Welcome to EGG 12! This marks the end of the second year of the Experimental Game Group. This last year has been a productive year for the group. I now have enough back articles and sets of rules to ensure another year's worth of EGGs. I am also very happy with the growth of the Matrix Game idea. The idea is spreading and becoming more understandable as it goes on. This year I want to begin making good on my claims that MGs can be applied to many areas of gaming -- by running a miniature campaign MG of the Peninsula Campaign. At Easter I was in Evansville, Indiana, visiting friends when I stopped by Guy Maclimore's house. We got talking about gaming (much to our wive's disgust) and hit on an interesting topic. It occurred to me that the hobby of gaming is a lot like a men's lodge/society (as described by anthropologists). Gaming is the way we interact, it can actually become a way of life. Guy didn't look at me like I was crazy, so I developed the idea a little further. If gaming is really like a secret male's society then there should be initiates (usually young men), active middle aged members (people who have been around a while but who are not leaders), various leaders (whose authority is tied to what they are doing), and wise old men (past leaders who have gained reputation beyond just one project). The stucture is like a loose heirarchy, but people move up the ranks by what they do not because someone tells them to switch hats. All this seems to fit. Plenty of young men come into the hobby and participate by playing games. Many of them pass out of the lodge when they get out of school. Those who stay become the solid mainstay of the hobby. As time requires it, these stalwart fellows take on the responsibilities of making things happen. Some run games. Others run clubs or conventions. Some publish and write, and then there are the crazy few who write games. This kind of service is kind of like a sacrafice because it takes a lot of time and "there is NO money in game making." Then there are the old men of the hobby. They have done their service and can now play games with the initiates as freely as with the leaders. That is one of the interesting things about our hobby. It is "greying." This means that game conventions are one of the few places where men of ALL ages are able to interact/play a game as equals, so is the hobby like a secret men's lodge? Well I havethis dream in which I was inducted into it, SO IT MUST BE SO! Don't forget to bring your drums and rattles to the next convention you go to ... I am interested in any game ideas you are working on. This is a good place to air you idea and get some feedback on it from you fellow peers in the "lodge." Back to Experimental Games Group # 12 Table of Contents Back to Experimental Games Group List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1991 by Chris Engle This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com