Who makes up YOUR community?

[Alaric]

One group has 4 guys who all own mans work businesses and a retail employee, the other has a couple of retail workers, a mans worker, a partsman, and one guy currently out of work cuz he thinks a dream job will, yknow, walk up and find him lol. Interesting topic DA.

[TheyStoleMyName!]

I think the majority are either students or military, though the Forces guys range wildly in rank and specialization. That only makes sense given that there are 3 post-Secondary schools and a large Military base in my town though. We also have a couple software developers (myself included), a couple people working in Social Services and at least one chef. There are a few others who I honestly have no idea about despite playing with them for years - work stuff rarely comes up for us.

[Jewelfox]

Almost everyone in my local gaming group is a white guy in their late 20's to 40's. There's one black man who plays Space Wolves and won our last league, and there's one white girl (me).

There are no children or teenagers. There is one other newb, who got started with inexpensive Dark Vengeance minis. He later added in a Relic Knights model in powered armour and some Dreamforge models, to have a squad of female Space Marines and a female sergeant.

I think most of the 40k'ers besides me work in technology? I'm pretty sure the Space Wolves player does. They frequently bring or wear tech company swag. One of them owns and operates a Games Workshop store, but plays 40k with the rest of us at an independent store once a week.

I know of at least one person there who also plays Warhammer Fantasy.

[daboarder]

Interesting topic DA.

Cheers, I thought so too.

I had been wondering if it was possible to draw a conclusion about peoples attitudes based on who they gamed with, but I dont think thats possible (which is a good thing as it reinforces how diverse the community is)
Its also nice to see people answering in ways I had never even thought of by mentioning other demographics or how long they have been gaming with one particular group or another. and its also interesting to see who is and isn't willing to participate.

[Captain Bubonicus]

Ours is mostly male, with a few women who play some of the collectible "click" games and WHFB. Older crowd plays mostly historicals (Bolt Action, etc.), younger guys play WHFB, 40K & X-Wing. Good core group, with assorted "guest" gamers who come in from out of town to get a game in now and then. Don't really have a problem with TFG - everybody is pretty good natured. TFG figures out that people aren't gonna put up with him and either changes his tune or goes elsewhere.

Work-wise? A lot of the older gamers are either retired or on disability. We've got one or two firefighters, a couple of lawyers, and the usual assortment of white-collar nine-to-fivers. We've got some blue-collar guys that work at BMW and really make bank (Germans pay quite well, especially for overtime), and they seem to like to spend their extra cash on miniatures.

Good, diverse group. Some of the older guys were real ground-breakers in war-gaming back in the 70's. We've lost a few of them to age and infirmity, though.

[KommisarKeen]

Lessee..we've got a former-tig-welder-now-ag-major, an E5 with a classics degree, a sociology grad student, a ukulele player, a few English majors and grad students, a law student and amatuer brewer, a continuing education program developer, an introverted warehouse worker, and an auto insurance guy who's a bit of a beer snob, and overall a pretty good and diverse mix of gender and orientations.

[Denzark]

Cheers, I thought so too.

I had been wondering if it was possible to draw a conclusion about peoples attitudes based on who they gamed with, but I dont think thats possible (which is a good thing as it reinforces how diverse the community is)
Its also nice to see people answering in ways I had never even thought of by mentioning other demographics or how long they have been gaming with one particular group or another. and its also interesting to see who is and isn't willing to participate.

I think you can draw conclusions - although I am not sure how much is subjective versus objective. Without a baseline you cannot come up with any percentage based conclusions - other than 'x% of respondents'.

As to conclusions about who is willing to participate, my dear chap, from your sig block and your interactions various, you may consider that some people won't participate because they don't wan't to interact with you (no offence) and thus you can't automatically conclude their non-participation is because they don't want any of their pre-drawn conclusions burst!

[daboarder]

I think you can draw conclusions - although I am not sure how much is subjective versus objective. Without a baseline you cannot come up with any percentage based conclusions - other than 'x% of respondents'.

As to conclusions about who is willing to participate, my dear chap, from your sig block and your interactions various, you may consider that some people won't participate because they don't wan't to interact with you (no offence) and thus you can't automatically conclude their non-participation is because they don't want any of their pre-drawn conclusions burst!

Hmm Id still dont think any conclusions drawn from this would be overly accurate, we dont know total sample size or anything like that, far to many variables not included. as to people not commenting, sure I guess, I mean this topic has some really good contributions and no one has been what I would could overly aggressive (or would be, unless you came along attacking people for who they game with or something) but to each their own. Furthermore no one should be judging or feeling judged, the point isnt to say X group is better than Y group its just to show that X and Y have things in common that might not be readily expected.

What about you Den, care to add some contribution to the picture of our community? No pressure of course.

[Mr Mystery]

We have....Adjudicator (moi), Civil Engineer, Teachers, Council Officer, Secondary School kids, Uni students, shop workers....and a bunch of people that I don't know their employment.

Fairly decent slice of society, if white male dominated.

Local club has about 60 members, and local GW has plenty of regulars.

Some do tournaments, some game exclusively at home, some little column A, little column B.

Really nice group to be honest - something to cater for any tastes.

[Denzark]

Yeah, I was wondering the best way to answer. My 'community' is split into 3 I guess.

Firstly, at home with friends. I have 1 main best friend I play with at home, he is management level in business continuity.

Next, my (current) local wargames club. I would describe this as what I think of as 'typical' in that all are quite nice people, mix of games systems, don't really know what people do as it is a matter of pick up games on the forum, play and leave. That said they look like typical gamers - by which I think of as mixture of sci-fi/geek t-shirts, few tats here and there, the odd long coat, dark/goth clothes/accessories. Prevailing body type is that which would benefit from more time in gym and less time painting. The older members - 50+ y.o. seem to gravitate towards historics/complex games systems.

Last, and what makes me hesitate as to how to describe it, is my 'tournament' group. A whole lot of us met at a GW Throne of Skulls back in 2012 and keep touch ever since, with a facebook group and occasionally meeting at each others for tournaments locally. We regularly go back and meet up at ToS, mainly concerned with the beer. This group has a strange mix of bank manager, unemployed, military, 'professional' painter. This last group is what I would think of as 'unusual' because of how social it is - whereas some of the ToS crowd clearly fit in the 'stinky autistic* gamer' stereotype.

What is true about ToS though, is that with 100% painted, 100% GW parts and winning based on things other than VP/MP (at the last one I went to, the person with most favourite game votes won, tie-broken with VP) - you get a slightly skewed demographic. Everyone there is absolutely high end 'GW hobbyist' and whilst people swear about GW in the bar - they're not stupid and see where GW is being a nob, the sheer £££ invested in those armies (I played against the dude with the hovering elder jet bike) means most people are almost above it - 'let the little people complain about GW I am too busy having fun' (no one has actually said it its an impression I get).

So yes, whilst I see a lot of the stereotypes, socially shy all-black wearing soap and salad dodgers - because I probably have done 4-5 tournaments a year for 3 years solid, I think I have been exposed to the mix - my personal community is quite different.

As to myself, 36, male, RAF officer, played for 25 years and do it because the hobby is cheaper than a mistress.

I have not commented on ethnicity because if we're all equal, it is irrelevant. However, if I have played around 50 opponents in the last 3 years at tournaments, only 1 has been female.

*I don't mean to denigrate people on the spectrum - I use the term 'gamer autism' to mean socially inept/shy people who don't understand there is a requirement to interact and have a social contract when you play.