"GROWING THE HOBBY" Topic

I didn't want this to get buried at the end of a thread on "Is the War Game Convention Dying" which has morphed into "the greying of the hobby so I started a new thread.

If ANY of you want to know how to get young people in the hobby then contact Walt O'Hara who every year runs a "wargame camp" for kids at a local day camp. He spends a week with them in a hands-on activity of gaming, painting, designing rules, and lets THEM come up with their own games. Walt's an expert on this and been doing it for about a decade. He's brought in truckloads of the little tykes into the hobby, or at least planted the seed.

Get your tips and how to's from him. He's done it in front of the toughest audience in the world- kids.

Oh yes, he's also managed to do it with handicapped and challenged kids, and with one kid who had autism.

Or go to Recruits in Kansas City. That show is always overrun with kids in junior high and high school….keeping admission under $5 USD certainly helps!

Saw more kids than ever at Cold Wars a few weeks ago.

I'll Second on Recruits. All the games i have run there have had mostly younger players. More low key cons and less mega cons.

I belong to the Schenectady Wargaming Association and they have a long running policy of free admission for students to their monthly Gameathons and deep discounts to the yearly convention. Several members make a point of running teen and younger friendly games also. There aren't as many teens as we would like but we're far from dying.

I actively work on growing the hobby by never having an age limit at my convention tables, nor discouraging kids from playing. And I make sure the banter at the table is kid appropriate when there are young'uns around.

Of course, it helps that I'm in Texas and am running Western games. There's a built-in interest in every kid here, plus kids just "get" Westerns. They understand good guys/bad guys, they know guns shoot six bullets. In short, they just "get" it, and that instant buy-in helps unleash their inner outlaws. No kidding, the most blood-thirsty players at my games have invariably been under the age of 13.

One of my all time favorite stories from recruits a bunch of years back.

Two young girls and two young trash-talking boys are learning Flames of War. An obliging dad is doing a D-Day scenario with cardboard rectangles standing in for landing craft. I'm in my booth so only half paying attention. The boys are playing the Allies.

It was a bad day for the Allies. Very bad. One young girl asks "can we assault into the boats?"

I see the Allies trapped at the water's edge with some stands still on the landing craft. The trash talking had died down by then….

Good one Extra Crispy…

I ran a history club at my local high school for four years. It generated four dedicated wargamers in that time but familiarized a few more with it. Three of them do either 40K or clickies last I heard but one became a very dedicated WWII gamer and even started a wargaming club at his college.

O'Schmidt this sounds very good. Where or what part of the country does this wargame camp take place in?

One young girl asks "can we assault into the boats?"

Beware the female of the species

Infiltrate locations w/ Pokemon tournaments …

Dear War Wizzard

It's near Walt's House in Maryland. I'm surprised he hasn't shown up yet. I'll shake the tree again.

Otto

Dear List

I'm taking this post I made on the "Is the Wargame Conventin Dying" thread

REMEMBER!

"Growing the Hobby" won't be done by bushwhacking boy scouts or tricking people into playing. Nor will it be done by dumping the job on HMGS or some other person. You all have to do it! Personally, everyone of you!

Two of the three big draws of the hobby are the "Sense of Wonder" and "Spirit of Play." That's the high-falutin' terms for them but they mean the WOW!!!!!NEAT!!!!! factor and the "LET'S MAKE BELIEVE!!!!" factor.

But those aren't the most important.

The most important factor is YOU!

Wargames is a social hobby and if people don't like you, if people don't want to be around you than flogging the hobby will be beating a dead horse. We go to games, wherever they are (at least in America) because we like to hang with the people who go to games, and we have fun and laugh and joke and argue if Obama is the Antichrist or the best thing since sliced bread, and gossip and cat about people who aren't there and have fun and eat munchies and be with pleasant people. Thinks about how the vast number of people got into it. You had a friend at work, or down the street, or you met someone at a store, or you went over their house and saw the hobby shelves lined with miniatures.

The only way the hobby grows is not by formal presentation or sententious demonstration games, but by getting people in and letting them roll die. You won't get converts by sermonizing them, or lecturing them, or beating them over the head with history. You will get them because at first, it's all nice and flashy splashy, but the secret is they want to hang around with you.

Trust me. There is no great yearning burning hole in the soul of the average man that can be filled by war games.

But people like to have friends, to socialize and be with each other, drink beer, cram munchies down their mush and be accepted. They like the simulated danger of the die roll but they like being with other people.

So if you want to grow the hobby get off your buts and evangelize. I could go through the recounting of how many people I have gotten into gaming who have stayed, but you've heard it all before.

By the way, as for the graying of the Hobby, Walt O'Hara put it right a few dozen posts ago. The reason the hobby seems greying is that young people drop out of gaming for a while because of destractions. The kids of one family I converted to gaming (yes, got the whole family, mom, dad, 9 year old son, 14 year old daughter) into it and they loved it. The 14 year old daughter (drop dead gorgeous, then and now) is into other things like her fiancé and getting a job and married, and the son is absorbed in school work, his facorite subject now being blue-jean biology. But I can see the seed is planted and in 6 years-- they'll be back.

As for games at conventions. I'm a wargame w***e, (the fillin the blank letters are "hor" )I'll play anything, board games, D&D, historical miniatures, Sci-fi, (No zomibies, they're disgusting) and love every minute of it.

But, I'm also a strict nominalist, so that will be a problem for many (they're toy soldiers, mere tokens, they have no connection with reality and have no mystical connection other than aesthetics with their real life prototypes)

So if you want to grow the hobby, start talking it up.

Otto

I haver done the same thing -- camps and clubs -- at both schools where I taught. It DOES work. And I actually earned some money a few summers with the camps.

When in an FLGS or Con and a younger person is playing, shopping, or just asking questions – be nice.

I put on a wargame every six months at the local toy soldier show here in MA. The table is filled with hundreds of painted figures and there are always between six and eight little generals pushing lead all between the ages of 7-14, a few are even younger with their dads helping them out.
Every kid has been polite and careful with the figures at every game, never a problem.
And they all have great fun and walk away smiling.

One young girl asks "can we assault into the boats?"

Beware the female of the species

youtu.be/N-wIvsZBFhQ

DM

Hi, Walt here. I run the Gaming camp for kids in Northern Virginia (not Maryland), first week of August usually. The folks at the St. Stephen's School in Alexandria give me a large classroom, four tables and leave the rest to me. I plan the routine out in advance and generally put on a mix of boardgames and mostly miniature games. My son Garrett runs boardgames like GET BIT, COSMIC ENCOUNTER, KING OF TOKYO, etc. while I set up the big event which is a miniatures game running from about 1030 to end of day. We don't do a lot of commercial miniature games and almost zero historical-- because I rely on simple designs to get the kids into moving miniatures and conflict on the table in terms they know, which is usually something big and colorful like . science fiction and fantasy. Some years, kids will show up with some Warhammer experience. This helps. Lately the kids haven't had ANY miniatures experience and I'm working with blank slates. That's also fine.

Miniature game rule are usually games I invent, but not all the time-- I've run gladiator rules from Alan Saunders, X-Wing from Fantasy Flight, and this year I'm running ATTACK WING and possibly ALL QUIET ON THE MARTIAN FRONT if I can get it painted up in time. I've also run BIG DANGED BOATS (my design) which is huge, colorful and totally silly-- just the thing to appeal to these kids. (See below). BDB is the big hit in recent years, as is THE MAGI, a game about wizards casting spells.

(BDB)

(Magi)

I try to emphasize games that build their own narratives-- games that tell stories and have the guys laughing all the time. This really puts the hook in them.

I usually set out a bundle of miniatures to paint, with mixed results. Depends on the year.

I try to do a design your game event now and then. That's where I give the kids a box of miniatures and tokens and coins and measuring sticks and say-- "there are the components.. let's build a game around it" We got a great minimalist Zombie game out of that drill, Zombie Town USA. We still run it today!

This year, subject to change, we are planning on running these games:

FUTURE TANK (SF version of TANK DUEL by Jim Wallman)
WHITE LINE FEVER (my reworking of ROAD WARRIOR)
DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS ATTACK WING
BIG DANGED BOATS (if time allows)
THE MAGI
and maybe Zombie Friday.

I try to add something new every year.

The game camp doesn't attract hordes of kids, 20 was my best year and I'm usually happy with about a dozen. It's not about the numbers. I know the kids we are attracting seem to be the brainy kind who are into something different. The guy running the summer programs routinely tells me feedback is tremendous-- "I honestly have no idea of what you do here, but please keep doing it".. :-D

As for me, the game camp is a highlight of the year-- and reminds me of why I love this hobby.

V/R

Walt

Posts about Game Camp can be found here:
link

Was at Adepticon last week. Of course the 40k, WHFB and WM tables were well stocked with twenties and a few teens. However the historical games were not bereft either. Saga and the two Civil War games were a big grey, but there were plenty of under 30's folks at the Bolt Action, Dust and Flames of War tables.

We've always run our game (Mech Attack for the last couple years) at Little Wars with an open age limit. Except for last weekend, we've always had a pretty wide range of participants usually with at least one or two kids.

I'd say that the best way to rope in the younger player is to have a presence at conventions that attract younger players like Adepticon. There seems to be a good amount of folks naturally seem to move from sci-fantasy to historical and the way to get their attention is to go put on historical games where they are.

I thought there was a ton of younger folks at the last con I went to (Cold Wars). The young guys across from me in the Marine Assault game (Steve Robinson's game) were under 10. The guy running the airplane game I played in was college aged. Many of the people in the Aerosan racing game were mid 20s or younger. Same with the Road Warrior game. All very encouraging.

This year at Little Wars we printed out 300 post cards that have been sent out to local High Schools & Colleges. I also provided several vendors at Adepticon with them to hand out. The post cards offer a free one day admission to the convention to students/and teachers. All they need to do is return the card and show a student ID. Then we record thier infor for future contact and school. We have also reached out to the Home School community. They have an annual convention each year.

This is directed more at the UK audience here…

1. Put on more participation games at shows. Encourage the youth to join in, be patient with them, let one or two of the rules slide for the sake of engaging their attention and let them get stuck in.

2. Don't make them feel unwelcome at your clubs. Don't sniff or roll or eyeballs when they want to play Warhammer, 40K or some other trendy sci fi or fantasy game. Make them feel at home by not being the grumpy old stickler for history.