It’s not really our jam to spend a bunch of time talking about what Waystone is doing to be a positive force in the wargaming world. The norm is for businesses to speak up about what's important (when it’s convenient), capitalize on the credibility, and then do very little. But when we don’t talk about this work at all, we also risk conveying that it doesn’t matter.

So today I’m drawing on our experience of running a game club for the last year and a half to explore why specific, actionable community goals are important to us, especially as a club based around miniatures games like Warhammer 40,000.

First thing’s first, we have to recognize how special this hobby is:

Miniatures games are about spending time with another human, laughing and rolling dice. Sometimes that person is a friend, but often they’re a complete stranger, which is sort of radical and sacred in today’s world. It is also at times a suspenseful, meditative, and creative experience.

None of these elements cater to a particular gender, race, religion, sexuality, ability/disability, etc. In fact, by facilitating human connection, storytelling and creativity, our hobby bridges these differences.

But the wargaming scene doesn’t always reflect this—especially in the way games like Dungeons & Dragons or Magic: The Gathering often appear to.

Looking at Warhammer 40,000 in particular, it’s not hard to imagine why:

It has historically been marketed to a very small group of people.
It is much more expensive to get started.
It is more complex from a learner’s standpoint, both in terms of hobbying and rules.

These specific factors intersect in such a way that getting into Warhammer tends to be easier for certain people—especially in terms of job, age, and gender, and rippling out to other forms of diversity that are more (or less) visible in the world of miniatures games.

Games Workshop has responded to some of these challenges by providing slimmer rules and “less expensive” ways to play (as well as statements about the importance of diverse representation in the hobby), but I continue to meet folks in Ballard who confide that they’ve avoided going into Waystone because they saw the games being played and thought, “that place isn’t for someone like me.” I still hear stories about die-hard Warhammer players that are assumed to be “tagging along with their boyfriend” at organized play events, and even now, a century after H.G. Wells penned the original wargaming manual, we are beholden to the influence of its awful title.

I point this all out from a place of love for the hobby, because its unique barriers and history demand intentionality on our parts if we want it to look like the kind of universal haven we know it can be.

So what is Waystone doing?

1) We try to make our values apparent at every entry point.

We want folks to pick up on our club’s core principles no matter how they approach it. This means they probably see the little progress pride flag in the window of the club, and they notice how everyone is regarded as a potential hobbyist when they walk through the door. It means the word cloud our community generated before we opened (stating that Waystone should be welcoming to everyone except Nazis) is immediately noticeable on our About page. And when they enter the Discord, they’re invited to share their pronouns and greeted by people excited to engage with them regardless of the games they play.

These small gestures aren’t particularly risky or progressive, especially here in Seattle, but taken together they send a confident message that our space is for people of all genders and sexualities, that we condemn bigotry, and that we believe anyone who enjoys miniatures games deserves to feel a powerful sense of belonging.

2) We rely on forming actual connections.

Another benefit of making our values apparent is that we’ve been able to assemble a dynamic community of friends with infinitely more perspective and lived experience than our small staff.

It’s easy to see why businesses fail here; in business world, “connections” happen via social media, blog posts, and automated marketing campaigns, and “equity” is about articles, trainings, and academic theory. And while those things are important, none of them mean a damn if we’re not talking to the individuals coming through our door and getting a sense of how their lived experience influences their comfort in our space.

At Waystone, when folks point out that the bathroom doesn’t have a hook for members with purses, we simply install a purse hook. Or, when feedback in a Community Survey says the club’s hours don’t accommodate working people with traditional 9 to 5 jobs, we are prompted to revise them. Not to sound like a broken record, but these things—while small—culminate in an environment that (I’m told) feels uniquely responsive and caring.

3) We do what we can to lower financial barriers.

Let’s address the elephant in the room—some folks will scoff at the idea of a membership-based club styled on prohibition-era cocktail bars striving to make the hobby more “financially-accessible”. We can acknowledge the cognitive dissonance there while also looking at the full picture.

The idea behind Waystone was that we could create something incredible if it wasn’t dependent on pushing retail products, and was instead sustained by a community that cared about having a nice place to play.

Despite the places we’d been playing at being “free”, tables and terrain often felt neglected or inappropriate for what we were playing, and there was a palpable (but unspoken) expectation that we needed to make purchases during each visit. This is by no great fault of the folks running those businesses—it’s just how things were.

A membership-based (not “members-only”) model offered an alternative. Not only are we able to focus on maintaining great terrain and tables, we’ve been able to leverage this system to create clever ways around some of the hobby’s financial barriers. For example:

Though retail supports us a little, memberships are primarily what keep us afloat, so there isn’t an expectation for people to buy things when they visit.
Anyone can play as a guest, and unlike other membership models we don’t impose arbitrary limits on how often someone can do so.
We offer a no-questions-asked sliding scale to anyone who wants to be a member but doesn’t have the means to afford the standard rate (made possible by our Community Amplifiers).
We’re able to offer weekly opportunities for anyone to experience building and painting models for free, and have developed a demo army that folks can use to experience the gameplay of 40k or Kill Team without first spending hundreds of dollars.

It’s a radical thought, but with a little creative thinking our cool, luxurious place to play can also act as a mechanism for widening the gates.

4) We help connect folks with people who are willing to teach.

Folks at Waystone love roping other people into nerding out over tiny plastic toys.

We help make these connections happen through hosting beginner’s events, open hobby times, and simply giving folks in our Discord to the ability to signal what games they’re excited to teach. Our community truly bears the brunt of this work, though—so big shout-out to folks like Sabrina, Matt Remy, Robert, Flint, Matt M, and the many others who’ve dedicated their time on a weekly basis to introducing folks to the games they love.

5) We rally our community for collective impact.

We’re still a fledgling business, but we’ve already encouraged our community to raise thousands of dollars for good causes:

The Ballard Food Bank ($500 raised)
The Trevor Project ($500 raised)
Planned Parenthood ($1,750 raised)
Extra Life ($600 raised and counting)

These aren’t just incidental moments of charity, either—we structure selecting an organization into every Community Survey and are consistently raising funds through events and promotions like trivia nights, raffles, membership promotions, and our Community Amplifier fund.

6) We recognize that we’re never done.

I have a habit of claiming that Waystone is the best place in the universe to play miniatures games.

We don’t always get it right though—no one does—and we will need to continue drawing on the wisdom of the folks around us. So please, share how we can grow, especially during structured feedback opportunities like Community Surveys. And we’re just human, so let us know when we’re doing things that feel good, too!

Till next time—
Dustin at Waystone

Community in the 41st Millennium // Waystone Blog