Asking
me why I like miniature wargaming is like asking me why history is important,
or why do I write military history? I am not sure I can answer those questions.
I have always been surrounded with books, and toy soldiers since my earliest
years. I grew up with them and I have lived with them my entire life. As a
teacher, I used miniature wargaming in the classroom to teach history.
The question has arisen as a result of my last blog about
how do we get younger individuals into miniature wargaming and, in turn, into
studying or reading history. I have some ideas of how to do it. They are merely
ideas at this stage.
1. Get
your kids to play games at an early age.
2. Introduce
your children to games like chess and Risk, which have figures to move
around the board.
3. Encourage
your children to create their own games from books which they have read. They
do not need to be military oriented.
4. Let
them “cannibalize” games to design variations of the games they already have.
5. Let
them tweak the rules of their existing games to make them “better.”
6. Get
them into crafts where they can design buildings and fences for their games to
make them 3-dimensional. Imagine redesigning Chutes and Ladders.
7. Get
them a sand filled with construction sand and turn them loose with wood blocks
and table spoon or tea spoons.
8. Have
them design their own folding cardboard game boards and build their own
layouts.
9. Encourage
them to paint their figures (military or otherwise) with water-based acrylics.
10. TEACH
THEM HOW to PLAY and CREATE away from the TV. I have taught a great many
students who have never really played, read books, or had constructive fun away
from their cell-phones and video games.
As a teacher, most manipulatives were and are geared to
elementary school kids. In high school I found the majority of team building
and group activities trite and, frankly, immature. I walked out of a couple of
in-services because I could not tolerate the banality of the contrived
demonstrations.
1. If
you want to recruit younger players, gamers have to take the games to the
public. The problem is putting “legs” on the following suggestions.
2. Go
to the local school board and speak to the social studies director to ask if
he/she could find a way to work a day into the calendar to provide a space for
you to spend with one class, in one school to introduce an historical
simulation in which the class could participate. If you could get the stage in
the auditorium for you or your game club to set up at no charge to the school
you could engage a class for the day. Make
it an indoor field trip.
3. Contact
the local library to see if you could get a meeting room for a day and run a
game to one and all who wander by. The library might even provide a public
service massage to announce it.
4. A
mall might have a social room in which to try that too. The management might
advertise it also.
5. Picture
it much like the Club rooms set up at a game convention.
6. Maybe
a local group like the YMCA, the Girls or Boys Club, the American Legion, The
Marine Corps League, The Veterans of foreign Wars, the Odd Fellows, or a local
park could provide a game room or pavilion to which the public could come.
I am always open to suggestions. If the public will not
come to us, we gamers should go to the public.
As always, thank you for your patience and your
constructive suggestions and observations are always welcome.
