Advice For The Lonely Gamer

Meandering my way through the forum, it struck me that there are a fair number of folks without opponents. At the very best war gaming is an often misunderstood, minority interest, &, as a splinter group within the greater gaming community, we Mordheimers/Necromunders/Gorka Morkas are a minority within a minority. Finding an opponent(s)/friend(s) with a similar interest/mental illness is quite possibly the most difficult aspect of the hobby. There are solutions, as with any problem, to this dire condition.

Hosting the Occasional Weekend Gamefest: My main pigeon [patron] runs an incredible D&D campaign. The players are scatter quite lierally across the entire U.S.A.. About twice a year this group of loonies arrange a long weekend gaming marathon with one of the players hosting the affair, & the others contributing in some manner or other. Between games they post commentary, personal activities relating to the campaign, campaign related stories, et al on a forum-like web site that Justin [the pigeon] has set up. It's a spectacular success & has been going on for a goodly number of years.
Now playing twice a year may not seem like much, but at my most active gaming stage, I rarely exceeded six games a year. It's really the quality of the games, the comaraderie, & the between games activities that promote an enduring interest in the game & the craft; frenzied gamers do so often burn out, although I'd like to test this theory & twice a year is infinitely better than not at all.

"My Friends Only Want To Play Proper WHFB/40k": try a warbands rules [still down loadable rules, I think], 500 pts. battle [the Lustrian open order rule might be an idea to include] in the Mordheim/Necromunda setting AND then, if you're really devious, you might get them to have a go at a "proper" Mordheim/Necromunda game or three [it is an addictive hobby afterall].

Solo War Game or Playing with Yourself DOES NOT CAUSE BLINDNESS: this might seem to be a desparation measure, but it can be quite rewarding. The Kill Team rules would be a good starting point for this [I'm experimenting with this idea]. Wargames Research Group had some good ideas on Solo Gaming, I think a section was devoted to the subject in Tony Bathe's Wargame Campaigns book. Solo gaming offers/requires a unique opportunity to test out aspects of the game that you'd like to try without having to coerce a friend into trying, to write up pieces of literature detailing the adventures of your bands, &, for those of you with computer skills [Ashton springs to mind, hint, hint] an opportunity to create a blog/web site with all the games reports/photos/etc [this could lead to attracting REAL opponents, so be warned]. An alternative to a purely solo affair might be a mail or on-line campaign.

There now that's a start. If you guys have more ideas, & I bet you do, add on to this post. As Mrs. R. put it: "It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

The only advice I can offer for the lonely gamer is to slowly ease your non-gaming friends into geekdom. I was able to get 3 average college guys to play necromunda by first introducing them to risk, and to a lesser degree, magic the gathering.

My first two gaming groups have dissolved over the years, but my current one is going strong. I only play Mordheim with them now, although they do play starwars rpg twice a week, I can't devote 3 days a week to gaming!

Whenever my friend from Atlanta is up we try to game, used to be just Magic, but he was in the last group when we played Necromunda. He now plays Warhammer and Warmachine. He keeps trying to get me to play Warmachine and I keep trying to get him to play Mordheim.

Advanced Heroquest had solo rules that I played with on long and lonely teenage weekends.

PBEM (play by email) is something I want to look into for Twilight Imperium a board game i recently acquired. Although since it does not involve painting figures I have convinced my "normal" buddies to play it and they love it. It was the next logical step after Risk.

One thing that amuses and astounds me is the gaming hierarchy. There is an inherent pecking order among gamers which I think creates class divisions, just like in real life. We can't seem to get away form this division even between fellow gamers.

This is just my observations, so no one get offended!

At the bottom is perhaps your heroclix, then somewhere around that is CCG players. CCGers are further subdivided, since magic players look down upon pokemon players. Wargames are next, which are subdivided again from bottom to top:
Smaller games that strive to be GW games: Starship Troopers, Wargods of Aegyptus, Viod
GW specialist games
GW main games
Smaller games trying to break the GW mold: AT43, Warmachine
Historical wargames: Flames of War (sorry the only one I’ve heard of)

After that we have a paradox: RPG players. They consider themselves above all other gamers, but most other gamers se them as the lowest rung. They exist outside the boundaries.

Now, I realize I am generalizing a lot! Many gamers play most or all of the above categories. I myself have played all of the above with the exception of historical wargames. Some people jump around but stay loyal to their current game of choice. I guess what I am getting at is that I notice some gamers looking down on other gamers which is just plain wrong! Usually it has less to do with the game and more to do with age.

On my weekly visit to the game store I notice this behavior and it pains me, because I too used to, and still do to some degree, look down upon the heroclix/pokemon players out there.

Rant over, lesson: accept gaming in all it’s forms, because we need to stick together, hell everyone else looks down on our hobby, let’s not continue that behavior within our own kind!

Pathfinder Dubstyles wrote:

...because we need to stick together, hell everyone else looks down on our hobby, let’s not continue that behavior within our own kind!

El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!!

Tortiou wrote:

El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!!

Jorge Gaitán?
Sergio Ortega?
SKA-P?

I think it is a quote attributed to Cesar Chavez... at least that is what google told me.

National Wargamers Association indeed! Now is the time to fight for our rights as gamers! No longer shall the video gamers and sports staticians have all the power my people! Painters and sculptors of larger materials are praised for their work while we who paint and sculpt at 1/32 scale are shunned! Rise up fellow wargammers, take your rightful place besides the sweater knitters, the weekend warriors and the World of Warcraft zombies!

@ this thread

"How do I make my friends as geeky as I am"

I managed to "geek-up" 3 people so far (I won't give names, but they know who they are).

Pathfinder Dubstyles wrote:

I think it is a quote attributed to Cesar Chavez... at least that is what google told me.

National Wargamers Association indeed! Now is the time to fight for our rights as gamers! No longer shall the video gamers and sports staticians have all the power my people! Painters and sculptors of larger materials are praised for their work while we who paint and sculpt at 1/32 scale are shunned! Rise up fellow wargammers, take your rightful place besides the sweater knitters, the weekend warriors and the World of Warcraft zombies!

RIGHT ON, PATHFINDER!


Er..., sorry, having an S.D.S. moment there.

Another way to drum up business: put your stuff on display at a local library or similar public place. My erstwhiles friend Bruce & I did this when we were trying to convert the masses from gaming in 54mm to gaming in 30mm [[a long, LONG time ago (sigh)]. We showed off our minis in the library's display cabinent one week & put on a demo-game the following weekend. The End Result; the library was delighted at the attention they got AND we went from a group of two to a club of eight.

DeafNala wrote:

We showed off our minis in the library [...] put on a demo-game [...] the library was delighted at the attention they got AND we went from a group of two to a club of eight.

Well done! What game were you introducing them to?

@ Tom: Initially it was a Napoleonic game using Don Featherstone's rules; it eventually went to Fred Vietmeyer's Column, Line, & Square rules, also Napoleonic. I wasn't really an avid "historical" type, but it was the only game in town; i.e., even D&D was 10 years down the road, & 15 until WHFB hit the scene.

When fantasy gaming & minis were introduced, I jumped on those suckers like a dog on a bone. Whenever I think back on ALL those THOUSANDS of historical minis I painted, I shudder. It did, however, turn me into a research freak, & helped develope a self discipline that has stood me well through the years.

DeafNala wrote:

We showed off our minis in the library [...] put on a demo-game [...] the library was delighted at the attention they got AND we went from a group of two to a club of eight.

Do you think that would work in an actual library with Mordheim figures? ...

Tortiou wrote:

[Do you think that would work in an actual library with Mordheim figures? ...

Why? Are you planing on introducing your campus to MH?

Hahahah @ all us geeks. Freaking hilarious bunch.

White and Nerdy to the core. To bad even Weird Al forgot about us Mini Wargamers =(

I have a "grub club" every Thursday where friends come over for dinner and a movie, and I keep "accidentally" leaving my Mordheim stuff out...

"What's this?"
"Oh that's a piece to a game... I painted it."
"What? You painted this? No way.... What do you do with it?"
"You play a really fun game like mordheim. Imagine a extremely fun and limitless board game."

One of these days, we won't find any good movies, and I'll have the perfect solution... Muhahaha. I'll give everyone a rat (or maybe a squig), and duke it out. lol

One of these days... lol

Ashton wrote:

One of these days, we won't find any good movies, and I'll have the perfect solution... Muhahaha...
One of these days... lol

Evil!!

Ashton wrote:

... I'll give everyone a rat (or maybe a squig), and duke it out. lol

"here's a rat for you, and a rat for you. And if you don't like your rat, there's a couple more rattling around in that box over there, that you can change it for.

"Last rat standing wins."

muhahah

@ Tortiou: Do you think that would work in an actual library with Mordheim figures? ...

I don't see why not. Most libraries love having arty displays [include the rule books in the display]. In a University library, or a High School library for that matter, it would alert fellow students with a preexisting addiction to gaming that there were kindred spirits in the community.
And some libraries post regular newsletters with announcements of displays; ergo, reaching more folks who didn't happen to meander by the display.
Standing by the display, & jumping on anyone who stops to look might work.

Ashton wrote:

To bad even Weird Al forgot about us Mini Wargamers

I think we still pretty much fit the description though

Ashton wrote:

I keep "accidentally" leaving my Mordheim stuff out...

"What's this?"
"Oh that's a piece to a game... I painted it."
"What? You painted this? No way.... What do you do with it?"
"You play a really fun game like mordheim. Imagine a extremely fun and limitless board game."

Brilliant! ---> "ACCIDENTALLY"