"A question about wargamers" Topic

I've been on this forum for some time now, however, I've gamed very little in this genre (miniature war gaming) and after reading a lot of posts I find a lot of people here are snarky, snippy and a few just down right rude.

The only gaming people I've been around a lot are board gamers and I don't think I've meet one I didn't like. Some rules lawyers and people who don't like to lose, but no one that came off rude or snippy.

I'm looking to form a ww2 mini's group in my local area, but I'm a little worried.

Is this the case with miniature gamers or is this just a case of "I can be a d**k on the internet?

Serious question. Not trying to incite any flame wars here.

If you can control the attendance, ie play at home then you can remove undesirable players.

Keyboard Warriors in the main old boy! One does hear of the odd bad gamer in a club (I am guilty of punishing some of My figures for doing particularly badly!) but in the main bad gamers do not last long!

Some folks in the competition side of life can be pedantic and quibble about the smallest petty thing whilst pouncing on you for trying to do the same thing! But the best thing to do is try a local club,

Tally Ho!

A lot of it is the internet. But not all.

Ignore the clientele on TMP, for a moment, and consider your proposition.

Organizing a club of WW2 miniature players is a pretty small niche of a niche hobby. Unless you are in a big city, you probably won't draw a large number of fellow enthusiasts. WW2 is especially tricky, with a wealth of rules to choose from, and scales to support them.

My prediction is that you will soon meet the few who could help you drive your club forward, and you will soon hold an opinion of what sorts of people you're planning to invest your time with. From there, decide if this is a club you wish to support.

Then we'll send the snippy people over.

Some of it has to do with people whose nature is competitive – often a very unattractive characteristic for mine. Miniature Wargames rules are always open to interpretation whereas board games seems very much less so.

I think it is mostly the medium of conversation. It is easy enough to uninvite people who don't know how to behave in public (or at your house). I have been miniatures gaming for decades and have met very few unpleasant players.

Most people you meet at shows are quite pleasant, same if you go to a new club, if I didn't like someone they wouldn't get in my shed. So it will be the same with the people you form your group with, more than likely very nice.
On the internet people can be who they want to be, choir boys can be devils. Some of the owners and staff at a few wargames companies on here know me personally, which is a shame as I'd love to pretend to be a permanently outraged military historian. Some sites are more pleasant than TMP, some are just pure bile. Either way, have fun mate.

The internet I'm afraid, its all over the place. People say things behind the anonymity of the screen that they wouldnt have the front to say face to face. In real life people conform to the group mentality on the whole on here people just do what they feel like.
L

Captaincold69, interesting that you find much about
the miniatures gamers here off-putting (and I feel
that way sometimes, too) but you find the boardgamers
you know/have known to be, I'm inferring, decent sorts.

Many miniatures gamers ARE boardgamers, also, or have
been at some point in their gaming lives.

Many minigamers started on boardgames, in fact.

I wonder that a change in what people play causes a
change in how they interact with other folks?

The only gaming people I've been around a lot are board gamers and I don't think I've meet one I didn't like.

You have been incredibly lucky. I've been in this hobby for over 50 years, and I have met plenty of board wargamers who were every bit as objectionable as the worst I've seen here.

It's the internet. I have been to more conventions and tournaments then I care to contemplate and have found the vast majority of people to be very pleasant. Polite internet conversation turns out to be surprisingly difficult.

It is the nature of this place and the internet in general. I've only met a handful of obnoxious wargamers over the years and over a hundred good ones.

I too could tell stories about board gamers from back in the day. I'd have said on average the miniatures gamers were as well behaved--though, yes, non-gridded boards seem to leave more room for argument.

The anonymity of the Net may be a factor--one reason I don't have a secret identity--but there is also the impermanence of relationships. Cross someone in the local club and--well, how many gamers are there in town? And how many clubs? We are all inescapable. I noticed this in the Army, too. Sharp words within a unit were generally followed by some gesture of appeasement, because we were stuck with each other and knew it.

No such thing on line.

Internet and not just here. People will say stuff online they wouldn't say to your face. I can count on two fingers how many miniature gamers in person that were a chore.

Internet, giving alcohol a run for its money.

Partly it's the internet.
Easy to misunderstood others and no real direcg feedback loop like real life. No punch in the face for being a d1ck brings out the worst in some.

Some proportion of joe public are not very nice.
You don't really want to invite complete strangers into your house.

Have you looked around for a local group who are already organised?
Maybe someone here couid even suggest such a group.

A couple bad apples, no doubt, but generally some of the smartest and nicest people you could ever meet.

That said, you might try neutral ground for an 'organizing' event -- like at the local library. It might have a separate community room you can reserve.

Also be on the lookout for a small nearby convention. If you make it there, perhaps others in your area with your interests will, too.

HMGS conventions are a good place to start.

You probably know about Grognard calendar of gaming conventions:

Grognard Calendar

Honestly its just TMP. Most other forums, overall, tend to be more casual about things. I board game as well as miniature game and there are only two people I lost all hope in. One played miniatures games and the other played board games so its a split for me. 13 years of experience for me.

My time in the miniature wargaming hobby has blessed me with friendships with a number of amazingly interesting, generous, intelligent and pleasant people … most of whom I am more than happy to say that I have stayed connected to for some decades.

That having been said, like all other human social organisms, miniature wargaming is by no means exempt from Blutarski's "One in Twenty Rule" … i.e.:

One out of every twenty people you meet in your life will be a (delete the expletive of your choice here).

There is however a simple solution: once identified, lose their phone numbers and do not game with them.

B

I guess I don't know what snarky and snippy are, because I hardly notice any bad postings on TMP that are not in someway jesting among friends.I actually don't recall anybody being rude about miniature gaming, but there's a lot of postings about irrelevant political items Where people might get harsh with one another. Some people do tend to post items that don't seem related to miniature gaming That generate controversy. Am I being snarky here?

I have been in the gaming life for over 50 years And have met hundreds, multiple hundreds of the most friendly people I've ever known. To paraphrase a great American, "if I sat down and played game with him, I have yet to meet a man I didn't like." Or woman for that matter.

Please do not judge wargamers by what you read on TMP, but rather meeting them in person.

If you look at the handles of those who posted a reply here, you will find good people. I see most of them on a regular basis, posting and contributing to the community.
This is really what it is about, contributing in a meaningful way to our community. Whether you are a board gamer, historical gamer or fantasy gamer there a some really great people here.

As others have posted, the world wide inter-web creates anonymity. Those who's ego's need to to be seen, heard, and sometimes cause chaos.

What you choose to create for a gaming club is your choice. If there is an A-H, who is causing trouble it is your choice to politely ask them to never come back. Bill (the Editor/Owner) has done this on occasion.

My particular group of 13 is fantastic! We game every Thursday with a choice of gaming rooms from the collective. Gaming with miniatures from early ancient to WW2.
My advice, sit down and outline what you want you group to be. Put that out there and see who is interested. You never know who will turn up.
The ones in my group are now my best friends.

I must be lucky as I have only bumped into nice and helpful people on here.

I have to say I have met my fair share of s amongst board gamers, and RPG's and so on, I do think the internet makes being rude to easy. It also makes it very easy to mistake a poorly worded reply as a mortal insult.

Personally I find most people on here pleasant and helpful.

Fatman

When playing in person I tend to get argumentative when I know the rules halfway. Once past that point I just get morose when the dice hate me.

I've found not everything translates well via the internet. Take this post for example.

The rules of a board game provide structure. The people who play the game do not have to agree with the ideas, opinions and values of the people who created the game, but they have already agreed to follow rules created based on those ideas, opinions and values. On the internet we don't have that structure, so it is all open for debate. Then factor in that some people are more invested in their ideas and opinions while others are more willing to consider the ideas and opinions of others, and that even on TMP the internet provides a certain amount of anonymity.

I don't find TMP to be notably worse than other fora.

Other fora can be much worse than this place, take my word. But some others are more sedate.

I participate in several fora. I have been chosen (asked by the forum organizers, never self-selected) as a moderator in a few. I'd rank TMP in the top 30 – 40% in terms of politeness of the discussion.

That said, to the extent that their is an issue, it is partly due to the gaming population, but more largely due to the nature of the internet. That's my view, at least.

Gamers create their own reality. Some become testy when someone challenges the validity of their reality. Historical gamers in particular often convince themselves that they hold the facts, and that their self-created reality is the one and only reality. I personally look to the veterans among gamers to help me temper my own tendency to this form of "delusions of grandeur". I find that veterans who wargame are generally more balanced in their view of gaming as gaming, and not as some form of concrete personal reality.

As to the internet effect, well, others have mentioned the impact of the quasi-anonymous status of posters. But there is another factor as well -- the time delay between stimulus and response.

(Pardon the off-topic reference…)

In electronic design it is quite well known that when you design a servo system you need tight timing if you want to "close the loop". If the delay is too long, you actually "open the loop", or create a "self amplifying error". The same occurs in internet chat.

A says something.
B sees it as a little bit snarky.

In normal discussion, B's facial reaction my offer a cue to A. Or B may say "that was a little snarky" or some such. At this point A may say "sorry, not my intent. I just meant that …. (insert explanation)." The system acts as a closed loop, with delays that are appropriate to reducing conflict.

In internet discussion, B starts to formulate a "that was a little snarky" reply, but in his own mind goes through the conversation 8 or 10 times, and that d@mned A just never accepts the small criticism in B's mind, so B actually posts a response not to what A said, but to what B imagines A might say in response to B's response to what A said.

Rather than de-escalating, B is amplifying the conflict. A will then be confronted with an obviously hostile posting, will take all kinds of offense, and will go nuclear in his reply. This will justify B in his own mind for his reading of A, and the two will get into a major tiff over nothing at all.

I had a gaming buddy that I lost through this very phenomenon. I had known him for years. Gamed at his home, and he had gamed at my home. Good gaming, rollicking good fun, each able to pull surprises on the other, no arguments over the game table. Even though I accuse him of being a die-hard Panther fanboy, and he accused me of being a founding member of the Sherman-lovers society. I even broke track with him on a Panther restoration project.

And then, on another fora, he got into an argument with one of the researchers at the Dupuy Institute. I offered him a private message suggesting that the vehemence of his argument was mis-placed, and that even though said researcher took some pride in being labelled an "intellectual bully", he was in fact open-minded, and did not approach discussion topics with pre-loaded conclusions, but in fact took his conclusions from the data that was available and presented.

He (my buddy) accused me of taking the other guy's side, accused me of several crimes against humanity including being a biased moderator, left that forum in a huff (saying his honor had been impugned) and has never spoken with me since.

Happens all the time.

Much to my dismay, even here I have been involved in un-wanted escalations more than once. (I've played both the roles of A and B in this scenario).

In one thread someone suggested that I was exactly the kind of person that he did not want in his gaming club, because I looked at a vendor's offering and offered a comment on whether the soldiers were carrying well-matched gear. I never said it was dead wrong, or un-usable, or shouldn't be on the game table, or that anyone was a bad human being for fielding the stuff. But I was a bad human being for discussing miniatures that were presented in a miniatures discussion forum.

Sigh.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

My initial exchanges on this forum with Mark were less than cordial, still say you were wrong Mark ;-P, but luckily didn't escalate and I have found Mark to be one of the best posters on this and any other forum.

One other thing which can cause problems is the fact that you can't see the OP's face. If I say Sherman's suck to Mark's face he can see me smiling and know I am not serious on line he does not have that input.

Fatman

Its non-face to face discussions that can get testy – the internet is a new way for humans to interact and we are still adjusting.

As to WWII gaming I'm blessed with Combat Command players. The whole intent of the game was to produce an historically satisfying game with solid (ie rule lawyer proof) rules which could be played and understood by non-specialists but didn't on the other hand drive rivet counters (too) crazy. So I can only attest to how pleasant it has been to run games at numerous cons all over the US with this group of players – but we may be a bit self selected.

So jump in maybe you'll find a similar group (or just join ours).

Thomas J. Thomas
Fame and Glory Games