Full disclosure – this is more a reaction post to an excellent blogpost “On Hobby Best Practices” over on Gorgon Bones and a few thoughts I’ve had while talking about it to others. It was addressed to gaming but I’ve been attempting to apply it to my other primary hobby of the Society for Creative Anachronism and found it easy to port it across. The short version – what are we as hobbyists doing to support and grow our hobby? As an educator, I’m also fond of terms like “active citizen” to reflect that a healthy community requires positive participation from it’s members. If this quick version strikes a chord, check out the original post.

Record Your Experience

  • Session reports
  • Taking notes
  • Detail long term plans
  • Critical examination of mechanics
  • Personal reflection

This can look like –

For gaming, I regularly take notes as a player and sometimes do sketches related to the game. As a GM, I’m often using a wiki to share notes and information. I started a blog to reflect upon the experiences.

For the SCA, I’ve kept a journal for some years – taking notes at events and names of folks I met and progress notes after a practice. I used to post event pictures but just didn’t have it in me to maintain the gallery. I know of several folks that record their fight practices to review later, post results from practices (namely archery scores), and create “dress diaries” (or other visual representation of ongoing projects).

Introduce Others to Your Hobby

  • Be an Ambassador for what you love
  • Be mindful of the content you introduce (appropriate genre, mechanical complexity, a reasonable amount of support material – it’s way too easy to overwhelm someone dibbing their toe into the hobby)
  • Represent your hobby in spaces outside that of the hobby
  • Cross pollinate cool ideas from your hobby by applying them in other spaces

This is truly a golden age where one can talk about D&D etc. with co-workers and folks at the company party and find interested listeners. I’ve got a list of boardgames that I regularly recommend to folks when the subject comes up with folks who have only played Monopoly and the like. I tried to put together a proposal to run a table at the local library but my schedule proved too chaotic to pursue it. However I did manage to pilot a D&D Summer Camp at a place that I had taught science for a number of years. While moderating a regular Zoom meeting, I’ve often dropped into the same language and techniques that I use to organize my D&D table and used some SCA practices at my D&D table.

I carry SCA contact cards in my wallet and have more than once had the historical knowledge I’ve picked up along the way incorporated into lessons. I’m still working on expanding where I’ve put posters promoting our local practices, currently hitting places like my friendly local game shop and comic shop. I got asked to teach some footwork and sword drills to a group of LARPers and probably should try again. The SCA has certainly impacted the way that I do public speaking as part of my jobs. Overall, I’d like to think I’m doing a decent job representing both of these communities.

Participation in the Communities

  • Learning from others
  • Teaching others
  • Supporting community growth and maintenance
  • Play in social activities
  • Call out Bad Actors
  • Creation of safe spaces for play
  • Contribute to discussion threads, blog posts, writing reviews, and providing constructive feedback
  • Contribute to community challenges
  • Book Clubs
  • If you find good stuff, share it and promote it!
  • Create content to share (see next point)

This one pretty much speaks for itself. Without a doubt, the Venn diagram of the SCA and Gamers has a lot of overlap. The SCA is built on volunteer effort and has a culture of teaching others, for example like leatherworking and event organization and martial combat. Gamer communities aren’t much different, often with experienced players helping newer players and having been part of that cycle, there is nothing quite like seeing that once new player taking newfolk under their wing or running a game themselves.

Safety tools are found in both communities and for play to happen, there has to be a safe space to play be it at practice, a drop in public table at a gaming store, or at the home gaming table or a backyard pick up martial practice. Without feeling safe, fun will be that much more challenging. A player who doesn’t feel welcome and only meets frustration is going to drop out and the community grows smaller and that lost player won’t be singing our praises either. The culture preserved by gatekeepers might have the illusion of ‘keeping the game the way we learned it’, but in the long term it’s cutting off the lifeblood of a community and creating more negative relationships.

Create for Your Hobby

  • Create materials for use in your community (hand outs, reference materials, images, tools, apps, primers, etc.)
  • House rules & Homebrew
  • Play is Creation of an experience; make spaces open for play
  • Making media (podcasts, live play, Youtube, zines)
  • Realize that getting better at Craft requires Patience and Effort
  • Be mindful of the Purpose to your creations (to sell as product, to share freely across the community, to use with your local group, is it for flowing freely or paid consumption?)

This plugs into a couple of my Gamer Goals for the year – to create resources available via places like itch.io and Drive Thru RPG. I haven’t been doing great on that Gamer Goal and still wrestling with finding time and not being distracted by other projects (including a DuckTales hack of the Gummi Bears RPG) while slowing chipping away at a Pirate Borg zine of Eldritch Afflictions and a Scum & Villainy Xeno Resource. I’ve used this blog to share the rough drafts of some of this, as well as some Mothership factions. I was really proud of the Faction Rewards that I created for my Tyranny of Dragons – Shadow of the Dragon Queen campaign I ran and at some point might try to package it up for sharing beyond a blog post.

For the SCA, I’ve created some material culture to support event promotion, fighter training, class hand outs, and contributed to a few scrolls and charters. I know a number of folks who have created entire manuscripts and opened businesses producing swords and other goods. There is a wiki in support of my local kingdom (and one that I do not update nearly as often as i ought to) so there’s a resolution to act on this year.

Final Thoughts …

I’ve been attempting to use these points as a framework for journaling, to help focus on what I’m doing as a member of the community and evaluate what kind of citizen I am. So far, it’s early days for this current incarnation of journal but on a weekly basis it has made me more aware of what actions and efforts I’m putting out there. It feel like there will be more I can use this data for but if nothing else, knowing that I will be writing it down has given a little extra motivation to getting some aspect of these four points in looking at my hobbies and even my professional development.

Meanwhile to all those who manage to put up meaningful content on such a regular schedule, I have great admiration (and a little bit of jealousy) for what you put out there. I’m subscribed to a number and feel enriched by them.

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