"miniature Gamers? Really?" Topic

A thought occurred to me. There is a huge divide in war games. It occurred to me how little time I spend gaming. About once a month actuall. when I actually get to push lead, and sometimes because of life I have to skip a month. However I spend a HUGE amount of time painting, modelling, planning, writing, rules designing, scenario creation. This seems almost constantly when I'm not doing any other activity. I usually don't even watch television any more unless I'm at a small painting table I set upstairs in my living room

It occurred to me that the Board Gamer does NONE of that, and his time is spent far more in gaming, once a week, usually and he plays lots of games. The Role player who does not paint minis must be in the same case, and even if they DO paint minis the engagement in that "craft" part of the hobby must be far, far less.

I'm not unhappy with the low level of gaming, and I thoroughly enjoy everything in the hobby that I do.

I think that is a great divide few of us are conscious of. and if we are how huge it is.

The limit to gaming time is availability of opponents. Once a month is how often my opponent and I can get together. Playing online with VASSAL lets me get in a game with my ASL opponent as well. The rest of the time is reading history and such.

Flip side of the same coin, availability of time is the only thing limiting game time for miniatures or board gamers.

Twice every two weeks, and we have been squeezing in a few in the off weeks.
It's now my painting that's suffering.

You guys miss the point. It's not the frequency of gaming unless of course you're engaging in a piece of one-upsmanship here, in which case, you fail. I don't mind the low frequency of gaming. I'm noting the far greater time we spend painting and building.

I spend about as much time gaming as I do painting and whatnot, so yes, I'm a "miniature gamer, really", as the title has it.

I have the opportunity to do a lot more gaming than I do – bottom line is that I'd have to drop other stuff to make way for it.

The same does not apply to doing more painting and whatnot – I could easily do more of that. All that would require is applicationWHOAH there's your problem.

I have been into miniature gaming since 1972. I got serious in 1976. Most of my time has been doing research on uniforms, paint colors, scenarios, force compositions, battles, campaigns, rule mechanics and concepts. The next most amount of time spent has been on painting and mounting. Gaming in regards to time spent is small in comparison to these two.

Some years ago I had a phone call from a newspaper reporter asking about the hobby of wargaming. I was well known at the time in the life and so she was contacting me for the inside story. She was quite friendly and did not ask leading questions as many times as happened in the past . We spoke for about a half an hour as I tried to cover all aspects of the gaming life. I talked about getting books about historical subjects, collecting figures, reading up on the uniforms for those figures. Painting the figures, organizing them, basing them. Setting up scenarios for historical battles, gathering material to make the terrain, make the terrain, lay it out for the game. Obtain rules, learn the rules, teach the rules for other people.

Finally she said thank you very much for your time and explaining all this to me. " One thing however does strike me about this hobby of yours, it seems that you spend much more time getting ready to war game than you actually do war game. ".

No, Otto.
I did get the point.
Most of what I need is already painted. I only need to paint two units for my next game.
It wasn't one upsmanship. I play much more than I used to, but paint less.
I am merely saying that my time spent is differently than yours.
That's all.

We have more in common that binds us, than differences that divide. We flank, we devise ways to defeat our enemies, we plot,we solve problems. We destroy our opponents army, we secretly build up under the cover of darkness.
It reminds me of two teams in the same football league…hate each other with much venom…lose sight

The balance shifts over time and between people. I had a time in my life when I was playing four games a month with other people's board, rules and figures. Now I play one game a month in which I provide rules, scenario, board and figures and another at which I provide no more than rules and scenarios, and that less those half the time. In between I've had years with no games and a lot of painting, but the painting would lose point without the games.

The board gamer uses a canned product, mostly, but if the RPG players don't put in much effort between sessions, rest assured the DM does.

It's also true most of us could have quit assembling troops, terrain and rules years ago, since we already had enough for more wargames than we will live to fight. Very few of us seem to, though. It's enough to make you think Harry Pearson in Achtung Schweinhund had a point.

You've never played a monster wargame.

> I'm noting the far greater time we spend painting and building.

Board gamers spend as much time reading rules, browsing things online about the game as miniatures players do making terrain and painting. ASL players talk endlessly about counter storage and counter clipping and listening to various podcasts about the game. It might not be painting or building but it is ancillary to playing the games.

To me the painting, reading, blogging and terrain building are all part of the same Miniature Gaming hobby because those activities are directed towards pushing lead.

Just like RC Modelers spend more time researching and building their boat/aircraft/car than actually crashing them.

Dude… I'm one of those omnivores, so I play them all. Computers, board games, minis…

Here's the things about board games… even "board games" itself is a very wide spectrum. Some plays weekly, and able to play like a dozen new games every month. Some only plays ASL and play like once in a blue moon. I've been on either side.

And trust me, collecting and painting miniatures is *very rewarding*, especially when compared to the "6 new games every month" crowd. So don't sweat that you spend a lot of time on the "hobby" side.

As hobbyist, I classify those who claim to have a hobby into several different category. The first is the collector. This guy just buys and put them on the shelves and done. Then the fan. This guy buy, and listen or watch. Then the player. This guy buy, and get involved in an interactive manner, such as playing games and music. Then the maker. This guy buy and assemble, or create something from scratch altogether. This is the music composer, programmer, writer, painter, game designer etc.

The later is always substantially more rewarding. Well, so long as you don't make it professional!

PS. Books are more involving that movies since they need imagination etc, so book readers are somewhere between the fan and the player.

The Role player who does not paint minis must be in the same case, and even if they DO paint minis the engagement in that "craft" part of the hobby must be far, far less.

The comparison to Miniature and RPG gaming depends on who is doing the investment of creating the game.

In an RPG, the player only needs to create his character, update his character as he/she levels, and maybe provide a miniature and dice. He may buy the rules or have them provided.

The GM, depending on how good he is and how good his game is, has to invest money for Rules, Scenarios, Monster Guides, World Creation or create all of that from scratch which is a HUGE time investment. Oh… and find players who get along and don't suck.

As a miniature gamer I go through the same process as an RPG GM as I usually set up for both sides and all I have to do is find opponents.

Think about the poor people who fish for a hobby. 6 hours of sitting around doing nothing waiting for that 20 second thrill. In the scheme of things, our hobby is not that bad. And I actually like painting -- just don't get me started on priming miniatures.

Kevin

Like all hobbies there are various sub groups who value various aspects. That valuation can swing between the planning, thinking and constructing of hobby related components and just the simple execution of the final stage of the aspects of miniature gaming, board gaming and role players. I dont think there is a large divide. To outsiders all of us would be labeled nerds.

For me, yes, really.
All my painting, and the little modelling I do, is towards the game. Background reading not so much, planning rather more. But there is a definite focus.
I get great pleasure when I can re-use figures I already have for a new game; I don't go into new areas all that often (OK, maybe once a year…). But I always intend to game – even if it doesn't always happen.

Winston Smith +1
Also, I play solo and same side against the game mechanics with other players much more than head to head.

> Think about the poor people who fish for a hobby. 6 hours of sitting around doing nothing waiting for that 20 second thrill.

You think fishing is really about catching fish and not drinking beer?

I think a lot of people enjoy the painting and modelling as much, or more, than the actual gaming.

Pretending there's a game at the end just helps structure what you paint :-)

I game a couple times a week. I would probably have a hard time scheduling more (and SWMBO does the heavy lift of the scheduling for me). I mod and paint in times I am not playing or doing other things, so I really don't push gaming out of the way for the other parts of the hobby (which I consider to be a separate hobby).

When I tracked such things for a living (>1 decade ago) the ratio of prep to actual warfighting for most Western militaries was on the order of 20:1 (with a lot of variability), and that didn't count the effort of people who were "pure support" (didn't actually conduct operations in theater).

If I modded and painted less, I would game with more surrogates … yes … I think that book on the Battle of Puebla is about the right size to be Fort Loreto.

Most RPGers that I know (self included back in the day) spend mad time poring over the rules looking for that little edge …

All of these activities (painting, building, shopping, research, writing, playing, running) are things I enjoy, so I'm not concerned about how much time I spend on them relative to each other.

What Weasel said. It's like you know me!

Cheers Roger.

Ottoathome,

That's the great advantage of board wargaming. No painting, no terrain. Everything is in the box. If only I can find some opponents. Everyone around here only plays miniatures.

I only play once or twice a month, I could play more often but I host one game a month and I enjoy getting ready for them. Finding or writing scenarios, research etc.

What sucks is when no one shows up or something goes terribly wrong with the scenario. Twice a month is plenty for me.

I know role-players, and I am one, who spend almost as much time painting, modeling, building scenery etc for our games as the most hard core miniatures wargamers do.

These days I seem to spend less time playing and more time modeling.

I need painted minis but hate doing it. I have found ways of getting an acceptable job at 4ft viewing ditance in the minimum time. If it can't be seen at 4 ft its no use to me. Peering at a wargames figure at 2" is never going to happen and is of no interest to us, we are playing. Most time is spent playing, then scenario writing then painting. I am a gamer, not a moddeler. I play most weeks barring holidays etc.

My late friend, Rocky Russo, had boxes and boxes of painted units that never made it to the table top. His main focus was the painting. Gaming was so secondary as to be almost non existent toward the end. By contrast, I never paint if I am not gaming. And this current resurgence of gaming has not motivated me to paint anything new, not even a single figure. I find that I have enough figures already to play everything that we have played so far………….