From the workbench of the esteemed Horati0nosebl0wer

This really is a rant against an overarching government as it happens to hit gaming (look at the impact of the publishing industry in the not too distant past) and how I would like to have input from abroad on visual weirdness for tiny fighting men.  I can pore more over this for academic purpose but my point is to stay on track for the hobby industry as it relates to my very small) global presence.

My plan is to one day build a Chinese mythology army based around the many afterlives one might be subject to after death. It would be fun for a miniature agnostic system, take SAGA for example, where my mind could run naked and free in the same manner as a Phil Foglio character. It is heavily swayed by the fun time film ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ and thinking back to the quick reading of White Wolf’s ‘Kindred of the East’ books outlining their take on Asian vampirism. I will complain that I have found quite a bit of Japanese undead and some from other cultures but none from China. I blame the Chinese Communist Party and their affiliates for this cultural let down to impede my merriment in exploring mythologies through miniatures. Yes, a first world problem but actually relevant to our hobby as a whole.

Is there something to be said about a Eurocentric hobby mostly encircling the western portion of the continent? Yes, it’s definitely something to point out and see cultures that have the economic level to afford time and possess enough technical means of producing models for mock warfare. I will refer to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and say we as gamers have hit the big time beyond just scraping by for sustenance.

Do I think that the rest of the world should have some shot to show of their weird and wonderful stories with cultural idiosyncrasies? Hell yes, is my answer to that. I like exploration and finding new things to pore over visually. Here is the crux of the matter that I find most vexing. There are cultures in the world which do not allow for the free exercise of imagination; The People’s Republic of China is one of them.

This jumps into the realm of the political with the destruction of The Four Olds and The Cultural Revolution. The Chinese economic model for prosperity is great for analysis but out of the scope of the observation for the moment; I won’t touch on recasters in this post.

As a hobbyist I want to have my mental fun to bring to the tabletop and amaze other’s eyes. I’d like to be able to promote people who actually know the intricacies of folklore better than I. I can’t do that without pushing against another society’s norms and values. My interpretations are from the outside and cartoonish (not animated illustrations but the original definition). For a society with so much ambition to be seen as moden and developed internationally this seems like the smallest of benchmarks but could prove to be as difficult as making the roller balls for ballpoint pens.