It is kind of unavoidable that my political activism and other hobbies cross pollinate, which has lead to some budding thoughts as early as 2019 in what could be a precursor to this post. My anarchist angle here lies taking a critical look at the existing hierarchy and power dynamic between player and publisher, and highlight what I would consider ideals or principles to aim for.
Fascists need not apply.
My only barrier to entry and hard rule. If you identify with the alt-right, Christian evangelists, oppose critical race theory, are 'concerned' about trans people or consider yourself red-pilled, piss right off.
You are not welcome at my table.
I bought them, they're my toys.
The baseline idea for most of this, namely that after I bought the game its mine. And I get to choose how to play with it. I exchange money for something that enables and inspires play. I mean sure the company has a copyright and intellectual property, but that is only marketing related, and ultimately I have final say in what I do with my copy of their game, including taking a highlighter to the pages or coloring in illustrations, which brings me neatly to my next point.
Rules are just agreements.
When you play with someone, its implicit that you both follow the same rules, the ones written in the book. But the thing is, so long as you are both on the same page, the book is just a guideline. All of this is assuming casual play, but even then tournaments and regulated play still sometimes add homebrew twists and scenarios to games, that all participants have pre-agreed on. So in a way, they are more suggestions than rules in my eyes, solid and good suggestions of course but a critical eye never hurt anyone.
Sure the rulebook says my beast masters can't have have a caught hydra, but I think it could be really fun and evocative, so hey how do we fit it in while making it fair for my co-player? And actually, who says our forces have to be equal or fair? I mean of course no-one wants to blindsided or feel like their "opponent" is cheating, but this brings us full circle. Discuss beforehand, a scenario of desperate defenders holding a narrow pass against an invading horde, or a group of infiltrators trying to cripple an enemy fort are both engaging narratives where the sides aren't necessary equal. Bonus points from me if you include guidelines to facilitate this.
We don't have opponents.
You may have noticed me putting opponents in quotation markers earlier and referred to the other parties as co-players, and that is entirely intentional. Although we are most likely playing as opposing forces, we as players shouldn't harbor any of the game's hostility outside of the board. I get that competitive play is a thing, but even an environment with a price pool, antagonism is a no go. Wargaming is a communal thing, we meet and play, enact exiting battles and have evocative stories play out in our campaigns.
We are co-players, we are joined by an excitement for these games and should foster an environment where people wanna join and come back. If you keep winning and being a belligerent shit about it, you are gonna run out of people to play with real quick.
And speaking of getting people to play with...
Fuck revenue stream saturation.
When getting into a game there is a whole literal grocery list of things you need: rules, miniatures, terrain, dice, paints, cards, tokens and who knows what else. The easier it is for a player to check everything off this list the easier it is to get playing.
This is for me a hard case for proxies and standees, make the buy-in as small as possible for new players, let them play with what's on hand or can be made with cardboard or toys. I know you're here to have fun and aren't just lazy with your proxies. Everyone can recognize the creative effort and enthusiasm you've put into your forces regardless of the materials you used. And we love it.
Don't indirectly force newcomers to buy the official branded paints, brunches, terrain and miniatures. That should be an optional thing if people really what a cool model of that particular unit or what not.
Trying to squeeze as much money out of me as possible because I can only use your expensive official models, when you're the ones who made the rules that state I need like 50 of those bad boys, is frankly appalling. Find ways to make money that are tied more directly to community health rather than bar of entry. And while I am on my little tangent, if you make booster packs, double fuck you.
Let us find our own fun.
Instead of trying to box in and regulate the forces of players, go the other direction. Inspire and empower players to get creative and build weird things. Allow them to find 3rd party miniatures that suit just their vision, and make the rules malleable enough to let them squeeze in those machinegun dinosaurs in their WWII game if they want to. Make your rulebooks more modular, present a catalogue of optional rules and granularity that players can opt in to. That's how you get kids into the games as well, both Mini Gangs and Necromolds have both done this where there is a base game framework expandable into several layers of complexity from ages 7 to adult.
Trust us players to not exploit the rules to min-max, since there is no opponents after all. Let us be designers too, let us pick and build our own optimal play experience from what is on offer. No matter what models, weird house rules and nonsense we come up with.
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