The Culture: Rebuilding The Clubhouse

"But Walker, if fantastic adventure games as a tabletop gaming hobby collapses back into a non-commercial hobby, how will we play?"

You mean "What is the social order to become?"

Again, the future is the past. The Shiba of Color summarized this as "Return of the Lodge", but for most of you it is better explained this way.

You will not be this cool, alas.

I'm exaggerating for effect, but this has the key elements.

The Return of the Club

A club, and its clubhouse, is an exclusive social group whose carefully-curated membership devotes itself to the pursue of a particular form of activity.

Tabletop hobby games, being inherently esoteric as a pursuit (as befits their wargame roots), lends itself well to this form of organization. So far, not too unusual; it's just a revival of a social practice that's fallen off in recent decades.

Except for that one word that gets Death Cultists and Tourists mad: "exclusive".

That means another word--a necessary word--that's been rehabilitated: gatekeeping.

And it is this function that leads the Shiba of Color to say "Lodge" instead of "Clubhouse". Drawing on what's in this book by John Michael Greer, the idea here is that the hobbyist group should be unashamed to practice their hobby in private and to be quite selective in whom to admit into their group as a matter of security.

One, again, need only look at Neckbeardia to see the wisdom in such gatekeeping and general discretion.

The Necessary Elements

You need barriers to entry. Given that bad actors are a problem in this hobby, verbal affirmations are worthless--with one exception--deeds must be demanded.

In the Lodge paradigm, this is the purpose of Initiation. For a Clubhouse, this is meeting (and maintaining) membership requirements.

If you think this isn't a viable concept, then you don't understand why Magic-Users By The Water wants to herd players into D&D Beyond and transition the game into an all-digital subscription-based experience. The same psychology that keeps subscribed players paying that subscription is the psychology that keeps Initiated members of a Lodge willing to follow its rules.

What you're after is (a) proof of commitment to the hobby, (b) proof of commitment to the club, and (c) proof of commitment to (and submission to) the authority of the rules.

This is why you commonly see clubs demanding that would-be members buy and keep their own copies of all gameplay materials, why they require new members to play at the table for a time before being allowed to run it, and why they require players to participate in play in a given manner. Some even charge dues.

The problem, of course, is that any such group dependent upon a public institution opens itself up to Civil Rights actions by exercising exclusionary discretion. This is yet another reason for talking in terms of a Lodge--which keeps itself secret, or at least private legally and literally--because those groups cannot be cracked open by lawfare- only the old-fashioned form of entryism can work, and a Lodge is specifically organized to detect and defeat entryism.

Which leads to the next element: a continuing body of knowledge and practice, formalized tradition, to be passed down from Senior to Junior and enforced upon all members.

This is not just the rules of the game. It's also the body of the social norms of the club, and such a club will--like a Lodge--insist on members keeping their mouths shut as to what it done within the walls of the clubhouse save for what is specifically sanctioned.

The Necessary Customization

Every club will, by definition, be a separate and distinct entity. What is necessary for one is not for another, so some groups will be more like old-school social clubs and others will be more like magical lodges.

But there is now another dimension to customization: The Internet.

The club, and the clubhouse, is often a virtual one these days. There are tightly-gatekept Discord servers whose members are closely-guarded secrets, and whose actions are not made public. There are other groups that just fire up Tabletop Simulator and act like Russian Badger's crew while chucking virtual dice and pretending to pile orc skulls by the dozen.

And you may be surprised as to who is in what group.

But whatever form this takes, and whatever particulars apply, We Are Returning To The Clubhouse, Boys!

Every gaming wants a hall like this.

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Note: If you are ordering anything, especially not from Amazon (e.g. Palladium), get your order in today to guarantee that it will arrive by Christmas.

My Wish List post is here, should you wish to gift me anything.