Paintball (was: age...)

> On Mon, 26 Jan 1998, Jim 'Jiji' Foster wrote:

> But I agree with Mikko: I'm no Rambo wannabe just because I enjoy

Let me elaborate. I like scenario games as much as the next man. I've
organized a few in the past. But paintball has a serious and very unfortunate
image problem. If you organize a game based on a real battle, someone is bound
to take it the wrong way (often on purpose). The fact that practically all
sports have roots in martial arts is completely lost on these people.

Interesting fact: The Finnish version of baseball was developed to teach

the youth useful martial skills like throwing grenades, diving for cover

etc. This is a widely known fact, yet do they call baseball a fascist
neo-nazi wargame? Nope...

It's about stereotypes. Baseball looks like any other ballgame, so it's a
sport. Miniature gaming gets likened to playing with toy soldiers, weird

but harmless. Paintball gets likened to paramilitary training :-(

Paintball, sports shooting and miniature games are not wargames in the same
sense as army maneuvers could be called wargames. People don't play

them to learn to kill other people in real life (even for a good reason as
might be the case with army maneuvers).

Yes, paintball could be classified as a wargame, but so could be chess. As
long as the media doesn't call chess a wargame, I think it's better not call
paintball either.

Anyone interested in my paintball career, check out
http://www.swob.dna.fi/pball/
http://www.swob.dna.fi/pball/baddboyz/

> At 15:16 1/27/98, Mikko Kurki-Suonio wrote:

Another bit of trivia: the Boy Scouts were originally organized as an
auxiliary to the regular army. No one seems to remember that, either.:)

> Yes, paintball could be classified as a wargame, but so could be chess.

Oh, I agree with you there, certainly.