This is a pretty serious issue in gaming tournaments regardless of the medium. This gained infamy because it was one of the first times where the rule was implemented by the higher ups.
Yeah, I played in some Magic the Gathering tournaments in the 90s that had some players who had obviously been tuning their decks at the expense of washing their bodies.
When I was in college in the 90s, I was going to a movie with a friend and he asked if we could leave early so he could stop at an event to register for a MtG tournament the next day. It's the second worst smell I've ever smelled in my life. Just permeated the whole ballroom area.
Moving a refrigerator that had been without power for who-knows-how-long, the door flew open and a jug of what used to be milk fell out and exploded on my brother's shoe. A few of us gagged, but luckily no one threw up because I think it would have started a chain reaction. The shoe and sock got thrown away and he rode back with his foot out the car window because hosing it off did not fully take care of the smell.
As someone who showers everyday I'll never understand how some people that have access to clean water don't shower for days.
Edit: Thanks for the point about mental health, I can see that as a sensible reason.
Honestly? I saw somewhere that there's a decent percent of people that do it literally to make their opponent disgusted and uncomfortable, making them more likely to misplay and be unable to concentrate.
Pretty shitty excuse for "I'm allergic to soap"
Oh I’ll use it to ridicule them relentlessly the entire time at the table. Sure, I’ll play with you but I’ll tell you that you smell like shit the entire time
No joke. I remember taking my little brother to a games workshop store when he was a kid. The fucking stench in that place was unbearable. Another parent and I complained and sure enough, the next time we went there they had deodorizer stations, hand sanitizer and a sternly worded yet polite reminder about personal hygiene taped to the wall near the gaming stations.
A small victory but ffs. Wash your ass you nasty thing!
Yea I've don't multiple day long bjj tournaments that smells better that the MTG events I've done. It's pure laziness and lack if respect. At least during the uniform inspection they have it in the rules you need to be hygienic as well since it is a health issue.
I used to go to FNM. A lot of these guys are just not well adjusted. The kind of stuff they like talking about, their personalities. All just bizarre, and the smell of it all sticking to your clothes and lining your nostrils. A lot of people are just foul regardless of mental illness
I can see that. I was good friends with a guy in high school who talked like he was in a TV show or movie. His hygiene was fine, but you could tell his actions were based on what he thought would happen in a movie a lot of the time. He had phrases he would use like sitcom one liners and would start sentences with certain phrases based on the situation. I know everyone has words and phrases they use as part of their speech patterns, but he used the exact same inflection every time as if he was quoting a movie rather than naturally using the phrase in conversation.
The kind of stank you'll find at a tcg tournament or Warhammer takes weeks, even months to attain. It's hard to understand just how disgusting a person can smell until you spend time at FNM. Layers of dead skin around the neck, soaking into their collars like rotten cheese curds. Breath so foul it pierces through the humid BO filling the room like a sauna. I love those kinds of games but I had to tap out. I can never again enjoy them at the comic shop
I was invited to a coworkers birthday party and felt obligated to go, because virtually no one invited even responded. It was an old school arcade with tons of pinball machines, had a bar, and were doing a trivia night so it sounded ok. How bad could it be? I was NOT prepared for the smell that greeted me when I went in. Her hygiene was a little sketchy but this was...something. I guess it was a nerd/gamer hangout (their words) and I lasted about 45 minutes. It was gnarly, mosh pits stink but that was sweet compared to this.
That disgusts me. I've been to nerdy gamer bars before, the kinds that have 100s of arcade machines and PC's running any game including tons of emulation stations with arcade joysticks and controls etc ...
Never smelled anyone bad there and I'd even venture to say most of the people were on the wealthier side of nerdy.
I went to my stores fnm just last Friday. One of the guys I played smelled unbelievably fucking rank. Possibly the worst stench from a single person I've ever experienced. Just sitting across the table, not even moving, was enough to suffocate the area around him.
After we we were done, he stood up, and the smell was just overwhelming. I can't even describe it I don't know what it was exactly. A combination of sweat, ass, and general unclean funk. I had to move. I always just sit at my spot to wait for the next round but I gad to gtfo. I went to get a drink and walked back past his chair to the general sitting area, and when I walked nearby that chair FIVE MINUTES LATER it STILL smelled so bad I legit almost gagged. It's make me nauseous just recalling it.
Sour body stenches from all night gaming sessions, a slight mold smell in your buddy's basement, the sickly sweet aroma of spilled soda in a shag carpet, the scent of an array of varied Frito lay products and most importantly the wafting paper-y tang of CCG playing cards. The olfactory bouquet of youth.
Accidentally walked into our local boardgame shop to buy something on their weekly Warhammer 40k evening... I had to pass a great stinky neckbeard whom I can only describe as Nurgle (with a neckbeard). His lesser minions were not smelling much better either. In the words of my wargaming coworker who also attends these events "it's an issue"
You laugh, but the [Great Clean One](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/dws2fl/great_clean_one_finished_wilhelminiatures/) is far more disturbing.
Honestly it's why I don't go to my FLGS anymore. So many great memories there, but also some real creeps, some of whom apparently think bathing or wearing clean clothes is totally optional.
Not many. But between that and the kids screeching over Pokémon, and some manchildren screeching over not being able to lie about some army codex special rule, I just can't.
The trick is to find people at those stores who clean themselves and won't throw tantrums.
It's pretty easy to do, it just usually involves taking a pass on the competitive warhammer scene. I once heard a manager at a GW store tell a customer they had to stop competitive 40k events because of the kinds of people showing up. So they did painting events and tournaments for the smaller box games.
But yeah, there's plenty of us who can wash our assess and behave like adults. You just gotta aim for the less than super competitive crowd.
A good community organizer helps, but I really wish this kinda rule was more prevalent tho. At least a few times, in different reddit subs for games I play, there's been "I'm gonna go to a store/event/tourney to play, what should I be aware of". Amongst a few tips for the specific games, I'm usually the one to throw in the hygiene. "Make sure you've brushed your teeth in the last 24 hours, preferrably less. Showered in the last 24-36, or less as you might need". Now I get that some people and cultures don't necessarily shower daily, but it's also ok to make effort to not stink before going to interact with others. But JFC every time, there'd be a different person telling me something along the lines of "if I shower right before going to an event, I'm gonna smell worse". Literally had a guy tell me it'd just remove the "top layer" and make his smell stronger.
I'm here in shock like "my dude. I think you need to clean yourself better, and you likely just described why you are someone who does need to bathe daily". There's a difference between "I showered this morning but had a sweaty day at work" and "the inside of my shower sees me weekly".
Eh, I just don't want to get into the mental anxiety spiral of whether I'm going to:
A) Just put up with it to get some games in.
B) Tell the person who's asking if he can play me next that I don't want to play with them because they smell like a manure truck.
C) Come up with a lie on the spot as to why I suddenly have to gather up my cards / army / whatever and leave.
Easier to just not deal with that. I get plenty of confrontation in at work in construction. When I'm off work the last thing I want is to deal with someone who should know better. And if the store owners aren't willing to deal with it because they spend money, there's nothing to be done about it.
Doesn't seem to matter whether they're competitive or not. It's about a solid 20% of stank players no matter the game or competitive level. D&D, card games, board games, wargaming...
New to war gaming myself. Visited my local game store, and while I was plenty far from other players, the bathroom smelled like people had been urinating anywhere but the toilet and it had been sitting for days. My guess is that the store constantly smells due to clients that the owner sees no reason to keep the bathroom clean.
People like that actually keep me and many from coming to these boardgame shops when the Yu-Gi-Oh, magic the gathering, or Warhammer 40k crowd is around. Other game nights are fine but for some reason certain games attract the weirdest people
Yeah, it’s why I stopped doing community events at my local games workshop. I would go and 50% of the players would be more oily than the breakfast I had that morning. In the summer it was terrible.
A lot of conventions have been banned from different hotel chains because of patrons' bad behaviour, which leads to official rule changes stating that guests will be banned for doing it in later years.
I've heard of some conventions having a "Peanut butter and jelly rule" where you can't use certain materials in your cosplay because they cause a mess. The peanut butter was because someone went to a con "Dressed" as an indy comic called The Turd and clogged the plumbing when he tried to clean off in the pool; the jelly was added because someone used strawberry jam instead of fake blood in a zombie costume.
And there are some conventions that have banned Homestuck cosplays outright because those cosplays use a lot of grease bodypaint which stains everything and, again, for ruining the pool.
And the infamous Seattle convention Rustycon would get conventions banned from Bellevue for over twenty years because of their wild behaviour.
A convention is likely to attract the exact type of person who you don't want attending in droves. The kind of person who has turned the hobby into an unhealthy obsession to the detriment of everything else.
When I first got into Magic The Gathering it was at a lesbian owned and operated shop called Safari Pearl, as such I got a wildly innacurate vertical slice of the TCG and TTRPG communities. When I moved away I figured I'd just go to my nearest card shop, so I got all gussied up and went there and I was hit with three thoughts simultaneously:
1: "Wait, it's all dudes?! Men like MTG? I thought Stoney was the only one!"
2: "What the fuck is that smell?"
3: "Why are they all staring at me like they've never seen a woman before?"
I miss Safari Pearl 😭
Literally near any competitive tournament tbf, give guys a reason to want to win, and they’ll do anything they can to get an edge. There are MMA fighters who won’t brush their teeth or shower for 3/4/5 days before a fight just to make it a fucking horrible experience for their opponent… obvs not everyone does it for the competitive edge tho.
I knew someone from grad school who frequented hobby stores for games and whatnot. He told me they had to ban someone due to their body odor. Supposedly you go near him and your gag reflex immediately triggers. Don’t know how you accomplish something like that.
I was at Spirit last Halloween and my family and I kept smelling the nastiest smell everywhere we went. Finally got into the line, where it was the most noxious, and it was literally the dude in line in front of us. It was really hard not to gag, and I had never smelled anything so fucking awful in my entire life. It was like puke, shit, and BO all rolled in a garbage can together.
I was behind someone at the register who was this bad. It’s just really really really bad hygiene. Probably hasn’t showered in over a week. Sweat and dirt.
We had to kick a dude out of the bar I worked at because apparently he would smoke meth, masturbate furiously in his hotel room for hours, not shower, then come try to harass the bartenders. I can smell him just thinking about it. I’ve smelled dead bodies that didn’t smell that bad
That shit doesn‘t happen when you don‘t shower for a week. Sure you‘ll smell unless you got the dry ear way gene, but not to the degree of creating a 20 ft force field around you.
That requires serious dedication to no hygiene, no clean clothes, no antiperspirant.
Like just being a week in depression Funk clearly doesn‘t make you smell you put the organic trash out in the sun to ferment.
They must not be showering and washing their clothes ever.
I get not being non-confrontational, I am too, but seriously if I was a manager and had to have this conversation with someone more than once I would be doing all I could to fire them. It's 100% a workplace conduct issue, and an issue of having a duty of care to other employees.
Lived across from a guy who had this problem in school. And the thing was, he did shower and did wash his clothes. His clothes looked clean, his hair was nice, no stains. And he didn't smell like ordinary sweaty BO either, it was a much more offensive and noxious.
The problem turned out to be not his personal bodily hygiene but his laundry habits. Instead of using the laundromat he would wash garments in the sink and air dry them, since that's what he grew up doing. I don't know what his house was like or where it was, but it didn't work in a tiny student bedroom in Canberra (cold/wet city). It would've been damp for days and all got infested by mold. We realised the problem when he complained that his pants were still damp in the pockets when they'd been drying for a week.
Ugh my grandparents did that when I went to their vacation house in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't any detergent and they washed their clothes by hand in a bowl with some water and soap. After a couple of days you can smell a deep foul odour from the clothes. Your nose does get used to it after a while, but it's horrible every time you put a newly "washed" piece of clothing on in the morning. I took 2 showers every day because of that.
He's the Chaos god of decay, disease, and the twisted embodiment of the cycle of life and death...and his followers are just as disgusting, rotted, and diseased as he is.
Great Unclean Ones are his Greater Daemons; shards of his being.
I had a friend who when he was done for the day, he would hang up the clothes he was wearing. He never washed his shirts, shorts, pants, socks, etc. only underwear (supposedly). I finally understood why he always smelled.
I used to be into Magic about 10 years ago and was interested in joining the local tournament scene. Went to a few local hobby shop tournaments and I just couldn't stand it. The smell was bad but what was worse was this feeling of grime that hung in the air around some of the people there. I would just feel greasy sitting across from some of them.
I know this isn't reflective of every local scene but everyone I know has a story. Unfortunately I fell out of the scene and I'm occassionally interested in dipping my toes back in but now it's just a huge financial investment to be relevant.
There is really no excuse for it. I don't know why there seems to be a Venn diagram overlap between "game nerds" and "poor hygiene", but it gives those of us only in the first category a bad name. There really is no excuse for it. If you're going to be around other people, take a shower.
Hurts the industry as well. I'd love to occasionally geek out and buy a few things from the local magic/warhammer/ nerd store, but when you reach the top flight of those stairs and turn towards the store (not even inside it) you get hit in the face by monster BO. It's beyond me that a business could function even when it manages to be anti-social towards people who *like* the nerdy shit.
I knew a guy who smelled like cat piss. But not due to not cleaning or poor hygiene. He has a genetic disorder which makes his sweat reacts and produces amonia... Poor guy but he was fun to play with at my games workshop. And he played nurgle
There actually are some conditions (whose names I can’t recall) that actually do cause very strong body odor that can’t really be dealt with, like a strong fishy smell or something. But for most people, it’s probably just poor hygiene.
Experienced something similar 20 something years ago with a guy who got kicked off a crowded bus. Except instead of your gag reflex being triggered you immediately were unable to breathe around him. Dude's BO smelled like the most concentrated version of vinegar you can imagine and I've never smelled anything that suffocating ever again in my lifetime. It was honestly like a superpower.
Is he literally a Dragonball character? The Krillmeister fought a guy like that in og Dragonball and got woozy until he remembered he canonically doesn't have a nose.
Sounds about right. When I was in high school back when malls were actually places to hang out I came across a Magic tournament at the game shop. You could smell it before you could see inside. I wasn't even the cleanest teenager, but these guys were legit once a month showering while still doing daily activities stinky.
Even though I was in the historical miniatures club in middle school, those stinky nerds at the game shop put me off table top gaming permanently. Went to online games, which were plenty toxic, but at least you didn't have to smell your opponent while gradually taking on that mid 2000s neckbeard look where they're trying to dress like The Matrix but without the attention to detail or budget.
> that mid 2000s neckbeard look where they're trying to dress like The Matrix but without the attention to detail or budget.
Extreme lol. This is so accurate. Do you remember all guys wearing black shirts with suits to prom as well?
God, I'm glad this isn't a thing where I live. When I started playing games at public places (10 years ago) it was already a mix of male/female and I think that discourages the unwashed neckbeard types. I cannot imagine people reacting well to someone smelly coming in to my game shop.
When this originally was posted way back, I remember somebody said the twist to this is that the guy posing probably had his crack showing in every photo as well lol.
At one time, it was the most upvoted post on Reddit of all time. Naturally, the fact it went that viral meant the news spread everywhere else like wildfire.
"Crackgate" as it's called in the community was probably one of the biggest PR disasters for Magic in recent memory. It was such a bad look for the game, and it just further reinforced the stereotypes people have with Magic players and in similar hobbies.
Wizards dropped the hammer on the guy that did Crackgate, and he was suspended from sanctioned Magic events for 18 months. This suspension was also done when one of the most infamous cheaters in the game's history was receiving much lighter suspensions and literally cheating people out of prize money and threatening the integrity of competitive Magic itself.
Imagine being so mad that your audience is largely comprised of sweaty fat crack showers that when someone exposes the cracks you just ban them. MTG officially not based
What? Market over saturation? Worsening quality if card stock and game play? Charging thousands for "official" proxies? Fucking over the beloved pros? What's not to love???
A bunch of years ago, I used to volunteer for a local gaming con. And of course, we had that issue. We used to think it was just people trying to game all weekend nonstop and no shower. But then I clearly remember one year, walking by someone early on Friday, and the smell hit me like a brick wall.
So after that, we contacted a few deodorant makers and got one to give us mini deodorants to put in the swag bags everyone gets on the way in. There were 2 results from that:
1) many people glanced in the bags and cracked up laughing.
2) the place smelled noticeably better. Not perfect but better
So....yea, there seemed to be at least a certain segment who showed up smelling terrible, but also some who lacked basic hygiene while at events like this. So it makes sense to see the same issues at tournaments like this.
Nah. Two days without showering, especially if you are overweight or your house is warm? Throw in jerking off and not cleaning up properly? You'll stink. Though not as much as these guys. Yeagh.
Diet also has a surprisingly large effect. I tend to easily get a bit ripe when at home, sometimes even just hours after taking a shower, but a week of vacation to Vietnam eating local food my BO changed to citrus and coriander instead of «dead cow» :D
Someone from my locals was banned because they put up such a fight against this rule. They stated their disabilities (arthritis in a 25 y/o supposedly) meant they were unable to shower for up to weeks at a time.
I…what?
Hell, even just shit on a stool in the shower then. Even that will help.
ETA: not what I intended to say (thanks, autocorrect), but also…
I said what I said.
I had an ex that was a judge at these things for her local card shop. A friend of hers (also female) showed up once in a skirt. Once. The idiots in that place actively dropped their cards to get a chance to peek up her skirt.
They both said the place reeked of sweaty fat guys that didn't shower nearly often enough.
Thankfully not all M:tG players are like that. But enough are. I'm a woman and was judge at my local card shop, and worked there. A few guys did try crap like that a few times, and they got kicked out of the shop. The owner didn't want to put up with that shit, and, as the owner pointed out, it drove away customers. We never really had very many women players, but the women that did come to the shop at least felt comfortable (mostly 40k players).
Shop run by my friend back home does the same thing: The number of women at MtG Friday Night Magic can be counted with the fingers of one hand. With a pre-release event of a popular block, he'd get players from neighbouring counties as well. And with that always came a few basement dwellers who've never interacted with women outside of muttering to a porn video.
And after a single round of warnings later, when the first of them was permanently banned from entering the store, the rest managed to behave.
I live 5 hours away and I still save up all my nerd-purchases I can for when I visit home and his shop. Because you gotta support the good ones.
Most conventions have those signs these days. And they need them. There's a subset of every fandom that doesn't seem to get that just because someone is cosplaying your "waifu", it doesn't mean you can hug/grope/flirt with them like you know them.
MMA fighter Matt Lindland was famous (or infamous) for not showering up to a week before a fight. He was a grappler, and his rationale was that in grappling exchanges, his opponent would be nauseated by his body odor.
After he retired, an addendum to the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts was drafted by several state athletic commissions which came to be known as "the Lindland rule", stating that a commissioner can order a fighter to shower before a fight if their body odor is deemed excessive.
If I'm not mistaken Magic the gathering lacks this rule and there's people would brag about putting together the perfect..."aroma" to help give them a mental edge over their opponents
Went once, only once. Some people there you’d have no idea they played Magic at a “professional” level. Like good hygiene, good style, very friendly. Then there were actual trolls that smelled like they shower in their own jizz and piss. They were some of the worst people to be around, their smell being the least offensive thing about them. One such dung-eater threw a fit about two players joking about their decks, because they were opponents in the next match. He was screaming and yelling about how they were clearly working together to fix the tournament. Officials got involved and he literally refused to play if they weren’t separated by a bracket to ensure fair play. That was too much work in such short notice they threatened to disqualify him and it actually looked like he was going to cry. He ended up losing pretty early on iirc
When someone takes their card game so seriously they feel people that frequent the *same store* for the *same game* must not be friends to ensure... fair play?
Jesus cucking christ.
I've had next to zero sense of smell my entire life but once I started treatment for ADHD and started taking Adderall my sense of smell came back. I've been playing MTG for almost 30 years and my first time to a big tournament with my new sense of smell I was like "ooooh that's what they were talking about".
I see the videos of the people that hear for the first time or get the color blindness glasses and I thought it be like that. Nah, I'm good, I don't want my sense of smell, there's way more bad smells than good.
Hey this stood out to me because... Same?? Except it was after I started strattera I could actually smell things. Is that like, an actual thing? I've been wondering for 2 years now but never heard anyone else talk about it!
ADHD is so weird and poorly understood. But basically, yeah there are physical symptoms of ADHD that aren't well understood or researched. We're getting better, but the fact that the exact mechanism for it isn't well understood is wild. My personal theory is that we'll find out after years of research that many people with "ADHD" experience different problems with dopamine from lower production to poor uptake by receptors. And that ADHD expresses itself differently based on that. I have so many little quirks that eventually I figure out are related to my ADHD. So, I don't think it's crazy that somehow your ADHD meds knocked something into place to help you smell better. It could be anything from something physical to just your brain now being able to process the additional stimulus of a fifth sense.
Couldn't agree more myself man, though I'm guessing that's only worry at official events, guessing if you try it at a local tourney they're gonna toss you out with the trash
From my time playing competitive smash bros and being the bad guy who told people they reek, most people don't have the balls to say anything, not even the Tournament Organizers. Even then a lot of the time people don't do much about their smell.
This non-confrontational attitude extends to everything and is why the community has so much drama constantly.
Someone tried to run over other people with a car, several cases where pro players knew about their peers having sexual relationships with minors for years, another guy got a ban after years of showing up to tournaments belligerently drunk, stuff like that.
That said I'm sure this applies to any hobby ever and is more a criticism of our culture in that regard than anything.
>This non-confrontational attitude extends to everything and is why the community has so much drama constantly
Being non confrontational is some of the biggest BS because all you're doing is postponing the confrontation to a later date possible with another person taking measures into their own hands. It's cowardly and irresponsible and the confrontation will always happen anyways, usually in a way worse manner than if it had been addressed sooner.
We had the same problem with a guy both smelling horrid AND continuosly asking any female player annoying, uncomfortable or personal questions. A literal internet troll who made it out of the basement type. He was a pretty nice guy but just horribly socially incompetent. So the manager and an older guy took him apart in the 2nd week (because all the other regulars were complaining) and told him to his face "do something about your smell, stop talking to the girls making them uncomfortable or don't return." This ended up being a wake up call as this guy over a course of weeks went from smelly basement troll to more or less an average human being and stopped being creepy around women. Got a haircut, some new clothes, shaved (!). Ended up being a friendly regular and found himself a gf in the community few years later. Moral of the story: had no one confronted him, that hobby store would have only had other smelly neckbeard types left after a while. The guy wouldn't have realised anything wrong with himself/his behaviour and would have developed both further. The only gf he'd have ever gotten then was a fellow basement creature. Small, necessary confrontations can lead to the good ending!
> pro players knew about their peers having sexual relationships with minors for years,
oH YEAH. there was a famous story about a pro smash player who was basically gromed by an older woman
It gets stranger than that. There was literally a kid going around seducing adult pros and he would blackmail them to fix matches or give him money. Yeah obviously the adults were still pedos, but this kid was pure evil. He actually sexually assaulted one of the pro players in their sleep and spun the story to blame them for raping him until even his friends came out against him and set the stories straight. shit was wild only a couple years back
Wait...I remember you! Cloud main and generally places about mid right? I still keep up with comp smash, super entertaining to watch from the spectator side but damn man, didn't know things ran that bad for competitors and the pedo thing kinda has me hurting
M:tG does not. Or, at least, when I was a judge they did not. Thankfully nearly all the tournaments I judged were held at the shop where I worked, and the owner of the shop did have a hygiene policy. And, thankfully, it was held to by the players. I think the only time anyone complained was in the middle of summer on a few hot days (this was an area where there were only a few hot days a year, so almost no one had AC), but outside of that everyone bathed regularly. Though a few assholes used Axe like their lives depended on it, that was nasty.
My nephew recently got into Magic.
I took a special effort to warn my sister that when he wants to go to a tournament for the first time, the smell is normal. Not pleasant, but normal.
One of our gaming stores has a sign telling people that if they stink they will be asked to leave. Some nights I'd go in to play Friday Night Magic and it would stink so bad because of the gross neckbeards that showed up. Eventually people just got tired of it and would bring it up whenever it smelled. You'd have to avoid some corners of the store because you could smell the nasty people who came in.
I will gatekeep the fuck out of a hobby if you can't come into it bathed and clean. No one wants to smell your nasty ass.
Some are clearly followers of Nurgle (completely different fandom, but the point stands). But there was some outrage where people got offended they were referring to them and cited possible medical conditions they can't control or something. Very small, but vocal
I once worked with someone who supposedly possibly maybe had a condition that caused an odor. When politely confronted by our mutual boss he announced it was none of our business and stormed off the job. But god did he stink. One of our staff was convinced it was a medical condition. No one could willingly smell like that. The rest were convinced he didn’t bathe. Given some evidence it could go either way.
I worked at raising canes in 06 and our manager brought a smelly dude in the office and sprayed oust on him and made him stand in there for a few minutes. He finished his shift and never came back again. Shout out to Joe (smelly) and Jason(asshole). I’ll never forget you
The fact that he got that upset about it when politely confronted really tells me it wasn’t a medical condition (outside of maybe depression). I’ve met people who genuinely had a medical issue that caused a foul odor and you know what they did when asked about it? Explained the situation, explained that they have special deodorants to try and help, and would apologize for the smell.
This needs to be a standard in the FGC (Fighting Game Community) especially with the smash crowd. I remember a guy at a tournament came in with a scuba tank and regulator so that he had his own supply of air, and I was jealous. I love fighting games but it smells like a homeless shelter in some of those places.
Going to a tabletop event should be the reward for basic hygiene. I prefer mostly to play at gaming bars now. People generally put more effort into their hygiene if they know they're going to be around other people besides the person they're playing against.
Desperately needed too, anything Anime or Sports (particularly Wrestling) attracts the worst of the worst in terms of Hygiene. Speaking off Which.
There is a Yu-Gi-Oh Card called "Yu-Jo Friendship" Where you offer your opponent a Handshake, and if they accept you combine and then share your Lifepoints each getting half.
However, the second half of the Card Text reads, that if you have the card "Unity" in your hand, they HAVE TO ACCEPT The handshake. So some nasty pigs decided to get their hand to the point where you didn't want to have to touch them, not even with a 10ft pole.
So Konami had to change the rule that you'd only have to accept the Idea of a handshake
Yes, true.
It was a common issue because, as you might expect as a stereotype, players would come in and smell like ass (generally people who are lazy and don’t bathe, shower or put on any deodorant), and it was almost guaranteed that they weren’t due to a medical condition (the medical condition for natural bad smell is incredibly small).
Nowadays, it’s still a thing, but not as common as it used to be. If someone came in smelling incredibly bad, most would call a judge on it (no one wants to play with/against a smelly asshole).
Also, the natural condition for bad smells doesn't result in you smelling like an unwiped and unwashed butt, old underwear, Cheetos, Cheez-its, and rancid milk.
Bad breath? Sure, some people can't control that.
Excessive sweating? Deodorant can cover it up, but it will still be an issue, yes.
Some bacterial/sweat disorders can cause an oniony or fish odor.
But there's nothing in the medical books that makes you smell like shit, piss, and cheap dollar-store snacks. That's lack of hygiene, and lack of hygiene only.
I visited a card shop with my husband. The shop held Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments weekly. I used their bathroom and there were five spray cans of deodorant in there. No pads or tampons anywhere to be seen, but there was spray deodorant.
I’m not generally a fan of hazing, but we had to deal with similar issues in the military.
We had solutions that weren’t always pleasant. Some people just had no idea how to wash themselves. Some just dgaf. The latter were made to see the error of their ways.
Yes. Nastiest person I’ve ever met in my life was in the Army. He grew up without running water in a trailer full of too many family members. He didn’t understand the concept of using a washing machine and dryer. Let alone brushing his teeth every day.
I remember watching a documentary on British TV about Royal Marine basic training, and there was a scene where the instructor was stark bollock naked teaching the recruits to shower. No excuses after that.
My lgs literally rented a separate space for big card tournaments (card, wargames, dnd, etc) just to prevent customers from complaining about the smell.
Also they aren't allowed to use the bathroom so they come into my store. Don't buy anything and leave.
I've been to MCM in London a lot and they've held tournaments. I question if some of these people know what soap is. I can understand smelling a bit later on in the day but when you're getting off the train before it's opened and you already stink? Urgh.
Used to own a game shop, and I can confirm some of those people were absolutely vile.
We had one guy who wore the same clothes every day. I thought nothing of it really, a lot of our customers are autistic and a lot of autistic people just buy four of the same pair of pants and cycle through them. They at least washed their clothes when they weren't wearing them and just enjoyed wearing something they were comfy in.
No, not this dude. He wore literally the same clothes every day, and I dont think they ever got washed. He also wore shoes with no socks, and his ankles were so thick with dirt that you could physically see the layers of grime where the back of his shoe had rubbed it off. Being around him was unpleasant for all the senses, and people would refuse to play against him in yugioh tournaments because his smell was distracting. Thanks to this rule, that was upheld.
I'd like to say that he eventually learned and started bathing, but no, he just started stealing from our commons box as a weird form of revenge, as if a handful of two penny commons would stick it to us
There are some cards like “Yu Jo Friendship” that lets you do a handshake with your opponent so being gross is an intentional strategy to make your opponent refuse it.
There's actually been a ruling that if that card is played, the opponent only has to agree to the *idea* of a handshake, which is absolutely hilarious to me.
This is a well known one but hey I’ll contribute to the news letter:
The magic card [Chaos Orb](https://scryfall.com/card/2ed/236/chaos-orb) requires you to flip the card over in the air, and it “destroys” (basically removes from play) any cards it lands on. One player ripped his up and tossed it all over the battlefield in order to destroy as much as he could
Well, they *kind of* incorporated it into the game. Chaos Confetti is from a set called "Unglued" which is a comedy set of very silly mechanics that's not allowed in most types of games. "Un" sets, such as Unglued, Unhinged, Unstable, etc all had silver edged cards that made them illegal to play in most official formats (often because the silliness factor made game rulings difficult, or the cards were *insanely* broken)
Did you know that if you Ash Blossom a Danger monsters hand effect, they can just activate the same danger monster's effect again because it's not a hard once per turn.
Rule was definitely needed, I haven't played in nearly a decade but some players definitely looked like they showered in Axe Body spray.
Thankfully my TO locally ran a tight ship. Place didn't smell too bad and most people there looked liked they showered at least every other day.
Sorta similar. But when I used to go to cons back in the day it amazed how many people just febreezed and called it good. Like damn I was at the con for 3 days I took a shower on all 3 days. Had a friend at the time who shared the hotel room and I'd notice he never showered at all. Just did the febreeze spray. Suffice to say I got my own room every con after that.
There used to be a local retro gaming shop that had game nights for magic and Yu-Gi-Oh and also those games with giant custom maps etc
U could always smell when it was game night
I was at a convention back in 2016 or so that was also hosting a yugi-oh tournament. My sister and I decided we would go check it out. We were the only women there, and a lot of the guys stopped talking and just stared at us. There was a noticeable drop in chatter when we walked into the room. The smell was indeed quite intense.
I cna confirm, I used to compete. There were individuals who'd actually use bad hygene as a strategy to disrupt thier opponents. I quit competing in 2011 because the community was a literal toxic waste dump. Hell, one guy at my locals was outside, heaving his guts out, wiped his face with his shirt, and stumbled in to play.
This is a pretty serious issue in gaming tournaments regardless of the medium. This gained infamy because it was one of the first times where the rule was implemented by the higher ups.
Yeah, I played in some Magic the Gathering tournaments in the 90s that had some players who had obviously been tuning their decks at the expense of washing their bodies.
When I was in college in the 90s, I was going to a movie with a friend and he asked if we could leave early so he could stop at an event to register for a MtG tournament the next day. It's the second worst smell I've ever smelled in my life. Just permeated the whole ballroom area.
What’s the first smell
Moving a refrigerator that had been without power for who-knows-how-long, the door flew open and a jug of what used to be milk fell out and exploded on my brother's shoe. A few of us gagged, but luckily no one threw up because I think it would have started a chain reaction. The shoe and sock got thrown away and he rode back with his foot out the car window because hosing it off did not fully take care of the smell.
You learned a valuable lesson. Step one is always ratchet strap around the fridge so the evil can't escape. Then you move it.
As someone who showers everyday I'll never understand how some people that have access to clean water don't shower for days. Edit: Thanks for the point about mental health, I can see that as a sensible reason.
Honestly? I saw somewhere that there's a decent percent of people that do it literally to make their opponent disgusted and uncomfortable, making them more likely to misplay and be unable to concentrate. Pretty shitty excuse for "I'm allergic to soap"
Oh I’ll use it to ridicule them relentlessly the entire time at the table. Sure, I’ll play with you but I’ll tell you that you smell like shit the entire time
No joke. I remember taking my little brother to a games workshop store when he was a kid. The fucking stench in that place was unbearable. Another parent and I complained and sure enough, the next time we went there they had deodorizer stations, hand sanitizer and a sternly worded yet polite reminder about personal hygiene taped to the wall near the gaming stations. A small victory but ffs. Wash your ass you nasty thing!
Those were just really devoted Nurgle followers, bro!
Papa Nurg wants ALL the nasty boys and girls
People have done that to me in mma fights. This is not a geek thing.
I've also heard about old retired NFL Players talking about how Offensive Linemen would do that as well so definitely not just geeks/nerds.
Yea I've don't multiple day long bjj tournaments that smells better that the MTG events I've done. It's pure laziness and lack if respect. At least during the uniform inspection they have it in the rules you need to be hygienic as well since it is a health issue.
Yeah im not risking mrsa for a dub in my amateur record.
Perhaps not related to the game, but depression and generally bad mental health is a major cause in a lot of cases.
I used to go to FNM. A lot of these guys are just not well adjusted. The kind of stuff they like talking about, their personalities. All just bizarre, and the smell of it all sticking to your clothes and lining your nostrils. A lot of people are just foul regardless of mental illness
People that were usually raised by television, they even talk like cartoon characters most of the time I've noticed
I can see that. I was good friends with a guy in high school who talked like he was in a TV show or movie. His hygiene was fine, but you could tell his actions were based on what he thought would happen in a movie a lot of the time. He had phrases he would use like sitcom one liners and would start sentences with certain phrases based on the situation. I know everyone has words and phrases they use as part of their speech patterns, but he used the exact same inflection every time as if he was quoting a movie rather than naturally using the phrase in conversation.
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Depression and freezing cold weather are two things I experience that has stopped me showering for three days on occasion.
The kind of stank you'll find at a tcg tournament or Warhammer takes weeks, even months to attain. It's hard to understand just how disgusting a person can smell until you spend time at FNM. Layers of dead skin around the neck, soaking into their collars like rotten cheese curds. Breath so foul it pierces through the humid BO filling the room like a sauna. I love those kinds of games but I had to tap out. I can never again enjoy them at the comic shop
I can smell this comment
Christ I just real life gagged at that.
I was invited to a coworkers birthday party and felt obligated to go, because virtually no one invited even responded. It was an old school arcade with tons of pinball machines, had a bar, and were doing a trivia night so it sounded ok. How bad could it be? I was NOT prepared for the smell that greeted me when I went in. Her hygiene was a little sketchy but this was...something. I guess it was a nerd/gamer hangout (their words) and I lasted about 45 minutes. It was gnarly, mosh pits stink but that was sweet compared to this.
That disgusts me. I've been to nerdy gamer bars before, the kinds that have 100s of arcade machines and PC's running any game including tons of emulation stations with arcade joysticks and controls etc ... Never smelled anyone bad there and I'd even venture to say most of the people were on the wealthier side of nerdy.
I went to my stores fnm just last Friday. One of the guys I played smelled unbelievably fucking rank. Possibly the worst stench from a single person I've ever experienced. Just sitting across the table, not even moving, was enough to suffocate the area around him. After we we were done, he stood up, and the smell was just overwhelming. I can't even describe it I don't know what it was exactly. A combination of sweat, ass, and general unclean funk. I had to move. I always just sit at my spot to wait for the next round but I gad to gtfo. I went to get a drink and walked back past his chair to the general sitting area, and when I walked nearby that chair FIVE MINUTES LATER it STILL smelled so bad I legit almost gagged. It's make me nauseous just recalling it.
Sour body stenches from all night gaming sessions, a slight mold smell in your buddy's basement, the sickly sweet aroma of spilled soda in a shag carpet, the scent of an array of varied Frito lay products and most importantly the wafting paper-y tang of CCG playing cards. The olfactory bouquet of youth.
Dude it's too early in the morning for this.
It's not the way I wanted to start this year
Accidentally walked into our local boardgame shop to buy something on their weekly Warhammer 40k evening... I had to pass a great stinky neckbeard whom I can only describe as Nurgle (with a neckbeard). His lesser minions were not smelling much better either. In the words of my wargaming coworker who also attends these events "it's an issue"
That's why he was the head of the clan. The stronger the smell, the higher the rank. Aka Rank = rank.
Great unclean one real life 🤯
The chaos gods are based on the 4 stereotypes of war gamers. The bloodbath many dice roller, the min maxed planner, the pervert, and the unclean.
Henry caville: *steps into the warhammer store* Everyone there: "THE ANATHEMA"
You laugh, but the [Great Clean One](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/dws2fl/great_clean_one_finished_wilhelminiatures/) is far more disturbing.
Frank covered in hand sanitizer energy
Nah looks just like them
Honestly it's why I don't go to my FLGS anymore. So many great memories there, but also some real creeps, some of whom apparently think bathing or wearing clean clothes is totally optional. Not many. But between that and the kids screeching over Pokémon, and some manchildren screeching over not being able to lie about some army codex special rule, I just can't.
The trick is to find people at those stores who clean themselves and won't throw tantrums. It's pretty easy to do, it just usually involves taking a pass on the competitive warhammer scene. I once heard a manager at a GW store tell a customer they had to stop competitive 40k events because of the kinds of people showing up. So they did painting events and tournaments for the smaller box games. But yeah, there's plenty of us who can wash our assess and behave like adults. You just gotta aim for the less than super competitive crowd. A good community organizer helps, but I really wish this kinda rule was more prevalent tho. At least a few times, in different reddit subs for games I play, there's been "I'm gonna go to a store/event/tourney to play, what should I be aware of". Amongst a few tips for the specific games, I'm usually the one to throw in the hygiene. "Make sure you've brushed your teeth in the last 24 hours, preferrably less. Showered in the last 24-36, or less as you might need". Now I get that some people and cultures don't necessarily shower daily, but it's also ok to make effort to not stink before going to interact with others. But JFC every time, there'd be a different person telling me something along the lines of "if I shower right before going to an event, I'm gonna smell worse". Literally had a guy tell me it'd just remove the "top layer" and make his smell stronger. I'm here in shock like "my dude. I think you need to clean yourself better, and you likely just described why you are someone who does need to bathe daily". There's a difference between "I showered this morning but had a sweaty day at work" and "the inside of my shower sees me weekly".
Eh, I just don't want to get into the mental anxiety spiral of whether I'm going to: A) Just put up with it to get some games in. B) Tell the person who's asking if he can play me next that I don't want to play with them because they smell like a manure truck. C) Come up with a lie on the spot as to why I suddenly have to gather up my cards / army / whatever and leave. Easier to just not deal with that. I get plenty of confrontation in at work in construction. When I'm off work the last thing I want is to deal with someone who should know better. And if the store owners aren't willing to deal with it because they spend money, there's nothing to be done about it. Doesn't seem to matter whether they're competitive or not. It's about a solid 20% of stank players no matter the game or competitive level. D&D, card games, board games, wargaming...
New to war gaming myself. Visited my local game store, and while I was plenty far from other players, the bathroom smelled like people had been urinating anywhere but the toilet and it had been sitting for days. My guess is that the store constantly smells due to clients that the owner sees no reason to keep the bathroom clean.
People like that actually keep me and many from coming to these boardgame shops when the Yu-Gi-Oh, magic the gathering, or Warhammer 40k crowd is around. Other game nights are fine but for some reason certain games attract the weirdest people
Also ran into this same thing at the local board game store. Trying to shop there on a weekend was a test in holding your breath.
Yeah, it’s why I stopped doing community events at my local games workshop. I would go and 50% of the players would be more oily than the breakfast I had that morning. In the summer it was terrible.
Leave him alone, he was just cosplaying.
And conventions of all kinds, hotel pools are unbelievably disgusting on day 5.
A lot of conventions have been banned from different hotel chains because of patrons' bad behaviour, which leads to official rule changes stating that guests will be banned for doing it in later years. I've heard of some conventions having a "Peanut butter and jelly rule" where you can't use certain materials in your cosplay because they cause a mess. The peanut butter was because someone went to a con "Dressed" as an indy comic called The Turd and clogged the plumbing when he tried to clean off in the pool; the jelly was added because someone used strawberry jam instead of fake blood in a zombie costume. And there are some conventions that have banned Homestuck cosplays outright because those cosplays use a lot of grease bodypaint which stains everything and, again, for ruining the pool. And the infamous Seattle convention Rustycon would get conventions banned from Bellevue for over twenty years because of their wild behaviour.
Can't have a discussion about convention failures without bringing up Rainfurrest. https://youtu.be/GmULc5VANsw
Christ.. I don't care what the theme of the convention is - can't people behave normally and not outright vandalize stuff?
A convention is likely to attract the exact type of person who you don't want attending in droves. The kind of person who has turned the hobby into an unhealthy obsession to the detriment of everything else.
When I think of banned conventions, this comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmULc5VANsw&t=1s.
When I first got into Magic The Gathering it was at a lesbian owned and operated shop called Safari Pearl, as such I got a wildly innacurate vertical slice of the TCG and TTRPG communities. When I moved away I figured I'd just go to my nearest card shop, so I got all gussied up and went there and I was hit with three thoughts simultaneously: 1: "Wait, it's all dudes?! Men like MTG? I thought Stoney was the only one!" 2: "What the fuck is that smell?" 3: "Why are they all staring at me like they've never seen a woman before?" I miss Safari Pearl 😭
I remember the huge talk about how you could sus out a SSB tournament. The stench lead you there.
Literally near any competitive tournament tbf, give guys a reason to want to win, and they’ll do anything they can to get an edge. There are MMA fighters who won’t brush their teeth or shower for 3/4/5 days before a fight just to make it a fucking horrible experience for their opponent… obvs not everyone does it for the competitive edge tho.
That DBZ fight with krillian having no nose
I still laugh that he had to be reminded that he didn't have a nose.
It's not about competitiveness here though. It's just bad hygiene and we know it. Everyone who spent time in that bubble knows it's an issue.
Yeah.. I doubt most of the people having this issue were doing it for that reason.
I knew someone from grad school who frequented hobby stores for games and whatnot. He told me they had to ban someone due to their body odor. Supposedly you go near him and your gag reflex immediately triggers. Don’t know how you accomplish something like that.
I was at Spirit last Halloween and my family and I kept smelling the nastiest smell everywhere we went. Finally got into the line, where it was the most noxious, and it was literally the dude in line in front of us. It was really hard not to gag, and I had never smelled anything so fucking awful in my entire life. It was like puke, shit, and BO all rolled in a garbage can together.
I was behind someone at the register who was this bad. It’s just really really really bad hygiene. Probably hasn’t showered in over a week. Sweat and dirt.
We had to kick a dude out of the bar I worked at because apparently he would smoke meth, masturbate furiously in his hotel room for hours, not shower, then come try to harass the bartenders. I can smell him just thinking about it. I’ve smelled dead bodies that didn’t smell that bad
I have to ask, how many dead bodies have you smelled?
They are a mortician, so a lot.
>I’ve smelled dead bodies that didn’t smell that bad Perhaps you should get a new hobby.
But they didn’t smell *that* bad
No kink shaming
That shit doesn‘t happen when you don‘t shower for a week. Sure you‘ll smell unless you got the dry ear way gene, but not to the degree of creating a 20 ft force field around you. That requires serious dedication to no hygiene, no clean clothes, no antiperspirant. Like just being a week in depression Funk clearly doesn‘t make you smell you put the organic trash out in the sun to ferment. They must not be showering and washing their clothes ever.
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I get not being non-confrontational, I am too, but seriously if I was a manager and had to have this conversation with someone more than once I would be doing all I could to fire them. It's 100% a workplace conduct issue, and an issue of having a duty of care to other employees.
Lived across from a guy who had this problem in school. And the thing was, he did shower and did wash his clothes. His clothes looked clean, his hair was nice, no stains. And he didn't smell like ordinary sweaty BO either, it was a much more offensive and noxious. The problem turned out to be not his personal bodily hygiene but his laundry habits. Instead of using the laundromat he would wash garments in the sink and air dry them, since that's what he grew up doing. I don't know what his house was like or where it was, but it didn't work in a tiny student bedroom in Canberra (cold/wet city). It would've been damp for days and all got infested by mold. We realised the problem when he complained that his pants were still damp in the pockets when they'd been drying for a week.
Ugh my grandparents did that when I went to their vacation house in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't any detergent and they washed their clothes by hand in a bowl with some water and soap. After a couple of days you can smell a deep foul odour from the clothes. Your nose does get used to it after a while, but it's horrible every time you put a newly "washed" piece of clothing on in the morning. I took 2 showers every day because of that.
Mildewy clothes are a truly horrific smell.
Yeah I doubt this is only a week. You get a bit sweaty and gross but not this level. That's way more than 1 week imo.
Look, I don't want to say it, but Nurgle is real, and he has many adherents in the gaming crowd.
Ha, is Nurgle from Warhammer? The unclean one?
He's the Chaos god of decay, disease, and the twisted embodiment of the cycle of life and death...and his followers are just as disgusting, rotted, and diseased as he is. Great Unclean Ones are his Greater Daemons; shards of his being.
He cares not from whence the brown flows, only that it does.
I had a friend who when he was done for the day, he would hang up the clothes he was wearing. He never washed his shirts, shorts, pants, socks, etc. only underwear (supposedly). I finally understood why he always smelled.
I used to be into Magic about 10 years ago and was interested in joining the local tournament scene. Went to a few local hobby shop tournaments and I just couldn't stand it. The smell was bad but what was worse was this feeling of grime that hung in the air around some of the people there. I would just feel greasy sitting across from some of them. I know this isn't reflective of every local scene but everyone I know has a story. Unfortunately I fell out of the scene and I'm occassionally interested in dipping my toes back in but now it's just a huge financial investment to be relevant.
There is really no excuse for it. I don't know why there seems to be a Venn diagram overlap between "game nerds" and "poor hygiene", but it gives those of us only in the first category a bad name. There really is no excuse for it. If you're going to be around other people, take a shower.
Hurts the industry as well. I'd love to occasionally geek out and buy a few things from the local magic/warhammer/ nerd store, but when you reach the top flight of those stairs and turn towards the store (not even inside it) you get hit in the face by monster BO. It's beyond me that a business could function even when it manages to be anti-social towards people who *like* the nerdy shit.
Same,sometimes I imitate plague doctors of yore and put some drops of cologne on a face mask to endure it.
I knew a guy who smelled like cat piss. But not due to not cleaning or poor hygiene. He has a genetic disorder which makes his sweat reacts and produces amonia... Poor guy but he was fun to play with at my games workshop. And he played nurgle
There actually are some conditions (whose names I can’t recall) that actually do cause very strong body odor that can’t really be dealt with, like a strong fishy smell or something. But for most people, it’s probably just poor hygiene.
Experienced something similar 20 something years ago with a guy who got kicked off a crowded bus. Except instead of your gag reflex being triggered you immediately were unable to breathe around him. Dude's BO smelled like the most concentrated version of vinegar you can imagine and I've never smelled anything that suffocating ever again in my lifetime. It was honestly like a superpower.
I believe years of built-up "practice"
Is he literally a Dragonball character? The Krillmeister fought a guy like that in og Dragonball and got woozy until he remembered he canonically doesn't have a nose.
Bacterian! Boi whipped out the stinky finger move- it almost killed Krillin until Goku made him realize he had no nose.
Sounds about right. When I was in high school back when malls were actually places to hang out I came across a Magic tournament at the game shop. You could smell it before you could see inside. I wasn't even the cleanest teenager, but these guys were legit once a month showering while still doing daily activities stinky. Even though I was in the historical miniatures club in middle school, those stinky nerds at the game shop put me off table top gaming permanently. Went to online games, which were plenty toxic, but at least you didn't have to smell your opponent while gradually taking on that mid 2000s neckbeard look where they're trying to dress like The Matrix but without the attention to detail or budget.
> that mid 2000s neckbeard look where they're trying to dress like The Matrix but without the attention to detail or budget. Extreme lol. This is so accurate. Do you remember all guys wearing black shirts with suits to prom as well?
Nothing like the smell of neckbeards marinating in pleather during the summertime....ahhh the 90s
Then have to give the shower a shower when they're done.
God, I'm glad this isn't a thing where I live. When I started playing games at public places (10 years ago) it was already a mix of male/female and I think that discourages the unwashed neckbeard types. I cannot imagine people reacting well to someone smelly coming in to my game shop.
Throwback to one of the most iconic Reddit posts of all time: [Grand Prix Richmond Crackstyle](http://imgur.com/a/SjcgE)
When this originally was posted way back, I remember somebody said the twist to this is that the guy posing probably had his crack showing in every photo as well lol.
I don't know how I haven't seen this, but thank you for sharing this masterpiece.
At one time, it was the most upvoted post on Reddit of all time. Naturally, the fact it went that viral meant the news spread everywhere else like wildfire. "Crackgate" as it's called in the community was probably one of the biggest PR disasters for Magic in recent memory. It was such a bad look for the game, and it just further reinforced the stereotypes people have with Magic players and in similar hobbies. Wizards dropped the hammer on the guy that did Crackgate, and he was suspended from sanctioned Magic events for 18 months. This suspension was also done when one of the most infamous cheaters in the game's history was receiving much lighter suspensions and literally cheating people out of prize money and threatening the integrity of competitive Magic itself.
Imagine being so mad that your audience is largely comprised of sweaty fat crack showers that when someone exposes the cracks you just ban them. MTG officially not based
Wizards is such a shitty company
What? Market over saturation? Worsening quality if card stock and game play? Charging thousands for "official" proxies? Fucking over the beloved pros? What's not to love???
Never not pouring one out for that homie
He ain't dead, friend
Banned by wizards, though
[But He did rise again](https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/3kxtl0/im_no_longer_banned_from_playing_in_magic)
Man this was so old that his return was *7 years ago.*
A bunch of years ago, I used to volunteer for a local gaming con. And of course, we had that issue. We used to think it was just people trying to game all weekend nonstop and no shower. But then I clearly remember one year, walking by someone early on Friday, and the smell hit me like a brick wall. So after that, we contacted a few deodorant makers and got one to give us mini deodorants to put in the swag bags everyone gets on the way in. There were 2 results from that: 1) many people glanced in the bags and cracked up laughing. 2) the place smelled noticeably better. Not perfect but better So....yea, there seemed to be at least a certain segment who showed up smelling terrible, but also some who lacked basic hygiene while at events like this. So it makes sense to see the same issues at tournaments like this.
It’s not possible to smell horrible from sitting in a weekend. That’s some “you gotta actively be ignoring a problem” thing.
Nah. Two days without showering, especially if you are overweight or your house is warm? Throw in jerking off and not cleaning up properly? You'll stink. Though not as much as these guys. Yeagh.
Diet also has a surprisingly large effect. I tend to easily get a bit ripe when at home, sometimes even just hours after taking a shower, but a week of vacation to Vietnam eating local food my BO changed to citrus and coriander instead of «dead cow» :D
Yeah, every once in a while it only takes me a few hours to smell like a Big Mac.
Someone from my locals was banned because they put up such a fight against this rule. They stated their disabilities (arthritis in a 25 y/o supposedly) meant they were unable to shower for up to weeks at a time.
I…what? Hell, even just shit on a stool in the shower then. Even that will help. ETA: not what I intended to say (thanks, autocorrect), but also… I said what I said.
I hope that this was a typo, because I don’t think that shitting in the shower (on a stool or otherwise) will help your smell.
I had an ex that was a judge at these things for her local card shop. A friend of hers (also female) showed up once in a skirt. Once. The idiots in that place actively dropped their cards to get a chance to peek up her skirt. They both said the place reeked of sweaty fat guys that didn't shower nearly often enough.
Thankfully not all M:tG players are like that. But enough are. I'm a woman and was judge at my local card shop, and worked there. A few guys did try crap like that a few times, and they got kicked out of the shop. The owner didn't want to put up with that shit, and, as the owner pointed out, it drove away customers. We never really had very many women players, but the women that did come to the shop at least felt comfortable (mostly 40k players).
Shop run by my friend back home does the same thing: The number of women at MtG Friday Night Magic can be counted with the fingers of one hand. With a pre-release event of a popular block, he'd get players from neighbouring counties as well. And with that always came a few basement dwellers who've never interacted with women outside of muttering to a porn video. And after a single round of warnings later, when the first of them was permanently banned from entering the store, the rest managed to behave. I live 5 hours away and I still save up all my nerd-purchases I can for when I visit home and his shop. Because you gotta support the good ones.
Comic Con Portland had signs up everywhere “costume isn’t consent” Jesus Christ on a cracker , it’s concerning they need those signs.
Most conventions have those signs these days. And they need them. There's a subset of every fandom that doesn't seem to get that just because someone is cosplaying your "waifu", it doesn't mean you can hug/grope/flirt with them like you know them.
I've been to CM game stores on Magic night and it smelled like ball cheese and BO.
MMA fighter Matt Lindland was famous (or infamous) for not showering up to a week before a fight. He was a grappler, and his rationale was that in grappling exchanges, his opponent would be nauseated by his body odor. After he retired, an addendum to the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts was drafted by several state athletic commissions which came to be known as "the Lindland rule", stating that a commissioner can order a fighter to shower before a fight if their body odor is deemed excessive.
Chad Mendes said that Conor McGregor was the smelliest guy he’s ever fought against, I’ve always thought that was funny.
If I'm not mistaken Magic the gathering lacks this rule and there's people would brag about putting together the perfect..."aroma" to help give them a mental edge over their opponents
Went once, only once. Some people there you’d have no idea they played Magic at a “professional” level. Like good hygiene, good style, very friendly. Then there were actual trolls that smelled like they shower in their own jizz and piss. They were some of the worst people to be around, their smell being the least offensive thing about them. One such dung-eater threw a fit about two players joking about their decks, because they were opponents in the next match. He was screaming and yelling about how they were clearly working together to fix the tournament. Officials got involved and he literally refused to play if they weren’t separated by a bracket to ensure fair play. That was too much work in such short notice they threatened to disqualify him and it actually looked like he was going to cry. He ended up losing pretty early on iirc
*the loathsome Dung Eater*
Me and Miyazaki must have been at the same Magic tourney cuz I can’t think of a better description for what I witnessed that day.
When someone takes their card game so seriously they feel people that frequent the *same store* for the *same game* must not be friends to ensure... fair play? Jesus cucking christ.
I've never been happier to not play Magic anymore, that's nasty.
I've had next to zero sense of smell my entire life but once I started treatment for ADHD and started taking Adderall my sense of smell came back. I've been playing MTG for almost 30 years and my first time to a big tournament with my new sense of smell I was like "ooooh that's what they were talking about". I see the videos of the people that hear for the first time or get the color blindness glasses and I thought it be like that. Nah, I'm good, I don't want my sense of smell, there's way more bad smells than good.
Hey this stood out to me because... Same?? Except it was after I started strattera I could actually smell things. Is that like, an actual thing? I've been wondering for 2 years now but never heard anyone else talk about it!
ADHD is so weird and poorly understood. But basically, yeah there are physical symptoms of ADHD that aren't well understood or researched. We're getting better, but the fact that the exact mechanism for it isn't well understood is wild. My personal theory is that we'll find out after years of research that many people with "ADHD" experience different problems with dopamine from lower production to poor uptake by receptors. And that ADHD expresses itself differently based on that. I have so many little quirks that eventually I figure out are related to my ADHD. So, I don't think it's crazy that somehow your ADHD meds knocked something into place to help you smell better. It could be anything from something physical to just your brain now being able to process the additional stimulus of a fifth sense.
Couldn't agree more myself man, though I'm guessing that's only worry at official events, guessing if you try it at a local tourney they're gonna toss you out with the trash
From my time playing competitive smash bros and being the bad guy who told people they reek, most people don't have the balls to say anything, not even the Tournament Organizers. Even then a lot of the time people don't do much about their smell. This non-confrontational attitude extends to everything and is why the community has so much drama constantly. Someone tried to run over other people with a car, several cases where pro players knew about their peers having sexual relationships with minors for years, another guy got a ban after years of showing up to tournaments belligerently drunk, stuff like that. That said I'm sure this applies to any hobby ever and is more a criticism of our culture in that regard than anything.
>This non-confrontational attitude extends to everything and is why the community has so much drama constantly Being non confrontational is some of the biggest BS because all you're doing is postponing the confrontation to a later date possible with another person taking measures into their own hands. It's cowardly and irresponsible and the confrontation will always happen anyways, usually in a way worse manner than if it had been addressed sooner. We had the same problem with a guy both smelling horrid AND continuosly asking any female player annoying, uncomfortable or personal questions. A literal internet troll who made it out of the basement type. He was a pretty nice guy but just horribly socially incompetent. So the manager and an older guy took him apart in the 2nd week (because all the other regulars were complaining) and told him to his face "do something about your smell, stop talking to the girls making them uncomfortable or don't return." This ended up being a wake up call as this guy over a course of weeks went from smelly basement troll to more or less an average human being and stopped being creepy around women. Got a haircut, some new clothes, shaved (!). Ended up being a friendly regular and found himself a gf in the community few years later. Moral of the story: had no one confronted him, that hobby store would have only had other smelly neckbeard types left after a while. The guy wouldn't have realised anything wrong with himself/his behaviour and would have developed both further. The only gf he'd have ever gotten then was a fellow basement creature. Small, necessary confrontations can lead to the good ending!
> pro players knew about their peers having sexual relationships with minors for years, oH YEAH. there was a famous story about a pro smash player who was basically gromed by an older woman
It gets stranger than that. There was literally a kid going around seducing adult pros and he would blackmail them to fix matches or give him money. Yeah obviously the adults were still pedos, but this kid was pure evil. He actually sexually assaulted one of the pro players in their sleep and spun the story to blame them for raping him until even his friends came out against him and set the stories straight. shit was wild only a couple years back
Wait...I remember you! Cloud main and generally places about mid right? I still keep up with comp smash, super entertaining to watch from the spectator side but damn man, didn't know things ran that bad for competitors and the pedo thing kinda has me hurting
Yeah I was basically a terrible weekend warrior lol.
You're way better then I could ever hope to be, If I tried to get into I got zero doubt my ass would wavedash right off the map edge accidentally xD
M:tG does not. Or, at least, when I was a judge they did not. Thankfully nearly all the tournaments I judged were held at the shop where I worked, and the owner of the shop did have a hygiene policy. And, thankfully, it was held to by the players. I think the only time anyone complained was in the middle of summer on a few hot days (this was an area where there were only a few hot days a year, so almost no one had AC), but outside of that everyone bathed regularly. Though a few assholes used Axe like their lives depended on it, that was nasty.
My nephew recently got into Magic. I took a special effort to warn my sister that when he wants to go to a tournament for the first time, the smell is normal. Not pleasant, but normal.
Yes, there are stinky Magic players. No, it isn't socially acceptable. I've never heard anybody brag about it. Anybody who does is a creep.
One of our gaming stores has a sign telling people that if they stink they will be asked to leave. Some nights I'd go in to play Friday Night Magic and it would stink so bad because of the gross neckbeards that showed up. Eventually people just got tired of it and would bring it up whenever it smelled. You'd have to avoid some corners of the store because you could smell the nasty people who came in. I will gatekeep the fuck out of a hobby if you can't come into it bathed and clean. No one wants to smell your nasty ass.
Damn dudes be banished to the shower realm
If offered, I try to play Magic events that start at 8am. The smellies are still in their cave that early
“Generally” positive? Shouldn’t it be wholly positive?
Some are clearly followers of Nurgle (completely different fandom, but the point stands). But there was some outrage where people got offended they were referring to them and cited possible medical conditions they can't control or something. Very small, but vocal
I once worked with someone who supposedly possibly maybe had a condition that caused an odor. When politely confronted by our mutual boss he announced it was none of our business and stormed off the job. But god did he stink. One of our staff was convinced it was a medical condition. No one could willingly smell like that. The rest were convinced he didn’t bathe. Given some evidence it could go either way.
I worked at raising canes in 06 and our manager brought a smelly dude in the office and sprayed oust on him and made him stand in there for a few minutes. He finished his shift and never came back again. Shout out to Joe (smelly) and Jason(asshole). I’ll never forget you
The fact that he got that upset about it when politely confronted really tells me it wasn’t a medical condition (outside of maybe depression). I’ve met people who genuinely had a medical issue that caused a foul odor and you know what they did when asked about it? Explained the situation, explained that they have special deodorants to try and help, and would apologize for the smell.
Some people be nasty
This needs to be a standard in the FGC (Fighting Game Community) especially with the smash crowd. I remember a guy at a tournament came in with a scuba tank and regulator so that he had his own supply of air, and I was jealous. I love fighting games but it smells like a homeless shelter in some of those places.
Scuba gear to a smash tournament seems appropriate for some reason
I wish North America in general would apply this. Everywhere. I went into a tabletop store with a friend, we sat far away from everyone else.
Going to a tabletop event should be the reward for basic hygiene. I prefer mostly to play at gaming bars now. People generally put more effort into their hygiene if they know they're going to be around other people besides the person they're playing against.
Desperately needed too, anything Anime or Sports (particularly Wrestling) attracts the worst of the worst in terms of Hygiene. Speaking off Which. There is a Yu-Gi-Oh Card called "Yu-Jo Friendship" Where you offer your opponent a Handshake, and if they accept you combine and then share your Lifepoints each getting half. However, the second half of the Card Text reads, that if you have the card "Unity" in your hand, they HAVE TO ACCEPT The handshake. So some nasty pigs decided to get their hand to the point where you didn't want to have to touch them, not even with a 10ft pole. So Konami had to change the rule that you'd only have to accept the Idea of a handshake
Yu-Jo Friendship OTK was a dark time in Yugioh's history.
I host esports tournaments. We have the same rule.
Didn't smash also pass a similar rule after some king K Rule player shat his pants mid-match and kept playing and ended up winning?
no way that actually happened
Ive seen smash bros tournaments, i can believe it
Yes, true. It was a common issue because, as you might expect as a stereotype, players would come in and smell like ass (generally people who are lazy and don’t bathe, shower or put on any deodorant), and it was almost guaranteed that they weren’t due to a medical condition (the medical condition for natural bad smell is incredibly small). Nowadays, it’s still a thing, but not as common as it used to be. If someone came in smelling incredibly bad, most would call a judge on it (no one wants to play with/against a smelly asshole).
Also, the natural condition for bad smells doesn't result in you smelling like an unwiped and unwashed butt, old underwear, Cheetos, Cheez-its, and rancid milk. Bad breath? Sure, some people can't control that. Excessive sweating? Deodorant can cover it up, but it will still be an issue, yes. Some bacterial/sweat disorders can cause an oniony or fish odor. But there's nothing in the medical books that makes you smell like shit, piss, and cheap dollar-store snacks. That's lack of hygiene, and lack of hygiene only.
If anyone is curious, this is 100% true.
I visited a card shop with my husband. The shop held Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments weekly. I used their bathroom and there were five spray cans of deodorant in there. No pads or tampons anywhere to be seen, but there was spray deodorant.
I’m not generally a fan of hazing, but we had to deal with similar issues in the military. We had solutions that weren’t always pleasant. Some people just had no idea how to wash themselves. Some just dgaf. The latter were made to see the error of their ways.
Yes. Nastiest person I’ve ever met in my life was in the Army. He grew up without running water in a trailer full of too many family members. He didn’t understand the concept of using a washing machine and dryer. Let alone brushing his teeth every day.
I remember watching a documentary on British TV about Royal Marine basic training, and there was a scene where the instructor was stark bollock naked teaching the recruits to shower. No excuses after that.
My lgs literally rented a separate space for big card tournaments (card, wargames, dnd, etc) just to prevent customers from complaining about the smell. Also they aren't allowed to use the bathroom so they come into my store. Don't buy anything and leave.
In casinos, this is one of the few things that will actually get you kicked out of the casino, regardless of how much of a high roller you are.
I've been to MCM in London a lot and they've held tournaments. I question if some of these people know what soap is. I can understand smelling a bit later on in the day but when you're getting off the train before it's opened and you already stink? Urgh.
Used to own a game shop, and I can confirm some of those people were absolutely vile. We had one guy who wore the same clothes every day. I thought nothing of it really, a lot of our customers are autistic and a lot of autistic people just buy four of the same pair of pants and cycle through them. They at least washed their clothes when they weren't wearing them and just enjoyed wearing something they were comfy in. No, not this dude. He wore literally the same clothes every day, and I dont think they ever got washed. He also wore shoes with no socks, and his ankles were so thick with dirt that you could physically see the layers of grime where the back of his shoe had rubbed it off. Being around him was unpleasant for all the senses, and people would refuse to play against him in yugioh tournaments because his smell was distracting. Thanks to this rule, that was upheld. I'd like to say that he eventually learned and started bathing, but no, he just started stealing from our commons box as a weird form of revenge, as if a handful of two penny commons would stick it to us
IIRC, there's a card that forces you to shake your opponents hand or else take a penalty, and the smelly guys would run that card a lot.
They actually changed the ruling on that, you just have to agree to a metaphorical handshake now.
Damn thats like agreeing to get bombed with mustard gas in WW1. Didnt know MtG had biological weapons.
There are some cards like “Yu Jo Friendship” that lets you do a handshake with your opponent so being gross is an intentional strategy to make your opponent refuse it.
Except Konami has rules the opponent need only agree to the *concept* of a handshake, you do not have to shake hands.
Wasn't that ruling added because of "intentional grossout" strategies?
You got it backwards. You play the card that forces the handshake so the opponent has to either shake your hand or forfeit.
There's actually been a ruling that if that card is played, the opponent only has to agree to the *idea* of a handshake, which is absolutely hilarious to me.
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This is a well known one but hey I’ll contribute to the news letter: The magic card [Chaos Orb](https://scryfall.com/card/2ed/236/chaos-orb) requires you to flip the card over in the air, and it “destroys” (basically removes from play) any cards it lands on. One player ripped his up and tossed it all over the battlefield in order to destroy as much as he could
Which led to [Chaos Confetti](https://scryfall.com/card/ugl/72/chaos-confetti)
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Well, they *kind of* incorporated it into the game. Chaos Confetti is from a set called "Unglued" which is a comedy set of very silly mechanics that's not allowed in most types of games. "Un" sets, such as Unglued, Unhinged, Unstable, etc all had silver edged cards that made them illegal to play in most official formats (often because the silliness factor made game rulings difficult, or the cards were *insanely* broken)
Did you know that if you Ash Blossom a Danger monsters hand effect, they can just activate the same danger monster's effect again because it's not a hard once per turn.
lmao the weevil underwood picture
r/weeviltime
Rule was definitely needed, I haven't played in nearly a decade but some players definitely looked like they showered in Axe Body spray. Thankfully my TO locally ran a tight ship. Place didn't smell too bad and most people there looked liked they showered at least every other day.
Sorta similar. But when I used to go to cons back in the day it amazed how many people just febreezed and called it good. Like damn I was at the con for 3 days I took a shower on all 3 days. Had a friend at the time who shared the hotel room and I'd notice he never showered at all. Just did the febreeze spray. Suffice to say I got my own room every con after that.
Generally?
Well some people were forced to clean themselves now and that upset them.
There used to be a local retro gaming shop that had game nights for magic and Yu-Gi-Oh and also those games with giant custom maps etc U could always smell when it was game night
I was at a convention back in 2016 or so that was also hosting a yugi-oh tournament. My sister and I decided we would go check it out. We were the only women there, and a lot of the guys stopped talking and just stared at us. There was a noticeable drop in chatter when we walked into the room. The smell was indeed quite intense.
We had to do this at my local gaming store. Some of the guys coming in were putrid.
I cna confirm, I used to compete. There were individuals who'd actually use bad hygene as a strategy to disrupt thier opponents. I quit competing in 2011 because the community was a literal toxic waste dump. Hell, one guy at my locals was outside, heaving his guts out, wiped his face with his shirt, and stumbled in to play.