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 Yodhrin wrote:
This is a behaviour I've been running into more and more often recently and I find it pretty baffling.

I'm referring specifically to the way that some people will insist that their hobbies - in which they invest large amounts of time and money - mean nothing to them, can mean nothing to them, and that anyone who does treat their hobbies as anything other than utterly disposable and interchangeable

What is this specifically in reference to? Do you not like how there's an assortment of gamers who don't care about "points match" games, or is it something different?

To me, the "it's just toy soldiers" is indeed a way to show that although I do find delight in that hobby, I'm am well aware of how childish and punny it can seem, well aware as well that as much as I might love it, it is in no way a priority over prevailing, far more important activities. In addition, in the case of a game such as Gates of Antares, Warmachine or 40K or the like, where the fictional lore has a place, whereas it is nowhere even a hundred kilometers from literature or "brainy things", it is important to show that you take the story as it is; not in a fashion that'd be completly over the top.

Wargaming isindeed percieved, at least in my environment, with great disdain.

What's more, it's a hobby, which to my mind excludes competitivness. I keep competitive and proficient while I work and give it all that I've got... but a hobby is just meant to chill down, precisely because you've been tryharding you're work before that.

 judgedoug wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
This is a behaviour I've been running into more and more often recently and I find it pretty baffling.

I'm referring specifically to the way that some people will insist that their hobbies - in which they invest large amounts of time and money - mean nothing to them, can mean nothing to them, and that anyone who does treat their hobbies as anything other than utterly disposable and interchangeable

What is this specifically in reference to? Do you not like how there's an assortment of gamers who don't care about "points match" games, or is it something different?

You've been around the block mate, I think you know exactly what he's referring to- and it's not unique to this hobby.

It's the predilection of certain posters on here (some of which have posted in this thread. Not naming names) to purposely demean their own hobby/reduce it to reductio ad absurdum in a vain attempt to take some moral high ground that they're cooler than you for not "neckbearded autistically screeching" (ah yes, also the ol' attribute emotion when there's none there) over stuff that's "Just toy soldiers lol"- It's this hobby's equivalent of telling someone you're arguing with to calm down (especially when said person is not angry in the slightest). Just doing so makes them angry and you automatically have on-upped them.

It's just a statement of where it sits in our priority list, nothing more. It's recreation, it's an "out", it's my downtime while I socialise.

I didn't START playing with mandollies until I was an adult, so no "school gateway" thing for me - and competitive ANYTHING isn't something I've had any interest in.
I got into wargaming through roleplaying games, where it's more a co-operative result oriented exercise than "winning" thing.

I play only because it gives me something to do with the models I've built (I'm more a builder first, painter second, and gamer because that's the bonus for having the models painted). I can stop playing and the models are still there and assembling and painting them is my hobby, anyway.

I don't care if you think it's some kind of moral high ground (whatever that means). There's nothing inherently moral in "winning" or "losing".

So I hope you don't break something when you fall off that horse.

"It's just a game" is an adequate response if someone loses their composure to a significant degree. Not so much if someone is cheating or being a douchebag about winning.

"It's just a plastic model" is an adequate response if my tiny little toddler niece knocks it over, because it's not worth getting upset at her over. Not so much if some sludge-fingered rando comes over and starts molesting my miniatures.

"It's just toy soldiers lul" is the response to people going stupid over something trivial, something that in the grand scheme of things indicates that someone takes this little hobby a bit too seriously.

I've seen people that will eat Ramen for weeks, tell their parents they lost their ATM card, overdraft their account, swindle, and even steal to get their hands on a model. They need to be reminded that this is just Toy Soldiers and that it's not a real war for the fate of humanity that they need to prepare for on the tabletop.

But there are a lot of people who don't have passion for it, and treat it like it's just a game of cards. Most of the time, it's just their way of trying to pretend that this isn't important because they're too cool to be passionate about something.

Short Answer: I don't know what causes it but people just be people.

It's not binary.

You can spend a lot of time and money on a hobby *AND* feel that it's not very important in your life. There's nothing contradictory about that. It's simply having the perspective that one's family, career, etc. are far more important than the result of some die rolls on a given day.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
This is a behaviour I've been running into more and more often recently and I find it pretty baffling.

I'm referring specifically to the way that some people will insist that their hobbies - in which they invest large amounts of time and money - mean nothing to them, can mean nothing to them, and that anyone who does treat their hobbies as anything other than utterly disposable and interchangeable

What is this specifically in reference to? Do you not like how there's an assortment of gamers who don't care about "points match" games, or is it something different?

You've been around the block mate, I think you know exactly what he's referring to- and it's not unique to this hobby.

It's the predilection of certain posters on here (some of which have posted in this thread. Not naming names) to purposely demean their own hobby/reduce it to reductio ad absurdum in a vain attempt to take some moral high ground that they're cooler than you for not "neckbearded autistically screeching" (ah yes, also the ol' attribute emotion when there's none there) over stuff that's "Just toy soldiers lol"- It's this hobby's equivalent of telling someone you're arguing with to calm down (especially when said person is not angry in the slightest). Just doing so makes them angry and you automatically have on-upped them.

Alright, so the point of this post is just to bitch about some situation that may or may not have occurred where OP took offense? It's called vaguebooking on social media, what's the dakka term?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:
It's not binary.

You can spend a lot of time and money on a hobby *AND* feel that it's not very important in your life. There's nothing contradictory about that. It's simply having the perspective that one's family, career, etc. are far more important than the result of some die rolls on a given day.

Yes, this is the mentally healthy and correct way to view any nonessential (aka, luxury) hobby.

“It’s just toy soldiers” means something really simple. It means this is supposed to be about enjoyment and fun. It’s about maintaining perspective in the face of disproportionate hostility. It means that enjoying your hobby shouldn’t contribute to hypertension and anxiety. It has nothing to do with denigrating one’s own interests. To the contrary, it’s about actually finding pleasure in them.

I am passionate about miniatures games and spent way too much money on them, but yeah, i do often say "It's just toy soldiers" a lot because people sometimes take stuff too personally and create drama.

Some people are way too "passionate" about this stuff.On my local meta a major change in a tournament rule has people up in arms, throwing insults, rages and rants. Lore changes (or potential changes) in 40k as people acting on the internet like someone just threatened to kill their mother. Competitive types treat winning like the end all of the hobby and create tense and sometimes downright unpleasant environments when they play.

I don't have the patience for that, it's just toys I like to play with i am not going to act like my life revolves around them or let my hobby by a source of toxicity into my life. I play to have fun, not to stress out.

So yeah, maybe when people say " it's just toy soldiers" it's not that they are being dismissive/contemptuous of the hobby, it's just that their way of enjoying is different.

This is one of the reasons I always avoided Star Wars communities despite loving SW, I tend to find their attitudes too pedantic and fanatic about their movies.

They don’t take it seriously enough or does Yodhrin take it far too seriously?

Based on posting history....

In truth most gamers are neither of these things or I’m just lucky in the guys at my club.

 Manchu wrote:
“It’s just toy soldiers” means something really simple. It means this is supposed to be about enjoyment and fun. It’s about maintaining perspective in the face of disproportionate hostility. It means that enjoying your hobby shouldn’t contribute to hypertension and anxiety. It has nothing to do with denigrating one’s own interests. To the contrary, it’s about actually finding pleasure in them.

It absolutely has to do with denigrating one's own interests. I think you're just thinking of a different situation from the OP. Of course enjoying your hobby shouldn't make you miserable, and nobody is questioning people keeping their own stuff in perspective. What the OP has in mind is more like the various often-cringeworthy threads on dating and playing 40k, where people always mention telling a date "it's just this silly toy soldiers game I play once a year, I'm not one of those people" and emphasizing how they care far more about other, more popular, things like football or going out drinking or whatever. It's like people never left middle school and are terrified of letting someone else know that they have an "uncool" hobby. The truth is they care more than they pretend to, but they put up this weird public image of loudly being as apathetic as possible.

I tend to go with the more general purpose ""some days the pigeon, and some days the statue"

Nobody likes losing, but learning nothing from losing in just a recurring derp cycle, asking the other player where they think you made mistakes is helpful

 Elbows wrote:

So, is hobbying/wargaming something you can be heavily invested in and very passionate about? Absolutely.

Is it something you should get angry about and stress yourself out over? No. It is "just toy soldiers".

I suspect I must have been unclear since this kind of thing keeps coming up(not picking on you chief you just state it in the clearest way):

I in no way mean the latter. I am explicitly and exclusively talking about people who will insist at every possible opportunity that they are categorically and absolutely not the former, that the very idea of investing anything more in tabletop wargaming than you would in an utterly disposable Happy Meal toy is ridiculous, with the implication being that anyone who does is somehow deficient or incapable of grasping basic life priorities. Further, I am explicitly and exclusively talking about people who not just hold such a view, but express it, as often as possible, just to make absolutely certain that everyone in proximity(online or off) is completely aware how little they care, no honest, really really, they don't care at all, not a bit, no siree.

Everyone has various levels of investment in their various hobbies - some sports fans will gain great joy from attending every game they can manage in full team regalia, other are happy to watch the odd game down the pub over a couple of beers, what I find unfathomable is when the far end of the latter group seem to be so disdainful of the former that they have some deep need to ensure everyone else knows how not-invested they are.

 DV8 wrote:

Of course, I think the more interesting statement to dissect would be "it's MORE than toy soldiers." But that's just me.

Really? Doesn't seem that controversial an idea to me, to some people it is - the amount of time & creative effort some people put in certainly entitles their work to be referred to by words like "art" or "fiction" rather than "toy soldiers". To argue otherwise is to claim that medium is more important than content.

OP I think the responses to this thread indicate that (in this very unrepresentative poll) most people have not encountered the phenomenon that you describe. For most people the ‘only toy soliders’ attitude is representative of a laid back healthy approach to the game.

Your circumstances are either unusual, or other people who encounter similar circumstances are underrepresented on dakka

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
I tend to go with the more general purpose ""some days the pigeon, and some days the statue"

Nobody likes losing, but learning nothing from losing in just a recurring derp cycle, asking the other player where they think you made mistakes is helpful

If you win you learn nothing because obviously you've done everything right, loss is by far the most useful teacher you'll ever have it teaches you to examine your mistakes and come up with ways to correct them.

It's just some take it too hard and start throwing things or hitting themselves which is extreme but has been known to happen.

You only learn from a defeat if you've the humility to admit that it was your mistakes that lead to it in the first place. All too often (although thankfully not in recent history) I've played where I've won a game and that's been exclusively down to dice or card draw luck, or my "broken" choices, or even in one occasion a thinly veiled accusation of cheating, but absolutely, categorically, not my opponent's mistakes.

Equally, if you assume you've learned nothing from a win then you lack the introspection to see where you might have made better choices, or not made mistakes you managed to recover from or weren't punished for.

Sure, perhaps you can learn more from defeat, but if you learn nothing from a game, win or lose, then you're wasting an opportunity to improve.