Who stole the night?

 

 

 It's 3:30 AM and, because I have a show today, insomnia has struck like a bolt from an arbalest into the forehead of a charging Pict...

Ah well...

I've been getting my shit together and completing various buying missions to get everything ready and shipped to my painter.

Thus far, I've sent the remainder of my fantasy collection apart from my Barbarians - I'm procrastinating about buying 6 figures I need to finish it all, for no other reason than I'm a lazy bastard.

At present, my Painter is working on 1000 or so Early Imperial Romand & Celts, then he has about the same number of Baron's Wars  which arrived with him this week.

That just leaves the Late Romans & Picts which, I should have in the mail to him by the end of the week. I'm, picking up an order for metal Picts from Gripping Beast at Vapnartak today and the remaining 300 Pictish infantry and 450 or so Late Romans - also GB - will be with me towards the end of the week.

And that's all she wrote. No more gaming plans... Hussah! 

I've been reading 'Blitz' a history of the 'Blitz' nightclub and the eponymous youth group who evolved in it. It was a curated environment with the late Steve Strange acting as a literal gatekeeper.

Now, there's a lot  of negativity from the young about 'gatekeeping' in this or that, and wargaming is no exception.

But is it really a bad thing? Is it unfair to curate the hobby to maintain a set of standards? After all by removing all standards and limitations, you are gatekeeping, by deciding that people with a more rarified or nuanced  view of what the hobby is and should be, you are doing the samething that you accuse others of.

My experience of gatekeeping was far from negative. Much like a hockey team has outreach teams in the community, so my wargames society, one of the oldest in the UK sifted and shaped future members from the assorted other clubs and after school groups in the area, albeit not with the deliberate methodology of a sports team, but nevertheless, it sifted out kids who were not going to bring anything to the table in the long term, by having rules and expectations which those kids had to follow.

My experience was great. I was not 'on the streets' at night and I was learning to interact with people much older than me.

The games clubs were the historians  and guardians of the culture, not the companies who, these days (I refer here to a few recent press articles which have sought to totally re-written the history of wargaming) are reshaping the hobby around them. 

How many of today's incomers learn or are bothered about learning about the history of the hobby? Very few...

And the hobby is arguably the poorer for it. 

One of the best things about wargaming and roleplaying when I found it, was that you had to find it in a manner similar to the opening credits of the 'The 'A' Team'.

You had to piece things together to find out about the clubs and the hobby itself. There was no internet, and thus it took time and effort which in itself sifted out less dedicated kids.

There was a palpable sense of belonging to a secret society of sorts, even up into the 90s with the explosion of Borehammer. The number of people who walked into games stores looking for say a copy of the TV Times or a packet of Maltesers was actually quite surprising.

Mind you, these days you probably could get the TV Times and some sweeties in many game stores. I mean, look at the number of shows where you now find traders only tangentially connected to the hobby and in some cases (facepainting and cupcakes for example, or god forfend, 3D printed pop culture figures and nothing else).

The sense of being able to escape into a world of your own with it's own rules, stylings and culture has largely been destroyed as everyone tries to grab a slice of an ever decreasing cake, or prop up shops which cannot pay the bills, let alone turn a profit by selling the same 'big box' tat as the next man, shaving the margins to do so.

Shows are not drawing manufacturers in the same way. Go to a show and look at how many stalls are selling the same thing compared to original project.

If you have Warlord Games at your show, do you really need 10  more resellers with the same products? How do you justify charging entry fees for this kind of offering?

How the hell for instance can a wargames society which has several manufacturers local to the show venue, not be encouraging them to bring their goods to exhibit them to the public? It's ridiculous.

It's time that the tables were turned and small, dedicated compamnies with homegrown products and enthusiasm were encouraged. Perhaps shows should have a tiered approach to trade stand costs, or have a reduced table charge for 6 foot frontages limited to one per business?

I hope for a day when the hobby is also about rolling dice and playing with toys again and nothing more, but I fear I'll not live to see that. I've seen and heard some mind blowing ways that people who can't maintain a shop (been there, done that - it's hard fucking work) are milking the charitable/funding system to prop themselves up.

I have had some interesting conversations of late, who present a different face in public but whom, are privately a little more 'conservative' in their views - to put it politely - because they fear backlash for simply speaking their mind. I repeat their mind.

Their views are not particularly offensive or controversial and they are as I said their views. If you don't like a view, turn away, but don't insist that a brick wall or iron curtain be constructed.

Going back to the Blitz Kids, the effect of 'gatekeeping' was to nurture one of the greatest pools of culture and creativity of the late 20th century and although those excluded may have felt aggrieved, the result was arguably a positive one.

This was how wargaming was, in a time before we made celebrities out of fellow gamers and ignored those who genuinely created a way for grown men to play with toys - because that's what we do folks. 

Ignore those who try to convince you that it's a serious attempt to understand history in 3D, support this or that and that it's an art form. 

It's about so not growing up, and long may it remain so.