Being Away from Hobbies and Returning

 

It’s been a long time since I updated this blog and for many reasons I have been to long away from the Hobby of gaming. Looking back on my time away I realized the difficulties that I had getting back into it and my experiences along the way.

There can be many reasons you get pulled away from your hobby gaming or otherwise. I could probably fill up a few pages with both positive and negative reasons one might be pulled away. Though eventually hopefully you find yourself back in a position where you want to get back into it but you don’t know where to start.

In the past year I joined the Military and moved across the country for both school and my new duty post. I didn’t know anyone interested in gaming, and I had no idea where I could play just that I really wanted to do something.

The first thing I did was take an entire weekend to explore every gaming store I could find in the area through Google Maps. This may be easier or more difficult for people but it helped immensely knowing what places had what games and gave me a nice fun weekend out of my house. Every place I also wrote a little personal review about what they offered how they were set up and what I would go there to play. I met so many people and learned about so much going on in the area outside of my hobby as well. Stores, Bars, Restaurants, and much more were discussed and it allowed me to become much more familiar with my city and the surrounding areas.

Engage in your hobby at work if you can. This honestly is one of the best things I feel you can do if you want to get back into it or get to meet more people. For me it started off talking with someone about Star Wars and then someone else peaked interest and next thing I knew we were talking about playing X-Wing Miniatures on the weekend. Because we talked about it as well people felt more comfortable coming over and asking questions and showing interest. For Warhammer 40k I was sitting at a table building a Tyranid Trygon Model which had a bunch of people suddenly talking to me about how they play and how cool it would be to play games while we were underway on a patrol.

Be involved with online communities or your old groups if you had to move away from them. In this day and age you don’t have to be face to face to communicate. Sure maybe to play but if you can still keep in touch and talk gaming you will find yourself motivated to keep up with the hobby until you can actively play again.

This is a rather short blog post. But one I kind of wanted to talk about briefly before I start going on about progress and other topics I hope to put on this blog again. If you happen to read this and have some feedback or your own suggestions for people to get back into their hobbies. Leave a comment or send a message. Hopefully this is helpful to some of you.

Until next time keep gaming.

My Tournament Play Attitude

Everyone loves the satisfaction of a well deserved win. You fought your hardest. Climbed up the dangerous terrain reaching the summit and as you look down upon your achievement you can say I deserve this feeling of greatness. Now winning isn’t everything and I have had very few times where I placed first in a Gaming Related tournament. But usually I can take from those tournaments a feeling of a good challenge and fun games had by both me and my opponents.

It is easy though to ruin that mood for your opponent and maybe his opponents from your game. I know the feeling on both sides of being completely outclassed. When your being utterly defeated and you feel like nothing you can do to win. On the other side when your opponent is put into a situation where you seem to be the only one doing anything meaningful. What can you do in these extremes to still have fun?

There is no simple answer and it all depends on the person. For me when I am being outclassed I set a small short time goal for a moral victory. I only have 2 Squads of Space Marine left and I am facing the onslaught of a Chaos Daemon invasion with Bloodletters, Bloodcrushers, and the Mighty Skarbrand coming down upon me. I set the goal of taking out one of those forces. I put all my focus into it and say this is where I make my stand. The enthusiasm you get from that is contagious and can bring a smile to you and your opponents face.

If you are the one outclassing your opponent there is not much you can do. Give them a pep talk some helpful advice after the match. It all depends on how they take it and the attitude you give them while playing.

To sum it up even losing can be fun as long as you try your hardest and have a positive attitude towards your game. If your opponent wants to argue rules with you the whole game just smile and pick up the rule book since if you are wrong you now know better. If you are being utterly defeated set yourself a small term goal. The thing you should take from every game is a sense of accomplishment no matter how small.