For the better part of the last twenty years, a small group of gamers on the eastern end of Long Island, have met on Friday nights to enjoy the pleasures of wargaming with metal miniatures. The group has been fluid, players dropping in and out over the years as their circumstances have changed. People have gotten married or divorced, moved away, gotten girl-friends, taken jobs with demanding schedules, or simply lost interest. Three years ago, I had to all but drop out as a series of misfortunes struck my family. Rather than being a relief from the depression I felt, I avoided my friends. As I look back, I realize that partly the problem was me, partly it was the club. Because oddly our club had lost the ability to laugh.

Sure, everyone had a good laugh when I ate the green devil dog. It was in a wrapper, a couple of weeks old, and I'm color blind. You get the idea. But even at that, the laughter wasn't warm or kind. Yes, I know I'm over-sensitive at times, but this was one of the few times people laughed out loud. Too many evenings had been spent in arguments, sometimes loud, sometimes quite bitter, always capable of leaving people with a bitter taste in their mouths. Why game when being present was a source of unpleasantness? The only alternative for many of us would have been solo gaming and that really was unsatisfactory. At least for me ...

Why all the unpleasantness? I am not a psychiatrist or sociologist capable of analyzing relationships. But I have a fairly good idea that there are at least a few readers who might recognize what I now see as the components for a stew of unhappy ingredients.

First, I have to believe that all of us were partly to blame. We forgot the most basic truth about our hobby - It is a game, a diversion, play. It is not real in any sense. Don Featherstone points out whenever asked that wargaming can only bear any direct relationship to real warfare if we threaten losing players with being hit in the head with a cricket bat. But everyone, myself included, took what we were doing far too seriously.

Our gaming began to take on the aspect of a game of bridge or tennis doubles where every mistake could become the source of hurtful remarks and sarcasm. A tremendous amount of ego came to be involved. It was almost as if there was not one of us who could admit that he had made a mistake. It was the pattern that we would rather debate for an hour than move on to enjoy the pleasures of simple play. Sure, I know that there is pleasure to be derived from debate. A clash of ideas and carefully honed arguments. I had even run a debating club at school. But It simply gets in the way when we are playing a wargame.

The issue of ego also arose when we created rule sets for different periods or introduced them to the club. Rather than allowing for the possibility that two sets of Napoleonic rules might both be worthwhile our group became confrontational. Rule sets were written and discarded. Some were poorly done. others had more than their fair share of being boring. The main problem, of course, was that none of us seemed to be diplomatic enough to be able to gently point out those weaknesses. No, our group frequently had all the subtlety of a Napoleonic twelve pounder. Even when we began to commit our group's time and interest to our current focus. Battalions In Crisis we still had very serious games. Seldom did we smile and almost never did we laugh.

And then something very strange happened on Friday nights. We stopped being so very unhappy. Part of the reason, I believe, is that we remembered that a game is supposed to be fun. Instead of complex games in which many of the group believed they had a large stake, we began to do things like my favorite, "Pillage the Village". A simple game, this, about a simpler time when Jolly, fun loving Vikings terrorized the land with plunder, pillage and rapine their sources of amusement. Actually, having a rather scurrilous looking group of 25mm Vikings launch an all-out attack on the castle of one of our local gentry was a real break from our usual megagames. Western gunfights and ACW Fire & Fury battles began to be actually enjoyed. One of our members who drives some forty miles down from Westchester every Friday has two natural gifts which makes our gaming that much more pleasant - he's a great scratch builder and I think he's an emigre from Monty Python. Actually, he has a Welsh accent and one of the funniest senses of humor I've ever encountered. And he knows the dialog to practically every Monty Python film....

As we began to relearn how to laugh, winning or losing actually became less important. Obviously, everyone likes to win but I think we all realize that enjoying each others company is far more important than the game results. After all at the end of even the most bloody game, no one has died.

I do believe that I have some messages to share with my friends who are reading this. If you do adventure and war gaming be careful of each others dignity. I have seen far too many irresponsible and thoughtless remarks lead to hurt feelings. That even goes for convention gaming where you might not know the players. I still feel annoyance over a remark made a few years ago to someone at a convention game.

The person putting on the game asked one of the players if he'd been in the army. When the response was negative, he then said that it was good because then " ... you can be just as stupid as the general who commanded the French."

I remember thinking about what military service had to do with playing a game and what insensitivity or feelings of insecurity might have precipitated the remark. We are all worthy of being respected until we prove our unworthiness: I believe that very much about our rather small "Band of Brothers".

We can avoid toxic personalities also to some extent. One of our club's solutions to an ongoing personality clash is to simply not allow those two members to play against each other. Except, of course, gunfights or Viking skirmishes where there is a lot of room for funny situations. It is amazing how much good can be done by a really good laugh.

Another device we use, and it is obviously not original to us, is the use of umpires with every game we run. Then, only the umpire for an evening or two takes the heat and knows that the role will end. Players don't have to get in each others face. However, if you are an umpire, don't travel too far with a player against whom you've ruled. It can make for a mighty tense car ride home.

I suppose this sounds "preachy" and I do hope that it did not turn anyone off. What I really feel that we have learned' or relearned if you will, is the extreme importance of laughter when we do club gaming. We are, after all, really benefiting from the camaraderie which the "Friday Night Fights" creates, not picking up points on some imaginary ledger for our wins and losses. We have a great group of gamers and I hope that if you are planning to be in the area you might stop in some Friday night to share our fun.