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One of the things I have noticed in my time in this hobby, is that people will, on occasion, identify themselves based on the game, army or faction that they play. I could label myself as a Marine Player and everyone in our hobby would get what I meant. I could say that I am a Horus Heresy player (largely synonymous with my last statement, I know), and again folks would get what I meant.

By adding these labels to ourselves, we are able to say what we like and don't like in a shorthand form. The recent chatter on Discord about Tags shows that there is a functional reason for this manner of self-identification. With the click of a button, we can communicate with those members of our group who share a similar interest.

But, by putting ourselves into neat little boxes, do we risk discrimination by not being more inclusive? Have I managed to exclude myself from conversations because I don't identify as the right sort of gamer. (Acknowledging that I most certainly have excluded myself by being a grumpy curmudgeon at times). I have certainly felt that I have.

For better or for worse, we do tend to attach labels to ourselves that change how we communicate with each other. We can avoid spamming people who don't share our interests, but we can also risk cutting people out where they might actually be interested.

So from here on out;
My name is Prim, and first and foremost, I am a Wargame Player.

So, what type of player are you? Do you feel that applying the label of Warhammer Player, or Kill Team Player is restrictive, freeing, or something else entirely?

Well I think it's pretty easy to be involved in a discussion for a game you don't play, since you can just ask questions and people will be super excited to explain it to you

And I would be dramatically better at 40K if at some point I'd said "I am a Space Wolf player" and stuck to it rather than flitting like a butterfly to get another set of rules I haven't internalised every month.

I think being open to and interested in a broad range of gaming experiences (not limited to wargaming!) is rewarding and cool. I love seeing how many different games get played on a club game day, even given we're a relatively small community and operate in a small space! Likewise it was cool seeing lots of different games played by the diverse community at KaijuCon (even if Call of Cthulhu was the headline).

That being said though we all have finite opportunities to play, and in context here we're mostly talking about games where *someone* has to put in a fair chunk of hobby upfront even to hold a demo game. So while the labels as *identity* and as some kind of enduring attribute are not useful imo, they are extremely relevant and informative for current focus.

I'm definitely a 40K player. In principal I would like to play a broad range of games and try different mechanics. In practice I'll have just spent a month painting 40K models, reading Goonhammer, maybe checking in on Art of War, I hauled a bunch of terrain to game day and if I can play two games of 40K that day I will. That wasn't true about me until I moved to Nagoya and joined the club (I played Kill Team/Warcry/Underworlds in Australia, X-Wing before that, more RPGs than anything else etc) and it won't be true about me some day in the future. Right now though it's a useful piece of information, if you want to play or chat about 40K I'm definitely one of the people you can reach out to.

Likewise while I'm not the organiser and evangelist Dave is I have been at like 95% of the events he has organised so calling myself an Underworlds player is fairly meaningful. I don't keep up with the meta for that game anymore, and my usual practice is to be reading a card for the first time when I draw it in game, so my relationship with it isn't like 40K. But I do actually play everything that comes out so my opinion is usually reasonably informed (within a local context) and that's meaningful.

The label gets fuzzier if we're talking about if I'm a Kill Team, Warcry, Age of Sigmar or Adeptus Titanicus player. I have painted teams and own the current rules for all of them, so legitimately I *could* play any of them. Do I remember the rules? Uh... (Likewise it's a bit weird that I'm definitely a Spearhead player and probably not an AoS player but that's true of quite a few of us ).

What I do find helpful is no longer really identifying as a <faction> player within games is the eternal roundabout of releases and balance changes can't hurt me. For example Sisters of Battle are one of my favourite armies of all time and I love their minis range and reliably enjoy their gameplay. So I might very reasonably say "I'm a Sisters player", and be happy when they get an awesome codex, and miffed when they catch another miracle dice nerf and points hikes. But I can trivially pivot to any of the dozen plus other armies I have ready to go if they're too strong for friendly play or the list styles I liked are too nerfed to be fun or whatever, and pick them up again when they swing back to the sweet spot. I can be happy if Drukhari get a big refresh full of awesome models, or play Votann instead if they don't. It's a big investment to get to that point so you'd better like the game, and it's way easier in a skirmish game, but it's fun and relives me of much of the psychic burden of being angry at weirdoes in Nottingham

Narrowing down my identity as a (???) player has long since become an almost impossible task, though I DO know where I started. I was mostly assuredly a Warhammer Fantasy player in my early teens. But now, well, with so many game systems in my life, including both tabletop rpgs and miniature wargames of all sorts and sizes, it would be hard to choose a single one that identifies me as a player.


That being said, it wouldn’t be amiss to concede that I am a ‘narrative gamer’, in the sense that a game immersed in a real or fictional narrative excites me most. You could argue that most game systems provide a story or background in order to make the gaming experience more immersive and engaging. But it is also true that how much of the setting finds its way onto the tabletop is up to the players themselves. In other words, you could find yourself looking across the table at a squad of space marines lead by a captain, or squad ‘Valour’ lead by Captain Octavian Valorous a courageous but unorthodox leader whose most famous or infamous deed was jumping on the back of a carnifex, punching a hole in its carapace and throwing a krak grenade in the cavity before leaping off the creature just before the grenade detonated. This earned him the nickname ‘carnifist’.

So I guess I’m a ‘narrative’ gamer?

I currently am a Ressers player, but before that Protectorate, and before that, Tau and Tyranids. And Lizardmen. I don't have the patience to be a painter or a modeller, although I can appreciate the models I see on game days. I also play board games, TTRPGs, and card games (like hearts or euchre, not like MTG) when I can.

So, table-top gamer I guess? Dabbler? I would hate to limit myself to just one type!

I am a lazy gamer.

There, I said it.

With more nuance, I am a gamer who doesn't have half as much free time as he'd like, so I tend to gravitate towards games that allow for easy parsing of rules and which can be played with minimal investment of hobby time. If I already have minis I can use for a game, all the better. So, skirmish games tend to be where I'm at. I'm not actually super fussed about which one it is, as long as I have a decent lead time to get (re)acquainted with the rules and have minis I can use for it.

Buuuuut...

I am also a lifelong Eldar player. If it goes swoosh and has pointy ears then that's my jam. I've yet to find any non-40k game that scratches the Eldar itch. I have a ton of them painted, be they good, bad, or sparkly, and would happily play a larger scale game with them if any company could provide a ruleset that a) allowed each unit to be differentiated meaningfully from others, and b) wasn't full of needless bloat. 40k meets category a but not b, and OPR meets b but not a.

So yeah. That's me. Lazy Eldar player.