Forgot that, how about the irony that people are protesting a "warlike" game based on a movie with the title "Star Wars". How come these people don't try and protest Star Wars too?

I better shut up before I give these nutjobs any ideas.

But as X wing is more and more popular and there are some X wing plays at youth centers, some "activists" start arguing that wargames should be 18+ only. This include games like Battlefield, CoD or "violent" MMORPG. Few in numbers, but I am cautious about this.

Video games already have a rating system and games like Battlefield or Call of Duty are listed as being Mature, which means they are technically only supposed to be played by people 17 years of age and older. The reason that system doesn't work is because A) parents use video games as babysitting services and B) kids pester their parents to let them play because their friends are. I worked retail in a store that sold video games and we were required to ask for ID for anyone that wanted to buy a rated M game. Those that wanted to buy it but couldn't would just come back later in the day and have their parents buy it for them.

Yes, there are rockets and blasters and targeting and torpedoes... but any game that encourages you to shout, "pew, pew, pew" while playing is automatically exempt from the "wargame" category.

I'm having to bite my tongue so hard that I'm afraid of bleeding. Can we _please_ stop with contemporary American politics unrelated to OP's question? Pretty please?

Living in quite possibly the most liberal part of the United States, no. Never had this problem. It probably helps that I have literally never heard anyone call X-Wing a "war game". It's a miniatures game. Did they ban Star Wars in Spain?

What part of the United States is that?

Living in quite possibly the most liberal part of the United States, no. Never had this problem. It probably helps that I have literally never heard anyone call X-Wing a "war game". It's a miniatures game. Did they ban Star Wars in Spain?

What part of the United States is that?

The left side. *Buh dum tis*

dont think ive ever heard anyone denounce wargames because "war is bad" - almost every game can be summed up as a war simulator depending on how you look at it.

Usually people talk down to us wargamers because of the price. I helped a lady bring in a couch into her apartment in my building and afterwords she saw me carrying some boxes and offered to help. Course she asked what they were so i showed her. About ~1800USD worth of Tau. She bawked that i spent so much on "toys" even if she loved my painting on them lol. I just told her its no different than any other hobby, its just mine has practical use instead of shelf-fodder or cop-magnets.

Most hobbies that soak up a lot of money are one of those two things. My sister-in-law is one of the few i know of that isnt into wargaming and still has a hobby that has a lot of use - she crochets a LOT of clothes and hats. Any idea how much money she spends on yarn? More than my Tau + Orks + X-wing put together.... lol

kinda trailed off topic a little but o well.

Nope. Nothing against Soccer or Hunting either. Guns maybe, but not hunting. I think a "'MERICA!" is appropriate here. =)

And we shouldn't have to have arguments over guns either.... 2nd Amendment is very clear.That out of the way (and lets not derail this and get into a silly argument about it), I don't think I've ever heard of, or seen these people down here in Georgia, but they certainly sound very silly.

Literally zero problems playing a game based on a PG-13 movie.

PG actually, only RotS and TFA are PG-13.

Ahhh the good old second amendment. Helping Americans kill each other since 1776. You tell me the reason a person needs military grade weapons in their house and I will call you an idiot.

But to the OP's statement, there will be always people wanting to ban things. Vegans, anti vaxxers etc, it's just the nature of things. Don't let them beat you down! When I was growing up they were trying to link D&D with youth suicide, people will do anything to try and achieve their aims.

Nope. Nothing against Soccer or Hunting either. Guns maybe, but not hunting. I think a "'MERICA!" is appropriate here. =)

And we shouldn't have to have arguments over guns either.... 2nd Amendment is very clear.That out of the way (and lets not derail this and get into a silly argument about it), I don't think I've ever heard of, or seen these people down here in Georgia, but they certainly sound very silly.

Literally zero problems playing a game based on a PG-13 movie.

PG actually, only RotS and TFA are PG-13.

Ahhh the good old second amendment. Helping Americans kill each other since 1776. You tell me the reason a person needs military grade weapons in their house and I will call you an idiot.

But to the OP's statement, there will be always people wanting to ban things. Vegans, anti vaxxers etc, it's just the nature of things. Don't let them beat you down! When I was growing up they were trying to link D&D with youth suicide, people will do anything to try and achieve their aims.

This is not the place for a discussion on Amendments or arms. Save it for another time and place.

"Wargames" are looked with suspicious eyes by many people in my area. War is bad, ergo wargaming is bad too. Not a problem because there will be allways people who are against your hobby. Soccer = Violence. Hunting = Killing. Etc.

But as X wing is more and more popular and there are some X wing plays at youth centers, some "activists" start arguing that wargames should be 18+ only. This include games like Battlefield, CoD or "violent" MMORPG. Few in numbers, but I am cautious about this.

Last year Archery was in their aims, to not avail because the noise was good for people to know about this sport and now there are more practicioners than one year ago, but perhaps only because there were charismatic people behind it.

Problems in your area about this?

No such problems in Texas. In fact, here we even honor military service as noble and generous.

It is too bad when people cannot draw distinctions. Just because war is regrettable does not make it evil, any more than taking the life of someone trying to assault your wife would be evil (though surely regrettable). Actually, I am afraid of people who believe that all war is evil... since they think it is morally corrupt in the first place, such people have no incentive to practice it with any measure of restraint or decency. If there is no way to "do it right" then any barbarity becomes permissible when they finally concede war's necessity.

No one here would have call X-Wing a wargame, the whole term is bad marketing in the first place and I would avoid it like the plague in the first place because of all the really, really bad stereotypes attached to it. Tabletop, Miniature game, just X-Wing.

No need to drag yourself into the smelly nerd corner with terms that got burned by others. And I am not a native speaker, but isn't a war game a military exercise as well? Isn't it a little preposterous to call our little gaming hobby the same as the real thing which uses sometimes thousands of soldiers, tanks, aircraft, and whole lot of either real military equipment? And with this connotation in mind, do we not give people who have no idea about our hobby some odd angle of attack when calling tabletop and miniature gaming "war games". Geometry wars would be a more correct description of X-Wing, try to attack this hippies! ;-)

Well, there are a lot of Flanders everywhere. And they seem to like gathering and making noise.

I remember in the 90's, there happened a crime over here where a teenager lost his mind and killed his sister and parents with a katana.

The guy was diagnosed afterwards with all kind of mental disorders, but the yellow press journalists, avid for sensationalism, started looking for other explanations and found out that the murderer had a console with some Final Fantasy games.

You can almost guess the rest.

Would the newspapers blame Final Fantasy for the crimes? Close. It happens that Nintendo and Sony had a lot of advertisement on these news channels and newspapers, so they kept themselves from explicitly mentioning that game franchise or those console names, just calling it "an RPG".

But RPG stands for Role-Playing Game, and they kept on repeating that roleplaying games caused people to become murderers.

In the end it is almost funny to think that the ones most affected by this were pen-and-paper roleplaying games, because they are always classified as that, while videogames RPGs are just videogames for the general public.

For around ten years, pen-and-paper RPGs books were regarded like the Mein Kampft meets the Necronomicon in the news and talk shows.

My point? Never underestimate the sheer stupidity of the mass.

OP I am sorry that is lame. After watching the violence at soccer/football matches in europe I would say they need to focus on those hooligans rather than this game.

This game certainly does not promote real violence. Other than poor sports who lose wanting to punch folks but they could be playing dominoes and have anger issues. I would never fall into that category... er seldom.

I know there is discussion about the morality of war games. I'm quite certain some of the boardgaming podcasts have touched upon it, the Dice Tower especially. Their christian based podcast Dice Steeple quite likely as well.

Mind you, they are USAian, the discussion isn't limited to certain parts of the world but hobby wide.

There are also people who refuse to play the Germans in a WW2 wargame, or Confederates in US Civil War, unable to separate the tactical simulation from any ideology.

It would be easy to say to ignore them, but people like that have a tendency to gain traction and get what they want through sheer obstinancy and engaging in a war of attrition, wearing the other down.

Perhaps engage them, invite them to play and emphasize the maneuvering and tactical planning over what really is just an afterthought: the shooting. Also emphasize the social nature of the hobby, engaging with different people, learning to learn from losing and deal with winning.

I live near Bilbao, Basque Country, North of Spain.

About some questions...

- Bullfighting is near dead in the area. In some years it will be over, new generations not interested in the topic and seen.as barbaric act, not culture or tradition. In other areas, as Catalonia, forbidden by local government. In southern Spain still strong in some areas.

-Airsoft. You need a licence expended by the local police to own airsoft replicas. If your Mayor says NO to.Airsoft guns, the local police will not give you the licence. Many people goes to another town with more broad minded politicians to.obtain the licence, or simply "forgot" to obtain one. If you.do not obtain another licence to play airsoft in your lands, police can catch all the replicas, batteries, uniforms, etc, and impose you a fine of circa 500 euros per player.

-As said before, part of the society is strongly "No War". No army related activities at school or youth centers. This is acepted as normal. You will no toy guns

Footbal violence is much worse at the local level here, hooliganism is a problem, but not as big as players attacking refs during their own games, fathers getting abusive and violent while watching their children play or players beating each other up. These days I'd think long and hard before allowing a kid of mine to join a football club.

I can fully get behind strict limitations on Airsoft guns, those things look quite realistic. Using one here in the Netherlands as if it were a real gun will get you treated as if it were real.

OP I am sorry that is lame. After watching the violence at soccer/football matches in europe I would say they need to focus on those hooligans rather than this game.

It's northern Spain, not all of Europe. Even the quite strict Germans have a large and active community in war gaming.

Northern Spain has had a domestic terrorism and seperatist problem for the past few decades and a fascist dictatorship problem before that, that is probably more of a source of worry.

I know there is discussion about the morality of war games. I'm quite certain some of the boardgaming podcasts have touched upon it, the Dice Tower especially. Their christian based podcast Dice Steeple quite likely as well.

Mind you, they are USAian, the discussion isn't limited to certain parts of the world but hobby wide.

There are also people who refuse to play the Germans in a WW2 wargame, or Confederates in US Civil War, unable to separate the tactical simulation from any ideology.

It would be easy to say to ignore them, but people like that have a tendency to gain traction and get what they want through sheer obstinancy and engaging in a war of attrition, wearing the other down.

Perhaps engage them, invite them to play and emphasize the maneuvering and tactical planning over what really is just an afterthought: the shooting. Also emphasize the social nature of the hobby, engaging with different people, learning to learn from losing and deal with winning.

You know, I am one of these people. I in general avoid any game that deals with historical conflict because I just can't enjoy the thought of making a peroid where the whole world suffered and millions of people died a fun pass time activity. But I avoid them, I don't pass judgement on those who do enjoy these games. i wish more people could be like that and leave things that just aren't for them alone.

Fortunately, after more than 40 years of terrorism, it ended 4 years ago. The "No War" way of thinking is very strong here.The problem is not if you play SS, Franco or Hernan Cortes. Wargames are bad. Airsoft is bad. Mitaria is bad...

Well it is historicaly pretty clear that militarism never lead to anything good. Military as an institution (NOT the people who work for it, those are honorable people for the most part and do deserve respect for a difficult job) can't be trusted and should be viewed very scepticaly by society.

Fortunately, after more than 40 years of terrorism, it ended 4 years ago. The "No War" way of thinking is very strong here.The problem is not if you play SS, Franco or Hernan Cortes. Wargames are bad. Airsoft is bad. Mitaria is bad...

Which is understandable, after decades of (the threat of) violence. I would suggest trying to separate in their mind tabletop games from video games first of all. Video games tend to be more about the graphic aspects of war and hence tend to be more violent, while tabletop is more about the planning side. Two thirds of X-Wing (can't really speak on other war games) is about positioning, catching without getting caught with the combat phase being the resolution of that. As such, you could make a case that it is not far removed from games such as Spectre Ops, Scotland Yard, Letters from Whitechapel or Fury of Dracula. De-emphasize the shooting part.

Europe's got another problem they need to worry about.

They close their minds and open their borders, when it should be the other way around.

FFS you get police visiting your house for things you put on twitter criticizing certain groups.

Europe's got another problem they need to worry about.

They close their minds and open their borders, when it should be the other way around.

FFS you get police visiting your house for things you put on twitter.

Where did that happen and in what context?

Also the borders are now closed and we are back to letting helpless people drown and starve at them. We also now work with a repressive almost dictator to deport them back into war zones. The EU deserves that peace Nobel price as much as Obama does. \rant

Sorry about that politics stuff, lets get back to where it applies to X-Wing.

Europe's got another problem they need to worry about.

They close their minds and open their borders, when it should be the other way around.

FFS you get police visiting your house for things you put on twitter criticizing certain groups.

A) Europe is a bunch of different countries, each with their own problems and a political top level trying to integrate the countries into a single union, quite often against the wishes of their local populace.

B) I think I know what you're referring to, but I also think that that was not the whole story, just the one that got the most traction.