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I love this hobby but it's hard to keep it up when no one your age plays. I love wargames but they alienate me from my friends at school because none of them play. Any other people my age (17-19) who wargame? If so, have you had this experience?

I'm 19. I have one friend who plays and used to know like 2/3 more my age but that's it. I've not found it alienates me because I've never had tonnes of friends anyway, I don't advertise that I play, and I don't really care what people think haha.

Yeah, it's just time spent gaming is not time spent with friends, so I miss out on stuff. Everybody knows I play cause I tell them lol, I just wish i could know people who wargame and don't just party all the time.

I've never been the party type so I don't really miss out on stuff by Wargaming. But I di wish my friends did it because then I'd see them more and game more.

I gamed in my teens (though I'm 26 now), but never found that time spent gaming wasnt time spent with friends, even with school there's still about 6 hours a night of free time, even if you spent one of those nights gaming that still leaves 6 nights a week to go out with friends, socialise etc. Its just about knowing how to balance your interests.

How odd, I started at 16 and was never lacking peers in my age bracket until I hit my late 20s.

I am 18, been playing since I was about 10 though. Over the years, I ended up dragging quite a few of my friends into gaming, first LotR and then 40k, and while most of them have stopped now, I can't say I ever found trouble balancing gaming and socialising. Maybe because I've never been the most socially-minded person, and don't really go in for parties/nights out ect, but I didn't have trouble fitting gaming in around everything else. I'm assuming you have other interests beside gaming, so you shouldn't let yourself be cut off from your friends because they don't game. There may well be a bit of good-natured ribbing, but it goes both ways; they will probably have hobbies or interests you find odd.

I also never felt alienated (well, no more than I was before I started gaming), but the kind of people that would judge me negatively based on my hobbies are not the kind of people I'd want to associate with anyway. Those people that did dislike me had bigger reasons than gaming to do so.

Have any of your friends expressed an interest in gaming at all? If they have, then depending on what you have it might be worth setting up a demo game for them; often if there's no investment required beyond time, people are more open to new ideas. I've known a few people go from 'Oh, you do that toy soldiers thing' to 'actually, this stuff is pretty cool' after an hour or two of throwing dice.

People get past the partying thing eventually. Mostly when the hangovers start to last longer than an hour or two.

Your wargaming stuff won't go anywhere if you have to leave it there for a year or two. I'm three years without any kind of group at the moment, and it doesn't mean I won't ever wargame again (does it?!?!).

Using the internet (the dakka player finder for example) is a good way to find other people who are interested. I was interested at your age but getting grades good enough to be accepted into University and attending first year of university really took up a lot of my time when I was 17 and 18. I started a university wargaming club at 19 though, and am still friends with plenty of the people I met through that, 11 years later.

No one who has ever mocked me for wargaming seriously ever had anything worthwhile to contribute to my life, though I did get (and still get) plenty of good natured ribbing over my toy soldiers!

I'm slightly baffled by the apparent delineation between "friends" and "gamers" going on here.

Surely you class some of the people you play against regularly as friends?

I mean, sure, I don't and never have made lifelong attachments with every single person I've played against, but equally I've got friends of 20 years+ standing that I met through gaming.

Perhaps the issue is compartmentalising your non gaming friends from your gaming opponents?

Mentally, some of us are about 17. Does that count?

 Azreal13 wrote:
I'm slightly baffled by the apparent delineation between "friends" and "gamers" going on here.

Surely you class some of the people you play against regularly as friends?

I mean, sure, I don't and never have made lifelong attachments with every single person I've played against, but equally I've got friends of 20 years+ standing that I met through gaming.

Perhaps the issue is compartmentalising your non gaming friends from your gaming opponents?

I don't get to play much, and there's not really stable gaming groups near me, so I haven't really had chance to make friends with any gamers. And none of my friends play. But I'm sure when I get out of my dead end town and find a proper gaming group the line between friends and gamers will blur.

I think for me the distinction goes:

Friends - People I know and like
Gamers - People I know and like who also game.

 ImAGeek wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
I'm slightly baffled by the apparent delineation between "friends" and "gamers" going on here.

Surely you class some of the people you play against regularly as friends?

I mean, sure, I don't and never have made lifelong attachments with every single person I've played against, but equally I've got friends of 20 years+ standing that I met through gaming.

Perhaps the issue is compartmentalising your non gaming friends from your gaming opponents?

I don't get to play much, and there's not really stable gaming groups near me, so I haven't really had chance to make friends with any gamers. And none of my friends play. But I'm sure when I get out of my dead end town and find a proper gaming group the line between friends and gamers will blur.

Take it from someone (almost) twice your age - everyone your age thinks where they live is gak, but the reality is pretty much every town, excluding the big cities, is pretty much the same.

The issue that seems to affect wargamers specifically is a combination of the tendency of the hobby to attract rather introverted characters who aren't likely to be disposed to get out there and talk to people, and a certain stigma that means even if you're the outgoing sort, it isn't really spoken about in "polite company" leading to pockets of gamers scattered all over the shop, convinced they're the only like minded individuals for miles around!

We have a wargaming group and a CCG/board gaming group in the nearest town, and, thanks to the efforts of some guys who are trying to build up steam to open a proper FLGSS, we both recently discovered a third group which neither of the others knew existed!

So perhaps the answer is to take a bit of a chance, stick your neck out and see what's nearby? You're old enough that the merciless teenage hounding of secondary school is behind you, so perhaps if you "come out" as a gamer, maybe start a FB group or something, you'll be pleasantly surprised?

It's not really that, I mean I know of one relatively near, it's just; I don't drive, so I'd have to get the train there and back every Tuesday night, I work Tuesday evenings when they meet, and the half of the week I'm not working, I stay at my girlfriends because she lives about an hour and a half away. And annoyingly I haven't found any gamers where she lives either -.-

And I get that everyone thinks where they live is rubbish, but I assure you, it genuinely is. I don't know anyone who's happy here, and I know other towns are the same, I'm hoping to move to a bigger city if I get the apprenticeship I'm applying for and complete it. Bristol maybe, near my dad.

I started playing 40k around 1994 when I was 14, because all my friends (who had previously played DnD and then MtG) transitioned to it.

I made some lifelong friends playing the CCGs, but never really 40k, mostly because I was so inconvenient to move armies that I rarely played anyone I didn't already know.

 ImAGeek wrote:
It's not really that, I mean I know of one relatively near, it's just; I don't drive, so I'd have to get the train there and back every Tuesday night, I work Tuesday evenings when they meet, and the half of the week I'm not working, I stay at my girlfriends because she lives about an hour and a half away. And annoyingly I haven't found any gamers where she lives either -.-

And I get that everyone thinks where they live is rubbish, but I assure you, it genuinely is. I don't know anyone who's happy here, and I know other towns are the same, I'm hoping to move to a bigger city if I get the apprenticeship I'm applying for and complete it. Bristol maybe, near my dad.

I'm sure it's different now, but I had a friend I visited at Bristol Uni (I'm only an hour or so away.) Now, with no ego or Internet tough guy syndrome, I can pretty comfortably say I'm not the sort of guy people mess with (6'5", built like a (fat) prop forward) and in my entire life, having stayed in a number of cities across the UK and Europe and been abroad in those cities at some odd times, the only time I've ever felt genuinely concerned for my own safety was in Brizzle!

But the process of finding out that your hometown isn't as bad as all that is an important one, and will broaden your mind in turn, so don't take my word for it, go out and discover it for yourself!

It's a common occuramce, beer and girls reduce gaming in your late teens and early twenties, but then the true gamers re emerge after. Just sit tight

Thanks for the replies guys,

I consider most gamers that I play(ed) with regularely as friends, but what I am looking for are people my age who game. I can play 40k against someone 5-20 years older than me and enjoy it, laugh about dice rolls, and make 40k jokes, but there is never that connection that goes beyond the game that you get when you hang out with somebody your age, as you cannot conenct to a gamer out of your age range beyond the game.

I have tried to get friends into the hobby. First, my best friend at the time, about two years ago, bought into it, aquirred about 1000 points of chaos, but when it came to painting (alot harder than buying) he showed zero interest and eventually just quit. Then, my younger brother got into tyranids, got about 750 points, painted his first squad (pretty solid actually) and quit after that. This probably happened twice with other people.

I have scoured the forums, facebook groups, it feels like I have done everything I can, yet still, no one my age who plays.

I am going to university (UofWaterloo) next year however so hopefully there will be gamers there.