Recently, there’s been a lot of negative stories about the gamer community. Allegations of sexual misconduct, trolling or even harassment, sexism, theft, counterfeits, whatever. A lot of stuff going on. So, I decided I’d tell a little story of a good guy in our community. Nothing major in the big picture, but the good deeds are rarely as visible or talked about as the bad ones.

Recently I was selected to receive some foil cards as part of the DCI Judge Exemplar Program. This is just something Wizards of the Coast does for judges as a thank you. These cards are specifically designed for this purpose.

Now, for some reason the post office decided that they weren’t happy with the address they were asked to deliver the package to, which would be my address. Instead they decided to trace my address… and failed. They did find someone with my lastname and my first name as their second name, who had moved recently and they came to the conclusion that this should be the address they deliver to. Which was of course wrong.

But, gladly, the guy who did receive my package opened it (it did have sort of his name on it) and noticed that it wasn’t meant for him. So, he looked me up, called me and offered to deliver the cards to me personally. Which he did.

Okay, again, nothing important in the big picture, but this guy, who had played the game and new the cards might be worth something, decided to do the right thing, even though if he had decided not to, he would never have been caught and returning them to me required some work from him. He could’ve just as easily just kept them, sold them off, thrown them away, or something.

How much of stuff like this happens and never gets publicized in any way? Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t fight the bad things, but at the same time, not everything is awful. There’s a bunch of good individuals in this community, which is the reason the community even exists.