Hey Gang, Old Man Morin here. I thought I would take on a rarely touched on subject, but one that I think we can all relate to. What to do when your love for the hobby... wanes. In my many years of gaming, there have been many highs and conversely, there have been countless times that I have almost thrown in the towel - and a couple of times I literally have. Thankfully that never sticks. The trick is to get out of the funk. Welllll, having just kicked a funky kink out of my hobby, I thought I would share how I went about doing it.
A)Watch a movie, TV series or read a book about something that inspires you. Hollywood is treasure trove of great source material for people who love war, war games and WWII. I know that The Guns of Navarone, Force Ten From Navarone and Band Of Brothers are directly responsible for my interest in WWII. Sure films are not typically very realistic and do little to stimulate the growth of quality neck beard action, they do however, glorify war in a big way and, in my case, take me back to my childhood love of G.I. Joe and one-piece plastic army men. If you are looking for a longer lasting experience, get yourself stuck into a good book. Commutes got you bored? Grab a good book. The battery never runs out, and these days very few people will mug you for one. There are literally thousands of great WWII books, spanning every text type and genre from action/adventure fiction, to biographies, to non-fiction battle reports, to romance to - you get the idea. Ask around on one of the great FB groups out there, or on the BA.net forum. There are lots of great suggestions out there.
C) Play some games. I spend a lot of time listing, building models, and painting under a lamp in a dark recess of the ol' LRDG bunker. While these activities are fun and I LOVE doing them, they are not my true love. I am a gamer, pure and simple. I love to look down and across a beautiful table, covered in great terrain and models, and try to out-strategise (Nice! - J) my opponent. Failing that, there is nothing more satisfying than pulling a victory out of a close fought battle, or one that looked completely lost. Because of this, for me, playing games is the easiest way to recharge the old batteries, so to speak. This is not to say that all games are created equally. We have all played, and will play, games that go wrong, where nothing goes right, where our opponents are jerks, and where we might just lose our cool. The key is to remember the good times! Learn from your mistakes, and get back on the horse sooner rather than later. Don't let a bad game fester. Play with yourself if you have to (yeah, I said it). Get boots on the table and get stuck in. You will be glad that you did.
D) STOP DOING THE SAME OLD CRAP! This may sound stupidly simple, but monotony is a killer. I have been working on the same stupid German Army for... ever it seems, but every time I feel like quitting on it, I do. In the span of hammering out the Germans, I have finished and played with Partisans, Americans and an entire Japanese army in various tournaments throughout Australia. Sure, I probably could have knocked my boys in grey out by now, BUT I am dead set against doing anything less that my best on them. As a result, I have stopped and worked on other projects from time to time, but without fail within twenty-four hours of every event I have played in... I am back at that table, reinvigorated and painting gaiters and jack boots. If something is crushing the life out of your hobby, STOP! Do something else. Find your great white whale and avoid that tubby bastard until you are ready to get wet.
Til next time...
(Have any secrets to escaping a game funk? Tell us about it on the forum! - J)
