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Depending on the audience, but mostly “playing with toy soldiers”. I have found that usually stirs up some interest for a few minutes. When you say “wargaming”, most people don’t have a clue what that means.
Tiny Tin Men Blog: http://snv-ttm.blogspot.com/
Wargaming Mechanics Blog: http://wargaming-mechanics.blogspot.com/No – ‘playing toy soldiers’ is the same in English as in French – a derogatory term for childish behaviour.
Perhaps.
But then, I have found it creates much more interest and curiosity than trying to pass off your hobby as an intellectual pursuit while in essence it is playing with toy soldiers to most people.
Party conversation:
“What’s your hobby?”
“I collect and play with toy soldiers.”
“Really? How does that work?”
“Well, you know those plastic soldiers you used as a kid?”
“Yeah, I loved those!”
“Me too! Now, what we really do these days … ”
It worked for me every time to talk about wargaming for 10 minutes or so, after which you switch to a different topic 😉On the other hand, the following conversation almost never works:
“What’s your hobby?”
“Wargaming”
“What’s that?”
“It originated in the 19th century as an officer’s training tool. These days, we study history, and turn it into statistical models, which we use to fight battles with miniature figures … ”
“Miniature figures? Like toy soldiers?”
“No, you don’t understand. Let me explain … ”
“I need another drink”🙂
Tiny Tin Men Blog: http://snv-ttm.blogspot.com/
Wargaming Mechanics Blog: http://wargaming-mechanics.blogspot.com/Wasn’t trying to ‘pass it off’ as anything – I was explaining to Patrice that the social impact of the phrase ‘playing with toy soldiers’ is precisely the same in England as he said it was in France:
”I’ve always avoided to say “toy soldiers” because the French equivalent is quite derogatory (sounds like playing with Playmobils)’
If you say someone is playing ‘toy soldiers’ in Britain it means a childish pursuit. Many of us have no problem with this, (although not all of it is done with toy soldiers
) but I can point you towards many who do object quite strongly at the implied criticism.I rarely mention wargames at parties.
In Danish, “Figurspil” (miniatures gaming) is probably the closest to an official term, but I don’t think I remember anyone ever calling it that.
So how do you call it, and advertise it, in Danish, for the overall public?
…It’s always interesting to see (or hear) the differences.
http://www.argad-bzh.fr/argad/en.html
https://www.anargader.net/In Swedish, I usually say figurspel, lit. “figure games”. In English I usually say “miniatures wargaming” or some shortened variant like “minis games”.
ETA: Krigsspel “wargame(s)” usually means something played with cardboard counters on a map in Swedish; using it of miniatures games would strike me as odd.
Frankly, I get more more mortified when people say “Oh! You mean like Games Workshop!” than when they say “Oh! You mean toy soldiers!”
At the yearly Demo game at the Train and Hobby show, most of the punters have never heard of historical wargaming &point and ask, “What’s that?”
If you start with Games Workshop, which has a presence in shopping centres & is at least in their frame of reference, you can then explain it’s the same but using history rather than with fantasy or sci-fi as its background. And I know you were being funny , Thaddeus, & it was comical, but the truth is we historical gamers are just a side shoot of GW.
Maybe we historical gamers should call our hobby something like “Not quite GW”?
donald
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