Prim Pontificates- ...but am I really though?

[Primarch]

So, this discussion/rant/meandering waffle follows on from last week's topic. In fact, last week's topic began as the preamble for this pontification before I figured that it would be easier to split them into two parts.

Last time I talked about how we sometimes describe ourselves as belonging to a certain group or category of gamers, along with the merits and demerits of doing so. The point I was planning to bring up (and then pushed back to this post) is that the way we view ourselves might not always be accurate.

For example, while I do enjoy a wide range of games, I would primarily describe myself as being a Historical Wargamer. I have collections of painted armies covering a span of 2000 years, from Imperial Rome up to the Vietnam War. I have far more painted historical figures than I do for any other genre. I probably have more painted Anglo-Saxons than I do Space Marines from every chapter/legion I play.

However, I cannot recall the last time I played a historical game. I remember running a game of Black Powder for some people at a NagoyaHammer event a few years back, but I probably haven't played it myself since 2018. I've played a couple of games of Bolt Action since Corona, but nothing that justifies having over a dozen armies for it. Admittedly, I have been away from gaming this year, but even last year I mainly played Fantasy or SF games. Zona Alfa was the closest I got to a historical game and even that is an alternate history game. 30K is a historical version of 40K, but it is still an SF game when you get down to it.

So, I keep collecting, building and painting historical minis and never really do anything with them. Am I deluding myself? Am I really a Fantasy Wargamer in denial? At what point do I lose my Historical Gaming membership card? I think it is time for me to start making some decisions and giving more consideration to what I play.

And how about you? When you think about the games you play, how many of them do you truly, actively play and how many sit on a shelf waiting for a day that may never come?

[Jye Nicolson]

Well identity is only conventionally real so as long as it leads to whatever you can define as successful practice it's fine

For example thinking of yourself as a historical gamer might provide just enough feeling of utility to the hobby process to motivate you to enjoy yourself doing it. You might say my identification as a "40K player" and keeping up with the meta has the same function - I play a few games of 40K every month but zero of them are competitive so painting up something just because it's been blessed by the Balance Dataslate is more a hack to keep myself pleasantly occupied than in any other sense useful. And both of us can do a great deal of "here's one I prepared earlier" when the circumstances suit.

Conversely there is definitely times where it's to your benefit to stop identifying with a slice of the gaming hobby and let it go. I don't really need to stop thinking of myself as a roleplayer even though it's been a while since I've played anything - my experiences and reflections on them are valid. I have given up buying RPGs because these days I don't even read the PDFs (I did buy the Dark Souls and Elden Ring RPGs because I enjoy having challenging Japanese books lying around to remind how shameful it is I can't easily read them). I *really* need to not hang around in D&D5e or Exalted threads and generate salt - and thankfully I largely don't. So maybe while I'm still an RPGer in some meaningful sense maybe I'm not a D&D or Exalted player anymore.

[me_in_japan]

I definitely understand what Prim's getting at here. I've been going through my cupboards recently, attempting to rejig my storage space, and have been pulling out old boxes full of minis I'll likely never use. I have a ton of Cryx, but am I a warmachine player? Well, no. Haven't played it in years, and don't really feel I identify as such. So are those minis useless to me? No way! I used a bunch of them last year (two years ago?) to play Space Weirdos, and had a great time doing it. I have a beastman warband for mordheim and an Escher gang from the original Necromunda, both of which are extremely applicable for any number of fantasy/sci fi skirmish games.

Something I've come to embrace more in recent years is not identifying as playing a particular game, and also not identifying my minis as being for any particular game. OPR and frostgrave have been very helpful with this transition, as they're both very miniature agnostic, but there are tons of games now that allow for a bit of creative miniature usage. It's allowed me to see my collection of minis as just that: a collection of minis. Not specifically for any given game or faction, but as playing pieces I can use to play a variety of different games.

To be fair, my minis do fall broadly into either Sci Fi or Fantasy. I don't really have any historical stuff, as that's never really tickled my fancy. It also doesn't help that "historical" is often synonymous with "huuuuuge numbers of minis". But other than that most everything I own can be put to a number of uses.*

The one thing I do miss is having my Eldar be Eldar. I'm sufficiently invested in their background that "generic space dude" doesn't quite scratch the itch. Most rulesets that handle 40k size games are built in the assumption that many players will be using their 40k minis, so include some form of space elf faction, but it's really hard for game designers to include space for aspect warriors without falling foul of gws legal team.

One thing I've been aware of for some time, though, is what kind of faction I enjoy playing. I don't really have any "standard good guy" factions. I tend towards the exotic. Skimmers rather than tracks, psychic powers over guns, fiddly little rules manipulators over brute force good stats. (While it could be argued that Aeldari could be considered good guys, back when I started they were Yriel's Eldritch Raiders and were jump pack wearing space pirates, and definitely ticked the boxes for "exotic" and "fiddly".)

So yeah. Embrace the non-specificity. Be a collector of minis for gaming, rather than a gamer who has collections of minis. That's my two yennies worth, anyway

*Apart from you, X-wing minis . You will always and only ever be X-wings and TIE fighters. The curse of being iconic, I suppose.

Ps it's interesting that I don't identify as a RPG player, despite the reality that over the last 5 years or so I have spent an order of magnitude more hours playing DND than I have tabletop miniature games. I think it's because I've been a mini gamer for longer overall, and that I actually put a lot of prep time into my tabletop gaming. DND sessions, I just turn up for and wing it. (Kinda. I'll certainly know what my character is likely to do in any given situation, and I know how they fight, but proportionately the prep time required for DND pales when compared with that required for 40k or what have you )

[kojibear]

I think it is time for me to start making some decisions and giving more consideration to what I play.

And how about you? When you think about the games you play, how many of them do you truly, actively play and how many sit on a shelf waiting for a day that may never come?

Having recently bought yet another shelf to store miniatures, this discussion and call for reflection is most timely. How many of those miniatures on the newly acquired shelf will be set free from their cardboard enclosures in the near future? The answer would be not many. But I do enjoy the feeling of achievement they represent and I enjoy knowing that should an opportunity arise, they are there, ready to rise to the occasion and fight the dark powers of the old world or the warp, the totalitarian designs of the Axis powers, or the horrors of Malifaux.

MiJ brought up a good point about the utility of most miniatures to fit somewhat accurately in a variety of sci-fi and fantasy settings, so that’s another source of relief and motivation to keep these heroes around.

But there is no room for any more shelves. At times I feel like Luke, Leia, and Han in the trash compactor! Lol I’m just waiting for a sewage squid tentacle to spring forth from behind one of the boxes!