We Are The Fulfilment Of The Hobby
Without The Clubhouse All This Is Impossible
I took the time over this past weekend to give BDubs’ interview by Ross of Mythic Mountains another listen.
What listening to this interview put to my mind is that we are doing something that is utterly foreign to the nay-sayers and the commercial side of the hobby, and I dare say that they find it incomprehensible.
Recall how this hobby is conventionally explained: you and the boys, in a basement, each playing one man doing everything together as a unit with all opposition and all neutrals controled by a Referee and nothing you do exists outside of your table or out of play at the table. It’s boardgaming with extra steps in practice; you would be far better off just doing that.
What are we doing?
Player-controlled factions
Player-controlled individuals, operating alone or in groups on an ad-hoc basis
Player-controlled Research & Development for competitive advantage
Player-controlled exploration, conquest, and settlement of unclaimed terrain
Player-directed conflict over objectives that cannot be shared
Player-directed pursuit of objectives
Players playing multiple mans, of varying power and influence, at different times
Player-driven engagement in, and manipulation of, the Fog of War
To the commercial publishers and our nay-sayers, this is madness. And?
I have said that this hobby is not commercially viable- not under the business model we’ve known since the publication of the original game in 1974. The above partially explains why this is so, as you cannot systemize all of that without producing a tome thicker than the infamous 5th edition of HERO.
Or an entire product line of books taking up entire shelves, or even bookcases, in one’s home. We’ve seen that approach for over 50 years. We know where that leads, and a lot of us are long past over with that- especially as so many of those product lines are supplementary materials for a product that itself does not work.
We are taking up what was willfully discarded by people who could not comprehend what they beheld and now we see them—and those who came up in their wake—look on in astonishment at what we do and moreso at how we do it. We are achieving the campaign potential that products in this hobby have claimed for decades, but rarely ever attempted and never achieved.
As we are in uncharted territory, we are faced with the task of comprehending what we are doing so that we can not only communicate it to others but to refine it into a form we can readily and easily teach to those willing and able to learn.
The Clubhouse is the load-bearing element making this all possible, such that there can be play going on at any time without needing the Referee on hand to adjudicate it, and it is clear that I’m going to have to write the tome explaining all of this sooner than later.
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