1. Deep Thoughts About a month ago, Hal Thinglum wrote asking what I thought about the "negativism" within the hobby. My reply was not the most coherent in the world probably because I really didn't understand what Hal was referring to. But I just received the latest MWAN, Hal's publication, and...my goodness... "negativism" may not be a strong enough term. The MWAN contains the following: Greg Novak makes a pitch running for the President of HMGS Mid-West, states he is bad tempered, intolerant, and concludes that having "made my statement... It only remains to go down with the ship." Definitely a great political ploy! Negativism of the first order! Despite this, however, Greg would win my vote and the support of the Grammarian Party when, in referring to a competitor, he states " ...he may well indeed be a better candidate than I am." Most fellas would have said: "... he may well indeed be a better candidate than myself." Another fella writes an article on a set of American Revolutionary War rules, and, at the end, becomes defensive about his use of 12-sided dice, and states: "... no one else probably wants to buy 12-sided dice, that is fine; after all, no else will ever use these rules..." A third fella takes off on the absolute non-issue of the modelers and figure painters dominating our hobby, works himself into a four page frenzy (in small print, too!), and ends up pleading that the "die-hard modeller (sic) needs to humble his own standards to the point where he is willing to game with someone else's poorly painted troops..." If what he says is true, my own figures would have been banned in the continental United States. Yet another berates the figure manufacturers for their "supposed 'support' of our hobby". His theme is that these people are in business, they are profit oriented, and they deserve no special credit for stocking saleable items: "Does one thank the grocer for having food for sale, or the store for the product we demand?" The topic of "black wargames" is also much chewed upon. Ned Zuparko defends 'em: if one is truly going to "wargame", says Ned, one can't "limit one's game to only one or two "comfortable" aspects..." "If the military theme is justifiable, then anything within that context can be explained or accepted." In opposition to Ned, an anti-"black wargame" contributer is quite vehement: "...I for one will continue to oppose them for their inappropriateness and general bad taste..." The "black wargame" caper always tends to get out of hand; this same fella refers to a previous Paddy Griffith article on the subject and states: "I cannot understand why any magazine continues to print the wild ravings of a "lost" wargamer like Dr. Paddy Griffith." Even Hal Thinglum gets into the act, trying to stop the bloodshed: "...anyone submitting items to MWAN in the future concerning "black wargames" will be sentenced to reading all seven editions of the WRG Ancients rules..." But wait! ... there's more! One frustrated lad says: "I'm getting pretty tired of people using your newsletter to further their own personal arguments... Why don't these people just write directly to each other so we don't have to read their garbage..." He goes on to say: "Another thing I have a gripe about are all the self appointed experts ( ... who... ) run the conventions, dominate newsletters, write critiques on rules, and cut down other gamers who don't subscribe to their way of thinking." Let me tell you, that last comment came pretty close to hitting home in the PW REVIEW newsroomi And almost in the same vein, another subscriber writes: I'm against MWAN being abused (as I see it) by people using it as yet another vehicle for the reiteration of their tired old debates..." Now, why did I cite all the above? Simply because I want to demonstrate what would happen if the REVIEW didn't stay out of the line of fire and published this sort of stuff. Hal has over one hundred pages for his publication, whereas I have barely enough room for gaming articles; I have absolutely no space for group confrontation theory. Note that I didn't say that I wanted the REVIEW to remain above the arguments, I said I wanted it to remain out of them. And so, all you disappointed, negativistic, soured, bitter, morose and sullen readers of the REVIEW, if you have any problems with this magazine, send 'em to Hal Thinglum... I don't wanna hear about them... 2. A plea to all owners of dot-matrix printers: the majority of submitted articles that are printed on dot-matrix machines are too light to xerox properly. I would greatly appreciate it if the article, when printed, would be run out under the "double-strike" or some sort of emphasized mode. Back to PW Review April 1988 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1988 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com