There is a particular kind of theatre that happens when an insular organisation is handed a reasoned, evidence-based critique and realises it has absolutely zero answers.
When my first blog post dropped, examining the rigid historical echo chamber of the Greenock & District Wargames Club and its utter failure to support sci-fi and fantasy systems, the silence was deafening. When the second post followed up, systematically dismantling the magnificent absurdity of their “bring your own recruitment department” model, you might have expected some form of engagement. A counter-argument. A defence of their advertising strategy. Even a polite email explaining why expecting a newcomer to pull a gaming group out of thin air is standard operational procedure.
Instead, we got a masterclass in modern institutional cowardice: they revoked my shoutbox privileges.
Faced with a breakdown of community stagnation, a lack of infrastructure for returning players, and the very real barrier of alienation, the leadership team elected to pull the digital drawbridge up. Apparently, the tactical doctrine for handling constructive feedback is simple: if you cannot win the argument, ban the person making it.
The Brilliant Strategy of Pretending It Didn’t Happen
It is fascinating to watch a group tie themselves into knots trying to preserve the illusion that everything is fine. For years, the narrative has been that the club is open to everyone, provided “everyone” happens to want to reenact Waterloo or paint endless regiments of Napoleonic infantry.
Yet the moment someone points out that sci-fi and fantasy players are left out in the cold, told to recruit their own players from the ether while enduring muffled commentary from the corner, the response isn’t to look inward. It is to lock the front door and pretend the noise outside doesn’t exist.
By stripping away access to the chat, the club leadership accomplished something quite remarkable: they proved every single word of the critique for me.
You do not silence people when you are confident in your position. You do not lock down communication channels when your community is thriving, welcoming, and open to debate. You only resort to petty, behind-the-scenes restrictions when you have lost the intellectual high ground and have nothing left in the toolkit except petulance.
The Awards Ceremony, Part Two
Since the club leadership has graciously provided new material for public review, it only feels right to update the honours board:
- The Ostrich Award for Advanced Denial: For successfully convincing oneself that locking someone out of a chat box counts as a robust policy response to a critique of community engagement.
- The Digital Drawbridge Medallion: For proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the club is entirely open, inclusive, and welcoming, so long as you never, ever question how it is run.
- The Lifetime Achievement in Missing the Point: For choosing to wage a silent, petty administrative war over a chat box rather than spending a fraction of that energy actually promoting non-historical wargaming.
Why This Matters
This is precisely why a new alternative is needed in Inverclyde. A hobby community should be built on open discussion, shared enthusiasm, and a genuine desire to see people at the table rolling dice together. It shouldn’t be run like a private treehouse where the committee can mute anyone who points out that the roof is leaking.
If the old guard want to sit in their echo chamber, deny reality, and lock the doors against anyone who plays with spaceships instead of muskets, they are entirely welcome to it. They can stay camped out by their digital river in Egypt all they like.
Meanwhile, the rest of us will keep building a space where wargamers are treated like adults, where diverse systems are actually supported, and where you don’t need to pass an ideological purity test just to find an opponent.
#Wargaming #TabletopWargaming #Greenock #TabletopGaming #CommunityBuilding #SciFiWargaming #HistoricalWargames #LocalGaming #OpenDiscussion
