Reply To: [unofficial Weekender] Communal hobby – a hidden secret?

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Pledge: finish Soundwave, continue on 10mm LotR

Yes, I nicked the question completely from @warbossd but I feel it bears repeating to be asked. And I did a rather long write-up on my blog so here I will quote myself:

So there is this little weird YouTube channel “Yellow Belly Tabletop” who in their weekly live streams ask really important and weird questions or discuss odd topics like:

Wargaming’s hidden secret: Communal hobby

Now, is communal hobby a “hidden secret”?

No, I don’t think it’s hidden and it’s no secret but it is an aspect of our wargaming hobby that might not be very apparent to new players and painters. Just like “you need a proper light” and “get a wet pallet” or “shake your rattle cans *really* well”.

Is communal hobby something I enjoy? Yes but no but yes. Depends on how you define hobby or rather what aspect you’re talking about. Let me explain:

Building and painting

Might be fun to be doing that with other people in person but it’s not for me. Packing up painting stuff, getting to the hobby space of club just adds so much extra time that I’d rather spend on actually doing hobby. Online, via the medium of Discord, Twitch, YouTube and what have you on the other hand is fine. I can sit in my comfy chair and participate.

Playing games

For me a thing I only like doing in person. I want that tactile feeling of pushing minis across the board. No current video game online adaptation comes close to that for me.

Talking about the hobby and all it’s aspects

Everywhere and all of the time. No preparation needed and can be done online and offline. And all variants have their pros and cons. For example you can’t interrupt me here on my blog. You can stop reading but that won’t end my train of thought. On the other hand if I get something wrong you can’t stop me from walking of the proverbial cliff. So that’s a nice thing to have in real life.

Meet-ups and conventions

Real life only. I tried to “attend” cons online and it’s just horrible. Better to wait for after the con for some proper, well done videos to see all the nice things.

So coming back to the question: is communal hobby a hidden secret? No, definitely not. Communal hobby is such a big part it literally stares you in the face all the time. It’s the elephant in the room you choose not to see 😉

And since we can’t end without music, here is some music!