Do you ever get told to grow up? [Why locked?]

[Belligerentparrot]

"Oh no, I despise your celebration of man's inhumanity to man."

I get this more often than "When are you going to grow up?", perhaps because I've now spent more than half my life in punk and straightedge circles - your mates aren't going to accuse you of not growing up when they've sacrificed the chance of a career to play basement shows in endless permutations of bands.

And while I applaud your response, Jemima, I guess we all understand the underlying sentiment that the above response tries to hit but misses. No one much likes the guy who is a bit too keen on his SS units or misses the irony of 40K or seems a bit too keen to play scenarios that are really massacres, right?

[FifteensAway]

Get it sometimes and promptly ignore it.  Simple life guiding philosophy: never lose the ability to be childlike in our wonderment at the world in which we live without being childish (unless a young enough child to justify it).

Or, a favorite retort, "So, you are threatened by a group of, mostly, grown men playing with toy soldiers?  I'm having too much fun to care."  That tends to incite a case of 'guppy mouth'. 

What we do is mildly silly but rarely harms anyone and, in my case reading so much history has caused me to see war as a tremendous waste of effort.  Wargaming has actually lead me to believe war is futile - except as a hobby with little metal men.  (Those who do get harmed are usually those who refuse to take basic safety precautions like wearing proper protection when using an airbrush.  Or being careless with an X-acto knife (guilty).)

[Tactalvanic]

It helps with the stress of being a grown up, not being one all the time, if that's what a hobby is, bring it on and more, its the things that help keep us more sane than most.

I am not planning to fully grow up if I can get away with it. Ever. Life is far to short for that.

Or as indicated in another conversation recently, "oh your into that" - yes - "bit childish" - not really but I'm not wasting game time explaining it.

"Well i need you to..."

"Sorry my cat wants to play, bye"

Guess they got someone else to deal with the I-need as I not heard any more about it.

[Brummie]

I thought being grown up is when you finally decide to grow a long beard, have a beer gut and play nothing but Historicals, (Horse and Musket era stuff in particular)... At least that's the plan.

In the past I've been told its a bit sad. Also been on a few dates where the other party gave me a funny luck.

I don't get the moral posturing anymore. Reservist with two degrees in military history. They're gone before I even get to the toy soldier bit. 

[War Monkey]

Actually, when they ask that question or any others along those line, I just turn into full on Dr. Spencer Ried



As to How the game was derived from many other games such as that of chess, which was said to be the "Game of King" and from "Tafl" a Vikings version of chess. Then later on, military unit started using what is known as the table method, which many modern armies still use today to describe the actions and the after-action reviews and briefings. It wasn't until H.G. Wells the well know English novelist who not only wrote fantastic novels, but he is also known to have written out one of the first know rules for wargames, with the main title of "Little Wars", assigning units different values and strengths. It was played out using dice, different lengths of string and a stopwatch and the game also had an umpire, who help to determine the outcome of the game.

By this point they are running of scream as blood runs from their ears. 

[FreakyFenton]

I get this more often than "When are you going to grow up?", perhaps because I've now spent more than half my life in punk and straightedge circles - your mates aren't going to accuse you of not growing up when they've sacrificed the chance of a career to play basement shows in endless permutations of bands.

And while I applaud your response, Jemima, I guess we all understand the underlying sentiment that the above response tries to hit but misses. No one much likes the guy who is a bit too keen on his SS units or misses the irony of 40K or seems a bit too keen to play scenarios that are really massacres, right?

Isn't every 40k game a massacre? 

I think it can be mixed responses much like Jemima mentioned, some people are amazed, usually when it also connects to local history. For instance Hamburg units for the Franco Prussian War. Usually haven't had a problem though, and usually found myself worrying more over it myself than was actually needed. My neighbour once came around and saw me sprayprime some vehicles for the Second World War and got super nerdy about things and asked a lot of tech related stuff, so yeah. Can't really say I've had a really negative response that made me worry about my hobby in a critical way.

[FierceKitty]

I point out that I do only historical forces vs contemporary opponents, and applaud their attitudes insofar as these clearly refer to goblins and trolls, wizards pretending that what they do is scientifically plausible future reality, or "timewarp" games, retch and shudder. They're usually too bored to keep the subject going after this.

[ced1106]

Growing up costs too much. I still live with the parents, but with the money I didn't spend on rent, I retired early by ten or twenty years. Plus have a dog (and two parents who can survive computer illiteracy).

[Doug ex-em4]

Why is the "grow up" topic locked? I ask purely out of interest - no axe to grind on it.

Doug

[Westfalia Chris]

Why is the "grow up" topic locked? I ask purely out of interest - no axe to grind on it.

Doug

Long story short, the OP was only very tenously hobby-related, and it generally went downhill. This kind of unspecific, "slice-of-life" topic has a nasty tendency to draw out the worst in folks for very little positive gain, which is why they are noted as "negative" examples in the forum rules as to what not to post, even on General Discussion (this board should, as all boards, be ultimately hobby-focused).