"Hobby Getting You Down?" Topic

Green Tiger once wrote:

Looking on here and in the wargames press i increasingly feel that this isn't my hobby – it seems to have little in common with what I do. I doubt I will stop doing what I do but I might stop calling myself a "minis gamer"… in fact I don't anyway…

TMP link

Do you feel the same way?

No, it is what picks me up.

I don't understand what he is trying to say. Based on context I disagree with him.

Looking on here and in the wargames press i increasingly feel that this isn't my hobby

Go and do something else then.

I've never called myself a 'minis gamer', I'm a wargamer.

Which specific hobby is the OP referring to? It isn't at all clear.

No, it never has.

No. Never. YouTube link

What does Green Tiger do?

For example there are people here who exclusively paint and collect, gaming is not part of the equation.

What hobby?

For years I've either collected books, painted figures, fought battles, written articles, made things… really, they are all different 'hobbies', and calling it wargaming is simply a way of putting all these hobbies together as a coherent whole.

And for variation? At the moment I'm basically building up a town in 28mm, mainly using mdf buildings, figures from a number of manufacturers plus a few card ships of my own… plus, of course, basing and detailing. It's roughly based on Lovecraft's Arkham, but again that's really another way of making it more coherent. I've never built a town before – terrain has always been a sketchy part of 'my' take on the 'hobby'.

So, really, you can't say (in my case, anyway) that it is just one hobby, more a group of interests – one of the group becomes less dominant, another takes over.

The fact is, there are too many interesting things to do in life – I just happen to lump several of them together and it a namre.

The original topic was "will you ever leave the hobby?" so Green Tiger's comment was given in that context, not an "is the hobby getting you down?" one.

Unfair to use his/her comment as the startpoint for a convo he/she wasn't intending.

Yeah, if Green Tiger would like to jump in here, I'd be curious to have him elaborate on his original post.

Yes, a little bit.

Sometimes.

But I was always a collector & painter first, anyway.

I have changed my buying habits as I have aged. I now know that I can't do everything and can't take it with me. Yet. I still love gaming. Still find, smaller projects, that still give me the thrill to get started. I don't think the hobby has changed all that much in the 30+ years I've been in it.

Inkpaduta pretty much summed up where I am with "the hobby."

There have been times when yes, the hobby got me down; however, that had more to do with me, or who I was gaming with, or my expectations being unrealistic. After all it is a hobby and it you do not enjoy it why continue to do it?

I have never once told anyone that I am 'a minis gamer'. This is because my planned convention game based on 'The Italian Job' is still in development.

Never been a minis gamer – and never will be … I remain a wargamer and am still enthralled by everything that encompasses.

I don't think the hobby has changed all that much in the 30+ years I've been in it.

Other stuff comes and goes on the edges of my interests – but, yes, for me, too, the heart and soul of wargaming is pretty much unchanged (I am pleased to say) …

Phil

Not enough time to do it all, time to rethink and clear the decks for what I can andf want to do within reason.

I never let the hobby get me down. Most of my dearest friends I met through this hobby. Painting figures is my favorite form of relaxation. I don't have as much time to game, and I truly regret that. But I'm only five years from retirement and expect I will have more time then.

I've put miniature wargaming on the back-burner, invested less money and time into it at different moments of my life. But I've been a miniature wargamer since I was 15. I'm about to turn 61. If I didn't throw up my hands and give up decades ago, I'll be damned if I'll do that now.

This is what I do for fun. As much as possible, this is what I do to earn a living.

So, to the OP … what press? … and what was said?

I can relate to what he is saying, but he has not really made it clear what he actually does as a hobby.

I had a good gaming group at a local club which then split as some gamers went to another club. Some of my friends then moved away leaving me with no-one really to play with. Attempts to fit in with either club never went well after that. I now figure that I've spent more time away from a club than I ever spent in one.

These days I paint for myself and play solo games. I am trying really hard to stop buying new miniatures until I have finished a few collections.
I'd love to buy some new figures for a new project but the thought of buying two new Armies and all the terrain needed for it as well as painting everything I'd need only to solo game puts me off.

I like TMP as there seems to be a number of people in same position as me as well as active gamers to inspire me and keep me going. I can't see myself stopping painting while I can still see but the mini gaming is a minute part of what I do.

However I often feel like an observer rather than an active participant in this hobby which can get me down at times.

No, why would I pick a hobby that depresses me?

No this is relaxing to me.

Never

I suffered a serious morale failure over the past year as I grew tired of the effort to put on the type of games I like, and the group of gamers I usually played with moved on to games I wasn't excited about. However, I recognize it as fatigue brought about more by pressures in "real life" than anything else, and helping my son get started on his first serious collection has been great. There's a lot of ways to enjoy the hobby, and becoming less active while slowly puttering away is one of them.

I guess I am lucky in that I find almost every aspect relaxing. If I can't get in a game, there's always something else worth puttering around with.

The hobby does not get me down. If it did, I would stop engaging in it.

I am finding more and more that the mainstream wargames press cover aspects, styles and types of wargaming that have no interest for me and which never feature in my experience of wargaming at the Guildford Club or in my own home.

But that doesn't stop me enjoying the hobby the way my friends and I do it…

The parts I like = "No."

I pay others to do the parts I don't like a lot.

Hobby doesn't get me down at all.

The hobby does not, but some unfortunate encounter with ungentlemanly gamers do.

Never. The Hobby of war gaming is multifaceted and enormously rewarding, and compared to many other hobbies, dirt cheap. On the whole my encounters with other gamers have been excellent too. The few that have not been dont' get invited back.

I've always enjoyed our hobby. So I will remain. However once the enjoyment ceases then I will move on. Honestly though I can't envisage a point in my life, at present, where the hobby won't be there in some form or another.