"The Civil Wars of Early Wargaming " Topic

"The History of Wargaming Project has accrued one of the largest archives of private correspondence from the early days of hobby wargaming 1960-1990. As I continue to collate and digitise the material, I find myself feeling bewildered how wargaming ever managed to survive long enough to become the minority, but well-known and established hobby it is today. It is known by those interested in the development of the hobby, that there were major clashes such as Tony Bath v Don Featherstone, Fred Jane v RN, magazine editor X with Y, American A with American B, etc. Many of the key personalities in early wargaming were at war with each other for intellectual supremacy and hobby domination. They were rude, vitriolic, harsh and unreasonable.
I now realised why Don Featherstone kept his distance from WD and some innovations in the hobby; they would have consumed his time and energy and Don's key contribution to the hobby of books would have been heavily impacted.

Paddy Griffith was a key innovator in wargaming and military history who inspired many to develop new and interesting ways of wargaming. Paddy launched WD in response to the demise of Don Featherstone's Wargamer's Newsletter (Don as was bribed to cease publication, but that is another story). However, Paddy was then on the receiving end of a regular diatribe from random people around the world. Many were just seeking his advice or accessing his vast knowledge based in his head (as this was before Google and the Internet), but some were venting their anger and he was just caught in the cross fire. I am amazed he was so tolerant of their correspondence…."
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PART II here….
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Amicalement
Armand

Interesting that Curry mentions personalities, then immediately moves on without discussing their impact. I only knew Paddy Griffith from his publications, but if there were a polite and an irritating way to make the same point, you could always count on him to opt for the irritation. This has consequences. (I've been an irritant myself often enough to know.) He went well out of his way to be "down" on figure gaming in print--I think sometimes purely as a rhetorical device--and if you do that sort of thing, you can hardly expect the support of figure gamers later.

Don was always, in that sense, broad church. He was playing a game, not training a staff, and didn't pretend otherwise. But you can read his entire shelf of books, and not find one comment as hostile to the WD school as a Griffith lecture on the "unreality" of miniatures gaming. That also has consequences.

But--as was said the last time you posted this, Tango--I don't think any of it represents a major missed opportunity. Wargaming was swimming against serious cultural tides in the Seventies, and probably only the inherent attraction of the history and the miniatures got us as far as we've come.

As for a Griffith high church of committee games and building airplane models in the dark, I've only played committee games as a condition of employment, and I think you'll find this normal. If they wanted me to do it again, they'd have to pay me a lot more.

I was an early subscriber to Wargame Developements (WD). After 2 years I let my subscription lapse as I became aware that it had little to do with miniature gaming as far as Paddy Griffith was concerned. I did like the "One Cell" articles.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand