that
are her opposite. They tend to be
wild and chaotic and sometimes,
very evil, she said.
Since players often see themselves
in the characters they play, one of
the greatest offenses that can hap
pen is to have a character “die,” ei
ther by chance or stupidity.
“You made a character up and
put part of yourself into it, and they
just killed it,” Aldredge said. Wallace
added that it takes a long time to cre
ate another character.
the thinking and strategy involved,
he said.
The benefits of gaming are often
overlooked by those who do not par
ticipate in gaming. There is a lot of
planning, thinking, strategizing and
creating that goes into playing or
even setting up a game, Wallace said.
Some company recruiters like to see
that an interviewee has a gaming
background because they know of all
“Role-playing games make you
think,” he said. “It’s imperative in
some games that you think your way
out of the situation.”
But not all games force players to
think so much. According to Al
dredge, some games are easy and re
laxing to play.
Custodial workers face difficult
task of keeping Aggieland clean
By Katsy Pittman
Of The Battalion Staff
How many times have you stacked piles of
empty boxes outside of your dorm the first week
of school to make room for belongings? Ever
thrown a beer bottle in the trash on a late Friday
night only to miss and have it splinter into hun
dreds of fragments? Or go a little crazy while
studying and get in a shaving cream skirmish
with your roommate?
Chances are good that many students have
done one of these things at least one time without
thinking much about the consequences. Unfortu
nately, the consequences are what Texas A&M’s
310 full-time custodial workers have to deal with.
“They don’t do it to be mean,” said Gale Bur
nett, a custodial worker on the North side of
campus. “They just start acting like kids and get a
little carried away.”
Burnett, who drives to work from Somerville
every morning, is trying to save up enough
money to continue her college education and
support her two daughters, ages four and nine.
“It’s not all that hard,” Burnett said, even
though she knows the
rigors of working eight
and a half hours a day
in a uniform that can
become very hot in
non-air-conditioned
dorms in the summers,
or very cold outside the
patio dorms during the
winter.
Burnett agreed to
the interview with the
stipulation that her fa
vorite thing on the
A&M campus was men
tioned. “The girls on
the first two floors of
McFadden are the best
bunch of kids on camp
us!” she said.
This assertion was
soon challenged by Ro
sie Alvarez, who insists
“her” girls on McFad-
den’s third and fourth
floors can’t be beat.
girls she has come to know.
“I call them my girls because I feel like I’ve
adopted over 100 of them for nine months,” she
said. “It’s sad when they leave, but I do enjoy
watching them grow up.”
Growing up does not seem to be a factor in the
dorms where custodian Steven Stukes works.
That’s because he’s responsible for Law and
Puryear Halls where filth often seems to be the
fashion.
“They love shaving cream over there,” Stukes
said. On a tour of the halls, it seemed evident that
the residents also enjoyed pizza fights, toilet pa
per wads, and chalking up each other’s doors.
“They break as many beer bottles as Greek
waiters do plates,” Stukes said.
Custodial worker Eddie Williams explained
why.
“There are a lot of party guys around here
that like to drink Miller Lite out of the bottle,” he
said. “On weekends they make baskets out of the
trash cans all over the place. You can always find
five or six bottles in the bottom, but after that,
they start losing their aim.”
Not that drinking or demolishing is in any way
condoned on campus. Drinking can lead to disci
plinary action at A&M, and making big messes
usually leads to some pretty big fees.
The big bills usually get sent on Mondays after
a home football game.
“After home games — it’s a riot,” Williams
said. “On Mondays, there’s no chance to do any
thing—just take out the trash.”
Alvarez, who has
been working at A&M
for three months, re
turned to the A&M
campus after a 17-year
hiatus.
“I did private work
for a family who had
little boys,” Alvarez
said. “Their favorite
thing to do was to put
rubber snakes in the
laundry. I wish I had
come back here a long
time ago!”
Although she’s taken out the trash at A&M for
over 10 years, Berry Ellison, a southside custodial
supervisor, said she would do it all again.
“I like the whole job,” said Ellison. Her favor
ite year was when she worked in Underwood
Hall, where she became particularly close with
some of the residents.
“There was this one girl who had her boyf
riend come over constantly. And every day he
wouldn’t walk into her room until he had given
me a big hug.”
Ellison’s biggest complaint was echoed by
rke
photo by Kathy Ha veman
A&M custodial worker Eddie Wiiliams carefully cleans a
shower stall in ramp 4 of Puryear Hall.
Her least favorite
chore is hauling away
the piles of trash that
accumulate after the
girls move in or out of
the dorms. Alvarez’s
sore muscles soon re
vive, however, along
with her feelings for the
many other custodial workers — “The parking!’
Much the same as hordes of A&M students
rushing to campus in the morning, all the work
ers must find a place by 8 a.m. — which usually
means they have to arrive by 7 a.m.
Regarding her 10 years at A&M, Ellison’s wild
est story dealt with two Walton Hall residents.
The two students had grown tired of their local
custodial worker, who often had reported them
for demolishing their room, and one morning
they locked him in a hall closet. It wasn’t until
lunch that his abscence was noted and he was
freed, Ellison said.
But it might be a good idea to think twice be
fore abducting your dorm caretaker. You could
wind up cleaning up your own act — in jail.
African student finds
good, bad at A&M
By Katsy Pittman
Of The Battalion Staff
Ho
drawing by Norzaimia
“We go in for beer and
games sometimes because then
quick,” she said.
Anyone interested in joiii:|
NOVA can see what theirgamesa
like on any weekend. On Friday^
urday and Sunday at 7 p.m.,!
has rooms reserved in the Me
Student Center for games. Nd
NOVA members are allowed topi
twice for free. NOVA annual!
Elias Ayuk is not a typical graduate student. A native from Mamfel
Cameroon, in West Africa, Ayuk will soon leave Texas A&Mandtlie|
United States with some favorable and not-so-favorable memories.
Although English was a native language in Cameroon, from themoj
ment Ayuk stepped off the plane as an undergraduate student in Si f
Paul, Minn., he knew some things were going to be different.
“It was very cold,” Ayuk said. “And I was wearing a very thinjacketl
People were looking at me like, ‘This guy must be crazy!’ ”
Ayuk had a few problems warming up to other American cult'urall
differences, too.
“People had such casual attitudes toward their professors,” he said I
“But I guess it was good being able to talk to the professor so easily.”
He also had to adjust to American attitudes towards senior citizeml
and women.
“There is much more respect for older people in Cameroon,”!
said. “Here you can address older people in so much more of a casua l
manner, but maybe that is good.
“You might be surprised to hear this, too, but we probably treatour|
women better than the average American.
“Women are high government officials, lecturers in our universities!
—it is equal oppurtunity in our country according to sex. Of course,e'j
eryone must earn what they get.”
In December, Ayuk will leave on an agricultural Rockefeller gran:I
to Togo, another West African country. Although he will misssomtl
things about the A&M campus, there are several things he will not miss
“The sense of belonging here is very good,” Ayuk said. “My depart j
ment here (Agriculture) is very friendly.
“And of course I will miss Aggie football — I like to see them win !
will definitly call every once in a while to see how they are doing.”
The things he won’t miss?
For one, the phrase “Highway 6 runs both ways.”
“Many people here have a closed mind,” Ayuk said. “We mustlearrl
to argue in order to come up with new ideas. But many times, insteadolj
supporting or contradicting new ideas here, people just condemn.
“If it weren’t for open minds, relativity would have never beenquesj
tinned, the world would still be flat .... If people aren't ready tore!
ceive or evaluate new ideas, why do they even go to a university?”
Regardless of what Ayuk believes, he is not planning to give out I:“tI
constructive criticisms.
"I’m afraid that if I open my mouth, people will tell me I mighu 1 !
well hop on my plane and leave!” Ayuk laughed.
One of the things Ayuk hopes will change after his departure is tkiI
awareness of different cultures here on campus.
Ayuk confessed that he is no stranger to preconceived ideas. Headj
mils that when he was considering coming to A&M for his gradual I
work, he was afraid that all the Texans were “rednecks.”
A solution to the problem of cultural awareness at A&M, he said I
could be the growing interest in International Week on campus.
“International Week is a good time for A&M students togooutancl
not be so xenophobic. We could learn from each other. African stu f
dents could learn from American students, and American studeniij
could certainly learn from African students.”
An avid Battalion reader, Ayuk said some of the Mail Call opinion:I
sadden him, especially those concerning foreign teaching assistants.
“So many students complain they can’t understand the foreign TAJ
(teaching assistants). But I believe many of them don’t even try. Ifthe'j
just made an effort, they could probably learn a great deal. I wonder I
they realize the foreign students at A&M are having a hard time under I
standing the Texas accent.”
Although Ayuk is leaving after this semester, there will be mar.'I
other foreign Aggies to take his place. His parting wash is that thesestr [
dents enroll in an A&M that is slightly more tolerant than theoneM
left.
“I think it is time for students here to be open-minded about iI
races, about all religious beliefs, about all nations. Maybe then wetf*
truly be a world-class University.”
\t CareF
[his seas
regularl
[reatmer
and evei
for your <
Sale s>
CHA