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I resent all this comparison of table top war gaming to dungeons and dragons. As a longtime GM I can say in all honesty that my groups have consisted of the cool and uncool alike in roughly equal quantities, much like my war gaming groups. My reaction to negative comments about my hobbies is met with an big smile and a statement like "don't be bitter just because you don't like having fun/using you imagination/rolling dice. I mean, who doesn't like rolling dice!!!!????!!!

Both DnDers and wargammers should be proud of their hobbies. I mean, for crying out loud. It's not like we're LARPers.

weeble1000 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
It's about the public image. Walk into a regular GW store and what do you see? Or should I say "smell"? Gaming clubs, most often, aren't part of the public image. Our club's average age is 31, ranging from age 18 to 61. Quite a few of us are part of middle-high management and have families with kids.

A lot of table top wargamers are college educated professionals, but that's not as fun of a stereotype. When I have to drop by the FLGS to pick something up I like to go after work while I have my suit on. I figure every little bit helps.

I know a bloke who's a Firefighter and family man by day, and an extremely talented miniature commission sculptor by night. In fact I'm waiting on a Lord of the Rings commission from him.

Oh, and what's with all this pew pew nonsense?

My chaos marines' bolters go "dakka dakka"

kungfujew wrote:
Oh, and what's with all this pew pew nonsense?

My chaos marines' bolters go "dakka dakka"

And the Lords sound like this:

My wife thinks painting model figures is a fit occupation for inmates of prisons.

My brother derides me for my interest in 40k.He gets genuinely angry. I have a bazillion other pastimes.. adult league hockey, ocean kayaking, vidya games, gardening, running..

His two interests in life are UFC fighting and football, both of which are accompanied by drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Yea, I'm the one wasting my time..

 Krusha wrote:
My best mate used to absolutely rip it out of me for playing Warhammer and 40k. It was incessant. I like a bit of friendly banter as much as the next guy, but this got to the stage where it was like "yeah ok mate, you think it's sad, you can shut up now".

Then one day we went to Games Workshop. All I wanted to buy as a Guard codex. But his attitude did a complete 180. He was really impressed with how well painted the models were, and the fact that the store was a hobby centre where the guys could get together and play games, not just a shop. And I could not prise him away from the LOTR table when I wanted to leave!

He would never get into the game himself, but the intensity of the mockery plummeted at this point.

I find it odd that wargaming is considered less socially acceptable than other hobbies even though there is a large social element to it that isn't present when playing your Xbox or watching TV. At least my hobby involves going out and interacting with other people in real life.

Your story illustrates the problem of ignorance about the Wargaming community. At first the only thing your friend had to go off was the often untrue stereotype of wargamers. After he actually gained some knowledge on the subject he changed his mindset.

*edit- When was this (I didn't think people still play LOTR)?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
My wife thinks painting model figures is a fit occupation for inmates of prisons.

Not a bad idea that. Forced labour + pre-painting miniatures = $$$

Yep, had a club at college (age 12-17) and boy sometimes it was tough. But I always found it funny, that most people where amazed when they actually came to see it.

When you think about it, wargaming is like playing a video game. Except, you need another human 100% of the time, you have to use your own skills to create the graphics and so on, you do the work of a computer program to actually run the game AND depending on the wargaming you can learn a lot about history or statistics etc.

Its actually an intelligent hobby at the end of the day and even the most mediocre painters have a lot of talent and dedication etc.

I always did really well at sports, but hated it. My dad used to get upset at my lack of love for sports, but now at the age of 20, he actually brags to people about my hobby. After seeing the terrain we create, seeing the history books get bigger and the fact that people of all ages and so forth actually get together and enjoy themselves really turned people in my family around to the hobby. Because of it, I started the board gaming obsession in my family of risk and settlers of Catan and many more games.

Ignorance is the only issue when it comes to wargaming stigma. Nothing else. I will admit, there are some people I find really dont help the hobby image, but then again, what hobby doesnt have that issue.

sand.zzz wrote:
My brother derides me for my interest in 40k.He gets genuinely angry. I have a bazillion other pastimes.. adult league hockey, ocean kayaking, vidya games, gardening, running..

His two interests in life are UFC fighting and football, both of which are accompanied by drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Yea, I'm the one wasting my time..

You are definitely wasting your time if you can't combine the drinking and wargamming.

Joking aside, what I have noticed in life is that there is no hate without love. If you hate something, there tends to be something about it that you want to love but can't, or don't know how, or just don't understand. But you can observe someone else enjoying it and can't see yourself doing so and resent that. That grows to hate sometimes.

Or, even simpler, people with hobbies they enjoy tend to be happy/er/ish or at the very least they appear to enjoy themselves occasionally (you get my meaning). People who are less happy, or have nothing of their own that compares to those hobbies get bitter and angry and project those feelings on your epic, exciting game.

In the end, have fun and who cares what other people think.

 Random Dude wrote:

 Krusha wrote:
My best mate used to absolutely rip it out of me for playing Warhammer and 40k. It was incessant. I like a bit of friendly banter as much as the next guy, but this got to the stage where it was like "yeah ok mate, you think it's sad, you can shut up now".

Then one day we went to Games Workshop. All I wanted to buy as a Guard codex. But his attitude did a complete 180. He was really impressed with how well painted the models were, and the fact that the store was a hobby centre where the guys could get together and play games, not just a shop. And I could not prise him away from the LOTR table when I wanted to leave!

He would never get into the game himself, but the intensity of the mockery plummeted at this point.

I find it odd that wargaming is considered less socially acceptable than other hobbies even though there is a large social element to it that isn't present when playing your Xbox or watching TV. At least my hobby involves going out and interacting with other people in real life.

Your story illustrates the problem of ignorance about the Wargaming community. At first the only thing your friend had to go off was the often untrue stereotype of wargamers. After he actually gained some knowledge on the subject he changed his mindset.

*edit- When was this (I didn't think people still play LOTR)?

Probably because you haven't bothered to look for them.

Or maybe its because you're American. The SBG was never as popular in the USA as it is/was in the UK.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/472128942815892/?fref=ts
http://one-ring.co.uk/

As far as im concerned if you get upset or put someone down for such a harmless hobby, you are a halfwit, ive never tried to show or convince anyone about my hobby

i dont understand why people honesly get upset about something so minor, they are uncultured halfiwits

In my experience the more intelleigent the person who knows about it the less they care. I think you can honeslty associate the intelligence level of the person depending on how they react

I find its the same with most hobbies, I like sports cars and have always owned one, yet pretty much everyone in my office can't understand why you need a car that will go above 70mph as thats the speed limit.

I think 90% of people must get home from work, sit on their arse staring at the TV and then go to bed.

Daston wrote:
I find its the same with most hobbies, I like sports cars and have always owned one, yet pretty much everyone in my office can't understand why you need a car that will go above 70mph as thats the speed limit.

I think 90% of people must get home from work, sit on their arse staring at the TV and then go to bed.

Sounds about right. I get home from school, do four hours of work, and then I go to bed.

 Random Dude wrote:
I'm a longtime athlete and fitness guru who happens to really enjoy wargaming. It puts me in an awkward position because I can't fully relate to either side.

*edit- I don't see why wargaming and sports/other athletic activities have to be mutually exclusive.

I view myself as a professionally amateur rugby player (I go to the gym to get stronger/more fit for rugby, and I work/make money so that I can play rugby), and couldn't agree more... It doesn't hurt that I just got out of the Army, and lemme tell you, there are usually some pretty good sized, and vibrant gaming communities in the towns/cities outside of a military installation. If I had been so inclined to continue with 40k for longer, I would never have want for a game in an army town. I'd tried (unsuccessfully) to have my supervisors in the army cut me from work early to go play 40k, with the excuse that it's "professional development" of my tactical thinking/command skills


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Daston wrote:

I think 90% of people must get home from work, sit on their arse staring at the TV and then go to bed.

Judging by conversations I've overheard in public, I'd agree with this.... Much of what I hear in public has to do with some celebrities that I've never heard of or some other useless tripe that has no interest to me.

Honestly I do not care what other people think about my hobby! If they are negative about something positive that you have in your life then they are wrong. She was wrong. Perhaps she got ignored, maybe for good reason, by a husband who was trying to cope with her so he escaped into a man room and built ships in the empty whiskey bottles he drank trying to medicate himself over the vile person he married...

My hobby is my happy place, calm and relaxing, takes me back to a time when my uncle Larry, and I played toy soldiers, he built Japanese style huts for my WWII soldiers to fight around, painted with me, and we played together like a father and son should. So anything that a guy does that his kids can do with him is perfect! Better than the present but absent dad who does nothing with the kids. A kid or man that is responsible at work and home can have a freaking hobby! Multiple hobbies if he wants.
I don't drink much, I don't chase skirts (so my wife should be happy), don't go to bars, I fight, workout, Warhammer 40K, some guns stuff, read. My current wife knows it makes me happy so on business trips oft times she'll pick up stuff for me and that floors me everytime! Other two wives didn't end up respecting my hobby time, I did put them first but they are history. Not saying it's 40K or them, but it kind of is. I respect what she does, and would like the same in return.

After I get to know someone who is genuine they may get to see photos of miniatures or kits I've built. Mostly dudes who like stuff like that anyway. I squeal like a child at times about new kits I see in White Dwarf while on a break and a pal of mine comes and checks out what I'm on about.

Anyway, that struck a defensive nerve, and I hope that woman apologizes to you for being a negative hag.
Sea hag at that...

Dont know if it has been mentioned before but, as far as the "Not for Women" Statement. Wargamers (that are not actually women) and women ( that are actually women) have more in common than you think. For example

My job is in the oilfield. I wear a Hardhat, Steeltoe shoes, and Coveralls at work. After all day at work I am not always the most pleasant smelling or looking but its the look / smell of someone who worked hard all day not of like say a bum off the street. Point is I have many many many times on my way home from work stopped in to a Jo-anns fabrics store, or a Michaels, or Hobby lobby (<- should change name to scrapbook lobby) to get supplies for scratch building or painting models. all these places where I am so out of place it hurts because.
#1 I am a man.
#2 Im obviously a "salt of the earth" type.
#3 men are not allowed to have any hobbies other than watch football and drink beer.

POINT IS All the skills in hobbies women enjoy with crafting and scrap booking and all that other sh....tuff is in fact exactly the same skills we use in our hobby. The difference being at the end we use it to kill one another

In a couple short weeks I will be drinking beer and watching football (real football, not that pansy foot fairy crap you brits watch) while painting/playing. To the OP, some people are just intolerant of anything their small mind can't comprehend. My mom nagged me for 10 years about quitting smoking. I quit and switched to vaping. Now every time I call her she asks when I'm going to quit vaping. She nags my dad about just about every hobby he has. Her "hobbies" are going to the mall and watching entertainment tonight. She can tell you what Kim Kardashian did last night but has no clue about politics, history or anything else actually worth knowing. Don't take criticism from that type of person very seriously.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Add: I'm not sure where the stereotype about 40k players comes from. I'm tall, athletic, social, well groomed, as are 90% of the people I game with. I turned down a college football scholarship offer to join the military. When I'm not playing 40k I'm working on my race car or shooting one of the guns I built myself. I guess we all have to accept that tabletop war gaming is probably the 3rd nerdiest thing a person can do behind LARP and DnD.

Real football, you mean the plastic athletes? Rugby is the real game! Left wing, 101st Airborne Team.

A few mates laugh at me, others are interested in but I've yet to encounter out and out hostility.

I think that because I don't look like a stereotypical gamer it's easier for people to acknowledge. I tick all the 'adult' boxes - Married, car, job, house so no one can complain that I'm wasting this or that because my bills are paid, my home life happy and my disposable income (hah!) is all mine!

I get laughed at more because I look a bit foreign compared to my mates, and I wear glasses so of course I'm Will from The Inbetweeners. "Suitcase spanker" indeed. The fact that it's a minis case means nothing to these people!

I think its just a strange misguided idea in the general public based on character stereotypes. See the Simpsons comic book shop guy for an example.

Personally I got into wargaming in my mid 20's. I was a jock in school and yes I looked down on the "nerds" playing D&D and the like. I didn't realize I was a nerd until I was exposed to it. A coworker I was carpooling with was into 40K and told me ad nauseum about it. Finally (and quite cleverly) tricked me into walking into the FGLS with him one night (to buy a magazine on the way home.....) I took a look at what was happening and I was hooked. Much to my wife's annoyance.

Also i am sorry to all the kids I teased and made fun of for doing what I now enjoy....

As to how I handle people when they give me that weird look? I just shrug it off. i have nothing to prove to them, nor do I really care what someone besides my wife thinks about my hobby.

 darefsky wrote:
I think its just a strange misguided idea in the general public based on character stereotypes. See the Simpsons comic book shop guy for an example.

Personally I got into wargaming in my mid 20's. I was a jock in school and yes I looked down on the "nerds" playing D&D and the like. I didn't realize I was a nerd until I was exposed to it. A coworker I was carpooling with was into 40K and told me ad nauseum about it. Finally (and quite cleverly) tricked me into walking into the FGLS with him one night (to buy a magazine on the way home.....) I took a look at what was happening and I was hooked. Much to my wife's annoyance.

Also i am sorry to all the kids I teased and made fun of for doing what I now enjoy....

As to how I handle people when they give me that weird look? I just shrug it off. i have nothing to prove to them, nor do I really care what someone besides my wife thinks about my hobby.

Once you start down the dark path, forever will it be your destiny.. lol

You should bust out this nice C.S. Lewis quote:

“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

― C.S. Lewis

Or this one:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Or this one:

Gotta love that quote, and the one from CS Lewis

Reminds me of a schoolfriend (who moved away sadly) with whom I would openly talk about 40k, and we'd both be making nonsensical commissar-related jokes, and, surprisingly to the apparent envy of other people in school, spend the entire time laughing with eachother with our common interest.

It's great to see so many things I can relate to in this thread

 darefsky wrote:
I think its just a strange misguided idea in the general public based on character stereotypes. See the Simpsons comic book shop guy for an example.

Personally I got into wargaming in my mid 20's. I was a jock in school and yes I looked down on the "nerds" playing D&D and the like. I didn't realize I was a nerd until I was exposed to it. A coworker I was carpooling with was into 40K and told me ad nauseum about it. Finally (and quite cleverly) tricked me into walking into the FGLS with him one night (to buy a magazine on the way home.....) I took a look at what was happening and I was hooked. Much to my wife's annoyance.

Also i am sorry to all the kids I teased and made fun of for doing what I now enjoy....

As to how I handle people when they give me that weird look? I just shrug it off. i have nothing to prove to them, nor do I really care what someone besides my wife thinks about my hobby.

Eh. I think you're being disingenous if you think it's that "strange" and "misguided." The comic book guy character exists because THAT GUY works in a lot of comic book stores. It's why the joke works.

Yes, there are many "normal" (whatever that means) well-rounded people in wargaming. And there are also a higher number of fringe personalities and socially awkward people than in your average population. Even within the community we joke about the guys with BO and bad hygiene, odd personal style, leering at/awkwardness around women, and other various strange behaviors. The jokes work because many of us have seen and experienced exactly those things in ways we haven't in other aspects of our lives. I think as a community we have to own that a little. It's a *very* niche hobby with some devotees who are a little different than the average bear.

Personally I think the ultimate answer here is simply to ignore any criticism and not care. Getting defensive isn't going to solve anything or win hearts or minds, and it's a battle you might actually lose. Can we all say definitively that we can stop into our local gaming store/con/event and NOT see quite a few people who fit some of the stereotypes?

 Random Dude wrote:


Your story illustrates the problem of ignorance about the Wargaming community. At first the only thing your friend had to go off was the often untrue stereotype of wargamers. After he actually gained some knowledge on the subject he changed his mindset.

*edit- When was this (I didn't think people still play LOTR)?

This was a few years back, before I got back into the hobby as an Ork.

Toofast wrote:
In a couple short weeks I will be drinking beer and watching football (real football, not that pansy foot fairy crap you brits watch) while painting/playing.

I'm curious - given that the players seem to carry or throw the ball most of the time, why do Americans call their Armoured Rugby football? It just seems a very strange name for it. At least in the version the rest of the world calls football (and they have you Yanks somewhat outnumbered) the nomenclature makes sense.

BTW, this query is not from a football fan, but a cricket fan.

I've played cricket, what an interesting game. I still don't get that game. Something about underhanded pitch to a wielder of a very flat bat, three pegs with a toggle on top. Not bashing it, just trying to remember this jist of it.

Nerds bashing sports in a thread about non-wargamers bashing our hobby. Funny

I'm not totally sure. In the original days of the sport, the pass was illegal. You ran the ball and kicked a lot of field goals (not hard to play defense when you're only defending their running game and they aren't allowed to pass). I'm sure if the football players of the 1890s saw today's game they wouldn't even recognize it. Why is your sport named after an insect?