For those who don’t know, miniature war-gaming involves buying, assembling and painting small plastic figurines in order to create an ‘army’ that you then pit against an opponent’s on a tabletop battlefield, following complex sets of rules and using dice rolls to determine results. Being a miniature wargamer is about as nerdy as it’s possible to be, and I decided to recruit a collage of my high school’s least popular so we could all enjoy this hobby together.
Our game was Warhammer, a prominent tabletop battle-game involving armies of aliens and science-fiction soldiers fighting endless wars amidst a grim dystopian vision of the future. The club met once a week during the Friday lunch break in a classroom off the library. My fellow club members were the sorriest collection of zits, pale complexions and nervous tics you could imagine, but each was passionate about their particular army and keen to extoll its merits over those of any other. Brandon’s obnoxious love for his Space Marines was matched only by Floyd’s enthusiasm for his Tyrannids, and Lachlan was always keen to champion his Necrons despite Zac’s boasts about his Tau. We were rarely able to finish a game, however, as most of what little time we had was spent arguing over the rules. In my role as self-appointed president I usually ended up mediating these disputes, the others assuming that I knew everything about the game when in fact I knew almost nothing. When I wasn’t busy bossing everyone around I was dealing with the outsiders who came in to mock us, but like all petty dictators I revelled in exerting my power. Unfortunately my hot air was the only thing holding the club together, and it fell apart after I graduated.
One memory that stands out from those days is the time one particular girl came in to watch us. She had a reputation for emotional behaviour and seeking attention, and after standing there for a while she decided to give me her opinion on what we were doing.
“You know why I think this is stupid?” she asked, face inches from mine. “You’re all playing games with little plastic men, and it isn’t even real!”
What is it about things being ‘real’ that captures the minds of so many? What is the intrinsic worth of things that physically exist? Why can some people never look past the fact that something is make-believe to see what makes it great? If I knew the answer, maybe I could fix them. As it is, when people ask me these questions the only response I have is: what’s so good about reality? Reality is wheelie bins and politics and taxes. Reality is war and death and the strong picking on the weak. To be fair, Warhammer consists entirely of war, death, and the strong picking on the weak, but at least it allowed us to escape into another world, a world that we liked as opposed to the real one which we hated. The handful of nerds that gathered together in that room every Friday lunchtime might have spent a lot of time arguing, but they kept coming back because for us reality was a hard place to live, a place of disrespect and sometimes fear. Warhammer allowed us to escape into a fantasy where none of that was true.
In a short essay simply titled ‘On Fantasy’, George Martin cuts to the heart of why fantasy means so much. “Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Reality flies on Southwest Airlines, fantasy on the wings of Icarus.”
I created that gaming club as an excuse to throw my weight around, but to the guys who put up with me, just maybe it meant something more. Maybe it was a chance for them to escape their realities and fly on the wings of Icarus. So to the girl who barged in on us that day and everyone else like her, no, what we do isn’t part of the real world, but sometimes it’s the only world we can take. And maybe, just maybe, it’s a better one than yours.
Dedicated to the guys ‘n’ gals of Four Rings Gaming, wherever you have ended up.
♦♦♦
Originally published in Deakin University’s ‘Genre edition’ of Wordly Magazine.
Photo credit: Senad_D
I wish you’d gone to my high school! Great article and perspective.
So to the girl who barged in on us that day and everyone else like her, no, what we do isn’t part of the real world, but sometimes it’s the only world we can take. And maybe, just maybe, it’s a better one than yours. or, they can mind their own damn business and work on their own issues. Yanno what makes me laugh about those people that would make fun of you? Those same macho idiots that would besmirch you are out there right now playing FANTASY football, living vicariously through their sports heroes. That same woman that would… Read more »