The Excessive Gamer

Interesting stuff on the horizon this year from WoTC

2012-01-30T11:17:00.001-07:00

Other than the obvious big news about 5th edition ... WoTC has some interesting stuff slated.

One is what Mike Mearls calls a "euro" style board game. We'll see if it lives up to that, but it sounds interesting none the less.

"Now on to board games. Lords of Waterdeep is slated for March. It's basd on the city of Waterdeep in Forgotten Realms. Each player takes on a lord of the city and competes for influence and prestige by recruiting adventurer's and sending them on quests. Euro style game. You'll be hearing more about this too as we go forward."

Then Dungeon Command:

"July: Dungeon Command. Mini battles. 12 minis per pack. 2factions: Cormyr and Lolth. Each faction comes with twelve minis. We'll havethe drow set, Sting of Lolth, and the hero set, Heart of Cormyr. You can playera two player game with one set, or you can get both sets and pit one againstthe other. It's a diceless, card-driven game that really focuses on tactics andstrategy with a lot of the random elements removed. Each box comes with a tileset that locks together as well, providing a limited battlefield to play on.Designed by the same folks who designed Lords of Waterdeep. Euro designapproach" All from from ENworld.org

To me interesting stuff jumping out so far and now for me Dungeon Command chief among them. It sounds like a tactical battle game. A return to minis out of WoTC as well. Interesting stuff ... as well the cover art for the 1st ed reprints?

Flames of War 3rd Ed rolling out ...

2012-01-28T01:44:00.001-07:00

Yes this is old news FoW fans have known this since late last summer and there were official announcements late last fall. I just wanted to post this because A) anyone with the main 2nd ed rulbook don't forget you can get a free copy of the mini rulebook! B) I plan to go get mine next week and C) For me ... I just have to say I find it hard to believe ... it seems like 2nd wasn't out long but it was ... time flies I guess (also then again I took a long hiatus from FoW so that is a big part of it for me). Having pulled out my FoW collection I'm pretty happy I have a pretty huge amount of stuff still ... gigantic amount of Germans, a moderate amount of Russians and Americans.

Out of the gate I'm going with an American armored rifle company ... but I'm going to quickly try to follow up with a large foot slogging German or Russian force (just depending on what I have ... I'm leaning Russians but I'll have to price out what I'd need to add to the force, etc.).

People are complaining that 5th edition D&D will be like 2nd edition?

2012-01-27T17:42:00.006-07:00

I've seen some posts and speculation that wow ... since 5th sounds like 2nd ... how horribly unoriginal? I guess that is the point of that banter ... or perhaps it is just more pointless version wars dribble.

I think it is a potentially valid question ... would a 2nd ed format work? Core rules with layers of other optional/supplemental materials/rules/etc. Of course it would and it sounds like that is what they are going to be doing ... and who the hell could complain about giving people more choice and more than a single way to play the damn game?

For the record I played mostly 2nd ed D&D back in the day ... in terms of amount of what I've played during my gaming lifetime I think still to date 2nd ed is what I've played most. As far as my preference I had loads of fun with 2nd edition D&D but towards the end of the run there was too much there, with all the add ons skills and powers, encyclopedias of spells, magic items, etc. etc. it was a pretty ponderous amount of stuff. That said no one had to use it all and most DMs and groups didn't. It was cool to know though that if you wanted to run a roman themed game, there was a book to help, or if you wanted a big amount of extra detail you could get your really cool all about dwarves, elves, what the hell ever ... books. So for me I fail to see how this would be a bad thing if 5th ed ends up being like that? And just because 2nd ed was like that ... if 5th ed copies that model somewhat ... its not innovative? Huh? What?? Why even bring that up?? Yet those kinds of comments are flying around and I guess it bewilders and saddens me.

For me ... if I want to RP I've never looked to D&D. D&D is about killing monsters in dungeons. If I want to have more meaningful, complex and interesting RP there are far better systems available now. It is frustrating how little people are willing to look to other systems to suit specific needs ... it is actually the OSR guys bitching, the 3.5 guys bitching and everyone bitching that is leading WoTC to now be looking towards an apparently 2nd ed style system. How can any of those guys bitch that apparently now everyone expects 5th to be a big swiss army knife systems that can do it all. What the hell else could WoTC do and not end up cutting off their nose to spite their face? If they want to "re-unify" the community (impossible IMO ... but I guess I can't fault them for trying) and get people with strong preferences to at least take a look at the new system and/or stop ranting against it ... it is going to have to be a big multifaceted system of some kind. Again if that is the expectation we are either going to end up with a monstrous simulator thing ... (GURPS) ... that some people can handle but most don't even want to bother with or probably at best some sort of 2nd ed style game that has a tiered assortment of books that people can add in to increase complexity at will (ya an I know GURPS is basically that as well ... I'm just not a fan of the system it is far to complex for my taste). As progressive as many OSR people seem to think they are, they seem oblivious of many other systems for doing fantasy role playing outside of the D&D clone/emulator range ... games like BURNING WHEEL ... LEGENDS OF ANGLERRE are two prime examples.

With this latest complaint apparently the argument is that the officially supported version of D&D apparently has to support the denominational preference of all the given complainers ... and I ask why? If you don't like it don't play because D&D can't be all things to all people. I don't expect D&D to knock my socks off with amazingly awesome role playing ... the damn game has never been about that!! Just because random people out there feel they are "pro" D&D players who apparently are playing D&D in full iambic pentameter ... the game wasn't designed for that. The game I think should focus more on providing light hearted hack and slash with some RP on the side. That is what D&D has always been good at!! Beyond that people can go play with their old dusty "classic" rules and have fun ... than can play with the newer "tactical boardgame" rules ... if they don't like D&D at all then do what I do and go play what I think personally are the even better systems (previously mentioned). But everyone needs to just quit napalming people who don't like their chosen version. Why must we as a community engage in this pointless factional version war? Even if people have valid points it does no good bashing each other endlessly. Sadly though that is looking like every step of the way with the roll-out of 5th that is going to continue being the case.

As I've ranted about in other posts to me all old D&D (pre-3rd edition D&D) is ... erm ... its classic I agree. I have strong nostalgia for it, but it is more a "hey guys lets re-live 1984 for a night .. what do you say" kinda thing, again just from my preference and perspective. I couldn't as an adult play that for months on end and be happy. I aspire to run that kind of a game for my own children as they all are between the ages of 8 and 12, I'm sure they'll have fun with it. But as an adult, who has been there and done that for literally decades. It just has little appeal in terms of being a primary choice of what I'd like to spend my time doing other than a very occasional "shits and giggles" kinda thing.

Not since I've played games like Legends of Anglerre, Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, Dogs in the Vineyard will I ever view any version of D&D the same way. So the endless "the old stuff is better than the new stuff ... the new stuff is better than the old stuff" at least to me its mostly moot. If I want a fantasy game where the goal is to kill monsters with a standard fantasy party, taking loot and completing simple storylines ... I'll go with some version of D&D. For anything else more involved ... personally I'd rather play another game.

All that said I begrudge the OSR guys nothing, I'm proud of their passion and efforts to keep the old school games alive and furthermore bring them new life. That is going to allow me to be able to easily run some kick ass games for my kids ... so I say bravo. To the Pathfinder guys I say thanks for keeping RPG sales decent for local hobby shops ... so there is at least some gateway to tabletop RPGing in local stores ... that is the future of tabletop for good bad or otherwise. So thanks guys and hats off to Paizo I don't care for Pathfinder but I love that company :)

After all this time I just don't get how the holier than though version wars rage on! Can't people see that the denominational fighting between nerds who should be uniting to save tabletop gaming ... is the path to ruin! All this as the barbarians of video games continue to destroy the empire is just killing me. I know with 5th ed a ways out ... I have a looooong road to travel.

Hmmmm ... where exactly does the Eastern Tabletop Gaming Empire begin ... perhaps I can flee to Constantinople before its too late ... I think I'm going to head there.

G.U.B.A.R Podcast ... awesome!

2012-01-25T13:52:00.002-07:00

A couple good friends in Las Vegas have the beginnings of a great podcast going G.U.B.A.R (geeked up beyond all recognition) Scott and Anthony talk about RPGs, mini games, board games and general geekery ...so check it out it tis good stuff indeed!

Cooperation and solo play with mini gaming ... interesting concept ...

2012-01-22T16:53:00.002-07:00

Cooperative play as well as solo play are concepts I'm seeing bounce around more and more out in the blog-o-sphere for mini gaming and I really am intrigued by those ideas. For some this might be old hat but to me these are new concepts as far as mini gaming/wargaming goes.

The base concept of "solo" play is that one could play out a scenario with some randomly generated enemies. This could be applied to ANY game system almost. You'd simply go through scenarios and really think about how they would play out, then you designate the key points where a savy opponent would potentially attack, with what unit types, etc. and bada bing. As the game plays out roll to see where the enemies are. This can be done with some simple dice mechanics, it could be done with index cards with some basic random moves that make sense for different units (then shuffle em' up and try to anticipate what is going to happen next).

This isn't a new thing, I can remember doing things like this with Warhammer 40,000 back in the day ten or so years back when I was very interested in tournament play, traveling to GTs and regional RTTs, etc. A few friends and I would sit huddled over army builder ... then off to the table where we'd proxy whatever crazy army we'd just come up with to face our forces one at a time and at the tourney point levels. But I never translated that to other types of mini gaming and haven't even thought about it for years now. But what if ... what if ... one was to take those sorts of concepts and apply them to fun, scenario driven games? It might work great ... I think eventually I will try this out.

On the face of it that might sound a little boring but depending on the game/system, the amount of thought put into the scenarios, and the moves that the enemy would make, this could be an interesting way to play a game. Beyond this though the same concepts could be applied to a two or more player game ... to convert a vs. game into a cooperative game.

I think I'm going to try this out at some point ... though with all I have on the gaming to-do list it might be awhile. Anyone else done much solo play/cooperative play mini wargaming?

Atomic Robo RPG Coming soon!

2012-01-19T12:41:00.008-07:00

Atomic Robo is a comic book series depicting
the adventures of the eponymous character,
created by 8-Bit Theater writer Brian Clevinger and artist Scott Wegener.

Via game designer Mike Olson's blog The Spirt of the BLANK I've heard about an exciting project he is working on for the FATE system ... ATOMIC ROBO THE RPG!!

A decent interview with Mike about the project over at the
Paper & Plastic blog. I've been acquainted with Mike for years now via the Strategicon/Gamex events ... I've played in several of his games and consider him a friend. For those who don't know Mike was an assistant designer on the Legends of Anglerre and the main designer on The Kerberos Club FATE adaptation as well as the supplemental material for Anglerre. Mike is also an amazing FATE GM ... over the years I've been very fortunate at Gamex/Orccon/Strategicon to be able to play in some of his hilariously fun one off games.

1st edition D&D reprint?!?! AWESOME!!

2012-01-19T12:03:00.004-07:00

Apparently WoTC is reprinting (in a limited edition, which will hopefully not be too difficult to get but ... don't know about that ... fingers crossed!) 1st ed Dungeon Masters Guide, Players Handbook and Monster Manual all in one monster 35 buck edition. From the sounds of it available only at your local store in "limited" quantities. Meaning ... 1 per store so they go on ebay for 100 bucks each ... or hopefully many per local store but for a limited printing or something. I think the edition reprint is friggin AWESOME but the "limited" nature of it might be an issue. Time will tell.

I'm really hoping this isn't a ploy on WoTCs part to toss shop owners a bone by giving them something that is in artificially scarce quantities to make a fat profit on ebay with in order to keep them happy ... at least a little ... until 5th ed drops.

Beyond that this bodes well for the new edition ... if they are doing something like this, perhaps, just perhaps they are actually going to have some old school elements in the new version. If I can buy this locally at $35.00 I will happily do so.

___________

When I posted this WoTC just had the first book up. Later that day they had all 3 of the books up, 3 books times 35.00 per book. If the funds go to the Gygax memorial it is cool and I can't complain about the cost. But for me ... I have the original printings of these books ... it would be really a waste of limited gaming funds to go out and buy them. For others it will probably be an awesome deal ... for anyone who doesn't own the books already ... this seems like a great deal actually!

Warhammer 40K 6th edition ... a reality or a mirage ... where is GW headed?

2012-01-18T12:20:00.012-07:00

So for those 40k fans out there, old news hear there is that leaked version of 6th edition Warhammer 40,000 supposedly floating around on the internet. Much theory on its legitimacy, some have declaired it a fake already some say they know a guy who knows a guy who has confirmed it.

I almost wonder if this is a case of the game designers leaking something they wish they could do, hoping the buzz online gets so big the bean counters take note. I've heard that over the past ten years there has been a gradual shift in power at GW. I've heard that one, by one as the old guard Andy and Rick for sure, left that what clout the design team had was largely eroded and now most big decisions are corporate and usually based 100% on marketing and sales. Yes I know "GW is a business they have to make money" don't whack me with the fan boy cliché just yet. At any point I've heard that shift has really upset the apple cart so to speak in terms of how they do things.

More and more each year they tighten the screws and shift how things are done. I along with many people sort of entered the GW hobby during the "golden age" of the 90s-early 2000s when the guys who created the game (Rick Priestley) and built it into what it is were still with the company so alot of deference was paid to them. Now that they are gone that is gone and GW is alot more like WoTC these days than not. So I do wonder if maybe some of the design team has gone a bit rogue here ... hoping to have some ammo in their bandoleer to use against the bean counters and lawyers when they try to sell the idea.

Over the years I've had alot of anger at GWs gradual morph into just another large-ish corporation run by lawyers and bean counters not passionate lovers of the products they produce but rather just the green the corporation produces. All that and I have to say even I am interested in this edition of the rules. To me if they really could come up with a rule set that let people run the game how they wanted, do historical style/scenario games casually at home AND let people run tournament style games ... that would be amazingly wonderful. What is most striking here for me is the same type of conversation going on regarding the new rule set as is being had about 5th edition D&D.

The big stumbling block to that though is simply the very, very vocal tournament player who loves their endless 1500 point vs. 1500 point standard cleanse mission with "balanced" codex vs. "balanced" codex (read ... "balanced" ... in so much as not balanced so many players feel the urge to run out and buy the new army/codex/etc.). I just don't see how tournament style math-hammer is paying their bills? Ya the tourney guys are vocal via Bell of Lost Souls, etc. but are their numbers large enough to affect GWs profits really? Are the tournament players the ones who drive the profits? Directly I can't see how that could be the case. I know the BoLS crowd has long made the arguement that the tournament set controls the "hearts and minds" of the consumer base (at least here in the US) and that is less tangible. Or is it really mostly just kids (who convince their parents to dump 500 bucks on the game, and then get disinterested because the stinky store troll repeatedly savages them) and collectors who just buy crap and never play in public? In 2011 GW had

I would think there would be a very healthy "collectors" market as Forgworld continues to crank out the outrageously overpriced models, year after year and apparently there is a market for that stuff. It really has saddened me over the years seeing kids, young guys with beater cars, using financial aid money to buy that crap. We are talking mostly $200-$1200.00+ models, certainly some cheaper kits, rhino doors and whatnot but that isn't what I'm mostly talking about, though if you kit out your entire force in forgeworld add ons it can run into the hundreds easily. Kids who should be fixing their cars up so they can try to get a girlfriend .... sigh ..... on one hand I have to commend them for being dedicated to the hobby on the other I feel like smacking them on the back of the head. At any rate GWs business model has really been more one of dope peddler than game company. So when I hear they are rolling out something that looks more like a historicals rule set … I have to wonder if it can be legit.

On that note though hopefully this rule set is real and this marks a departure from endless cookie cutter rule sets focused only on tournament play. If they can create a compelling, fun to play rule set I'd happily play 40K again with the one or two people I still know who have armies, we’d play scenario games and historical style battles. In fact that is something we've been talking about anyway, but we'll see if these rules are borne out as real.

My super technical and amazingly well illustrated Games Workshop Business Model Diagram ... thing ... erm ..

Here is a link to GW's financials this year GAMES WORKSHOP

Here is the Chairman's statement from Tom Kirby and it sounds honestly like he himself is pondering the loss of the "old guard" at Games Workshop though he quickly launches into "Finecast is awesome" and the standard boiler plate.

CHAIRMAN’S PREAMBLE

We like to think of ourselves as a young company, eagerly entering the world of commerce bristling with ideas and ambition. Our staff bring the energy and optimism of youth to every problem we face, don't they? It is a salutary reminder for me to remember we will be making 30-year-service awards at our veteran's night dinner again this year. It won't be long before I get mine. Danielle Gaudry, who founded and ran our French business for many years and is surely the definition of that youthful vigour, retires this year. Retires. We are no longer so young, either as a business or the people who run it. Two things flow from this. Firstly, we now know (more by trial and error than sophisticated analysis - 'the wisdom of years') how this business works. We know what it takes to run a good Hobby centre, we know how to run a good trade sales department, we know how to recruit people who have great attitudes, we know how to make the best miniatures in the world and how to surprise and delight our customers over and over again. (Go take a quick look at Citadel Finecast - awesome!)

What we are now learning is how to spread that knowledge around the far flung world of Games Workshop. We are also learning that we are not doing it fast enough or thoroughly enough. Secondly, the generation which built Games Workshop is beginning to wonder what a 'pension' is. We wake up in the morning with the same aches we had yesterday. We wear glasses. We have learned patience (is that always a good thing and does it come from wisdom or exhaustion?). Some of us have a Senior Railcard. Nonetheless, we remain passionate about the potential for the Hobby and the Group. So, in addition to the normal running of the business, we will also be turning our gaze upon the problems of succession. We will be rolling out a programme aimed at getting everyone at Games Workshop to understand how we do business.

The challenges are as real as ever and our full responsibility is as well. Despite the exigencies of the 'real' world our destiny is still in our own hands. We have to ensure that the best practices we know about are followed everywhere within the Group. We have done much to improve our profitability and the return on your capital but we still have work to do on re-establishing growth, particularly in our Hobby centres.

Dividends have returned. I am as pleased as you are. Does this herald in a new era of progressive dividends on an assured yield? Hardly. We return truly surplus cash to shareholders. 'Truly surplus' means the cash we can not use because we have already spent all we need for the growth of the business. It would sit in a bank account if we didn't return it. Working this way means the payment of dividends will be fairly happenstance; I can see us having surplus cash in the future and when we have (assuming it is a sensible sum) it will be returned, not according to a schedule, but right then and there.

Tom Kirby

Chairman

25 July 2011

More about Games Workshop's leadership ... it has always struck me as a bit odd at how much people know about the GW games and how close their ears are to the ground so to speak with rumors, etc. but how little they know about the actual leadership of the company itself. So here is some pretty accessible information that isn't widely discussed and/or presumably known (at least here in the US).

Tom Kirby - Chairman of the Board of Directors for GW.
T H F Kirby (age 61), chairman. Tom Kirby joined Games Workshop in April 1986 as general manager and led the management buy-out in December 1991, becoming chief executive at that time. Between 1998 and 2000 he took on the role of non-executive chairman, returning to the role of chief executive in September 2000. He now performs the role of chairman following the appointment of Mark Wells as chief executive in December 2007. Prior to joining Games Workshop, Tom worked for six years for a distributor of fantasy games in the UK and was previously an Inspector of Taxes.

Mark Wells - Chief Executive Officer
M N Wells (age 49), CEO. Mark Wells joined Games Workshop in May 2000 as director of strategy and planning. He qualified as a solicitor with Messrs Herbert Smith in 1987, and subsequently held various management roles with Next PLC and Boots Group PLC, including director of customer service for Boots the Chemists and director of merchandise and marketing for Boots Stores, Netherlands.

Kevin Rountree - Chief Operating Officer
K D Rountree (age 41), COO. Kevin Rountree joined Games Workshop in March 1998 as assistant group accountant. He then had various management roles within Games Workshop, including head of sales for the Other Activities division. During the year ended 29 May 2011, he took on the responsibility of managing the Group’s service centres globally. To reflect this, his title was changed to chief operating officer from chief financial officer. He, however, still retains responsibility for all financial matters within Games Workshop. He qualified as a chartered management accountant in August 2001. Prior to joining Games Workshop Kevin was the management accountant at J Barbour & Sons Limited and trained at Price Waterhouse.

So there you have it the company is day to day run by an attorney and an accountant. The company is run by bean counters and lawyers with little passion for the what it is the company does, sure they pay lip service to it and probably "own armies" and have some showy ribbon cutting style games now and then. But make no mistake these guys are straight up businessmen who are peddling a product. They are simply selling widgets. When a company gets to this point it is going to behave a certain way ... vs. ... some guys who built something from the ground up who created a game, made it what it is.

People like that will run a company differently than some bean counters and lawyers who were brought in to maximize ROI. Doesn't mean that company can't make good products anymore it just means that the heart and soul, the things that initially drew people to the company initially ... the passion, the love of the game ... those things will likely always take a back seat and decisions will be made differently in years to come. This has been a long, long time in the making the management led buyout at GW occurred in 1991 and from day one "citadel" was owned by a guy who was very interested in selling minis and make money. So I can only take this argument so far with GW. I am just saying that since the old guard has departed over the past ten years the company has changed. Some people might feel for the better, I personally don't feel that way but that is just my opinion, entirely subjective.

GW has had an interesting parallel to TSR actually only GW never got bought out from the outside it managed to stay independent and for a long while I think that meant the guys like Rick Priestley and Andy Chambers were really counted on to give the company direction and focus. Great interview illustrating some of what I'm talking about with Rick Priestley.

Gaming isn't main stream? What about Curt Schilling the dragon-slayer!

2012-01-17T16:03:00.009-07:00

Geek has been chic for years and years now ... this isn't news ... so I've been shocked recently to encounter several people, dozens in fact, who seem to feel being a geek in general, but particularly being a gamer puts us out of the main stream. What sparked this was a conversation with a friend who was shocked when I said gaming is main stream man combined with many comments I've read during the great 5th ed wave of mass blog-o-sphere wide lamenting, gnashing teeth, celebration, drawing daggers, and jumping off of cliffs ... I saw a few blog posts out there where people were actually suggesting that D&D and gaming in general wasn't "main stream." I paid attention to those comments because in my mind one of the big problems for gaming is that it has become so main stream we are experiencing all the problems you see out in "main stream" land ... lol ... whatever that means. That said yes, yes, of course a new day in terms of opportunity for new products, etc. which hopefully will be very beneficial to us old guard now having main stream status for our hobby. Clearly here I'm not saying specific micro niches of gaming are "main stream" just that more and more someone can out loud, in public, say something like "I'm a gamer" or "I'm a geek" and no one raises an eyebrow at you. Of course segments of gaming will probably always be little isolated backwaters (thankfully eh!).

But saying gaming is main stream on the whole is really not true, obviously there are areas that will never be main stream. But D&D is very widely known now and cited as something many famous folks did when they were kids, almost as a badge of honor. Video games are 100% mainstream dozens of celebrities have admitted to being video game fans and most pro-athletes play sports related video games (or at least say that publicly as they love the money rolling in from EA). Tabletop even has become more and more "main stream" when you can find Settlers of Catan in the average Barnes and Noble now ... the numbers are big enough all round to call gamers and I mean true gamers not just "video gamers" but guys that play tabletop of some variety as well as. When MTV and CNN, etc. have "geek" sections now, when CNN runs regular stories frequently about geek-culture. Hell MTV was running a story about an upcoming FATE based game, that is semi-obscure RPG stuff and its being covered by MTV Geek. Obviously The Big Bang Theory and similar media exposure has done its number as well.

When Comicon is no longer just a stinky comic shop nerd fest (hasn't been for years now) but a big media roll-out event ... this all means ... sigh ... geekery and gaming is main stream. To me this isn't news and I think someone could make the argument that "gaming" and "geekery" were mainstream in the mid-to late 90s. But apparently people still are shocked when that statement is made. Well this article just slapped me in the face with those thoughts again so I thought I'd post about it. Yet another big name athlete/former athlete proclaims their geekery ... before anyone says well that is just video games I also submit this quote.

“I was always a big fantasy guy, a big ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ kind of gamer,” Schilling said. “That was always a very big, significant piece of my gaming because I was always a very avid reader as a kid. I read ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy for probably the 20th time a couple of years ago, but that’s what got me into fantasy gaming.”“If you think about it,” Schilling said, “I’ve lived the ultimate gamer life”.”

Schilling is by far not the first celebrity or sports figure to say he is a gamer geek or even a D&D fan, he is just the latest in a growing line of people saying so ... as gaming continues its long entry into full main stream entertainment status.

CNN ARTICLE

Curt Schilling the dragon-slayer

2012 ... a make or break year (alternatively a gaming mid life crisis)

2012-01-17T00:03:00.014-07:00

Big game ... no clue how many points we were playing with
it was easily 10 full armies worth. Germans vs. Americans and
Russians in a cool moving train objective scenario.

2012 a new gaming diet ... my new years resolution and my reasons why.

First I have to say ... it should go without saying that we game for fun right? If not what the hell is the point. So for me yes indeed gaming still has been fun but not nearly as fun as I know it can be. I'm not lamenting for some past better than it really was "golden age" to return. No I am a realist with gaming and I feel I know what I can reasonably accomplish myself and what I can reasonably expect from people in my gaming group. That said gaming is not nearly as good as it could be right now and I hope to change that. I think gaming for me has gotten a little "out of shape" to continue with the diet analogy. So I need to start an exercise regimen and go on a diet (hell I need to do that in reality, but that is thankfully off topic here). I am going to try to trim the fat this year and focus on some new "exercises" like painting minis, outright dropping gaming activities that aren't producing for me in terms of fun and enjoyment, etc.

This past weekend I attended a historicals game at a game store about 25 miles from my house. A new group of folks, seemed like good guys generally and the store they play at was great. I got to play almost the entire game, I wasn't using my own minis it was a big game with some pretty specific forces, etc. so the club provided everything.

I was running a portion of a large American group, mechanized infantry battalion. I haven't played any flames of war in about five years and I have to admit I didn't play much back when I was playing. I might have a dozen games under my belt. This is a new version of the rules since I played though I didn't really see where the changes were, everything seemed familiar even after all that time. I had a great time and the game renewed my interest in flames of war and solidly reaffirmed my new interest in 15 MM. So a good start to historical gaming for 2012. A potentially new group/club to game with ... a store that heavily caters to historical gaming ... just in time to coincide with my desire to jump into historicals.

This brings me to the next part of the post and it is first a resolution for the year, a very, very difficult resolution and perhaps one that I might not ever be able to make again. It is going to be probably impossible to pull this off, overly ambitious, a little unrealistic, but ... NO VIDEO GAMES of any kind for 2012. Why would I do this to myself? Why deprive myself of such entertainment? Simple ... let me now launch into just what I have planned for the tabletop this year. Let alone a whole bunch of real life realities such as an ultra busy family life, big wedding in the family that is going to take alot of time, etc. graduate school to contend with, several trips planned and a huge transition in gaming for me. The other stuff is irrelevant for the purposes of this blog, yet clearly we all have lives beyond gaming eh? Because of that I have increasingly found myself questioning the value of gaming vs. the value of other pursuits in life. Not the important life stuff, but the frivolity of life.

Seriously why tilt at the windmill of gaming when I could just try to learn to play the piano, or strike out at a foreign language again or get into photography, spend more time hiking and camping, etc. For me the other more important stuff comes first always as it is, family, etc. etc. but the discretionary time spent doing gaming ... the past few years the returns have been very diminishing returns I must say.

So instead of just hanging it all up and calling it a day with gaming, which I would hate to do very much. I think it would feel like losing a limb or something ... seriously. I have spent the past year or so really thinking about what I could do to cut off the dead tissue and bring the limb back from the brink so to speak.

I have been on the road to recovery now for awhile and come to conclusions about gaming. Spending time doing gaming to borrow a phrase from an old friend "just because it is like something I used to like to do" rather than because it is good in its own right ... what the hell is the point of that? But honestly I've done that for a long while now with parts of gaming. I've played games that really weren't that enjoyable. Alot of cookie cutter D&D, with versions of the game I find tedious. Alot of solo video gaming and MMOs and the like and alot of just ho-hum ... semi-fun games that could be better. I've struggled to put my finger on what was wrong. Part of it is gaming with many new people in a new area, it has taken time to get to know people, etc. gaming with old friends you've known for years and years vs. new people you don't know well can have its ups and downs. Beyond that though as I've bemoaned in many other posts here ... gamers are changing ... the internet and "popcorn brain" for us all has really meant a difference that I've seen in terms of what people are really willing to play, and even then what they seem to be good at and what they just half-ass their way through.

So all that swirling melee of life, deep thoughts, the reality in which I live ... changing preferences ... ultimately has led me to the conclusion that I need to focus more on what I really want out of gaming and the rest of it be damned.

Yet that will come with a price to the "rest of" my gaming. D&D will likely not happen this year unless it can dramatically change and get better. I'm hoping I can work to reform our D&D group a bit, if not I'm going to have to put it not only on the back burner, but in the Tupperware container and into the fridge for now. I'll likely have a Friday night indie/small press RPG night with a pretty dedicated group to those kinds of games. Saturday gaming is in flux right now ... I'm thinking its going to be a few Saturdays a month of historical gaming and some public play via the gaming club I founded at Weber State University. That will likely be the some total of that. I have had an ongoing D&D game on Saturdays ever since I moved to Utah nearly 3 years ago, so parting with it will be bittersweet. Video games though have become the "junk food" of my gaming life and I simply don't have space in my gaming "diet" right now to accommodate them and take my gaming to where I want it to be.

A fat stack of new historical rulesets that just came in the mail this week (thanks to some great sales at Warhammer Historical and Foundry) to choose from this year. First out of the game will be the Warhammer Old West system. Then Hail Caesar and then (not pictured) Black Powder. Flames of War is likely to rise again this year at some point as well.

As for the minis ya that is a gigantic amount of painting to do, I didn't even bother to put up the huge amount of terrain I picked up to go along with it all.

There are essentially two Roman armies, Zulus & Brits, Old West, Ancient Germans, Celts ... some of the armies will need more fleshing out but its a gigantic undertaking is all I'm really trying to express.

New adaptor for my flash cards from my camera still working out the glitches so sorry for the vertical images there ... damn phone!! All that stuff came this past week and I'm really just trying to show the hundreds and hundreds of figures to assemble and paint (beyond that stuff I just received about 120 old west figures that came in from Foundry that I didn't snap pictures of) and no small amount of terrain to tend to. New rules to learn, etc. etc. If that isn't enough ... the grand pappy of RPG systems I hope to learn and start playing with the indie group soon ... burning wheel.

So 2012 is going to be a big, busy as hell year for me and I just don't have time to play video games this year, beyond that I don't have time to waste on bad games and on gaming that isn't fun. Will I hold to that ... I hope so ... for the sake of other gaming I hope so. I want more from my gaming time, I want most of all fun, honest to goodness fun. But I can't deny I seek what gaming used to give me years ago, an actual sense of accomplishment, very good camaraderie, and the kind of relaxation and solace that only a good pastime can provide. So I hope to bring those back into my own gaming, and in the process ... hopefully ... save gaming for myself for not just 2012 but for hopefully the rest of my life :)

So I'm calling myself out here and just damn going to try to take the bull by the horns and make some well needed positive progress this year with gaming.

Anyway happy gaming to you all in 2012!! May it be fruitful and multiply :D

Shadows over Camelot ... old school vs. new school ... 5th ed craze

2012-01-13T12:59:00.004-07:00

This whole 5th ed thing this week and the reactions from OSR people the 3.5 fans the causal D&D players and the 4e people has been interesting to look at. For me it has just continued the conversation I've been having with myself basically ya I know talking to myself, next I'll be on the street corner shouting about the end times. Seriously though it has had me reexamining just my own preference for what a game of D&D should mean, what I like and what I don't like.

Really old school D&D in terms of weak starting characters is actually quite well suited to 11 and 12 year olds. It teaches them many things about being leery of just rushing headlong in when perhaps a little caution is warranted, etc. its good for problem solving, etc. as well ... players get rewarded for avoiding conflict, for being creative and overcoming difficulties through guile, etc.

People complain about how low level characters are very weak in old school games, and I don't disagree there I have long said that myself. But having seen the other side of the coin where characters feel so powerful at low level that it doesn't reflect the genre but is rather more like a video game ... I also hear that too. I think more and more with D&D the only interest left with the game for me is nostalgia. The newer stuff is just too much like a video game and therefore ... for me anyway ... dull. Why actually not just go play WoW? One can argue as I have for years ... well anything face to face/tabletop is superior to video games right. I guess, if that is the only critera. Why not just play Monopoly then or a card game? That excuse only goes so far ... tabletop gaming should be good on its own. The games we choose to play go a long way towards making that a reality. Clearly a good group can make mediocre stuff fun and a bad group can take the best of games off a cliff.

For me though I've come to focus more and more on the social interactions within RPGs. What is it that is bringing us as a group into the game, what motivates us to want to play week after week. If we don't want good social interactions between characters, why the hell are we doing and RPG? Why don't we play 40K or Warmachine then? I guess that my take as someone who does mini games, board games and RPGs though. For the RPG only guys I guess that thought doesn't even register. To me the social interactions within D&D just aren't good due to the rules. If they are good it is because the players themselves have learned to role play their characters well. So what one might say. Well the big so what is ... what about a new player ... what about people who are playing a character outside of their comfort zone or something. Not having solid rules that facilitate good social interaction in the game means those people are going to get hung out to dry.

So more on the D&D as a cooperative board game concept. If we take that route then its ok that D&D isn't designed to maximize social interactions, its designed to provide a combo heavy, video game like, tactical miniatures game. Even here, being a mini game fan, 3.0-4e era D&D kinda suck as tactical skirmish games, the games are just too complex ... balanced in places way unbalanced in others. Also to me if they wanted to make a good tactical skirmish game, why didn't they just do that on the side? God I'd have loved to have seen that WoTC making a small skirmish game that could be used along side the RPG if people wanted. That would have been great. They didn't do that though, the smashed the MMO based 3.0 pen and paper game all together ... tactical skirmish boardgame stuff with an odd role playing game.

Along these lines I have long said that 4e was the most "honest" representation of what it was grid era D&D is. To me ... that version (at least pre-essentials I honestly haven't played essentials era 4e at all) plays better in terms of being a fun fantasy based tabletop game than did 3.0-Pathfinder stuff.

Ok to the Shadows Over Camelot part, if 3.0-4e are just going to be more like board games than RPGs I really wish they played more like an endless Shadows Over Camelot. That could be rather interesting, perhaps even more satisfying than the current versions of the game. Sadly they don't though. The newer versions of D&D are a matter of players combing books to find the most powerful combos and DMs focusing on encounters rather than story. Even there I'd say ok your going to make a board game/minis skirmish game ... so why not just boil the game down to Descent? Just an honest to goodness dungeon crawl/grid based combat miniatures centric board game where players kick down doors and slay monsters for loot. Done and done. Put out some minis, some tile sets, and focus 100% on good mini based combat.

Rather than talk about the minis and combat heavy stuff though my overall point and theme here is "why can't D&D play more like a good game of Shadows Over Camelot? Because Shadows ... for a board game anyway ... really creates great social interaction between players! For those who haven't played that game ... I highly recommend it.

Shadows is a cooperative board game. It can be a very fun, casual, experience ... the game is by no means a masterpiece of game design mechanically. Conceptually though I really like how it works. The group is playing as the knights of Camelot including King Aruthur. The kingdom is beset by barbarians, quests for the grail, Excalibur, Lancelot's armor all must be undertaken all while a hidden traitor operates in the midst of the group. Mechanically the game is rather simplistic, it involves D6s and cards with a board with pieces for various things. The point for me though is how the group interacts, how people pull together to overcome the challenge of the game. The game itself brings players together to choose how they'll overcome what the game is throwing at them. Granted even in shadows, combat is the only way .. in a matter of speaking. Knights have to go quest. I guess there is the option to stay at Camelot and draw card, so we'll call that one of the lone non-combat actions. So even in a board game, with mostly only combat to choose from, a better mechanic for creating social interaction and group decisions is had. Shadows has some actual RP elements to it in that there is the traitor in the midst of the group (though in the newbie games you can run the game without a traitor, not nearly as fun IMO). The traitor element of course isn't very typical for the D&D analogy, though as I think about it ... the DM would be facilitating that sort of stuff. So the DM side of things is the traitor stuff. But honestly anymore most games of D&D aren't even as good as a good game of Shadows Over Camelot. I say that, group not withstanding, as we all know a great group can take any game to amazing places, but the average gaming group isn't "great" and the poor guys stuck with gaming at stores, well they don't even get an "average" group to work with. The average group has the flaky guy who can't show up all the time, the grumpy guy who is going through a divorce, the power gamer guy, the girlfriend who is only half heartedly playing, the DM who just wants to tell her story and not be bothered with what players want, the stoner dude who is half baked when he shows up, the fanboy who despite not being the GM owns every book, module, etc. and has a penchant for correcting the DM every five minutes, etc. etc. so you plop that reality in the middle of a big, fat, miniatures, markers, tiles, several rulebook, complex system and expect these people to make stuff out of it, for 20 levels of play. Huh?? What?? Why!!! I'd love to see them scrap all this crap and start over, but we all know that won't happen. There are legions of loyal 3.0 era fans who have figured out how to make things with the current systems work and like it all just fine. To be honest it wouldn't be fair to those folks to just dump all this stuff in the trash. So what is WoTC to do? 4e is a boardgame style game now, love it, hate it, be indifferent to it ... that is the reality ... so from my perspective the best we can hope for is more board game style.

So overall ... realistically looking at where D&D has gone and where it could possibly go I think if they get things right 5th D&D will play more like a good game of Shadows Over Camelot and less like Descent. It certainly shouldn't play like a video game, nor should it play like a game of chess, or magic the gathering.

What D&D is in the post 3.0 era is more players coming up with powerful combos and focusing on that first and foremost. I feel this represents a serious break from what it is that makes D&D. If Bill and Jim have rediculously powered up characters and Betty and Jake have ho-hum run of the mill characters and you have an average DM who is just trying to hold things together. Just from the get go there might be some problems. To me that is sort of a design flaw. For some groups, with people who love math-hammering up their characters, pouring over books, tweaking, fiddiling, and sadly in some cases creating characters that are better than other players characters so they get ... what ... more attention ... feel superior? Ok ... umm ... I guess if that is what floats their boats. Sadly that last bit there though tears these systems in half IMO.

I'm sure the min-max types of folks love 3.0-4e era D&D ... because in that respect there is no real alternative to that kind of a game. However for casual players (which would include most new players) jumping into this mix can be quite a jarring experience. I've seen this in my own groups several times. I have never been one to play D&D at a store, in fact in all the years of D&D I've played I've never played a game in a store. I've played many games at gaming cons though. So I'm less well versed in public games, but I've never seen how the newer versions of D&D were very new player friendly. I cite as my prime example of this ... WoTCs decision to roll out the Essentials line.

To me though this bespeaks my point ... player characters themselves have become too complex and this complexity doesn't increase social interaction, it decreases it. There are far too many moving parts, that don't improve social interaction between characters, in fact these moving parts do more to divide the players to push them away from each other, towards over specialization, towards solo-combat monster type characters. How is that good for a game that is supposed to be about a group coming together to have fun? I know for sure some groups have great fun with 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder/4e. I myself had months and months of great fun with 4e. So I'm not saying it is impossible, we all found a way to make it work didn't we! To our great credit. But I think for everyone who has enjoyed these games many people have quickly burnt out, become disillusioned, bored, frustrated. You can see that online, you can see that in many groups with players choosing to drop the game, DMs giving up, etc. All of that can't be blamed on the game, that is people, that is modern internet age life. But a part of this stuff I think comes down to the games themselves. I think the decision to make very complex combats and move the rules for PCs entirely towards combat has flavored or colored the game in that direction. Sure DMs can house rule up stuff, they can add in things, make skill challenges ... erm ... more about actually using intellect and creativity vs. just rolling a D20. But even in Pathfinder and 3.5 the way the game is slanted towards combat, towards conflict as the first method to resolve things. That is what you get you get a game that is all about combat, and everything else is an afterthought.

It is so bad this is how the average D&D player I've encountered in my quest to find a new gaming group approaches the game. Kick down the door, attack, and ask questions later. Why? Years of 3.0-4e era gaming. Players get rewarded for that behavior and when a DM runs a game otherwise, in my opinion they are kinda being a dick. That isn't how the rules are truly written, the rules themselves slant heavily towards combat. Many might ask ... "well isn't that the point" ... and if they do they just prove my point. Certainly that has always been part of the game, you have always wanted to delve into that dungeon, slay the vile monsters, recover the wondrous treasure! Along the way though the game became so much more than that and then ... that so much more was lost.

That in my opinion happened somewhere towards the end of 2nd edition and things have never been the same. Does that make me an OSR guy? I don't know. I'm coming to grips with that ... perhaps ... but even there I don't play 1st edition, I don't know if I even like 1st edition anymore. Like I've said other than having an eventual plan to do some OSR stuff for my kids in a few years, I don't see much potential for that in my own gaming group. So its probably irrelevant.

I do empathize with those who have had angst regarding the newer versions of D&D. Having played alot of the new stuff and come to this point there are some very big structural problems with D&D anymore and I don't know if they can be overcome. WoTC has led many people down a different path and I just don't see how those people are going to want to come back. So if 5th edition is going to really "re-unite" even portions of the divergent D&D fanbase they are really going to have to smash together some odd and very conflicting game elements. While some are saying that is impossible ... I think Shadows Over Camelot to me shows that at least for a single session you can have at least some of these mixed elements together. Granted shadows is no true "grid style" miniature combat game. The player pieces in the game are simply markers to denote what activity the given player is engaged in. But I think there is a lesson to be learned from that game.

Who knows though its all idle conjecture at this point ... until we see some concrete details on what WoTC is planning who the hell knows ...

Time will tell ... something tells me that we are heading towards more of the same and even less sanity though ...

OSR is a SHAM!!

2012-01-09T14:50:00.018-07:00

For the record I don't believe OSR is a sham its a wonderful movement that I dearly am glad for. But I see many people out there pounding their chests right now proclaiming victory in the name of all D&D ... solely on the basis of the OSR movement and for me that is record scratching ... "Whutcha talkin bout Willis" moment. By saying something like that though I'm trying to make a ... probably lame ... but I think somewhat relevant point. Why does this constant justification to exist need to be made by the OSR people. It seems to dominate much of the discourse in the OSR community and for the life of me I can't figure out why. To me the reasons OSR exist and will continue to exist are self evident. That said there is also this propensity to I think overblow the size and impact OSR is having, which I think undermines some credibility and diverts the discussion away from where it should be. Look people this blog is shitty ... lol ... I know it. It is a thought journal for me really, just a little place to toss out an idea or record something I'm thinking about, working on, doing with the game group.

I really have zero expectation that it will ever be all that interesting to very many people. But there are blogs out there where the authors/owners choose to really spend alot of time and effort on the content, and they start to have a stronger voice and develop a community around them. I think with that comes a little responsibility, especially in communities like the OSR community. I guess that is the nature of my long, rambling rant here. I sort of hope for the best from the OSR guys because I respect what they are trying to do.

To me the OSR movement was much more akin to say the Occupy movement as not. It was about OWNING ones own game. About returning to something that wasn't broken and didn't need to be fixed. It was a little bit about nostaliga, a little bit about small amateur game design, about blogging and podcasting and just having fun. OSR was a reaction to the grid ... I will say that again ... it was a reaction to the grid based 3.0-4e era versions of D&D (including Pathfinder).

The 5th edition frenzy today really has me a little non-plussed at some of the commentary form people regarding OSR. OSR is a movement towards 1st/basic edition D&D ... period. It is special and interesting and cool ... and really apparently full of itself. OSR is not singlehandedly responsible for the demise of 4e, and I don't care what anyone says OSR isn't the driving force behind new 5th ed. It does not have the vast numbers that people out there to warrant some of the rhetoric people are spouting right now. OSR defeated evil Hasbro ... huh? Ummm ... no. Sorry guys. Paizo has probably a 90% greater claim to that. Lets face it 3.0-4e era D&D just has some serious design flaws ... just because the OSR crowd has recognized that doesn't mean they are RESPONSIBLE for the demise of 4e ... lol. Yet some people are actually SAYING that ... it is silly.

To my knowledge the OSR community is a community of tens of thousands perhaps low hundreds of thousands ... VS ... what low millions for the 3.5/Pathfinder fans. So who is going to have more influence?

Beyond this ... and far, far more importantly in my mind. Individual self proclaimed OSR leaders are claiming some kind of design superiority based on their association with OSR?!?!? What??? To me I see the "indie" RPG scene as potentially a far better place to draw inspiration from as the game moves forward. If old school D&D was so vastly superior why were so many so willing to jump to new versions? Why did it take so long for OSR to begin? I personally think OSR came to be and thrived because of grid based D&D .. pretty much alone. Old School D&D is not a main stream cup of tea. The insane dungeon ecology of many of the Gygax era stuff is nostalgically fun, but very campy and even for a fantasy game ... so woefully unrealistic ... "why is the underground goblin empire next to the red dragon's lair ... under a lake of gray ooze ... with a Minotaur civilization living along its banks ... all in the area the size of a suburban mall."

That stuff was great fun when I was 12 back in the mid 80s but it isn't going to be fun for many adults these days. Its a great "he he" lets have some beers and relive 1984 for a night kinda experience, but it doesn't make for long standing, intellectually stimulating, deep RP kinda campaigns. I know D&D has mostly never been about that, but there has for a long time been at least an attempt at blending in some maturity and intellectually stimulating elements into the game. Some very challenging moral and ethical dilemmas, etc.

Much if not most, of OSR is campy "how do we use this ten foot pole to defeat the evil overlord" kinda stuff. Again, wonderful, delightful, hilarious, potentially dark and devious ... old school goodness. But it is just that. It is constrained by that era of game design, that style of game. Why constrain D&D? Why not instead look more to games like Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, Dogs in the Vineyard. Of course not entirely and you couldn't really do that out loud ... game designers would have to be blending elements into the mix. I hope elements of basic/1st ed era return as well as elements from 2nd ed. I hope the preserve some of the good stuff from 3.0-4e era D&D as well. But I dearly hope that they look towards some of the really cutting edge RPGs in the indie/small press category as well. Above all I hope we can at least have a by the rules option to NOT USE THE GRID in 5th ed D&D.

I also hope that the OSR people can stop proclaiming victory over WoTC as theirs alone. The Paizo/3.5 guys have done a bigger part in terms of just not giving WoTC cash for a bad game and making due with what it was they like about D&D ... just like the OSR guys have. What about the third column of D&D dissent ... the guys like me ... who just stopped playing all together? I stopped giving WoTC money and I didn't have a chance and/or the inclination to get whole hog into OSR and tried as I might 3.0-Pathfinder D&D was just never for me. I did my 4e time and then left. So where does that leave the guys who still love D&D but feel dispossessed? Hopefully WoTC is looking to bring us back into the fold as well and if so I hope they aren't going to just stamp a brand on OSRs ass or Pathfinder-ize D&D (they couldn't we all know we won't see a simple return to OGL, I'm just saying ...). No 5th ed is a move in a new direction and we all need to keep things in perspective and watch the epeen and chest thumping.

D&D has been a sick old cancer ridden man with a bad heart and cataracts ... for a long time. Its time to pass the torch, not time to jump up and down about his demise. But micro-celebrities in the blog-o-sphere are going to likely do alot of "I told you so" high five crap. It is inevitable. I think all of us have been saying we see 4e on the way out for a long time. I could thump my chest a bit saying I predicted this over a year ago ... but that would be bogus because I follow many blogs, talk to a wide range of people in different towns, at cons, etc. etc. about gaming and just absorb what others are saying. Such is the nature of a constantly plugged in world. I'm looking at this as a moment when there is some opportunity to bridge some rifts and heal some wounds and I hope that the overall OSR community, the players of pathfinder, 3.0/3.5 ed guys, etc. will try to exert positive influence if indeed WoTC is going to be listening.

Again hope against hope I do that this is the ticket we've all been waiting for and so that is how I'm going to leave my mind on 5th ed for now. I would be shocked if we see the game out before next fall at the earliest and I wouldn't be half surprised to see it come in the spring or summer of 2013 (a Gencon 2013 launch would make sense).

Addendum to the original post (just because its too big to fit in the comments section):

I don't disagree about demographics mattering and I don't disagree with the point about amount spent vs. people who play. Though even there don't go too far with discounting numbers. You can be certain that Hasbro pays attention to the numbers not just who is spending right now. They are looking at market share, number of customers, etc. those guys might not be buying books but maybe they will chip in with some buddies for a group DDI account, maybe they'll buy some D&D special edition dice or whatnot, etc. Maybe they won't buy books but maybe they will buy a video game. So WoTC does make decisions as probably does Paizo based on numbers ... not just on who is spending today or next month. I don't want to over state that though nor suggest that how many people playing something vs. how many people buying it ... clearly I fully concede by far how many people are buying is the most important of the two. Obviously and if I overstated I was wrong.

A age old anecdote about the RPG industry that I've heard for years and heard industry folks at GAMA say in a tongue in cheek fashion "the average RPG consumer spends 0.00 per year on actually RPG materials." RPG fans have historically been cheap, pirates who are content to plunder their rules, or share a players handbook between five people.

One of my main points actually and I'm sorry I expressed it poorly, is that Pathfinder is selling alot more product than OSR, again if you don't give OSR the huge boost by including all small press/indie RPGs with OSR. I believe that the amount spent on Pathfinder alone is more than all of OSR, and I'd be surprised if that wasn't by a wide margin. Again we are not lumping small press RPGs or Indie RPGs with OSR. They are not part of OSR. Mouseguard, Dogs in the Vineyard, Fiasco, Dresden Files are not OSR. So all that activity while having impact probably on WoTCs sales (maybe I don't know what kind of crossover there is). Again NO CLUE if that is the case just posing a theory.

If that isn't the case though and someone can link something to disprove that statement ... then indeed my logic is flawed ... otherwise it still holds water.

Another thing I will admit, I say it constantly on this "blog" of mine. I'm not a pro/elite blogger. I sit, I type, I don't even edit. Its a one shot, spur of the moment thought journal for me basically. Just a way to put an idea out there and see what people think if anyone even responds. Its mostly just a cathartic exercise for me. I have a masters degree in public administration, I've taken some business and economics courses but I am by no means a stock analyst or economist.

My main reason for saying these things and/or posing the theory is I keep asking myself what are OSR people spending their money on? My experience with OSR is alot of free or very cheaply priced product with a few exceptions. My experience with OSR is also alot of second hand purchases. OSR people tend to spend alot on ebay, alot on old 1st ed. modules, etc. That = zero benefit or effect upon WoTC or Paizo. I will theorize again that the Paizo guys, are outspending both the OSR and the 4e fans these days. That was the main point.

Clearly and obviously demographics matter. The baby boomers have far more disposable wealth than any other population cohort right now. Working professionals of all generations have more to spend on games, etc. so if someone can market a product do you want to market them to people with money? Or 18-25 year olds who tend to not have anywhere near as much discretionary income? Business 101 does apply I don't disagree. If we really got into the issue, it would require proprietary info from Hasbro and Paizo and some sort of "industry" wide numbers for OSR. But again ... how many OSR people are there? I see some blogs, I see some podcasts. I see no local brick and mortar stores in my area (or many places at least in the Western US) that heavily cater to OSR. I do see those stores catering to Paizo folks and still selling D&D. I see D&D and Pathfinder for sale at Barnes and Noble, en mass on Amazon. I don't see as much OSR stuff though. That is my point. I see many people proclaiming how big OSR is and now how large their purchasing power is. Yet I don't see any data to support that? I do agree if you lump OSR in with ALL the small press RPG activity it is substantital but that is disingenious as the Indie-Small Press RPG scene is not about OSR really at all. Its about Cubicle 7, Evil Hat, IPR, Drive Through RPG, etc. certainly some OSR stuff is traded on those sites and on lulu. Again though unless each OSR fan is spending hundreds each year on PDFs ... they are in my opinion not even going to be close to the spending levels of Paizo fans. Who are buying their publications and now miniatures, etc. etc. in large quantities all over the place.

For example The Warstore, Miniature Market, just to name a few carry Paizo products. I don't see really any OSR products there though. So this big OSR puff up about how OSR is doing all things for the industry, controlling the hearts and minds of the most important fans, apparently selling vast untold millions in product. I'm just not seeing it? Where? Who is making these piles of cash? Perhaps ebay ... on the after market sales of 1st ed modules. If we lumped that in, perhaps we could call OSR a significant factor in terms of percentage of RPG sales.

I'm not saying OSR is insignificant, far from it, clearly intellectually OSR has been very, very important. When you have the likes of Mike Mearls talking about OSR as well as other noted and/or influentail game designers you can't discount that. OSR has made its mark. If in no other way than by simply proving that people can just return to the classic systems that weren't broken and didn't need to be fixed. People can use the OGL to publish new materials, people can buy 1st ed stuff and simply convert it, etc. etc

I get this and applaud it. I'm just saying if there is a flaw in my logic about the size of the OSR customer base ... then show me the data? I can't find it. OSR in my opinion based on what I readily admit to be anecdotal data mixed with making assumptions based on some other sources (for example look at the amazon sales figures for the sales of WoTC vs. Paizo core books, etc.).

My point isn't to troll or be argumentative my point is that I think things are getting blown out of perspective from the OSR community. There is oddly ... how or why I don't understand ... alot of ego there. From the little I've seen in the blogosphere and OSR podcasts even before this 5th ed announcement I hear much chest pounding and really arrogant "we are all important" kinda rhetoric. This week with the 5th ed announcement that kinda thing seemed to really get blown out of proportion.

To be fair I haven't been watching the Paizo boards or equivalent pathfinder blogs, etc. so perhaps its just as bad there. At least in the case of pathfinder I could see some justification for smugness. Even then though it really would be unjustified. I think the failure of 4e came more from mismanagement and market forces than anything else. D&D has been a property somewhat adrift for a few years now. After the initial launch of D&D and say the first 18 months or so of release ... things just started sliding down hill. Was that because of OSR or Pathfinder? No. That was the fault of WoTC alone. So taking credit for slaying the dragon in a case where it basically swallowed its own tongue .. is a little unjustified. That was my main point.

The larger issue is ... it is out of this kind of environment that WoTC hopes to "re-unite" people and win the hearts and minds of its very fractured customer base? How the hell are they going to do that and if they somehow manage to pull it off, it is something that not just the RPG industry should make note of but its something that academics and business leaders outside of the industry should watch closely ... it would really be a comeback for the ages. This wouldn't be an outright first, for other similar examples one can look to: Harley Davidson, Apple, don't laugh ... seriously ... Martha Stewart, Ford, Best Buy, etc. Those are examples of businesses with fragmented, actually hostile customer bases ... which managed to navigate the mine field and find a way to come back from it. Do I predict a great comeback of D&D ... sadly ... probably not. But it is possible if the right people do the right things in unison and they finally get and stay focused on the customers.

5th edition Dungeons and Dragons Announced ...

2012-01-09T13:53:00.002-07:00

Well 2/3s of the blogs I follow I'm sure are alight with discussion about this, honestly I haven't checked any of that yet. I've only seen the WoTC site stuff and had some discussion with friends on our local game group board.

To me I've been burned by WoTC many times and have a deep seated pessimissim about the future of D&D. I have to be honest about that up front. That said though, in my heart of hearts, I deeply wish these guys would get things right and return the franchise to happier days. I think tabletop RPG needs a unifying force, a brilliant gateway to new players, something beckoning people to try it out. I think we all need a good old standby RPG again. So I hope that this time we are given a system that the disparate groups from OSR, to the 3.5/Pathfinder purists, to the 4e fanboys ... can all rally around. That might sound impossible and I admit I have said as much on more than one occasion, but really it isn't impossible. It is very possible. There are already murmurings of a multifaceted system where one can add or take away layers of complexity. If they do really end up going that direction fully and they try to really be accommodating to the different groups. The deep story RP people, the crunchy mini based, grid based, combat people .. allowing people to take out the RP stuff or take out the need for grid and long, complex combats ... and have the game still be whole somehow. Well, that would indeed be something at least worth looking at for anyone who has in the past enjoyed D&D ... wouldn't it?

I ran across this comment on the WoTC board and as far as 4e and Forgotten Realms. Just a quote from

"I agree with progenitus5... as a major fan of FR I was horrified at how alien the setting became. (I do understand the necessity to eliminate the metagame from this setting... but there again a big stick is more apt!) FR in previous editions was a beautiful entity - the gem of the RPG world. 4e changed the feel of this - something which completely summarises this edition. 4e felt out of touch... failing to capture the true essence of the DnD experience. That, for me, was the gamebreaker. Jbennett, January 9, 2012"

Just a quote from a random dude without spell check turned on ... lol. But honestly I think that captures what is wrong with the game from my perspective as well. I felt this way about D&D since 2nd ed. Even in 2nd ed much of the stuff that came out lacked the spirit of original D&D.

Most of the years of 3.0-4e has just felt ... off ... for me. There were flashes of fun with those systems. Hell for about six months we had 4e going well and really thought we'd found a new favorite game, that was short lived though and we hit that inveterate wall in the system then shortly thereafter got hit over the head with the brick that essentials was. Honestly I know many folks out there didn't feel this way about 3.0-3.5 because its most of the D&D some people have played. So that IS D&D for some people. For me I recall a odd mix of basic/1st and 2nd as my first experiences with D&D way back in the days ... and I had several years of that ... then I stopped playing D&D for probably 10 or 12 years and came back to it in my mid 20s a little while after getting back into mini wargames. We had a few very good years of 2nd ed at the end of its run in my old gaming group and then ... 3.0 came out and I personally never got my D&D mojo back. I am a huge fan of miniature war games

To me D&D is at its core a fantasy RP game and settings filled with a sense of darkness and foreboding yet mixed with elements of frivolity, humor and heroism. When this is all done in a very interesting way it just creates wonder and magic unlike almost any other game can. It is from that diverse cocktail of stuff that people have woven endlessly entertaining games for decades. I hope they find a way to bring that back more than anything else. D&D losing its way has really been nothing but a bad thing for all tabletop gaming ... I think these impacts have extended even beyond just the RPG side of tabletop gaming to the entire tabletop gaming community.

Addendum:

Ok having read more blogs, more online chatter, my biggest question is 5th edition still a grid based game? That is the biggest question I have right now. I don't see how they'll be able to break away from the grid in post 3.0 world. The grid has been the source of a majority of the problems with post 2nd ed D&D (many of the problems with D&D do in fact have their roots in the mid to late run 2nd ed stuff). The grid is constraining and I say this as a historical wargamer, a decades long fan of Games Workshp games, etc. I love minis, I even have a special nostalgia for minis based D&D. But the grid based versions of D&D have lacked that special something I think in large part due to the big derailing, game interrupting nature of grid based, very complex combats. Story and RP defacto have to take a back seat in a grid based, crunchy combat game. I do not believe it will be possible to please all the various groups ... the deeper RP/Story folks on the OSR side AND the crunchy grid/minis based combat guys on the 3.0-pathfinder-4e side ... all at once. Yet that is what is being said is the aim of 5th ed. So I'm deeply intrigued to see how this seemingly impossible task is going to be pulled off ... this is either going to be a really historic game ... or one of the biggest flops we've ever seen. The stakes are high in nerdland :)

Vampire Counts + Unbalanced look and feel + Resin = Meh

2012-01-08T11:26:00.005-07:00

Ok ... I've seen some of the new Vampire counts stuff on the GW site, BoW, and around the net and some of it looks very beautiful and well done. Yet there are some things I'm seeing like ... Resin bat swarms ... but not NEW sculpts?!!?!! What??? WHY!!

GW is "finecasting" (I feel dirty just typing that) a bunch of the "classic" models. The old bat swarms, I'm sorry those to me are not "classic" they are an old sculpting style that isn't redeeming, interesting in a kitchy way or anything ... those should be plastic on one of the sprues they should come with the zombies or skelletons or whatever like ripper swarms do for the nids. Why on earth would they do that?? Expect people to pay 24 bucks for what looks like two swarm bases? What the hell?? Ya I know maybe 20 guys globally want some new ones to match their current army but ... seriously ... even then 24 bucks a swarm? Why would anyone use GW models for that. At that price I can buy pewter reaper swarms for 6.99 and they match the look and feel of the old range nicely ... so GW can hang when it comes to this price gouging BS! Lets not even talk about 53.00 for a resin black coach. Seriously? 53 bucks?? What the hell that is just obscene!!

It is a matter of the greed or mismanagement (or both) and lack of a long range planning GW seems to have these days. That to me seems the most striking difference between GW today and GW five or ten years ago. Today it almost seems like their strategy with miniature gaming is more lets make the quick buck, lets worry about this quarters profits, to where five and ten years ago they seemed content to have a methodical multi-year, long range plan. Certainly that is still there and the current economic environment has alot to do with things, but I have to wonder if the mass departure of all the old guard in terms of game designers doesn't have alot to do with this as well. From what I've heard there has been a power shift at GW over the past decade or so and now the game design folks are sort of seen as subservient to the demands from the MBAs and corporate executive folks ... and the creative content coming out of GW ... at least in my opinion is showing it. I think there are some strong similarities between what is going on with GW and what has gone on over at WoTC.

I really need to look at their annual shareholders report (though I don't know how much they have to disclose being in the UK) I'm curious to even see what percentage of their revenue comes from mini games anymore. The things they do just simply don't make sense. I get upset about this because GW really holds a dear and special place in my heart so even if I'm not playing many of their games these days, I still hope for them to succeed but in a way that strengthens the community, in a way that brings new people to the hobby. Driving the costs of minis up so high that it is laughable for parents to look into it as a hobby for their kids. Seriously at 60 bucks a video game, even a few a month, that is cheaper than being heavily into GW games by far. During my peak about six or seven years ago I was spending $500.00 a month on average with some months going up as high as $1000.00 or more and that was at a 20% discount without sales tax. I still wasn't able to keep up with all their releases. Now we know that the typical teenager isn't going to pull that off, but even buying a single army ... now is a $1000.00 prospect in many cases. Why?? Why on earth does it need to be that way? It doesn't. GW is unwilling to look for ways to make their game cheaper and more inclusive, they seem hell bent on shrinking their customer base and offering only models at the high end, more forgworld at really ludicrous prices (for the price of a single large Forgeworld model I can buy a legion of roman figs, an entire mantic horde army, etc. etc. there are even other options out there like the dreamcast titans, etc. that are IMO better done than the forgeworld stuff. All the eastern European resin knock off places have jumped into the action ... thanks to GWs insane pricing almost anyone can make money producing models for their games.

I don't care for myself anymore as I've just largely given up on ever playing GW games again (other than their historical systems which they don't even support anymore, perhaps some blood bowl, mordeheim or necromunda, etc.). The reason I care and my big worry is just that due to pricing being driven ever higher coupled with the fact that kids can much more easily access video games ... what is the future of tabletop mini games? GW has been the historical gateway for most young people to get into mini gaming. Outside of GW mini games are largely the pursuit of old men ... is it going to only become more so thanks to GWs lack of care?? One can only hope Mantic and Privateer Press can find a way to get minis back in the hands of young folks on the scale that GW has been able to.

I have been very frustrated that GW is only focused on the top of the market, but that said it has undoubtedly created alot of opportunity for other smaller companies to come in and gobble up little crumbs. So I spend my money on the high end with Warlord on historical stuff, and at the economy end with the host of companies like reaper, etc. etc. So who knows maybe the renaissance is just around the corner. Dark Eldar and even the Space Wolves (despite some blah stuff in there) were solid new releases and I really was sorely tempted to get back in, I bought the wolves codex and had plans for an army. Even with fantasy I really was hoping to get into that with the small group of locals who aren't store troll power gaming jerks ... but the rulebook is 100 bucks (nearly anyway) and selling people on a $1000.00 game ... its just a non-starter.

I guess the silver lining for me though is from Blood Angels, Tomb Kings, to Ogres, to Necrons and now this ... GW has had a string of releases that just absolutely failed to capture my imagination like they used to. So more and more I'm ebay'ing off my GW stuff and looking to historicals and non-GW games for my mini gaming hope.

Beer and Pretzels is bad? Who says??

2012-01-04T12:11:00.002-07:00

I just happened across a post regarding the lack of sportsmanship in 40K these days and one of the posters opened up with the whole bashing "beer and pretzels" gamers and that to me is the epitome of what is wrong with gaming today. Lately I've been encountering the term "beer and pretzels" being used in a pejorative way more and more frequently and it is disturbing to me in the extreme.

To me I've always used the term to just mean casual fun. Its more of a good thing than a bad thing by far. But lately I see elitists tossing the term around like somehow they are not beer and pretzel gamers and I guess by virtue, superior.

HUH??? What??? Seriously??

My first reaction to this is, wow, we have alot of people living in some very fantastical mental places if they are thinking like that. Unless your a professional, and I mean just a handful of people ... maybe a few hundred globally (as far as tabletop goes, I'm not talking about video game designers, but even then that would expand this figure into the low thousands probably) of professional game designers ... you are beer and pretzels. I suppose store owners could be considered non-beer and pretzel gamers ... lol. You might be a tool, store troll, but guess what ... YOU ARE STILL ... beer and pretzels. Your not a professional. Oh you've won a trophy?? Even perhaps won a GT or something and been in white dwarf?? So?? Who gives two shits, seriously get a grip on reality already.

Gaming is, has been and hopefully always will be ... about ... fun. Simply idling away some leisure time with some sort of diverting passtime. Sports, despite the advent of "professional leagues" is in this same camp. Certainly you might have "pros" who fully earn a living doing something. There are some guys playing collectible card games, some video game players, who purportedly earn their entire living, again apparently a few of them even into the deep six figure range. Those guys could well make the argument that they are not casual gamers.

Anyone else though is by definition an amateur, and to me amateur = beer and pretzels. Calling ones self "elite," proclaiming superiority to all other gamers is well and good, being serious about gaming to the point of having a stick up ones arse ... ok ... but that doesn't make one better or non-amateur and those people are still beer and pretzel gamers. They might unfortunately lack the happy fun attitude about gaming, but they aren't non-amateur ... they are still casual gamers, even if they are obsessive about it they don't derive their livings from gaming.

Again tabletop gaming is under a huge assault right now, the barbarians are at the gates, ready to sack the capital. Video games are killing the tabletop star and have been for 15+ years. Tabletop gaming will never die so long as passionate people who enjoy spending their disposable incomes and portions of their leisure time pursuing it, but there is no need to hasten the decline by being tools and trolls.

The lifeblood of tabletop gaming for anyone who wants new games/products and new fun, interesting people to play the games with is the casual "beer and pretzels" player. Yet that player is all of us, the magic of gaming that pulled us in initially whether it was via D&D or Warhammer 40K or Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, whatever ... that magic and wonder is still there. As a father I'm seeing it again in the eyes of my children. I'm transported back to those wonderful days in the summer of 1984 when I was trading bubblegum baseball cards, fishing down in the river and idling away the hours with Red Box D&D. The wonder and excitement that gaming can provide for young people is still there. The wonder and excitement it can provide for us adults is there as well. But when people take games too seriously, when they become too competitive, they begin to kill that off. They change the equation. To me if one wants that kind of experience, playing golf, playing poker for cash stakes, video gaming also presents a far superior option for those who want competitive gaming. Hell just being a sports fan provides a far better white knuckle competitive kinda rush than can tabletop gaming, even at the "competitive" level.

Tabletop games to me really have little value for that. Ya ya ... I know about the competitive side .. back in the day I attended several GTs and big RTTs for 40K. I've played in a few CCG tournaments, board game tournaments, etc. and they were a little interesting and I don't begrudge people who enjoy that, who enjoy some competition mixed in with tabletop gaming. I actually applaud it. But it needs to know its place.

People who partake in it need to understand that their individual preference will never define tabletop gaming, it will never be mostly about competition. It can't be. The companies producing the minis, even collectible cards, have to be more mindful of what the "beer and pretzels" folks are doing than what the tourney folks are doing. Otherwise the bulk of their customers simply lose interest and go elsewhere ... because ... most people are just casual gamers looking for a diverting activity to engage in occasionally with friends and family. That is how its always been and how it always will be with tabletop gaming.

I am beer and pretzels, I'm proud of it and when I stop being beer and pretzels game guy its time for me to find another hobby ... anyone who thinks casual fun is bad for tabletop gaming needs to be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail ... LITERALLY.

Ghosts of D&D's Past, Present and Future articles ...

2012-01-03T23:49:00.006-07:00

A little late for the xmas stuff ... I know ... but I happened upon these articles via a link from a friend on facebook. I am not an avid escapist reader, I should be probably as they have hit upon some very interesting topics lately. Normally they are a little more video game centric than suits my taste as a very casual video game fan. As for Gonzo ... well if D&D can be equated to a muppet character these days it would be Gonzo because one looks at D&D anymore and just wonders what the hell it is.

From the escapist ... interesting and right on really. The ghosts of D&D past, present and future. Really interesting discussion of the history of D&D in terms of the versions and why certain decisions were made, the effects they have had and where the franchise might be headed.

Past ...

Present ....

Future ...

All in all good articles and they have comments from the likes of Chris Pramas (Green Ronin) and Erik Mona (Paizo, Pathfinder) as well as many of the game designers involved directly in many of these decisions, so worth the read for sure.

I think these articles rightly point out that D&D perhaps has been morphing into something else since 1989 ... I agree with that. I think that what D&D has meant to many people is quite different and it largely depends on your generation. For some (me) its mostly 2nd edition experience, others recall 1st ed as "their" edition and yet others 3.0-3.5. Only the very new consider 4e the version that broke their RPG cherry and sadly for them that was a short lived romance. Who knows where D&D will go in the future but I do know I feel sorry for Mike Mearls. My prediction is 5th edition will ultimately be a terrible failure and that Hasbro will eventually just sell off D&D as all tabletop gaming continues to slide, inevitably towards small press and less and less fat profits.

"The result of this philosophy is that, perhaps more than ever before, gamers are playing different games than the official D&D coming out of the Wizards of the Coast. "What D&D faces now with different editions and old school versus new school, and 3.5 versus 4th edition, it's like the comic book conundrum," Mearls said in reference to the differences between Silver Age Captain America versus the plot of the recent Captain America film. "How do we get all these guys back together, so we actually have real communities, not just a bunch of separate smaller communities, that don't really interact in any way?""

Again I'll say ... I feel sorry for Mike Mearls taking over at WoTC because I don't think they'll ever "reunite" the divergent D&D "community" I think that that egg shall never be put back together again, not with the aid of all the kings men. I think D&D in some form or another is likely immortal, but I don't think you'll get the old timers who are happy to return to nostalgic 1st ed back in with the pen and paper WoW set who grew up on Pokemon and Magic the Gathering and have little remembrance of the days of Thaco. Beyond this so many loyalists were driven away with 4e either from the get go or later in the run (thanks essentials!). The people who liked 3.0-3.5 are happy with what Paizo is doing (or happy to just endlessly play with all that "glut" of stuff printed in the OGL days) that nothing WoTC does will get them back into the fold and the others mostly still just feel violated having bought in on 4e only to have the carpet yanked out half way through. I must admit I'm in this camp as well, having come back to give the "new" D&D a chance and chance it I did for a few years and for a time 4e united an odd mix of miniature wargamers and RPG fans in my group, but with the launch of essentials it just took an already bastardized game into a direction none of us really wanted to go so we dumped it and moved along (like many have apparently done) I think it almost goes without saying that 5th edition is going to have to be the best thing ever to win all these people back. In a way I wonder if this means 5th ed isn't perhaps years off, just to let the dust settle a bit more .. who knows.

Fat profits in gaming will come more and more ... as we all know its just damn common sense ... from video games and anyone in tabletop gaming, be it minis, pen and paper RPGs or board games is going to have to scramble for profits. I'd bet that Fantasy Flight Games continues to thrive, probably Paizo, probably Games Workshop (simply because they continue to license out their products FOR VIDEO GAMES ... lol). Lots of room for mom and pop and very small press folks. I think the digital age does nothing but help those little guys who can survive on hundreds of customers, not hundreds of thousands. The Old School Gaming Revolution (OSR) will continue to do well as us old timers will be waxing nostalgic for decades to come, Paizo will continue to keep Pathfinder fans happy and the bunkers of 3.5 guys will likely remain alive and well. It will be interesting to see what WoTC comes up with to try to win people back ... if they manage it ... it should go down in the annals of gaming history as a true stroke of genius.

To close I'll point out something that really stood out to me:

"The problem with developing such a game was, until this year, Atari held an exclusive license to produce all digital representations of D&D, and Atari had no interest in making games other than what was already in the pipeline. As of August 2011, the two parties have settled that dispute, and D&D is now free to either develop games itself, or hire other videogame developers to make the game WotC hopes will be as successful as Duels is for Magic."

With D&D free to be pimped out for more video games, I think we'll certainly see more titles on that front than we have in years past. If they want more revenue that is the easiest place to get it, and there are tons of studios out there happy to churn out more licensed content product. So I'm sure we'll see more mediocre D&D video games in the years to come. Based on the mediocre 4th edition replete with all its unnecessary, tacky, boring new stuff that got tacked on awkwardly to D&D.

Escapist Article on The Old Republic ... the first honest review?

2011-12-30T13:41:00.002-07:00

Ok I just wanted to link an article and talk about The Old Republic as that has been the primary gaming activity I've been engaged in over the holidays, however, I have hope ... tonight we are playing some Apocalypse World and we have forays into historical mini gaming via old west, Zulus, and even Romans planned for late January and early February.

Anyway I've been playing alot of ToR ... team leveling with a friend and solo playing several other characters on the side. All in all its been fun, but if I wasn't home watching an infant alot I don't know if I'd be too happy spending all of this time glued to the PC. It has been every bit as fun as WoW ever was ... for what that is worth.

So the Escapist had a great article on it and really it struck a chord with me because this has been pretty much my experience with the game. If you are a video gamer or not this is sort of a geek cultural phenomena so perhaps just out of morbid curiosity one might want to take a look.
Anyway decent article and maybe the first honest media I've seen on the game so far, its pretty much just paid advert style reviews out there so far.

I generally agree with it ... I've had a hell of a lot of fun team leveling characters with Kyle ... by the way the game seems to be designed to team level. If you don't you miss out on alot of social points and it just gets pretty rough to solo, I know that is intentional to try to force players to be "social" with one an other. But its just that ... forced ... so to me its not meaningful.

I don't see myself playing this game for years on end like I did WoW ... I'm sure I have a few more months in me but beyond that I don't know ... I'm already feeling MMO fatigue again. The game is just too WoW like for my taste honestly. There are some bits here and there that are damn awesome but overall it is just a re-skinned, slightly updated, WoW. Anyway here is the article from yesterday from the escapist on it:

Escapist Article

I think this article hits on a few key points and they are to me. Awesome story plus an MMO might not be the match made in heaven that everyone thought it would be. I find myself more frustrated with standard MMO-ness because that crap is getting in the way of my story. Like you can easily race along on your cool class story stuff and then .. you get ahead of yourself and you can't continue because your too low level to keep going on it. So go kill 30 of these and 40 of those. The mobs are standing around walking in circles just like they were in WoW and you go out and mow them down ... yawn ... again and again. Ok come back now I can do more story ... woot!! Two segements of the story later ... back in the same spot. So the MMO-KoToR III blend is sort of leaving a bad taste in my mouth at times. At times its awesome. For me I think it makes me lose patience with the MMO format more quickly than I would in a WoW like game.

"Players often have the same companion or pet as other players in MMOs, but in The Old Republic these companions can be characters who participate in cut scenes and therefore have more heft to them than the typical henchman or meat shield does. Seeing ten people run by with a clone of "my" Imperial Agent's companion Kaliyo Djannis immediately breaks the illusion that I actually have a companion at all. Again, multiple players having the same companion in an MMO is a convention that The Old Republic's developers would have been hard-pressed to eliminate, but this time it seems strange."

That part right there can be applied to much in this game and it really hits at the core of this schizophrenic mash up of a game. Again it is not a bad MMO, not at all, and one could actually make a strong arguement that it is the BEST MMO of all time. I myself have touted the MMO model, I do like being able to again and again come back to a game and get many hours of play out of it and have a social atmosphere, etc. but I'm starting to see the big cracks in the dam on this generation of MMOs. I want the next generation and this isn't it. This is a logical, slight step past where all other MMOs have gone so far (well with the exception of Eve but ... wtf ... there is only room globally for one of those ... lol). I am not doom and gloom about it and I've enjoyed my time so far, and likely will enjoy leveling a character to 50. But this isn't the MMO-topia that I had hoped for ... but to be honest ... come on it was Bioware-EA ... that is like McDonalds and Wal-Mart teaming up, you know your going to get a commercially successful product but forget about astounding innovation. This was a licensed product made for the masses and along those lines is perhaps as good as it could have been reasonably expected to be.

So I don't disagree with this passage from the article:

"I mean none of these observations as criticisms of The Old Republic, which is reportedly the most expensive development project in the history of publisher Electronic Arts. It would be foolish to suggest that Bioware should have attempted or even had the financial resources to simultaneously challenge the status quo in MMO design on all fronts, and as I've tried to argue here the changes they did make stand to have wide-reaching repercussions we are just beginning to figure out."

In essence this game is what it should have been and what one should expect from a big, corporate product more McStarWars ...

Incidentally the image is from a Star Wars Themed Wedding Cake from prewife.com ... funny stuff huh :D

« Last Edit: Today at 01:37:07 PM by The Lord of Excess »

My early impressions of The Old Republic

2011-12-25T18:20:00.003-07:00

My early impressions of The Old Republic:

Yes indeed it is much like a fast food style experience, bright and shiny and all the while ones mouth is telling them "hey this tastes pretty good" but somehow one always knows better. With fast food one knows that even if they haven't been reading about the horrors of the industry for years and about how terribly unhealthy it all is and how filled with chemical junk it all is, they still sort of intuitively know that it isn't the best thing they could probably be consuming. That is sort of the whole experience with most MMOs in a nutshell. This game is like a nice sack o' Burger King or McDonalds ... some might be all to willing and excited to nom nom nom at the trough, others might be looking on with disdain. I think I"m somewhere in the middle.

For full disclosure on my video game feeding habits I have to admit that years past I've been hardcore and half-assed with my MMOing, admittedly mostly half-assed. Life, kids, school, job ... all at various times were far more important than some life draining game of an MMO. But I cite this experience, many hundreds ... if not honestly ... thousands of hours spent idling away on an MMO. From Ultima Online to World of Warcraft to Warhammer Online ... even a brief stint on Star Wars Galaxies. I don't see that time as wasted as I'd have just been watching TV for most of it honestly and a good portion of that time was spent during late night baby tending, etc. and with five kids ... that is a healthy amount of time let me tell you!

So this experience gives me I think at least "seasoned consumer" status when it comes to MMOs and just so far 9 or so days in on The Old Republic ... I'm already hitting the wall. The game is mostly good, but its very, very WoW like. If you liked WoW then this might be a selling point. Its like WoW 2.0 Star Wars edition. But if you didn't like WoW then this probably isn't a bonus. I was mixed on it, I had some wonderful times with WoW and alot of sort of strung out heroin addict times where I would ask myself why I was even doing this to myself. I learned from that in terms of MMOs and just quit when I hit that point with any game. Games are not worth playing if they aren't entertaining, fun, rewarding somehow. Here is where I will segue back to Star Wars The Old Republic.

In my eyes what I saw as the main selling point of this game ... STORY ... much in the same fashion that say Knights of the Old Republic delivered, this game delivers. However in this format, the MMO format, a great deal of time passes between the cool story elements in the game. During this time your doing all manner of typical housekeeping sorts of things, crafting, walking in endlessly large mall like areas (early game, later on you get yourself essentially a spiffy golf cart of a speeder ... which makes things a little better but not much). So at least to me anyway the story sort of loses something because of this. An hour of real time or days even, might pass between climactic story moments, so much so that you might have even forgotten what the heck the given quest/story element was all about. At many points I find myself just hitting the good or bad response and space barring through all the talking, just to hurry up to get back to the grind, that next level, piece of gear, etc. awaits. That is the focus of an MMO not the story. At least for me that is what it inevitably breaks down to. What story there is they did a great job on.

To be fair I like many things about this game and I'll quickly go through them here. The companion system is great, in this game everyone is a "pet class" you get a buddy to trudge around with you keeping you from getting over your head even when your playing solo. The companions will do crafting for you, sell your vender items off and generally the companions you get are complimentary to your class. I love how crafting works, one just sends companions to do most of it all and its running in the background while one is playing the game, for the most part anyway. For me not having to stop constantly to just do the crafting as one did in other games. The crafting seems genuinely useful and it is possible if one keeps the crafting leveled up as they go to actually make usable items WHILE your leveling, as opposed to say WoW where it always seemed like crafting was neigh on useless except for that 3 or 4 items at end game. Another nice thing are the four player instances and being able to que up anywhere for PVP, etc. etc. but those things are just game mechanics and most of them have been done long ago in other games.

There is little innovation or newness here this is not a next generation game, this is the culmination of current generation MMOs linked to the Star Wars franchise. Many people are all frothy about that and already declaring this the best video game .. that is VIDEO GAME not just MMO .. of all time. I wouldn't even call this the best MMO of all time personally, let alone the best of any video game .. EVER. But such nonsense is likely to be expected with fanboys uniting and loads of promotional money being shelled out. I think everyone from penny arcade to zero punctuation has received fat "promotional" fees to pimp this game. There are almost no honest reviews of it that I can find, etc. Honestly I haven't played enough to give this thing a comprehensive review of any kind.

Thus far its good, but its average good. Its just another take on the WoW model. Expect to spend huge amounts of time leveling, I mean its not insanely grind heavy (as is evidenced by the large number of level 50 players in the game already) but for the average player who has something of a life, its going to take a good month or two of pretty heavy play to ding 50.

Right now much of the game is clearly incomplete, and by that I don't mean the zones or the quest lines or anything, but there are only 3 battle grounds, there are no brackets with PVP at all. So your facing off at lvl 10 against level 50s. They do balanced hitpoints but your talent trees and shear ability levels can't be balanced. So unless you are higher level and have a good handle on your class and what it can do in PVP expect to get automatically torn in half in BGs. The space battles are a ship on rails, old school arcade kinda feel. I like them personally, but they don't present long term replayability, so clearly they are going to have to do alot of work on the space stuff. I'm assuming that long term they'll offer a "fighter based" PVP option of some kind where you fly around and play in key battles or something along those lines, something with a little more complexity to it.

The game is very, very young and the first major patch hasn't even been released so I don't want to be unfair to it, its not a bad game at all and I don't feel like I've wasted my time or money on it ... but if you haven't already taken the plunge and are on the fence about it, unless you have some compelling reason to jump in now ... I'd wait a few months the game is undoubtedly only going to be tightened/cleaned up by then. My honest just off the cuff rating of the game is perhaps a 7.5 out of 10 with a ton of room for improvement which given the nature of MMOs is likely to come over the next year or two. I'm sure this thing is designed for a five year life cycle. But even there this is perhaps my biggest criticism, this game is World of Warcraft-esq and its supposed to last another five years?? I don't think so. At present rate I'll be very bored with this game and done with it, but February.

Who knows though the game is young and I'm sure they have many unforeseen things planned so maybe by next fall I could be giving the game a 9 out of 10 time will tell. But right now they have alot of kinks to work out and its lack of really ground breaking new features sort of has me a little sad. The companion system I think is the main new addition to MMOs and the legacy stuff has potential to be so as well ... beyond that ... this is WoW .. EQ all over again.

The Old Republic

2011-12-19T21:53:00.003-07:00

This eve hundreds of thousands (if not over a million) of nerds will be installing (many have been playing for days) THE OLD REPUBLIC.

Thus the dawning of a new era is upon us ... sort of ... as much as can be so given we are talking about the launch of a new massive multiplayer online video game based upon a science fiction franchise which dates to the late 1970s. To further reduce the newness or ground breaking potential of this game is that itself, will be the second iteration of an MMO based upon the venerable Star Wars franchise which launched with a bang and went out with a whimper and still has seared rage into many for all time.

Yet I predict that The Old Republic will break new ground and set the standard for the future of not just MMOs but all video games. I have recently been experiencing many things with gaming, all gaming and seen more and more opportunity for tabletop gaming become diminished due to the utter proliferation of video games and internet based technology. I've gained new understanding for games and the place the hold for me and come to new realizations about games. These things are mostly bad for me from a nostalgia perspective, as I'd love to see tabletop gaming go on forever. It will for some people and for the world in general but likely not for me. The day will come soon that I probably won't be doing any tabletop gaming at all.

So much to say in such a short time, the wall of text that I am fond of. That alone, the fact that people are so unwilling to even read a few paragraphs anymore tips the hand a little. That is the issue I'm talking about here, with so much choice, so many distractions and only so much time ... can tabletop gamers handle yet another distraction this big?? For me ... probably not ... this might be enough to send tabletop gaming in my life into the 100 mile below the surface of the planet doomsday shelter ... for good.

Tabletop games are dying because people are too lazy, too busy and generally too distracted to engage in them. Learning cumbersome, less than perfect board, miniature and role playing game rules to play with impatient people who just want to get back to their video games and internet based devices is becoming more and more difficult for people like me. Lets not even talk about mini games really ... because assembling ... painting ... then learning said rules then running the stinking store troll power gamer gauntlet ... more and more people are simply saying no thank you.

Strangers in strange lands as it were, people like me cast adrift in the sea of gaming. People who don't have that long standing gaming group where everyone in the group has known each other since high school. One can scoff and think "well it doesn't apply to me so I don't care", oh but it does because bit by bit tabletop gaming is fraying at the edges and it is for this very reason. People are slowly being so heavily bombarded with choice via the internet and technology and there is such heavy overlap with tabletop gaming, and since tabletop gaming lives in that bubble of disposable time ... it is very susceptible to impact from video games and other similar net based diversions/time wasters/pass times.

I believe that the old republic will hasten this fraying a bit, that more people will forsake more face to face gaming in favor of just staying home and playing some Old Republic. Star Wars I think as much if not more so than World of Warcraft did, captures the imaginations of gamers. Particularly for the Gen X folks who have spent their entire lives living with some form of Star Wars. You couple just the numbers and common sense rhetoric with the Bioware (wildly popular game producer) and their deep pocket parent company Electronic Arts is doing in conjunction with Lucas Arts. Now yes Lucas has made some huge mistakes over the years, and no one seems to have anything but disdain for episodes 1-3 of the franchise, yet, there are few examples of more commercial success. The can put the Star Wars label on nearly anything and people will buy it and buy it in bulk. So what is going to happen when the take the formula that Blizzard used with WoW and mix it with the product line that geeks can never seem to get enough of ... fizzy lifting drink ... erm ... well an irresistible product that is going to do catastrophic harm to geeks all over the planet (likely myself included). Yes this harm will be self imposed by consenting, presumably intelligent, presumably responsible, adults (and their kids who will be along for the ride).

I have played The Old Republic for 3 or so days now ... I'm up to level 25 on a Sith Inquisitor (sorcerer, going heals). The game has all the fine points of wow, easy interface, Pavlovian reward system that has one salivating level after level, etc. etc. You get ships and lots of choice in the storyline which influences all sorts of things from your future choices to the kind of gear you can acquire to I believe even how you look (I swear as I get darker my Sith changes in appearance ... maybe its just me willing that to be the case). I see the writing on the wall for myself, I will fall down the rabbit hole again and this time, just based on being disillusionment with tabletop gaming in general, I don't know if I'll come back from it. Certainly I will do tabletop gaming with my kids as they grow that is a given, but I don't know, as more and more games like this and Skyrim are released its getting closer and closer to those elements of good tabletop gaming that I know and love. Ya ya ya ... but the social ... but the face to face ... but .. but. But the anti-social, borish, power gaming, jerk, flake, etc. etc. that goes along with tabletop gaming. For people like me who are looking for new people to game with that is what is encountered. With MMOs, you can just turn off general chat, don't play on PVP servers, etc. and then if you want to do stuff with other players online, look around and find them and everyone is a power gamer, everyone is a jerk so its par for the course and you don't have to sit across a table with them, you might have to listen to them squeaking and squawking in vent ... (until you get them booted from the guild on trumped up charges .. kidding .. kidding ... well ...).

I jest really I don't know if tabletop gaming can die for me and I know I've lamented about it here many times but that is what this place is, its a way to just put things out there, graffiti on the wall of the internet that might get read by someone on the train on their way to work or something. Its just my way to say things and maybe someone reads them, maybe not, I write it down for my own catharsis that is all. Just some observations by one random gamer geek in suburban northern Utah ...

We will see what The Old Republic does to tabletop gaming, again I don't predict tabletop gaming will die, this game isn't that big, the numbers will be big but it will still be small by comparison to games like Call of Duty or Madden 381 (or whatever number they are on) ... but it strikes at the core of tabletop gaming as much or more than any game that has come out in awhile. So it might have some measurable negative impact on the tabletop gaming industry and/or on ones own local gaming group ... only time will tell.

For those who are going to be partaking ... happy hunting and have a glorious time!

300 hours of Skyrim!

2011-12-14T20:36:00.004-07:00

GREETINGS FROM SKYRIM!!

Erm ...

Well I feel like after 300 hours there I should be really be relocating to Skyrim. I mean I grew up, got married, bought several homes, became a prominent citizen and then idled away days patrolling the wilds with my uber-warrior-wife keeping the realm safe :) I'll share some screen shots of my game. It was a wild, fun ride, alot of vanilla and generic fantasy video game stuff but there were some little gems here and there. Some great dungeons and plot twist curves, etc. I feel like it was time well spent as far as gaming time goes.

If only real life could equate to this kinda thing eh? (KIDDING BTW ... this vanilla one dimensional while diverting for an evening would likely be a living hell that the Truman Show had nothing on :))

NO but in all seriousness Skyrim is a great solo-D&D emulator basically. Yet another title that WoTC should have come out with eons ago eh? This game is what I longed for decades ago as a kid. It is far from perfect, its very buggy and glitch ridden. However none of the bugs I encountered broke the game or prevented me from doing whatever it was I was doing. I have had a few crashes here and there but have yet to lose more than a few seconds of game time as a result. All in all its a really good game.

My biggest criticisms are as follows:

1) Zero story based interaction with followers

2) Too few factions ... yes for an elder scrolls game I was a little dissapointed at the lack of that many factions. With such a big game I'd have hoped for more.

3) End game is a little lackluster. Ok I know there will likely be alot of mods, DLC, etc. for this so the jury is out a bit on this one but at lvl 50 having done the core storyline stuff a few times now on different characters ... I wish there were some real end game challenges. There are none.

To go into detail on my biggest complaint though it is the interaction with followers/spouses. For those who played fallout 3, Dragon Age or Mass Effect stuff you might expect a game like Skyrim to take the relationships between followers down the same path in terms of unique storylines with the followers. Nope. Skyrim for as many leaps forward as it makes, is a dud in terms of storyline with followers. The overall storylines to me were well done and satisfying, just don't expect to find an able companion and have their story catch you up in unforseen things. That doesn't happen in skyrim at all. The marriage thing is also just a minor afterthought/footnote which produces nothing more than someone to hang out in your house and give you 100 gold a day from the "store" they open in your house. Again the store is nothing more than an added dialog option with said wife/husband (ya you can same sex marry if that is your thing or if yea be a girl you can have a husband, etc.).

The bugs, etc. to me are to be expected and I don't consider those all that bad. All in all my criticisms aside here, I would still rate this game like a 9.5 out of 10. It is the best game I've played in years. Limbo and Witcher included :)

First image here is a domestic disturbance when my first characters wife's boyfriend showed up at our home half way across the map, weeks of game time after we'd been married. Of course I flew into a jealous rage, killed him, then looted the corpse. She wouldn't talk to me for four days of game time, then went back to normal and never breathed a word about any of it again :)

The masks and other rare armor and weapons are the end game basically ... collecting armor and whatnot ... been there done that ... in a solo game like this there seems to be even less point than in an MMO ... sigh ...

Hey buddy can you help my game bug-clone he is fused into the ground somehow ...

Dystopian Wars - A breath of fresh, sea air!!

2011-11-14T13:34:00.001-07:00

Beasts of War has done a nice primer on the game itself ...

Our gaming group has been playing for six to eight weeks now and we've really enjoyed it. There are some bits here and there in the rules that have frustrated some of the players, the way small aircraft work, the seeming wide variation in terms of usefulness of units (bang for the buck/points as it were) ... but all in all there is near universal positive views on the game in our group. We haven't done the land portion of the game yet and by no stretch have we seen every unit in the game in action. Between a five regular player group (with three or four other occasional players in the mix) we have probably around forty or so games under our belt as a group and no one has quit yet :) Always a good sign. We've been talking garage league/campaign perhaps ... we'll see. I still don't know if the game will stick for sure or not to be honest as we have a group that is horribly afflicted by ADD and just kinda flaky at times. It has been a good way to get people doing some actual mini gaming though and for that reason alone I'm pleased and feeling like the money I've spent so far has been worth it.

Here is a rough shot of the gaming table that I built for it ... I'll get some more up as I've also been in a major game room move (moving out the the more spacious garage).

Comfy Chair Games ... interesting range of minis

2011-10-31T01:30:00.002-06:00

Comfy Chair Games

These guys seem to have quite an interesting range of post-apocalyptic/gang wars 28 MM figures.

What was perhaps even more interesting were their cool spider mechs!

THEN look at the bare pewter over on noted mini sculptor John Bear Ross's blog ... you'll see they seem to be some decent sculpts ...

Shadowsea ... it could have been so cool!!

2011-10-27T11:40:00.004-06:00

Sadly it is an incomplete range and the guys making it seem to have ADD they are frittering off into other things and now I see Cavalcade is producing their stuff (likely meaning the game is about to die as Cavalcade seems to exclusively make money selling defunct ranges, like Ironwind Metals).

These guys did manage to make one of the coolest terrain pieces of all time (the Cthulhu temple) and the entire concept and feel of the game could have been really interesting, but they just didn't seem to produce a large enough range to make it worth buying in on. They had some really hit and miss sculpts, etc. as well.

Ah well I still am toying with the idea of buying the temple ... its pretty damn awesome looking actually ...

Antimatter games

http://www.antimatter-games.com/shadowsea/html/

Too much elitism in gaming? Me > You ... :(

2011-10-25T15:08:00.006-06:00

Clearly this is going to be a rant but I do this blog almost exclusively for catharsis and as a mental place holder for myself.

That said here goes ... my take on the state of gaming in general and I have to say
I'm tired of elitism in gaming. I've noticed it creeping in over the past several years and its just gotten to the point that its really overwhelming those things that I once found dear and refreshing in gamers and most the gaming communities out there. I don't know if its 15 years of sustained internet influence, building up these micro celebrities and giving people forums to puff their chests out in, but all in all it really just recently hit me that this is the root of what is bothering me about gaming.

More and more I can visibly see the winners in gaming both literally and metaphorically feeling like somehow they have proven they are superior. Whether that is for the evening or permanently in the gaming community depends on the case. But my point is that isn't what drew me to gaming. If I wanted that then I would have stayed with sports, golf, etc. etc. To me tabletop games of all kinds aren't about winning or losing, they never have been. Its cliche to say but really and truly they are about playing the game and having fun. It is all just about having something to do while you socialize with some people with common interests. That is being lost in gaming today I believe.

For me I came to gaming in 2000 after being away from it since middle school. Sports, booze, school, graduate school, getting married ... all those things were what my life was about. Then in 2000 I had a decent job, was done for the time with school and finally had some disposable time and money to go out and use. I gravitated to gaming because of the inviting nature of gamers, the down to earth fun geekery that I encountered sold me. I started out with war gaming via the venerable Games Workshop Warhammer 40,000. I had some very fun times with a good group in Las Vegas. But as time passed more of the old guard from our group moved away and eventually so did I. So 40K's star faded. Then came RPGs and eventually Euro-board games. But what I've noticed over the past three to five years is a trend towards elitism even in those areas.

By this I mean more war gamers are now buying their armies pre-painted and its all about graphing out numbers breakdowns for statistical superiority with army lists. For RPGs its all this factional crap with D&D, there is the old school camp, the 3.5/Pathfinder camp and the 4e camp .. some crossover but mostly those people hate each other. The indie fans for a long time seemed like a bastion of hope for me, but now with the podcast and blog-o-sphere influence mostly all of those people seem like name dropping and specialized jargon is what they are after as a way to feel superior to other gamers.

Now board games ... well ... even that once hopeful area of light has now faded for me. More and more the same issues I have with say Games Workshop games has come to play with board games. Sites like boardgame geek have turned it into a contest to see who owns the most games, who has played the most, and you have ever increasing release schedules from game companies just churning out semi-collectible products (I'm looking at you FFG!). Its just not worth even trying to keep up anymore. My only hope here is to convert some non-gamers into a little fun board game group and hope that it stays that way. I'm really tired of board gaming with war gamers and actual board gamers ... its just not fun ... the entire concept of a social board game is lost on those people anymore.

So whats left? I know historical war gaming has long had its elite camps, hell the entire concept of it is a little elitist. That said ... historicals has sort of been the "outsider" gaming pass time. There are some crossovers but generally speaking with games that might not even have a points system and are entirely "gentleman's games" ... essentially just an excuse to paint toys soldiers and get them out and look at them and push them around in little interesting historical scenarios. Well maybe there is hope there yet. Who knows.

Other than that I'm wondering if my days of gaming with people other than my kids in general are numbered. Maybe I'll just go back to being one of those boring main stream sports fans again ... honestly there is less elitism and really probably no more boorish-jerkism (probably less per-capita). Besides sports are still more main stream than gaming so it makes for better water cooler talk.

I'm a geek, I always have been, but I went from a sports geek to being a game geek and now I'm sad that the negatives that seemed to plague my fellow sports fans has crept into gaming. I'm sure its in part due to just the growth in gaming. We are seeing a wider more diverse audience and we are no longer in the fledgling "community formation" stage, so those innocent friendly days of the past are long behind. I just miss those times and miss gaming with those kinds of people.

I made this post in no particular reaction to anything or anyone I just was surfing the net as usually and facebooking and had a little ah ha moment for myself. I really don't think many people read this blog. I will be the first to admit that its not of high quality or particular interest to anyone but me, but this was something I just felt like putting down in writing to perhaps see if anyone else out there felt like this at times.

15 MM D&D? I'm serious !!

2011-10-15T13:32:00.008-06:00

Ok one of my favorite blogs anymore is Tiny Solitary Soldiers and recently there have been some posts over there regarding copplestones new 15 MM fantasy range. Ya you sold me ... I'm in.

I honestly wish there were more complete ranges for 15 MM fantasy in general. I have really been thinking about 15 MM D&D ... 15 MM is really a better scale for the way that many DMs run their games. Some really cool secondary benefits for going smaller, such as you could use dragons that were actually in scale to the adventurers (and it wouldn't cost you $500.00 to do so!). Terrain would be easier to do up and you could do larger rooms and scenes with less effort than you do in 28 MM. Doing large dungeons would really be a snap even by comparison to small to medium sized 28 MM dungeons. You could represent hordes on a 1 to 1 basis ... 100 goblins ... hmm ... ok no problem guys! Terrain would be easy and actually on this front I do believe that there are some decent options out there for 15 MM terrain with all the ancients terrain for Roman and Dark Ages stuff not to mention the north African stuff for WW II gaming (that would still work perfect for D&D), etc. etc.

We just need more in the way of D&D monsters, adventurers and a little bit more in the way of high fantasy style terrain options. I'm on a quest now to find more of this stuff and acquire it and use it.

Ok and speaking of using 28 MM dragons ... perhaps best of all is that some of the 28 MM monsters would work as "ancient" or "giant" variants of the said monsters. So you could probably use some figures selectively from 28 MM ranges as well (I'm thinking things like demons, wyverns, trolls, etc.).

I'm very excited about the future of 15 MM based D&D!!

Warlord Bolt Action WW II rules!!

2011-10-06T13:56:00.003-06:00

Warlord is going to do a 28 MM WW II game go go along with their bad ass Bolt Action minis! Bodes well for weird WW II as well!! They are apparently partnering with Osprey which is friggin awesome!! Check it out!

Cool Mini or Not takes over Tabletop Gaming News ... sad times :(

2011-09-20T16:28:00.002-06:00

Cool Mini or Not takes over TGN ... sad times :(

What one says? How can you say that! Cool Mini or not is great!!

No ... no ... it certainly is not. I know I'll be in the small minority of people who are displeased about this news but let me explain my angst.

Cool mini or not is a money making enterprise, they are part and parcel with the Dark Age Miniatures company which is owned by David Doust the guy who ran New Wave minis back in the day. New wave was a terribly run site that basically took peoples money and wouldn't send them the product they'd purchased. It was so bad that they went out of business and they were in a position as a company to dominate online tabletop gaming sales ... if only they'd been run by a person with any business sense. Dark Age has been horribly run for years and yes I know they are trying to re-launch the game entirely right now. We'll see how that goes I wish them luck.

I'll make a prediction that alot more is said about Dark Age and everything else starts to go down hill. I will likely un-bookmark the site and look to other sources for news about minis. Hopefully something similar rises from the inevitable ashes.

Long RPG road to redemption ... and then certain doom ...

2011-09-18T13:06:00.004-06:00

Sometimes you have a fork in the road, a turning point if you will and then sometimes you have a WTF intersection.

Recently that kind of an intersection has come up from my gaming group in terms of RPG choice. Over the past several months we have fully abandoned D&D 4th edition. This isn't a bash 4th ed post at all. We had fun with it while it lasted but essentials and just the reality of what 4e does hit our group all at once and we just found it wasn't for us at all.

We have struggled to get other systems going (lack of enough players for more than one game until very recently has been the main problem there). But its brought up a whole new round of discussing new game ideas and options and most of them have just been dead on arrival.

For me there are a few things that RPGs do well and a few things they don't do well and its as simple as that.
Long ago (15 years ago now or so) a group I was gaming with collectively had the epiphany that an RPG can simulate things, it can foster story and it can create a player versus game master and/or player combat. Some systems might be held up as being able to do all that well but in my experience RPGs work on a sliding scale. You amp up RP too much and combats tend to suffer (unless your just narrating as GMs and/or Players whats happening but even there I'd argue from a combat perspective for the vast majority of groups that just wouldn't be as satisfying in most cases). You dial up combat too much and you have 2 or 3 hour combats that interrupt the RP too much and get people off track (IMO this is one of the downsides of grid based D&D).

SO WHATS THE POINT?
Game masters and players can use those tools provided by said system to create/weave a collective story together. That is pretty much it right?

Yes duh ... we all know that and have known it since we first played RPGs. All I know though is for me at that time even though I'd played RPGs off and on since I was a kid I hadn't verbalized it (going back 15 years to the eureka moment) and thought about it in mechanical terms like that.

Now since that time I've listened to other gamers pontificate, I've pontificated, I've listened to people on their blogs and podcasts pontificating about this or that "trope this" "5th wall that" "simulator this" "indie ... old school ... whatever ... that" ... yada yada .. and at the end of the day its still just extending the discussion on "what is an RPG" but really the simplicity gets lost in all the esoteric jargony discussion.

RPGs are just a guide on how to sit around a table and weave a collective story/narrative (operative term there). Now that isn't to say that a combat heavy game isn't the same thing ... of course it is ...that game's story is just alot more about the fights that take place than about what the characters do outside of fighting. Its all the same thing really it just depends on what the group feels like doing. Role playing games are simply a guideline to facilitate a shared story experience amongst a group of players.

Anymore to me a few things come into play that have nothing really to do with mechanics per say its more to do with players willingness to put time in to learn rules and to spend time playing the games.

COMPLEXITY:

Rulesets can be massive tomes and ultra complex or they can be simple, elegant little rule-sets that merely facilitate a single game and not much more. They can do combat well but non-combat simulations bad, they can have loads of hints and suggestions and help players and GMs along the path to a genre specific authentic experience. They can be lose and open ended or they can be very rigid and closed. But at the end of the day if they don't ultimately result in group fun they are going to fizzle and people are going to move on. Each group is so different and there are endless things that can hamper fun ... pulling off RPGs is a daunting prospect even with a great ruleset.

TIME:
The more complex rules are the larger commitment GMs and players have to make to learn the rules and while 20 years ago that wasn't that big of a deal to get people to spend a little time to buy in ... today ... unless you find people that are ultra passionate about RPGs your going to be hard pressed to find people who want to read a 250 page rule book and memorize a 50-100 page combat section ... JUST TO PLAY the game. Then show up each week and hope everyone else does and hope that the game doesn't go to hell because someone does something crazy or someone's work schedule suddenly changes or whatever.

On the time topic ... same goes for how long it takes to do things in games. If you have five semi-busy people who waste time on facebook and Ipod aplications all week and then get busy on the weekends because all the shit they should have done all week is now piled up on them come Friday evening an Saturday afternoon ... are you going to want top play an RPG that has 2 hour combats? Or a game that it takes someone 20 minutes to do some computer slicing? Do you want to play a game where rolling a new character takes three hours? Probably not. So those games are less and less appealing. But see people don't always verbalize that ... the game just burns down and no one really knows why.

Its sad because as we age we get more life stuff to deal with combined with our collective lack of time and willpower to break away from facebook and steam long enough to get in the car and get together to do tabletop gaming is making campaign style RPGs an endangered species. I don't dislike the complex stuff but I see it as less and less realistic to pull off as there are just so few people who have the time and the inclination to do games like that anymore. On a side note I guess its why I'm also very much drawn to mini gaming and board games because those are so much easier to pull off with a broader audience.

I also think its why D&D continues to thrive because really the non-D&D RPGs give less competition to it by shear virtue of all the aforementioned things ... people just seem to have less and less time to devote to tabletop gaming so they pick and choose things that they know they can pull off. D&D is a tried and true old friend for most gamers so they keep coming back to it ... whatever version or flavor ... its something that has a little more certainty than a Savage Worlds game or a RIFTS game or whatever. There are some examples like the GW stuff ... there is a huge base of fanboys for that so it probably sells ok but its selling as an accessory to the mini games probably much more than as a stand alone RPG system. So on that alone I think D&D is safe yet other types of RPGs unless they are lite and simple and "one shot" style I think they are going to struggle more and more to find an audience.

That is essentially what has happened to us we've gone looking to other game systems and ultimately come full circle back to pathfinder (a game we loved to hate for so long) and found that at the end of the day it fits us just fine and its far more realistic to pull off than pretty much anything else we looked at.

WARPATH!! ON THE HORIZON!!

2011-08-26T12:45:00.002-06:00

WARPATH!

Mantic looks like they are just about ready to roll out WARPATH!! With some old school style army deals, etc. I'm excited!!

http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=e62f0c35454fa3ba687404d69&id=da1f086f17&e=578ecfe0fe

Selling tons of 40K stuff on ebay ...

2011-08-17T14:02:00.001-06:00

I haven't been playing ANY 40K for nearly 2 years now so I've decided to let go of some of my stuff ... it only makes sense.

Valhallans

Box of Mordian still in the shrinkwrapped box

Armored Column -- Massive 22 tank lot with baneblades and forgeworld stuff

Imperial Guard Footy Cadian Army

2200 Point Space Marine Army

2220+ Point fully Painted Necron Army

Sad to see it all go but honestly just converting it all to something I'm going to actually use is alot more valuable and meaningful in the long run. Its a massive amount of stuff that I paid thousands for and will likely only get hundreds back on ... but such is life. If your interested click the links thanks for looking.

Awesome Terrain from Ziterdes (in Germany)

2011-08-10T13:39:00.001-06:00

For years I've looked at the stuff these guys make and drooled ... sadly those years have been the years that I haven't had a six figure salary ...

http://www.ziterdes.de/ziterdes/en/index.php?we_variant=en

I'd love to try to pick some up though at some point ... (the video below is in German but it gives a good look at the buildings I've been drooling over lately).

Fantasy Flight is getting BIG!

2011-08-06T09:32:00.000-06:00

Fantasy Flight is really going to town these days ...

They are now moving into publishing with three novels related to their games. Tracy Hickman is penning stuff for them. They picked up the Star Wars license. They continue to pump out the GW titles and all their own in house stuff (tons and tons of new titles). They seem to be everywhere doing everything. I'm still so surprised that they have the GW license they now seem so directly in competition with GW. I guess if they are both making money what the hell eh? But they seem poised to really become the dominant force in tabletop gaming (I think one could make a strong argument that they already are).

Warmachine RPG in 2012

2011-08-05T17:36:00.000-06:00

This is older news I'm surprised it wasn't more widely distributed around the intertubez ...

Lock & Load Announcement: Iron Kingdoms RPG
Posted on June 19, 2011 by PPS_Aeryn

One of the reasons we at Privateer Press are so jazzed to have our own convention is that it’s a great place to make those huge, earthshaking announcements about upcoming products. So, without further ado, here’s a big one, info gleaned from the Iron Kingdoms RPG announcement.

* Release Date: Gen Con 2012
* System: Proprietary. This system shares some common mechanical elements with a couple games you already know and love: WARMACHINE and HORDES.
* Classes: You will have the ability to play warcasters or warlocks in the RPG. With a flexible system for how you start off your campaign, you can also play such a character from session one, not just after months of adventuring.

The Integratron?? Awesome RPG one shot setting

2011-08-05T14:57:00.002-06:00

Really odd. Clearly mostly bunk (all the alien shit) but the acoustical properties of the building and the location are interesting. George Lynch is cool and hilarious as well.

Check out the website.

The Captains ...

2011-08-04T23:47:00.004-06:00

Ok first I don't really consider myself a trekkie but I have to say since they've put all the Trek stuff up on Netflix streaming I've been revisiting the Trek stuff which I really haven't seen for years. I've watched all of Enterprise (which I'd never seen before at all), a good portion of the original show and I'm about half way through the Next Generation stuff. Campy, corny, and to be honestly mostly delightfully entertaining in a warm and geeky way. I've been drawn back to Trek this summer a bit (thanks to Netflix and the JJ Abrams film). Anyway in the continuation of this recent bender ... I watched William Shatner's Documentary this evening The Captains.

"You recognize that William Shatner may be a fool, but he's our fool." UGO review of the film.

I can't agree more with that quote. Come on we all know ole Bill Shatner over the top and all the way ... but god damnit ... it just works doesn't it? Sure the film is largely about Shatner but what else would we expect? The film really delves into what many of the actors went through to play the part and what its meant for them professionally and personally. Beyond that if your curious check it out ... its free at the Epix website (www.epixhd.com). You just have to sign up for a free trial account. Epix itself seems lackluster but its one of the only places you can see The Captains on the internet for free (in a non-shady way anyway).

Anyway if you have any positive views on any of the Trek series ... watch it ... you'll enjoy it. If you hate Trek with a passion and hate William Shatner (how could anyone?) skip it. I very much enjoyed the film for what it was ... thanks again Bill :)

New addition to geek dictionary -- Roll Player

2011-08-04T09:17:00.002-06:00

Roll Player -- A participant in a role playing game who is a self proclaimed master role player (not to be confused with roll player) when in fact they are actually a power gamer. These players frequently use their "character backstory" to justify anything no matter how stupid or game breaking it might be. Though they frequently hide behind the guise of backstory they are almost always unwilling to work at making the game fun for everyone. Sadly they are just min-maxing power gamers trying to hide their devious ways.

(It was here first ... hehe).

Fantasy Flight Picks Up Star Wars

2011-08-03T10:18:00.003-06:00

FFG snags the Star Wars license ...
gasp .. surprise .. no?

Ya ya tons of people predicted this one it seems like FFG is the go to shop anymore for stuff like this. I can't say I'm at all disappointed as they in my opinion generally make fine games.

Is more always better? Well that is in the eye of the beholder I guess. I know in addition to being anxious for a new Star Wars RPG I'm excited about more Star Wars board games, non-collectible card games, MINI games (they mention it) etc. etc.

Desperate attempt to not let mini gaming die in my gaming group ...

2011-07-29T10:04:00.000-06:00

Mini gaming in general has been on a terrible slide in my gaming group for nearly two years now and I fear its about to die. To be honest there are six or so people beside myself in my gaming group (out of about 20 people in the extended group) who are mini game fans. The local mini gaming community is pretty bad, consisting entirely of store trolls and kids ... neither which demographic I have the patience to deal with anymore. So in a last ditch effort to save mini gaming ... ANY mini gaming ... in our group. I'm going to toss a hail marry.

The systems that have the most appeal are Warma-hordes and Dystopian Wars. Two systems does concern me because we are splitting the interest but that is what the group wants overall so I'm going with it. Don't get me wrong there is a GW bent in our group ... but getting 40k/WHFB off the ground has actually been whats nearly killed mini gaming for us.

The scale, investment and scope of those systems is just too big for most of the people in the group with an interest. Getting things assembled and on the table has just proven insurmountable for most of the other people in the group. To top it off 40k scales horribly ... 500 point games suck ... and ya there are some skirmish fan systems out there but they aren't supported, aren't balanced, etc. etc. and there is always an Achilles heal that kills off any effort with the GW stuff with our group. We've tried three times over the past year and each time for one reason or another efforts to as a group do GW stuff fails. The nice thing about both dystopian and Warma-hordes is the buy in is low. 40-50 bucks and someone is in with a starter force. The games play ok at the starter set level and there is no need to immediately jump it up. With GW there is. With Dystopian the painting/modeling commitment is low as well. Warma-hordes is identical to GW stuff in terms of painting modeling really ... but again at the boxed set level.

So I'm making one last attempt. I'm going to try to just put up or shut up about mini gaming. I'm going to focus on the following three projects:

1) Getting a sea board built with a few nice sets of islands done up.
2) Getting two 4x4 tables done and full terrained for Warma-hordes (with like 2 terrain sets for each board).

Once that is done:
3) getting two forces done for Dystopian (Brits and Prussians) and 2 starter forces for Warma-hordes completed. So I can offer a game to anyone even if they don't have minis and don't ever have any desire to buy and paint stuff ... no worries they could use one of my loner armies and have fun on a mini gaming night.

Right now I have no way to really tell when mini gaming is going to be taking place because I won't have my fall schedule until at least next week or perhaps the week after. Its sounding like Monday night might be my mini game night. For those Monday night football fans ... I have no aversion to having the game going on in the background if you want to come over play some mini games and watch the game. But we'll get into that once I know for sure that is going to be the case. Wednesday might also end up being a better day. I'm pretty sure I'll have class on Tuesday and Thursday eve though so likely those nights will be auto-out.

One day I'd love to get back into 40K or perhaps Warpath (mantics ruleset which you can 100% use GW minis with) and warhammer fantasy (or Kings of War.. again mantic system) but that is likely 2012. Its just too big a endeavor all around. Hopefully we find some more people up a Weber this year and bolster our numbers a bit ... that would help.

BADASSDOM! (and why is LARP so lame)

2011-07-24T11:50:00.006-06:00

First check out that trailer. Looks awesome!! Peter Dinklage ... Summer Glau ... Danny Pudi ... in the same movie about geek shit. Come on this is going to be hilariously good!

Ok second and this was sparked from a discussion the local game group forums.

I'm a jerk for saying this but I feel compelled none the less.

Ok long ago in the days of yor in the garage of old ... we had a summit of begutted self proclaimed wise men to discuss LARP and why it was so epically gay ... sorry that is offensive to the gay community to link them with LARP in any way ... lets instead go with LAME ... as it were (and is).

The panel decided that for the following reasons LARP is actually classified as the epitome of lame, the saddest of activities that the vast majority of geeks are unwilling to accept. Why though?

First and foremost its an activity that the very obese (peeps who make me look svelte) seem to gravitate towards. However perhaps the largest group of LARPers is the terribly socially awkward set. People who just don't know how to interact with other humans at all on a common wavelength. Toss in a good mix of folks who don't understand personal hygiene and you have your typical LARP group. Ultimately these groups unite to make LARP look like one of the singularly most lame things one could possibly do to all of us outsiders.

This is sad because really LARP could be cool ... it really really could be a fun cool activity. There is really nothing more lame about the concept of LARP vs the concept of pen and paper RPGs. Yet in practice ... yes there are some super lame D&D groups out there ... but by and large most RPG groups are kinda tame and don't really differ much from your average group playing a board game. Why could LARP be cool and fun? LARP could combine community theater, improvisational acting and perhaps even historical reenacting with gaming. In concept that could really be cool if well executed.

Well that trailer sure makes it look badass eh. I mean if hot chicks and cool dwarfs LARP'd in large enough quantities ... who the hell wouldn't want to LARP. See that is the key there ... cute girls and more normal people (lets face it truly mainstream people would NEVER LARP) don't NOT LARP in high enough numbers to make the activity cool. Boffer LARP I think might be in some areas an exception due to an odd association with martial arts, but boffer LARP is pretty lame too for the same reasons in general.

Hell ren-fair/SCA stuff struggles with that and its alot more acceptable because they are for the most part a historical reenacting group that practices crafting, etc.

I said years ago and I'll say again ... I can make LARP cool ... instantly. How??

Simple ... give me ten average to hot girls ... (need at least 2 or 3 very hot girls). Five somewhat normal dudes. Most of the people in the group need to be intelligent. You mix that up and that could be the foundation of a decent LARP group. You can mix in 10 more people ... a couple socially awkward people ... a couple ultra-fatties ... and it would still probably be ok. As long as the ratio of somewhat cute girls to the overall group size is about 30% ... and the overall semi-normal intelligent person ratio didn't drop below 60% ... it would be fun and cool.

As we all know actual LARP never approaches those ratios and therefore is doomed to be eternally lame.

For proof of this I hold up Cos-Play ... how the fuck is Cos-Play now nearly mainstream (in the geek world anyway). Simple ... the ratios listed above.

(half serious ... half satirical ... half sarcastic !!! INDEED!!)

LARRYCON II this weekend!!

2011-07-07T13:32:00.002-06:00

HOLY MACKEREL BATMAN!! Is the second annual LARRYCON already!! TIME HAS FLOWN ROBIN ... TIME HAS FLOWN!!

What is LARRYCON one asks ... well its an excuse for good friends who now live in different areas to get together in the land of milk, honey and mormons otherwise known as Utah for a wild weekend of gosh darn honest to goodness gaming .. golly gee willikers!! Sigh ... sorry I've been in this wondrous land of friendliness for too long now I think.

Last years LARRYCON was a blast!! Over the course of the weekend thanks to not only my friends Scott and Rob who trekked up from Las Vegas last Friday evening ... but to all the local gamers who I've met over the past year ... we pulled off a 25 person Micro/Home-Con. Several people crashed in my basement ... it was awesome and hilarious fun for an entire three day weekend! This year a few more people are trekking up from Vegas and we'll have some local new faces as well so it looks to be bigger and better than the last one ... at least 100% larger and now with a kung foo grip!

Last year we played (and several others I'm probably forgetting):

Do You Worship Cthulhu?

Hopefully this year we revisit some of those and add more to the list!

Two free online games (microtransaction) ... World of Tanks and League of Legends

2011-07-04T14:15:00.002-06:00

World of Tanks and League of Legends.

OK so far I've enjoyed World of Tanks. Its a Call of Duty-esq (tanks only though) style game. You play on large maps against other tanks. You can play as German, American or Russian tankers. But the battles are mixed so you are playing on teams with all three factions on the same side. There is some sort of balancing algorithm at play in the game in terms of tank types (a mix of light, medium, heavy, tank destroyers and mechanized artillery) and I think it includes peoples crew training, upgrades, etc. in the balancing equations. So the games are mostly balanced and generally fun.

So far my only complaint is the leveling is really slow ... clearly they want you to pay for the bonus experience. But I've heard in the game and on the forums that even with the premium experience its an ultra grind. Really though as far as microtransaction goes you are only mainly looking at buying quicker leveling not really additional content as far as I can tell.

World of Tanks Trailer:

Ok the second game is League of Legends its apparently based on the Warcraft III engine (ya I know blast from the past eh!) but I've heard its fun. Your basically rumbling around with a single hero in a big battlground (again just think Warcraft III) where you fight either 2 vs. 2 battles or 5 vs 5 (or you can just fight the computer for a reduced exp reward). Apparently they rotate the hero types each week and if you want to keep playing the same hero type you have to buy it. I don't know what other microtransactions they have going on ... I haven't played it yet I've just been hearing about it. I'm actually downloading it now and I'll update this post when I get some playtime in. Update: Been playing the game for a few hours, its pretty cool so far. Worth a look anyway.
League of Legend trailer 1:

What is over the line in a game?

2011-07-02T15:11:00.003-06:00

When is too far ... too far?

Recently on the local game group forums we've had a discussion going on what is too far with RPGs and video games. I'm pretty opinionated on this in terms of I think any depiction of violence or abuse towards children is 100% taboo. Apparently people don't feel that way.

even worse someone thinks its so funny they will sing Adam Sandler opera man style songs about it

Yet as offensive as it is I don't think it should be banned or burnt. Its protected speech and people are fully entitled to consume it and view it. Such is freedom ... good with the bad ...

It just saddens me that there seem to be no standards anymore in terms of this sort of thing. But this is a broader discussion. What do people out there think? Especially with your own home gaming. What are your lines ... or do you have any ... in RPGs?

Its just a game is the take on the internetz ... and therefore doing anything in it is ok and your an idiot if you read anything into it. So there are no lines at all ever, under any circumstances when it comes to games now apparently according to most people on the internet. Because its fictional and just pixels its all ok. This is why video games are less and less appealing each year. I suppose at some point it will all just be torture porn hentai with an anything goes attitude. Sad really, but just sad to me I guess after reading more about this online I realize I'm in the minority to such an extent I might be the only person in the world who feels this way (well maybe there is one other but that's about it). I know this is kind of old news for the internet ... but we have been talking about it in the local community and we started bringing it back to the world of tabletop games and I wondered if anyone else out there had thoughts.

New Gears of War boardgame preview

2011-07-01T15:29:00.003-06:00

New Gears of War boardgame preview ... looks cool!

Oz roleplaying game ... odd or interesting?

2011-07-01T12:31:00.000-06:00

I don't know what to make of this ... something interesting or just a bit too out there to want to attempt. See this is the kind of game I could see playing with my own kids as a family RPG. Might be interesting. But from how the developer teaser is worded it sounds like its geared towards adults and RPG nerds at that. So I don't know how much mileage I'd get out of it for a game for the kids, I'd be better off hacking another system and just doing a sandbox game for them. As for me I don't know if this would be something I could reasonably get a group of gamers together to try ... even for a one shot ... lol. Here is a blurb from the Studio 2 page.

"All of the familiar characters from the Land Oz are in Oz: Dark & Terrible, with one exception. The Scarecrow is an Anidum; a creature containing a person's soul that has been transplanted into a mannequin, while the witch responsible walks around in the Husk with all its memories. The Tin Woodsman is a retired member of the Wizard's "secret service", the Tin Men, who ensure the citizens of the Emerald City remain loyal to their ruler and are willing to use whatever means necessary to achieve their goals. The Cowardly Lion is a disgraced exile from his rightful kingdom after his father betrayed the other Animals in a catastrophic battle against Blinkie, the former Wicked Witch of the South, who refuses to be like other Carnivores who eat the hearts of Humans to gain lycanthropic powers."

For sure an interesting concept though, I'm tempted to pick it up just to see the mechanics and the game itself, I'm sure it would be interesting if nothing else.

The history of modern mini games and/or Games Workshop

2011-06-30T16:30:00.007-06:00

"Games Workshop is like the McDonalds of wargaming, because it’s a reproducible, franchiseable concept" Henry Hyde, Interview with Rick Priestley.

I happened upon a good interview from 2009 with Rick Priestley and John Stallard (old time UK GW people who really have helped shape the entire gaming world via their projects at GW over the years). I found this thanks to a great blog The Fighting Fantasist. Its really cool because they are basically talking about the old school gaming revolution ... without really doing so. It also makes me wonder when mini games is going to really and truly get its own OSR. Ya ya I know historicals has basically never left the 1970s but I'm talking fantasy and sci-fi based games. I see lots of mom and pop companies out there but nowhere near the level of community that the OSR RPG community has. I think perhaps 15 MM sci-fi has potential to maybe be the first big OSR breakout with mini gaming. Who knows though. Thoughts?

Beyond that though this article had alot about gaming in general and game design in terms of rules appeal based on ones generation. I never really thought about how age really can give one a preference for specific rules complexity. These complex rulesets appealed to teenage boys alot (in the 1960s-early 90s anyway) because it gave them certainty in the games they were playing and allowed them not to have to worry about making judgments. Today its probably not true as everyone's attention span has been reduced by 80% thanks to the internet and all our wonderful (and destructive) internet gadgets. We all have popcorn brain now ... hehe. I'm beginning to see it applies to all facets of mini gaming beyond just RPGs. I'm waiting to see it happen with board games (though one could argue it kinda already has). Its really nostalgic in the beginning with alot of talk about the infancy of the miniature gaming industry (which incidentally spawned the RPG industry ... don't forget that Gygax and Arneson were historical gamers before they created D&D and D&D itself comes from Chainmail which was more a fantasy minis game than a RPG). Its long and if you don't know who these guys are you might not find much interest in it but I really enjoyed it!!

http://www.battlegames.co.uk/documents/BG_HH-RP-JS-interview_unabridged.pdf

Really this hits at the heart of game design and how we gamers of different generations have different levels of appreciation for different types of games. My patience level for rules complexity is not what it once was. In my early 20s I was a fount of rules minutia and I memorized tables and charts and could ramble them back to you at will ... now that just pisses me off. I care about concepts, about what it is people are trying to do ... not some specific rule about "oh you get a D4 there not a D6." But in my teens and early 20s that is all I could focus on ... because then I didn't have the capacity for judgments and generalities that I do now as an old guy. I really like how Rick goes over how this plays into game design, etc.

I love the quote from Mr. Hyde regarding D&D its a classic (one that most gamers can relate to).

"I remember my first D&D game seemed a really bizarre to me because it was without

miniatures, just the Dungeon Master sitting in the corner, making it clear that you had to imagine

what was going on, it was all inside your head, and I came away feeling like I’d smoked something

particularly strong –it was just mind expanding. And it was actually quite a long time before I saw a

game using miniatures." Henry Hyde

When asked about Warhammer being a "six move" game he replied ..

"Yes, the premise there was that you have to be able to play a wargame that starts when you get
home from work, which can be played in its entirety, and then allow you to get to the pub in time
for last orders with time for you to discuss it! Now, because we’ve changed the licensing laws in
this country, this has undermined an entire generation of wargames developers! It’s a serious
problem! But that was indeed the basis on which we developed our games, because that’s how we
did it." Rick Priestley

All in all a very good but really detailed interview... (so if you have ADD skip it. I loved it though.).

Extremely poigniant discussion of the portrayal of armor on females in fantasy settings

2011-06-29T14:47:00.004-06:00

Extremely poigniant discussion of the portrayal of armor on females in fantasy settings ... INDEED!

Alchemy itself as RPG inspiration

2011-06-29T12:07:00.002-06:00

I'm sure there is alot of pseudo-science (De facto) and pseudo-history (gross over simplifications for sure) in this film. YET ... really inspirational in terms of RPG seed potential.

Going off the grid ... BLASPHEMY!!

2011-06-28T16:29:00.003-06:00

My friends all know my standing rant of "this isn't Dungeons and Dragons ... that died when 3.0 was introduced and the grid became a requirement for the game." Usually a one way ticket to hell in the minds of most D&D fans and or an automatic mental ignore. Such is the life of a garrulously loquacious wanderer.

Again don't get me wrong ... sure I have extensively played 3.0, 3.5, pathfinder and 4e. I've spent hundreds (probably thousands) on books, supplements, modules, minis ... to play in a grid world. Hell I'm a mini gamer, I play Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine, etc. I actually enjoy modeling and painting minis. But to me the core of a role playing game is players delving into what makes their character tick and finding a living breathing character there. The DM can use that to make the game better and better. The grid pulls everyone out of that immersive experience and brings them into something not very different from 40K or Warmachine, etc. but in a cooperative board game style of mini game. Its cool and fun ... but its a very watered down version of role playing in my opinion. I usually get shouted down as a grumpy old grognard when I say this in public though these days.

I recall the old days though back when Hexes were traditionally used for large maps (entire regions) where the grid was reserved for smaller scales stuff (anything from buildings to dungeons to towns). In that regard the grid and hex seemed to be better suited for their respective uses. I still use hex for large maps and grid for anything smaller when I'm doing my own campaigns, regardless of the system. As was mentioned with 3.0 onwards for D&D you needed to use the grid for game play due to so many rules that you needed to track in terms of player proximity to things, etc. Abstract combats became a thing of the past and the rise of grid gaming was complete (for D&D anyway) "Oh combat ... 10 minute pause as the grid is brought out and everyone drops out of RP mode into tactical board game mode." Again as I said I've been engaging in 3.0 grid based gaming as most of us have for a long time now ... but I remember the days before the must use grid to be able to play ... RPGs. Also I've heard the "oh you can play 3/3.5/pathfinder/4e without a grid. In response to that I've always said don't give me any lame shit about how the grid games don't need a grid ... you can't bullshit us ... most of us have tried it without the grid and it sucks. Half of the rules in the games are combat advantage, flanking, attacks of opportunity, AoE stuff with specific square effects, etc. etc. it would be so labor intensive for the DM to run a non-handwave fudge all the rolls game of 3.0-4e it wouldn't be worth the effort and there would be so many interuptions it would still disrupt the game with delays. That or it would just turn into the DM faking everything and essentially railroading most of the game.

Having recently returned to non-grid based RPGs I am beginning to remember what made them magical and I'm enjoying it. As a DM I'm seeing the story remain in play for the entire session. With the grid based games as soon as the grid rolls out its tactical board game time and all meta conversation about tactics. That doesn't mean that in non-grid games players don't attempt to do so but in my experience you get less of it. Also as a DM I am finding its easier to shut down the meta talk and excessive BS tangents and non-game talk. I'm seeing my players have their characters do alot more RP type actions in combat situations. I'm seeing players seem to get into their characters more etc. This might not be the case for others and other gaming groups but so far in mine my grumpy old grognard theories are proving true. So its been refreshing. On the flip side of the coin though its not a balanced fight against me as the DM the way things were in 4e, etc. I am more the stage manager again ... instead of an mini game opponent to my players ... I like this role more I think.

SO here is to twisted Blasphemy and heretical teachings!! Down with the grid! Up with pentagrams!

The Windmills of Wargaming in Northern Utah

2011-06-27T15:32:00.005-06:00

I'm fighting the blahs ... the blue bitchings ... the wailing Wally's ... in terms of gaming. Lately I've felt pretty owned by all the stuff going on with two of my favorite games. Warhammer 40,000 and Dungeons and Dragons. But really the more that I have talked to others and thought about whats going on I'm seeing this as a great opportunity to get into some other games I might not otherwise try. To take a break and take a chill pill and just smell the roses and enjoy my time here with my family and friends.

See about two years ago I moved away from Las Vegas up to northern Utah. I moved from an area where I knew dozens and dozens of fellow gamers (who I'd gamed with for years). Was a member of a big 40K oriented war gaming club. Beyond that I had a well established pattern of traveling down to So. Cal and Arizona for gaming cons, tourneys (Gencon So. Cal and Gamesdays back in the old days), etc. But that all came to a screeching halt for the most part (I still make trips to Vegas now and again and down to So. Cal ... but its just a couple times a year). So I have spent the last two years trying to find fellow gamers up here and it hasn't been easy. Utah (at least where I'm at) is a much more insular place where gamers band togther in little garage groups and don't get out into the broader "community" much. Game stores thus dominate the "public" gaming options and there are literally zero game clubs to speak of. I have for two years attempted, along with the dozen people in my home gaming group, to build a game club. But its just not gone anywhere. I helped build a club in Las Vegas that in its heyday had over fifty active members and over a hundred on the dues paying membership roster. Sadly that club due to most of the founding members moving and the ravages of the recession has died ... but that was after I left Las Vegas so that didn't directly impact me. Anyway though we've been trying and trying to build an independent gaming community in our area and its been rough.

That said though I have a great home gaming group that I really enjoy gaming with. So my approach with what games I look to possibly add to the mix, etc. has changed. The GW stuff will always, always have a special place in my heart. GW brought me into gaming again as an adult around 1998 or so and mini war gaming was my first gaming love (again as an adult, as a kid I was brought in with Red Box D&D). But that just hasn't taken off in my home game group. About six of the twelve to fifteen people who are in our gaming group are GW fans and have a desire to maybe play. Some of them have armies that they can never bring themselves to paint (not blaming them, its tough finding the time and energy to paint in some cases nearly 200 mins) and the costs for just something that is going to be very casual is a deterrent for several of them. I've tried team painting nights and paint challenges, suggested house leagues, campaigns etc. We tried Necromunda and Mordheim and they just didn't click ... in the case of Necromunda its so alien to the 40K of today people were turned off. Mordheim was tough because of the warbands some people wanted to play were imbalanced and not "official." We tried some various skirmish rules for 40K and they just didn't click with the group. So essentially due to lack of numbers of committed players they have fizzled. Another big deal with my group is the lack of actual willingness to play longer duration games. The big reason that is is that our group has a strong tendency towards BS tangents (for RPGs the GMs work hard to keep people on track .. but with a GM-less system there is no such restraint). So a game of 40K can easily take 4 hours (for a 1500 point game ... sad but that is just an ongoing problem with this gorup). So with the big storms raging in the GW community these days, the lack of quality public play options in my area and just the realities of my own overall GW gaming prospects here in northern Utah I've put GW on the back, back burner ... maybe I'll make an attempt to return when 6th ed hits for 40K. I'd love to do 8th ed WHFB but that just seems like an even more daunting prospect than 40k.

For D&D see the last post I made. We all had some fun with 4e but for a variety of reasons the group has soured on WoTC and 4e for now. So we have moved off into other directions with RPGs. RPGs are not a worry for me I know our group will continue to have an ongoing game or two of something ... they are easy to put together and fun and there is no end of good systems out there to suit our fancy of the day.

But what I have been looking for now is simply a different approach for myself in terms of mini gaming especially. I am buying all four starter sets for Dystopian Wars (land and sea), I'm buying all the starter boxes for Warmachine and Hordes, I'm looking at some 15 MM sci-fi options, etc. I'm going to buy the stuff, paint it up and run the games like a board games. I have all the terrain completely finished for all of those possibilities so my group can use my stuff and we'll cycle through. If people want to go out and buy their own stuff and paint it up ... awesome ... but if not ... we will have fun mini gaming. I know my group would be A-OK with this. Its sad that I have to resort to this, but really with all the distractions of the internet, video games, and just fast paced modern living ... people just seem to have less and less time for mini gaming. By the way this all might sound INSANE to some of you but bear in mind I have five kids who are young (the oldest is 7) and they are all budding little gamers. So having a big selection of mini games, etc. all painted with core rules that I can eventually play with them is something I've been thinking about for a long time as well. So this does effectively kill to birds with one stone for me and therefore makes more sense than it might if I was just a single guy with no kids trying to get gaming going.

I'm a little worried that I'm attempting to bite off more than I can chew here ... but I feel like this is the surest path to keeping mini gaming alive for myself. In the past I've partaken in many, many crazy mini game related projects and had some huge successes and huge failures. But just a few of the things I have been able to pull off in terms of similar commitments have been: painted a dozen 40K armies to a decent standard. I've worked on huge game club projects from a full 40 player tourney setup (tabletops, terrain, etc.) to big club game table projects for Gamesday (back when we still had them down in LA), etc. So I'm confident I can pull this off if I can just master my own laziness and keep myself motivated. I just need to get a fire burning and keep it going. So my hope is that within two weeks I have my Dystopian Wars minis in hand and then once that project is in I'll start in on Warmachine.

Bye bye miss dungeon pie ... the demise of 4e for our group.

2011-06-27T05:24:00.001-06:00

Reading some stuff online (in particular over at a much more interesting blog than mine ... hehe) and the widespread general discussion about Bill Slavicsek leaving WoTC got me thinking about what really is going to happen with 4e now.

First I want to say this isn't a version war thing. I'll flat express my opinion and that is 3.0 ... 3.5 and Pathfinder are no better than 4e in really any way shape or form. That is my opinion and I'm sticking to it. Feel free to differ ... but that isn't what this post is about. Its about WoTC's poor decision making skills with how they managed what started out as a good system. Manged it right into the ground. Also its about how our group finally just couldn't take anymore.

This all started back when 4e came out obviously. In the beginning myself and my gaming groups embraced it. Having largely rejected 3rd ed in favor of just continuing 2nd ed until pretty late in the game (after 3.5 for sure) .. we thought we'll be early adopters and see what its all about. We did and I have to say it took several games with different groups (in different states no less) for me to finally have 4e click. Once it did though I appreciated it for what it was. A group tactical board game with really balanced characters and a really fine balance between players and the DM (if everyone was 100% on top of the rules and their game that is ... on both sides of the screen). So we had a good year or so of 4e (after we worked out the initial kinks and before the essentials shat hit the market) and then the rug was pulled out from under our feet. Essentials hit our group like a typhoon and we never recovered from it. Since late last year we have moved on to other game systems ... oddly enough my group has split partially in two with one half playing Vincent Bakers Apocalypse World and 2nd Edition Warhammer Fantasy. We were all heavily invested into D&D ... well beyond the PHB level. We are all 10 - 30 year D&D fans ... so the decision to take a long break (and in some cases make vows to never play anything related to 4e) was a tough one for most of us. But the game just doesn't provide for us what it was and the change was so unforeseen and abrupt, after we all really took a leap of faith and left our comfort zones in the first place to just give 4e a chance we felt a deep sense of betrayal basically. We have collectively lost any faith or trust that we had in WoTC. Clearly to us we have fully experienced that WoTC is utterly under the thumb of Hasbro and those pulling the strings have no clue about what they are doing. We made the investment of cash, and probably more importantly of time ... time to learn the rules .... really well and really think about and talk about all the nuances of 4e. That represented hundreds of collective hours of toil, blood, sweat and tears. So losing all that ... really pissed us off. Now yes, did we "lose" it no ... we didn't because we can just go back to rules compendium and stop right? Use one of the cleaned up versions of character builder that resembles the old one we learned to love. No for us we were as much suckers for new releases, new content, new tile sets, yada yada ... as anything. Once they stopped moving the game in what was a then familiar, cherished even, direction that we thought it was going in ... we just collectively lost our will to go on. The spell was broken, the magic lost its hold over us and we all realized ... we actually like to OWN our own rules. We like to just have certainty of where things are going to go. So we moved off in that direction. For good bad or otherwise that is what happened to our group and I can't help but wonder how many others have had this same experience. I hope Hasbro (I won't even bother to say WoTC anymore) comes up with a wiz bang game with 5th edition ... all that I know is I will not be an early adopter this time. I can't see myself touching it for at least a year or two ... just to make sure. I do really hope the stick a fork in 4th soon though ... I just can't stand to look at it anymore :(

Again I really do hope they are coming out with 5th ed I think that it would be a chance to start anew. I hope they finally listen to the legitimate criticism of the game by all sides (there is alot of just idle ... "its new and its not my old comfortable " complaining and that is going to be there regardless) and just stick to the core things that have made the game what it is. Focus on creating a fun game that people enjoy playing ... first and foremost ... and give people time to embrace it before they start totally remodeling the game. If they would do that stuff alone I think they'd really gain and retain alot more support and acceptance. Anymore though ... I just wonder if Hasbro isn't going to sell off D&D. I wish they'd sell it off to Fantasy Flight or farm it out at least to FFG or Green Ronin or something ... they just can't seem to produce it in house anymore.

All this said it does seem unlikely that D&D will go new version soon, but it seems like something is up. I don't care what the supporters are saying the fanbase is really pissed ... the core 4e fans are dropping like flies. People have been citing amazon sales numbers of essentials as though that means things are going well. I think the only thing WoTC has done well for awhile are the D&D board games. Perhaps that is their plan. Tread water on the RPG and release board games to keep some interest ... for another year or two ... then around year 5 of 4th edition ... drop 5th ed. Time will tell I guess.

Warhammer Fantasy RP 2nd edition game

2011-06-26T14:06:00.001-06:00

Ok so last night we finished our 5th session of a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition game. The game is going well so far. My home gaming group is an eclectic mix of folks based largely on my geography (Ogden area of Utah) and also being somewhat new to the area (been here about two years now). The group is all folks in their 20s (save the old man GM … me … mid 30s). College students and all pretty hardcore gamers. But not grognards, more video game fans that dabble into tabletop gaming a bit.

The group started out playing 4e together and right after the first of the year that fell by the wayside for several reasons that I won't go into right now (not a bash of 4e or D&D at all, just our group has lost our interest in it for a variety of reasons and I hate 3.5 and pathfinder … again not a bash just my personal feelings). I'm a big indie RPG fan but this group is mostly not of that persuasion. I have a nostalgia and affinity for old school RPGs as well but this group mostly has the take that “if we are going to play D&D lets do 4e or 3.5 … period.” So pulling off a T&T, Labyrinth Lords, Castles and Crusades, LoTFP or whatever is a non-starter with this crew.

So a few months back I tossed out the idea of running a 2^nd edition Warhammer Fantasy Role play game. I don't dislike 3^{rd ed.} … but I have 4/5ths of the books from 2^nd and the entire group has played Dark Heresy so there is at least some intuitive familiarity with the mechanics of it. Plus everyone is a HUGE fan of the Warhammer universe. My final twist which got the entire group 100% on board was … we are going to do a Chaos centered game (evil) and they were in. So the group rolled up characters and we have a Chaos Dwarf engineer and human Warrior, Marauder, and Sorcerer. I'm running the game sandbox style with some key milestones/plot points. We have a central storyline that involves a journey to a lost dwarven hold far to the north in the chaos wastes (loosely based on Karak Dum for any of you Felix and Gotrek fans). However the party has stopped off to aid a large tribe of beastmen (actually nearly enslave) and become embroiled in a battle against undead who where plaguing the tribe.

The party has pretty considerable resources and they are sort of mid-level (2^nd nearly 3^rd advance) … basically the equivalent of 7^th or 8^th level D&D characters. The combats have been decent but the issue I have with the WHRP system is the crazy critical charts, the cumbersome (but optional) armor system and pretty complex combat mechanics. I've boiled down the combat system and magic system to its core mechanic (following the suggestions in the main rulebook to do so) and things seem to be going pretty smoothly. Fortunately the group is really interested in the story more than just randomly killing things. I also engage in a lot of email/out of game conversation with each player about things. We've had dream sequences, visions, extended research sessions, etc. etc. I'm having a blast with the game and the group seems to be as well.

The big thing that I'm looking at adding to the game though is the plundering of a rules mechanic from the new Deathwatch Space Marine RP game by Fantasy Flight. Particularly the “Hordes” mechanic. Essentially to simulate the awesomeness of the battle brothers the game employs a combat methods for GMs to use in terms of combat against large numbers of mooks/minions/etc. In Deathwatch those encounters are treated like fighting one big beast basically. To quickly describe the essence of it, the hits are just multiplied and so instead of a swing of the sword or axe hitting one baddie ... it hits 5 or 10. Similarly with ranged. So I'm going to basically just hack it to fit fantasy ... I'll have to toy with the mechanic a bit and figure out how powerful I want it to be. But even there the player power curve isn't as big of a concern as it normally would be for me. I'm not worried about them being over-balanced and having it ruin our fun. They are basically heading off to hell ... where the laws of the universe no longer apply ... they'll likely be facing hordes of demons and all sorts of chaos/warp tainted monstrosities.

So as I am not running the standard Warhammer game where players die every other session and crazy random criticals are potentially one shoting bosses or the PCs, etc. its not a standard game. The players are very heroic (anti-heroic rather) and while I want them to feel danger and consequences for their choices … I don't want them re-rolling characters every third session (characters that they have invested hours and hours into now, developed deep backstories, etc.). Also I want them doing really epic, fun, stuff. I want meaningful, memorable combats. None of us are interested in grid based, tactical miniature game 3.5/4e style combats in this game either. So I feel that adding this mechanic will also help us have really big fights that feel epic.

I'm excited about using this mechanic and I think its something that will add to the game. So far we've been able to really have a solid campaign with a lot of player involvement and a really fun narrative story that the players are really helping weave and so the game really feels live and full of action and adventure. We've had a lot less cheesy “we get in a barfight” “my character gets drunk … hehe” this time around which was a hallmark of our D&D games and a lot more focus on individual character goals and the central storyline. I've also had a lot of in game player vs player conflict (all in a good way) that is adding to the suspense and tension (again in a good way). I just hope we can keep it up for another 6 to 8 sessions. At least until the end of the summer.

I know I haven't posted much (any) original content on my blog for ages. So of the 58 people “following” the blog maybe 1 random person actually reads something here every few months .. lol. Such is life and really this blog is just mostly a mental placeholder for me. Honestly a place where I post and a few old friends occasionally check it. If I pique any actual “public” interest … cool!! but that isn't why I do this. I make no pretension of being a “pro” blogger. I don't have the time, nor probably the talent, to be such. That disclaimer aside I'll try to do some more posts (more coherently as well) on the game. Our group is taking up Warmachine/Hordes and Dystopian Wars as well so I hope to have some pics and updates on that too.

Cheers!

Longing for the simpler days of baddassery ...

2011-06-23T21:22:00.003-06:00

Longing for the simpler days of baddassery? Well back when America was single handedly saving the world from those evil Soviets who just wanted to nuke us all! Well heroes and villains are usually a product of their time as they say. So we had heroes like Chuck to take our minds off of that reality and remind us of how friggin bad ass we could be if we just practiced our forms!

I've been looking more at 80s pop cultural relics for ideas for some games I'm planning on running for my kids who are just starting to hit the age where RPGs are a possibility. I'm considering Thundar the Barbarian, of course a Dungeons and Dragons cartoon style game (eventually I want to do the classic 1st ed mods and some OSR stuff with em, but I'm thinking when they are a bit older ... 10-13 age group). Anyway that clip just seemed pretty funny ... but very adaptable to the mind of a 7 year old.

Is 6th ed really coming?

2011-06-20T11:01:00.004-06:00

Is 6th ed really coming? I posted to another blog with a reply and basically this sums up my take on it. For me I once lived, breathed and bled GW. It was the only gaming related hobby I engaged in really, it was all consuming. From about 1998-2004 those were the golden years for me for GW. Then bit by bit at the tail end of 4th edition I started to lose interest. Mostly as GW's own support out in the Western US started to wain and the hardcore tourney set took over more and more. Don't get me wrong, I was a competitive player back in the day, a tourney organizer myself for years. Our local game club traveled en mass to the GTs and large RTTs. But the mix was a good blend of amazing painters/hobbyists with the more hardcore tourney win at all costs guys. Slowly that mix has evolved to today where in my experience at a big tournament your looking at about 85% win at all costs/just bought their army from blue table and about 10% hobbyist with 5% just walked in off the street and doesn't know whats what yet (but if they stick around they'll likely become a win at all costs guy ... drooling over BoLS lists o' the minute).

6th edition will be coming ... we all know it it is just a matter of when. Who knows if this is really the hearkening of the real release or not ... all I know is it is within the window of reality in terms of the ever 5 years or so new rules version. As for the rumors who knows. It is apparent that there has been massive complaining about 5th ed for years and GW isn't about making tourney players happy GW is about selling models. They've farmed out every other aspect of their company to others (Fantasy Flight, usually THQ for video games, etc.). They want to make money from their mini lines obviously ... so the new edition will be designed to maximize that.

Who knows if the rumors that there will be a 6th ed are true, I'm not even going to pay attention to the specifics just yet. 40K was on the back burner for me anyway ... I've sold 3 armies in the past six months (out of over a dozen that have been mostly gathering dust) and 6 more in the year before that (I have a massive amount of GW stuff what can I say). WHFB has been a pipe dream in the area I live in ... its just not viable. I'll probably dump more 40k stuff and wait to buy anything new until we get more info on all this. If its a hoax oh well I'm clearing out armies I'll never play again ... regardless. The hobby has changed so much for me though each passing year it has less and less to draw my interest. Fewer people in the local area care about painting, about the backstory of the 40K universe, about the things that brought me into the hobby fifteen years ago. In the local area the percentage of MTG/Store Trolls playing the game has increased dramatically (to the point that is the majority of the players now). GW's own support has dried up (on the West coast anyway). So the annual trip to Gamesday to get me psyched has just become a faded memory. I will forever love the GW 40k and WHFB universe and probably always buy their black library releases and play any decent video games they release (what rare titles those are).

For the future I find myself looking more and more to other companies in hopes they'll begin to fill the place in my gaming life that GW used to. Mantic's line is looking better and better ... Spartan Games stuff is looking cool. There is always the rise of Privateer Press (a new sci fi system next year! Level 7?? Huh??). So I'm in a holding pattern with GW ... I pray they bring back the fun that drew me into the hobby ... that they clean up the shat codices that Chaos has to choose from. I hope they figure out a way to bring back some balanced support to the hobby and curtail the net list o' the minute crew a bit. If not I'll always have fond memories I guess.

The past will never come back. Things have changed with GW forever. My only hope is they find a new way forward. A way to help new players capture the magic of the overall hobby of miniature wargaming. A way for fans to get even more cool models at hopefully at some point ... stabilized prices?!?! Time will tell I guess.

More on GW pricing, etc.

2011-06-20T01:14:00.002-06:00

I also agree with this post ... though I think some of the statements about the flexibility that local retailers have in terms of their pricing on GW products. Its a long video but the guy gives a pretty detailed explanation of where GW has been and where he feels they are going. Its general, but its accurate. The first 20 minutes gives a good summary of the situation.

I only really disagree with a little of what he says about how local retailers can reduce their margins easily on GW stuff. I know for a fact that at least here in the US in some markets, GW has gone after local retailers for discounting GW product. Yes those retailers depending on where they are getting it can simply tell GW to stuff it ... many times they just cave and stick to MSRP and maybe do selective 10% discounts. Other than that, though this guy is spot on ... this is the same thing I've been ranting about for years. GW wants you to ultimately only be able to buy their product from THEM. Is that evil? Is that bad? I don't know ... but I think at least in my part of the world ... its bad for the hobby. Maybe its just my selective attention on this topic, but it seems to me that there is more discussion on the internetz on this particular price increase and the switch to resin than there has been about GW for a long time. Most of its in a negative light. But maybe the "no publicity is bad publicity" adage holds true ... time will tell I guess.

Games Workshop ... please listen ...

2011-06-20T00:15:00.000-06:00

I agree with what this guy is saying. Clearly they have a financial/business stake in the industry and I do not. Yet as a mere fanboy (and a proud one for nearly 15 years now) I agree with this message ... please pass it on!

RED BAND TRAILER FOR CONAN!!

2011-06-19T14:48:00.003-06:00

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!

2011-06-19T11:41:00.001-06:00

To all you gamer dads out there!! HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!

A fun filled morning of thumb wrestling and bacon consumption ensued in my crazy ... five kids under 7 ... household (sadly I had no nubile young bacon concubines to serve my bacon ... but one can dream can't they!)! Nothing like playing Warhammer Fantasy RP until 3am and then being awoken promptly at 7 AM with a plate of steaming bacon. Needless to say I got up and consumed away!

Privateer Press going Sci-Fi? What is the world coming to!

2011-06-19T11:26:00.000-06:00

WHOA!! First Mantic Games announces they are going Sci-Fi with the Warpath system ... now ... Privateer Press follows suit! Watch out GW here comes more competition! Yeeeeeehaaaaaaw!!! Who knows if what these two will put out will really be head to head 40K competition but I am looking forward to more "main stream" (if you can ever call anything mini gaming related that) options in the market place.

Gamma World Video Game?

2011-06-16T12:29:00.001-06:00

Here it is:
Xbox Live

and here:
Savage After World Blog

The Hobbit ...

2011-06-13T19:36:00.002-06:00

Somewhat old but I hadn't seen this yet ... don't know what the deal is but lately I've been on a LoTR kick again ... anyway .. enjoy :) Hopefully they finish this damn thing at some point!!!

TROLL HUNTER ... the movie?!?!

2011-05-13T22:21:00.004-06:00

Ok ... its foreign ...

clearly ... its low budget ...

But holy crap the more I've seen about this movie the more I want to see it!!

STUPER POWERS DELUXE and TACO BELL!!! ¡AY, CARAMBA!

2011-05-13T14:40:00.002-06:00

I would like to give anyone out there who doesn't know about it a quick heads up on one of my favorite little systems ... its great for one shot supers games (if you want zany/campy hilarity) its called STUPER POWERS DELUXE. I haven't played for years but it "is a role-playing game in which you play a superhero endowed with silly, useless, and downright gross superpowers, sent into battle against the only slightly less ridiculous forces of evil." You end up with characters who can project smells into the minds of their foes ... catch is they themselves have to experience the smell (have fun with that one), they shoot ice cream (instead of fire or ice or energy beams), heroes summon vehicles made of fruit, etc. crazy retro camp at its finest. This system really isn't the game a group would probably pick for long term play but for some funny one and two shot games this is just a priceless system. Every game I've experienced of it has been a blast.

The hilarious Taco Bell advertisement just screams for conversion into a stupor powers game ... of course the group would have to make a run for the boarder at some point during the session :)

Is technology ultimately a distraction in tabletop gaming? Or is it a amazing tool?

2011-05-10T12:00:00.006-06:00

First this might seem trite and contrived but to me this is a fundamental question that I have yet to really address on my own terms. Clearly the answer is something in the middle as it always is with an open ended question like this.

For me though this discussion has long been raging in various gaming groups I've been a part of. Lately its been along the lines of Iphone apps, dicerollers, board game aid-applications, the demise of character builder/monster builder as we knew them with 4e, etc. Yet I can not put my finger on the answer from my own perspective. I tend to be averse to too much technology I find it is distracting and a huge time waster. Do we really need to twitter everything we do? Be honest how much time on facebook is even enjoyable for most people. Blogs ... hell this blog I've had a ton of mediocre posts ... a handful of people have read them it is not why I do this so it doesn't bother me, but wouldn't my time be spent better painting figures or terrain or reading a new ruleset or something ... probably is the answer I have to give. I think if we try to stay aware of whether or not the technology we are using is really as useful as its being billed to be is a good starting place. I think the problem is tech is hip ... and here in America most people whether they admit it or not are pop culture whores and hipsters and being seen with the latest model of apple product, using applications for everything you do .. is hip .. its trendy ... its in and its cool. The price we pay though for that is it really worth it? For me so far I am leaning towards no ... in terms of tabletop gaming. Then again I'm not in a group that is completely pushing it so I don't know what the global gaming community really feels on this.

Clearly off in the future sometimes all tabletop gaming is likely to be borg-ized by technology for good or bad ... its inevitable. We all know it. Board game companies will likely blend with other media companies and we'll be downloading the new Twilight Imperium or Arkham Horror expansions rather than buying the tabletop version. With minis its harder to say but we've seen the first attempt already. But the big question is does tabletop gaming die a little more, does it lose some of its magic, when technology runs amok? Or is it a long over due liberation? For me I have mixed feelings. Just since around 2000 I feel there has been a massive hit to the average tabletop gamers attention span and willingness to delve into complex rulesets, maybe that is a good thing? Don't really know. But also numbers seem to be down a bit. More people seem to be content to stay home and game via WoW or the newest video game release. That might just be my own biased personal experience based on trying to find new gamers. But things do seem to be changing and at least at this moment and from my own individual perspective ... not all for the better. To me technology seems somewhat distracting and invasive at this point.

I agree that there is a big convenience factor with using tech aids in gaming. I think that is the ultimate seduction of technology its easier, faster and able to accommodate more complexity in a manageable way, etc. I mean if it isn't why would we use it at all? So yes tech is a tool that can make things "easier" but the question is always is the price (literally sometimes) worth it?

I for one though hate using PDFs for games ... exclusively. They can be a great reference, very handy, but using only PDFs has at least in my experience been somewhat problematic. Perhaps its just my antiquated sensibilities but I have talked to many other people who feel the same way. But the value of PDFs is high and clearly PDFs have changed the gaming industry big time. The indie scene especially. I think that is the ultimate seduction of technology ... its easier ... I mean if it isn't why would we use it at all? So yes tech is a tool that can make things "easier" but the question is always is the price (literally sometimes) worth it?

I think we are sort of at that place with technology and tabletop gaming where technology and much of the rest of society was say five or ten years ago. Its odd to me that even tabletop gaming is an area of interest that attracts a high percentage of geeks, techies, nerds and generally folks more apt to use tech and explore new uses as soon as whatever piece of technology is available. Yet here we are ... just now in the past 3 or so years really getting more and more of it. Seems like the tabletop gaming industry/hobby is lagging behind the rest of post-industrial society a bit. For example this past year we saw the first (at least widely available in the US market) game that fused tabletop miniatures with tech Ex Illis. That game was really interesting it is a grid based tabletop game. You paint and assemble your minis just like the warhammer range, but when your done you play on a grid and record your moves in a computer. Much more complex math can be done so ultra customizable options are available which otherwise wouldn't be or would be so complex that the vast majority of players wouldn't want to play. Yet playing the game felt odd ... the question "why don't we just play a video game" kept coming up over and over. Yet undeniably a blending of tech is inevitable. As future generations grow up with tech everywhere around them, I think games that don't have some tech element are going to be a hard sell.

For me tech aided gaming has been cool. In years past when I was a more avid 40K player I can't imagine life without the armybuilder program. The 4e run wouldn't have been half as fun without the old character builder program, and though I know I didn't use it ... every DM who I have talked to that ran 4e seemed to have dearly loved the old monster builder.

A few other interesting tangents sparked from this is the distraction caused by technology ... when one plays a game if their actions distract others that is a distraction. Especially with role playing games where generally immersion is desired. This said GMs have long been using tools like audio tracks, visuals ... heck back in the 1980s I played in a summer game where we had access to a high school (one of the players dads was the school principal and would let us game in a classroom while he worked down in an office) ... our DM used photocopied transparencies and just hand drawn maps (dry erase) to aid the game. It enhanced the game alot. Clearly when a full "gametable" type setup is available ... just imagine the possibilities ... all board games in a digital format, all RPGs in a digital format. Interactive tools via PDA devices (or just our phones) etc. etc. its mind boggling how far this could go and how cool it might be.

Yet the large question looming in my mind is along the lines of how much technology distracts from life itself and for me tabletop gaming has been a refuge to some extent from technology. Anyway a really good article along these lines I read last summer sort of got me thinking about all this NY TIMES ARTICLE. When the day finally comes that tabletop is heavily dominated by tech ... I wonder how I'll feel ... will that be what finally pushes me out of gaming entirely? Or will it be a magical time again ... a new time of wonder at all the possibilities akin to the day when I stood in awe as the classic red box was opened?

What do people out there think?

I look at this clip and its friggin awesome (yes yes I know the game table itself is old news I'm just talking about the concept which I think very, very few gamers have yet to experience on a regular basis) ... it just gets my mind reeling about the possibilities. Imagine if all of the good board games, all the good RPGs, even many tabletop miniature games had integrated features usable by a game table like that one (or maybe even a BIGGER one ... man a 4 foot by 6 foot table like that would be AMAZING!). But then I watch the demo and I see how much time people spend dinking around with things .. granted its a demo ... its new tech. As such systems come on line they'll inevitably be refined and people will get better and better at using them. Its soooo enticing on one hand and so uncertain and disturbing on the other. This stuff will be coming down the pipeline someday in the future ... clearly its inevitable.

COMMUNITY Dungeons and Dragons Episode!

2011-02-07T09:51:00.007-07:00

OK ... first if you haven't seen the show ... why not? Its great! (If you'd like to check out the episode just go to Hulu and hit the Community section ... its the most current episode (episode 14, season 2).

To explain why I'm posting this here ... its a mainstream example of gaming and I think its one of the best media depictions of the positive aspects of what RPGs are all about! The fact that it occurred in a show that I already liked was just icing on the cake!

Really on the face of it one could go ... man the writers got it all wrong ... this isn't D&D ... (I'd slap such a statement in the face with a terse TROLL! YOU MISS THE POINT!).

Yes Abed rolled for the party (I think that was a way to speed up the game as they only had 21 minutes for the episode! Community needs to be an hour ... *sniffle*) ... but this is hardly the first depiction of a game like that in film. The suspense and effect of the random nature of dice was conveyed to the viewer so I don't think someone unfamiliar with D&D would misunderstand what the game is about based on that.

Pierce being a spoiler ... actually playing the antagonist ... well Abed rolled with it and wow ... turned out great! (well not for pierce ... but hey ... nothing ever goes well for pierce ... he is a dick after all).

Chang ... while his sad early demise was a disappointment (to me as I wanted more Drow ... damn why can't this show be an hour!) ... his dramatic death immediately escalated the stakes of the game and focused the players. No wamby pamby goblins anymore ... they were playing for keeps!

Neal ... his legacy added legitimacy to the game ... the loss of a treasured hard earned essentially "heirloom" item was traumatic for him as a player but also for the rest of the group. Drama builds!

I like the statement that was made with normally cool, together, generally bad ass ... Jeff Winger made through the episode. He basically was too cool for the game. He didn't let himself have fun ... he didn't let himself truly be a part of the game. He missed opportunity to really shine and play to what would normally be his strengths. Abed was throwing him an opportunity and he wusses out ... sad ... really sad Winger Winger was actually playing the Troll (for proof watch the credits at the beginning ... hehe).

Brita ... well she started out bad but as the game went on she really lent to the game by helping build emotion! Wow look at her reaction at the death of an NPC whom she had befriended. That is what Wickian DMing will do ... pull emotion out of players and heighten the experience for everyone ... bravo Brita!

The rest of the group:

Annie the love scene was fucking hilarious ... and what ... the often maligned, taboo, mocked ... gender bending. Oh sure it was in there for laughs but its a good point ... its a role playing game ... don't be afraid to stretch yourself (no bad pun intended ... given the well endowed moniker of her character). The dwarf character was funny ... Troy's character didn't do much but both he and Shirley good example of how meta conversation can add to the game actually and not detract from it. Their meta discussion actually added to the fun and hilarity and built on the drama ... bravo to them!

What excites me the most about this is its a very positive portrayal of D&D ... oh sure there are geek references, etc. But really the point is the positive side of RPGs and what they can do. Hell these people are trying to SAVE A DUDES LIFE with D&D??!?!?! This ain't the Tom Hanks 80s bible thumper burn all e-vile D&D!! Or the standard ... D&D is for losers ... again ya they portray "Fat Neal" as a nerd with no life ... but ... they sort of hold him up as someone worthy of compassion and a good guy. The show focuses on the positive side of what a role playing game is ... and what it can mean. Bravo ... bravo!

Farewell to an old friend ...

2010-12-15T22:24:00.001-07:00

Farewell to an old friend ...

I heard today that an old friend passed away ... he was only in his mid 30s (Born in 72') ... had a terminal illness for years. He was very private about it and I didn't know (I don't think many people outside of his immediate family did) that it had returned. I post this here because Rick was a gamer ... through and through ... dyed in the wool ... gamer. He was mainly a mini game fan ... but he was an old time D&D player and an avid video game player as well. I met him through the Las Vegas Gamers Club ... he and I were basically part of the founding group. We had a wonderful five year run as a club ... then people moved away and things sort of fell by the wayside. I'd only spoken to Rick a few times since I left Las Vegas in 2009.

He LOVED ... I mean dearly LOVED Games Workshop games ... particularly 40K. I think they guy owned and fully painted to high tabletop standard ... damn near every army GW makes for both 40K and WHFB. He was crazy for the stuff ... he'd buy an army ... paint it ... sell it off ... buy another ... lol. Always so fun to shoot the shit about gaming with. He really didn't care if he won or lost when you played against him ... he never lost his cool and got ticked about losing .. or gloated about winning ... he was really just in it for the fun and good times. He could find the humor in a bad loss ... find humor in rolling 8 ones out of 9 dice (I witnessed him make that roll once btw) for a game losing round of close combat in a tournament. When he won he was gracious. He was quick to compliment people, quick to open a door, quick to pat someone on the back when they needed it. When we had our first child he got a card and a heartfelt gift ... I mean none of my other gaming friends did anything like that and I didn't expect them too ... but Rick did ... he was that kind of guy.

He was one hell of a nice guy ... one of the nicest people I've ever known and I say that with all sincerity. Always there to lend a hand, always willing to pitch in on gaming club activities, etc. He was one of those guys who not to be cliche "would give you the shirt off his back" but really he was ... he could be down to his last five bucks and if you needed it ... he'd give it to you. He was just a salt of the earth person just an amazing person. He had a very young daughter and a loving wife. It tears me up to know that his child won't know him and that he won't have a chance to see her grow up, go through school, go off to college, get married, have a career, kids, etc.

Rick rest in peace man ... you will be missed ...

To follow the blog heard ... who will pick up the Star Wars RPG license?

2010-12-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

So who will pick up the Star Wars RPG license?

Here is my based on nothing but opinion opinion ...

To start as we all know The Old Republic looms on the horizon ... its going to generate interest in the Star Wars franchise that it hasn't seen in years. Clearly all the bean counters, marketers, executives and legal folks are well aware of this and as we know Lucas is all about the Ben Franklins ... they could give two shits about anything else. Again obvious givens right. So keep this in mind then when one speculates on who is going to pick up the license. For Lucas Arts ... they have so much merchandising going on ... in so many genres ... the RPG license is a small nat on a nats arse sitting on another nat who happens to be on a mouses ass. In short its pointlessly small. I'd think they'd be far more concerned about the collectible card games/mini games/board games, etc. So why would a company like Mongoose with really poor history in the US (I have no clue what their history is in the UK maybe its better) in terms of big successful titles, and their licensed stuff is bottom barrel stuff.

Mongoose is a terrible, terrible company that has put out consistently bad games. I'd die laughing at the house that does Babylon 5 ... picked up a Lucas Arts license ... it would be a huge joke. Mongoose isn't remotely the caliber of company they'd be interested in IMO. They have had a few ok RPG supplements but in general everything they've done from their minis lines to a fair portion of their RPG stuff hasn't been of a level that Lucas Arts would be looking for. If I had to take a shot in the dark guess on who would be in the running I'd say: Green Ronin (they've done high quality licensed product), Fantasy Flight Games (they are just a top notch all in one shop, Lucas Arts could sign them up across the board for tabletop and they'd be set). Unless its some crazy lotto win for some third string company like Mongoose ... I'd wager it would be one of those two.

Cubicle 7 would kick ass (Legends of Anglerre rocks) ... but do they have the chops to compete for a Lucas license?? The only companies I know of that make sense are FFG and Green Ronin ... Green Ronin has Dragon Age, Warhammer Fantasy 2nd ed, and A Game of Thrones under its belt. Again all idle speculation at this point ... Upper Deck will likely end up with the license and farm out the RPG stuff to someone we've never heard of ... lol. Who knows ... likely Lucas will drag its feet for a few years and award it to some shitbox company that does a bad job ... and we'll end up with a game designed by Jar Jar Binks ... woot!

Happy Turkey Day ... consume mass quantities ... nom nom nom!!

2010-11-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Turkey Day ... consume mass quantities ... nom nom nom!!

Hell Dorado Mini Skirmish game being released in the US

2010-11-21T13:36:00.002-07:00

Ok ...

Some folks out there might be familiar with this game/minis range out of France called
Hell Dorado. Awesome and interesting minis throughout the range!! Perhaps just as interesting is the concept for the game itself:

LOL ... I did a babel fish on the intro text block and here it is ... I like the translation as always odd sounding language but the back story for this game is rather novel/interesting and really dark (in a super cool way) ...

"1634… The voluptuous languages of the flames of the war lick the heart of the men… One commits suicide for the faith, the richness, the power, glory… Under mud and the debris, a door towards the hells s' is open. And they s' there engulf, by tens. Missionaries, conquistadores, colonists, roughneck soldiers, large captains… In bottom, c' is a New World which awaits them. A world d' hope, a world to be plundered, a world to be built. A world populated of demons which n' do not intend to yield an inch of their territory. A world invaded by d' other human, come d' The East to find l' result of their mystical search. A world where are terrent unnamable creatures, lost for any humanity. This world, c' is that of Hell Dorado, and c' is now your new horizon!"

Anyway it looks like Cipher Studios picked up the line as the US distributor also the Warstore is going to be stocking the game so I'm sure its only a matter of time before people get ahold of these pretty minis and start actually playing the game. No idea what the game plays like ... but again it looks interesting.

FIASCO

2010-10-12T17:42:00.006-06:00

Fiasco –

Alright … this past Sunday yea olde indie gaming crew tried out yet another title Fiasco.

Fiasco is an indie title published by Bully Pulpit Games and their description is as follows:

“Fiasco is inspired by cinematic tales of small time capers gone disastrously wrong – inspired by films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, Burn After Reading, and A Simple Plan. You’ll play ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control. There will be big dreams and flawed execution. It won’t go well for them, to put it mildly, and in the end it will probably all go south in a glorious heap of jealousy, murder, and recrimination. Lives and reputations will be lost, painful wisdom will be gained, and if you are really lucky, your guy just might end up back where he started.

Fiasco is a GM-less game for 3-5 players, designed to be played in a few hours with six-sided dice and no preparation. During a game you will engineer and play out stupid, disastrous situations, usually at the intersection of greed, fear, and lust. It’s like making your own Coen brothers movie, in about the same amount of time it’d take to watch one.”

The game has a pretty simple mechanic that centers upon relationships between the characters. To mention again the game is a GM-less system where everything is resolved via a shared dice pool mechanic.

The game starts by everyone taking a black and a white die … tossing em in a big pile and having someone roll em all up. That is the game's starting dice pool. From there … you would either have previously selected the “playset” (think mini setting basically … or the stage upon which your little story is going to occur) or you'd do it then. I guess really it might be even easier to describe the playset simply a theme which is represented by a series of tables by which you establish all the relationships, locations, objects/props and then you act out the a few acts and come up with resolution. Incidentally our playset was "Boomtown" Though your playing within the genre so to speak of the playset ... and you get specific terms or signifiers you aren't flat out pigeon holed into the type of character you build, or the relationships you form, its really free form and the players individually and collectively get to weave their own story.

Ok now that I've given you my basic description of the game here is a really brief synopsis of what we did with it …

Our game involved four main characters … two brothers … the Sullivan Brothers … a woman posing as a man (yup) running a shady den of iniquity ... combination whore house gambling den (aren't they all), a faith healing snake oil salesman and his crooked, yet rather comely, accomplice Isabella. They all had a tangled web of relationships … some humorous … some twisted … and as the story unwove they sank deeper and deeper into a dark, sad tale of woe. Their own greed, arrogance and human frailty generally got the best of them … some managed to emerge at the end of the long dark night somewhat unscathed … and others paid the price. We all thought it turned out awesome ... well in a darkly humorous way anyway ...

All in all it was pretty fun and the darkness of it all was heavily balanced with hilarity. I think every one of us really wants to play this game again. The sheer number of playsets being released (mostly for free) for this game guarantees a lot of re-playability. Just the mechanics of the game in the core book mean this is a game that you could play for weeks on end and not have much repetition. We had a blast ... we will be back to this glorious game again and again ...

Pretorian Heads ... over pricing?

2010-10-12T16:22:00.001-06:00

Ok ... just a simple observation here ... I as many of you out there follow Tabletop Gaming News ... I noticed that over the past few years there has been an EXPLOSION!!! of epic proportions of garage companies selling GW related bitz. I'm shocked that sue happy GW hasn't been suing the living crap out of many of these mom and pop shops as was there old practice. I'm happy that GW isn't doing that and I wholeheartedly wish all these guys well ... it expands all of our gaming options ... saves us time etc. But I have noticed some of these companies putting out products at prices as high or higher than forgeworld .. which leads me to believe that there is alot more room for such product in the marketplace (something most of us have been saying for years as well). Whether we are in a 3.5 D&D OGL era glutted market period for minis ... or a true renaissance for mini gaming ... I don't know ... does anyone out there have an opinion? statistics? share if you do.

My main point for posting this quick blurb though has been to discuss a specific product and its cost vs. other readily available products.

Wargame Factory Plastics .... VS .... Secret Weapon Miniatures

15 bucks for 20 heads ..... OR ..... Five bucks for five

However you get THE ENTIRE figure including alot of other bitz from Wargame Factory Plastics ... Secret Weapon Miniatures ... you just get five heads. I'm honestly not too impressed with their sculpts for those prices.

It seems like every other somewhat well followed blog out there is pimping one of these garage companies and their somewhat over priced product. 1 buck for sculpy-hobbiest quality sculpted shoulder pads from one place ... 40 bucks for some friggin wolves that are recasts of kids toys with a saddle and some extra armor ... etc. There is alot of low quality stuff out there ... coupled with some pretty high prices. I have complained and bitched for years about GWs prices ... but they put out professional quality product, sculpted by industry professionals, using high quality industrial processes. Even Forgeworld ... as many miscast pieces, etc. as I've gotten from them over the years ... their general sculpts and quality of their miniatures are AMAZING usually. I'm sorry but there is alot of stuff on the market place that is really shoddy and people are apparently paying top dollar for it. Anyway I noticed this one pretty big discrepancy and just wondered why people wouldn't go with a much cheaper plastic alternative ... ok sure if you want five alt heads ... or you just need five heads ... maybe paying more for less is worth it. But if your doing an entire Pretorian army (and you could just use the entire fig .... 20 troopers for 15 bucks ... erm ... a little converting ... adding guard weps and bitz here and there ... bada bing ... done and done ... for ultra cheap).

To be or not to be ...

2010-10-08T21:17:00.000-06:00

RPG related quandry ... its an age old one for me as I've had this issue many times in games I've played in and ran and have yet to really find a decent answer other than one I'll provide. But I'm tossing this out in hopes of maybe getting some points of view or ideas I hadn't encountered before.

The problem goes like this:

Player X is your typical happy go lucky ... fun loving ... team playing ... D&D fan. He just is stoked to be at the table, happy to be hanging out with his friends, eagerly anticipating what the DM is going to do this session. This guy is a team player, he wants to get along, ok sure sometimes he will disagree about going right or left, about what to ask a captive, etc. he tends to play "good-ish ... maybe a little neutral at times."

Player Y is not necessarily your typical fun loving guy ... he is a bit edgy (maybe its an act to seem kinda cool ... or maybe he just listens to too much death metal ... and/or watches too much twisted shit on the internet ... probably Japanese or German twisted) ... he generally gets along with people. He knows the rules, has fun most of the time and isn't a jerk at heart really ... he is just a non-conformist. The guy never wants to play anything near a "good" alignment tending character. He hates just going along with the party ... no matter how sound the "group" plan is he tends to want to do something else. He frequently suggests things that are overtly evil ... pulling an NPC into an alleyway and killing them because they have something he needs (when there are non-evil/murderous alternatives readily available) ... etc.

So at the end of the day playing a "good" or "evil" party in my opinion is ok ... either option can be fun ... either option can have good combat or good RP ... or both. I just strongly feel that you generally need to as a group decide this before you start to play. IF you choose the very difficult option of playing a mixed party, and your going to stay true to your character concepts ... you better be ready for some PVP at some point. Again its totally ok if that is what everyone is willing to sign on for ... BUT ... to just randomly pick character concepts and alignments that are in diametric opposition to one an other ... in my opinion ... is just asking for trouble. So my preference is to just play a somewhat synchronized game where the party is loosely on the same page.

This said ... it never fails ... best laid plans soon fall to ruin ... the plans of battle rarely survive contact with the enemy ... the road to hell is paved with good intentions ... yada yada ...

So the question is ... when ... X+Y= Shit^100 ... what should one do?

I mean in the case that player X and player Y are both showing up, know the rules, being polite out of the game ... yet are abjectly miserable half of the time while playing the game ... what should one do? I know honesty is the best policy, but frequently people don't listen or don't understand fully what is being said. So the group talk is had .. and nothing changes. What then? Just quit the game ... reboot without one of them?

This has happened several times to me over the years and it seems like there isn't a good option really.

What happened to my dashboard???

2010-10-08T09:20:00.002-06:00

What happened to my dashboard??? Does anyone out there know how to return it to the old format?

Montsegur 1244

2010-10-06T13:14:00.001-06:00

Montsegur 1244

I'm going to try to pick it up and run it sometime this fall/winter ... its very esoteric and most assuredly not for everyone. I like the mechanics of the game though and if you have a group of good roleplayers the game can lead to some very deep RP ... the one session of the game I played in was really amazing. But this is a game of emotion and relationships ... gritty combats are unlikely (though the mechanics would allow for scenes to be framed with gritty combat if one so desired) ...

Here is some interesting background information on the history of the Cathars and Montsegur

Montsegur 1244 and more on the Cathars and a cool BBC radio program on it:

Historic Prelude

In 1199 A.D., Pope Innocent III declares that a good Christian no longer needs go to The Holy Land to go straight to Heaven. Heathens can be found a lot closer to home. In Northern Europe kings compete on bringing Christianity to the Baltic region. In southern France a long and bloody war against the Cathars begins.

Skull The Catholic Church has been in a weak position for a long time. A new religious doctrine has been spreading and threatens the Church. Maybe the bishops have been too busy with their intrigues in Rome. Maybe they have been tax collecting a bit too zealously. The message of a simple life, following the example of Jesus, wins sympathy and listeners. Told directly in people’s homes by abstinent, humble men and women.

In 1208, an army of crusaders attack. The main force consists of Normans. The first town, Bezier, refuses to surrender their minority of Cathars to the crusaders. When the town finally falls, there is no mercy. The order is: “Kill them all, the Lord will recognize His own.”

More towns fall in the following years. But after a while, acts of war die out. The Count of Toulouse, a defender of the Cathars until now, gives in to the pope and promises to fight the heresy. An uneasy peace spreads.

In 1234, the papal inquisition is formed to help uncover heretics and to prevent vigilantism and lynching. But the efficient and brutal conduct of the inquisition is not to everyone’s liking.

Also this brings to mind the cool places to find games like these such as ... the "un" store ...

http://theunstore.com/index.php/unstore/browse

Indie Press Revolution

http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/home.php

and

Drive Through RPG

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/

Ghost Echo ... AWESOMESAUCE!

2010-10-06T11:41:00.002-06:00

Two completely free ... AWESOMESAUCE Indie-RPG games for you if you just hit the links below ...

Ok ....

Most Sunday evenings are "Indie-RPG" night for me .... I have loads of 4e and other standard fare going on Thursday through Saturday ... but Sunday is reserved for the sometimes avant garde sometimes silly ... sometimes just crazy ... world of small press indie RPGs.

This past weekend we tried Ghost Echo ... "a quick-play aetherpunk adventure module for 2-6 players."

Wow .. where do I begin.

To start I was sort of sad as one of our regular indie game crew has had to drop out of our indie game (though he remains for other gaming so its not a total loss) due to school wearing him down. Totally understood ... real life comes before gaming (that just sounds so heretical though doesn't it). We had planned to play Lady Blackbird ... ironically yet another one.seven game ... and we've been saying we are going to try it for quite some time and just for whatever reason haven't . As an aside I should mention that I've also done Danger Patrol from them ... AWESOMESAUCE ... but haven't tried Agon yet though I own it ... it looks cool but its a bit more crunchy than their other titles.

Anyway so its just the three of us ... fellow indie fans Rustin and Sadie and myself ... Rustin busts out Ghost Echo ... having not really had it prepped or anything ... though he has run it once before ... and we just get into it. I'm not going to go into the dynamic of the mechanics ... seriously just download it and read it ... its friggin small ... it is certainly not a crunchy system. But it is really sleek and I have to say in our case we felt it was simply profound.

We had a really immersive interesting game that just came together and was very satisfying. We started with a few terms that led us into some odd cyber-feudal corporate wars setting and our characters were really cool and the world just popped out to us. I seriously wanted to convert it into a longer playing campaign ... it was that good.

What we discussed in the post game wrap session is that this system (as Rustin has used it once before) would be actually well suited to generating character back-story for the big simulator systems ... with some slight adjustment ... for really any game ... from D&D to RIFTS to Dark Heresy to Shadowrun to you name it ... clearly if your already playing something Old School or indie you wouldn't need that ... but in the big crunchy systems ... short of boringly having all the players type up ... yet again ... a two to five page back-story *yawn* ... which will likely never come into play ... using a quick method to really delve into an interesting story might be the ticket to getting certain types of players really engaged right from the get go with their characters. I'm going to try it next time I run a game. But in the meantime ... I'm going to keep Ghost Echo close at hand for those off nights when we need something impromptu. Download it ... Try it ... hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as we did!

Obsession with A song of Fire and Ice ... WINTER IS COMING!

2010-09-24T13:33:00.006-06:00

Winter Is Coming

For years I've heard how good these books were from most of my friends ... between work ... family stuff ... gaming ... and a passion for reading non-fiction dry old history books (the history major in me never dies it seems) I just never got around to it. Well several months ago when I heard that HBO was doing a Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones series by George R. R. Martin ... I finally bit the bullet and read the books. I just finished the 4th book "A Feast for Crows" and thus far I'm very much in love with this series. I've actually already started thinking about gaming in this universe ... unfortunately the available RPG stuff is somewhat hard to find ... I do plan this winter to utilize yea ole Amazon.com and pick up the Green Ronin RPG ... the original RPG put out by a now defunct Canadian company. As for miniature gaming ... we've been talking about using WHFB or Warhammer Ancients or possibly even Armies of Arcana and running a campaign. At any rate I'm happy I took the plunge and read the books prior to the television series ... I'm extremely excited it appears as though the cast is top notch ... its being done by HBO which bodes well and it sounds like Martin has been somewhat involved in the adaptation (though not the actual production). Good all round! Something to look forward to this winter for sure Winter is Coming!! (that link is to a really good blog that has a very comprehensive amount of info on the production, the cast, shooting info, etc. etc. its huge and very detailed! Check it out ... well worth it!!).

Addendum:
My biggest worry honestly is that GRRM won't actually FINISH the series ... he apparently has stalled on the 5th book ... and there are at least two after that more that need to be written but knowing him probably 3 to 4 (The Winds of Winter and a Dream of Spring) ... the guy is over weight ... 62 ... clearly preoccupied with traveling and doing geeky stuff (can't say I blame him there) ... so be warned if you haven't read these books ... you might come to a frustrating end.

In Production

2010-09-12T10:39:00.000-06:00

Lately I've been on a quest to acquire a big set of figures for D&D. I have a pretty fair amount of GW Warhammer Fantasy Orcs and Goblins as well as Ogres, Undead, etc. My hope is that next summer I can run some classic D&D in a big Hirst Arts 3D dungeon. Then I'll have all that stuff available for an eventual game that I plan to run for my five kids ... that is still a few years out though ... but the figs are standard D&D with the group in the meantime as well. So its really a long term thing with hopefully multiple benefits as far as versitile gaming opportunity and really good return on investment for me in terms of just lots of fun with the same gaming material.

Anyway I also noticed something really cool along these lines. Wargame Factory Plastics has announced that they are going to be doing orcs!! At first I was like ... meh ... I have tons o' orcs ... cool as it is to see em doing that ... not going to benefit me much. But then I saw their sculpts and they would make perfect D&D hobgoblins. So I could do a big hobgoblin force. This also got me thinking about some of the WHFB fan-dexes and the possibility of a counts as hobgoblin army for WHFB, etc.

Long Hiatus ... GO UTES!! Back to School!

2010-08-25T06:51:00.007-06:00

Well ... my blog has fallen on hard times this past month or so ... the back to school tsunami has overtaken me. After a long time away from the rigors of college ... I have returned!

I'm in a state of limbo sort of ... I'm presently an undergrad but will likely be a graduate student by the spring (ah the complexity of pursing a graduate and undergraduate degree simultaneously). At any rate ... classes ... books ... scantily clad nubile coeds ... wonderful and bewildering all at the same time.

I actually am going to be going to Strategicon here in a week or so and hope to be back into a more normal schedule as far as gaming and life in general. As far as gaming and campus stuff ... apparently there is a board game club on campus but nothing regarding miniatures and/or RPGs. Sooooo ... I'm hoping to perhaps form a miniature gaming oriented club and/or a RPG club. Overall I'm really enjoying U of U ... its not Harvard nor UCLA ... but all in all it is quite a step up from my other Alma Matter UNLV (BA 99, MPA 00). With U of U going PAC-10 next year I am actually planning to pay attention to college sports (in 2011 that is) for the first time in well over a decade. Exciting stuff for me ... and my plan is to not forsake gaming entirely but to continue enjoying my gaming hobbies. Maybe I'll even get some nubile college girls to partake in gaming ... erm ... well I can dream can't I!!

Awesomesauce RPG family tree ...

2010-07-21T22:48:00.000-06:00

Plundered from someone who plundered it from someone ... very cool indeed

The Unicorn Game ... the RPG that is all things to all people ...

2010-07-20T11:58:00.003-06:00

Does it exist??

4e since its launch has been a lightning rod of controversy with legions of devoted fans who ardently defend it and many naysayers attacking it from afar ... generally stubbornly clinging to their 3.5 (a very few clinging to 2nd ed or an old school clone). I put myself with the 4e group ... I've played the hell out of 3.5 with many different groups and DMs. I have fond memories of those experiences ... but 3.5 is a bastardized amalgamation of broken combos and min max, feat centric complexity that I leave happily behind.

To me I think the big thing that all of the RPG theorists out there are missing is the simple equation that every game is bound by ... TIME ... you can do either deep complex roleplaying where you interact with dozens of NPCs and become embroiled in political intrigue, investigation, discovery ... dénouement! ... OR .... you can have awesome tactical grid based combat where the party works in unison to defeat challenging encounters via a minis centered tactical skirmish game.

Yes you can have amazing RP with 4e quite easily ... you could even use the skill rules from say 2nd ed combined with the combat of 4e ... but at the end of the day ... if you play in an average group. You are constrained by TIME ... how much time do you have to get what it is done that needs to be done? Years ago I played in a weekly game where we met at noon every Saturday and went till 3 AM. We had alot of time ... we were doing 2nd ed ... we had alot of RP and did alot of combat. These days those kinds of games are rarer and rarer ... even hardcore gamers without busy schedules struggle to put together a five or six hour weekly session. So with a game like 4e ... that has somewhat complex mini centric combats that take an hour or two on average to resolve ... unless you have a good 8 or 10 hour block on a weekly basis ... trying to add deep long RP into the game ... well your not going to be able to get much done. So then you end up with a DM fudging exp so players level up reasonably fast, etc. etc. and you have all these wonkey add on house rules etc. etc. ... as I said ... I'll pass on that. 4e shines at providing cool gritty combat and it just flat out does NOT shine at facilitating really good RP. Yes of course you the DM and you the party can add that in ... but the RULES do not facilitate that. Whoever said previous versions didnt do that ... yes they did ... there were complex skill system sets that had rules for huge amounts of non-combat activity and that added to the options that players had for RP. If your chr was a rogue with alot of aprasial abilities, forgery, etc. etc. you could use that to springboard into RP stuff. All that is removed from 4e and you have a bare bones skill set that is ultra generic and ultra universal ... PERIOD. So 4e DOES NOT facilitate the RP like older versions of D&D did AND as 3.0 and 3.5 did ... 4e kills the RP mood frequently with the abrupt jump to the grid ... that really pulls people out of the abstract RP side of things and plunges you into tactical mini skirmish land ... where things function alot more like a minis game/board game than an abstract deep RP style game.

So for me as long as I'm gaming with people who have time constraints ... I'm always going to pick one or the other ... deep RP ... or crunchy combats ... the folks I game with just don't have the time necessary to really do awesome RP combined with awesome crunchy grid combat ... justice. I've been there done that several times now with trying to make 3.0/3.5/4e be all things to all players ... and it just fails miserably. I strongly advocate that DMs/GMs and players match the kind of game they want to have with the system they are using.

I've also really come to believe that many people doing RPGs aspire to doing "deep role playing" but that of those throngs of people who say that ... only a small percentage really want to put the time and effort in to pull that off. Deep story driven games take a huge amount of prep on the DMs side ... and again ... many aspire to this ... but few want to actually put the time in. On the players side ... pulling off deep RP takes more than a 10 page backstory ... it takes actual roleplaying ability, focus during the game ... controlling yourself so your not constantly causing sideline BSing, and taking away from the immersive experience ... etc. etc. Deep story driven RPing is hard work. I love it ... but to be honest I've only experienced it a hand full of times in all the years I've been gaming. So this is another aspect of trying to have a game where your doing complex mini centric tactical skirmish combat ... AND ... doing awesome deep roleplaying. I think this might be a unicorn to be honest. I hear alot of bloggers out there claiming to be pulling this off ... but I'd love to sit in the back of the room and watch their group ... I'd wager that the vast majority of these so called "everything" games are falling far short of the mark.

Addendum:

If I gave the impression that rules are necessary for good RP ... no they aren't ... you don't even need rules at all to RP ... if you have a good enough group with enough comfort, skill, etc. you can just hang out and weave a cool collective/interactive story ... but really ... be serious ... who does that? What I am arguing is that rules that encourage RP can facilitate newer players ... or even experienced players who THINK they know what good RP is but really don't ... in moving towards better RP. At any rate that is my main point . I don't mean to imply that rules are necessary to support decent role playing. The other main point is people focus too much on having a game that provides awesome combat and deep RP ... I'd argue NO version of D&D has ever done that very well. Along the lines of the mythical interactive story group ... that kind of group is exceedingly rare maybe just a myth.

For someone who is in gaming group building mode ... forming a new group with mixed ages and RPG experience levels ... rules can help. As for GURPS and any of the massive encyclopedic rules heavy systems ... again ... if you have a bunch of older gamers who aren't averse to that kinda game ... cool. If you have a mixed group, some hardcore gamers some not so hardcore ... some 36 some 19. No offense but GURPS, RIFTS, Shadowrun (all games I've played extensively, along with 3.5) are pipe dreams ... people get bogged down in the rules, people get bogged down in min maxing ... the games derail fast if the GM isn't a ripping bad ass master of the rules ... players get bored .. the game ends after 4 or 5 sessions. That's my experience anyway. Anymore I just hope that we have a DM/GM who is a master of the rules to such an extent that the game doesn't derail and that the players are having enough fun to want to come back the next week.

First game of 40K in a LOOOOOOOONG time ...

2010-07-19T13:21:00.003-06:00

Well the struggles ... trials ... tribulations ... to get decent mini gaming back into my life seem to be finally paying off. I played my first game of 40K in quite some time. That entire quarter of the board is my Ork Horde (fully painted no less! once I get a proper display board and get some of my auxiliary units done up like the loota boyz and tank busta boyz along with the battlewagons ... I'll get some photos up) ... it was 1750 vs. 1750. Sorry that I'm not doing a full battle report, but honestly this was the first game out for both my opponent and I since last summer. We are both potentially decent players, but we were rusty as hell and had some herky jerky ... stops and starts as we looked up rules or got things wrong, etc. That said though the game was AWESOME!!

We both made a few tactical errors that we likely wouldn't have made had we been back in the swing of things. We got a couple things slightly wrong (like him shooting at units with other units after they'd gone to ground, etc.).

Though the setup favored the Tau (as you can see NO terrain that really offered much cover) ... we were playing an Annihilation mission. We went a full 6 turns and I barely pulled out a win (5 to 6). As you can see my list is basically Ghaz and lots of boyz with Ghaz in one truck with 10 nobs and a warboss in another truck with 10 nobs. My opponent was running an ultra shooty Tau list with 2 pathfinder squads, 2 hammerheads, a lone broadside, 1 min sized fire warrior squad and two squads of Kroot. It was in some respects my worst case scenario ... and I would have bet money each turn that I was doomed ... but da ladz proved me wrong and managed a victory anyway. Really fun times ... some tweaking will occur on my list ... but I'm not running Orks to win games ... that matters not to me ... being a bad ass at 40K is like being good at picking your nose ... its a nasty habit and rather pointless.

I'd rather just enjoy games and have fun. I strive to make viable lists that give my opponent at least a bit of a challenge ... but I vastly prefer playing a somewhat thematic army at least loosely based on the actual backstory of the game. I also prefer to be running a fully painted army vs. another fully painted army (I'm working on the folks in the group to get their stuff painted ... we are doing paint nights, etc. ... we'll get there). All this said it is possible at some point the gaming group might form a 40K team and run some jerk power gamer net lists against each other so we can attend some local tourneys (facing the store trolls who will be running unpainted stuff with the BoLS list of the week *shudder*) ... but if we as a group do it together and work as a team to get better that might be fun (at least for a couple of months or so ... then it will be time to take a 40K break and do some WHFB 8th for awhile).

Jervis Johnson on 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy

2010-07-03T11:02:00.001-06:00

Some general comments by Jervis Johnson on 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy ... for your viewing:

Kroot? Seriously?

2010-06-26T17:11:00.002-06:00

Our gaming group delved into Dark Heresy for a very brief bit ... and have now moved into Rogue Trader. I love Dark Heresy ... if its played as an investigative story driven game and not just a mindless hack and slash fest ... its darn good. As for Rogue Trader we just did session one and have session two planned for Sunday. It went well and I'm excited thus far.

I see that Fantasy Flight has announced the second race in the new Into the Storm supplement and ... I have to say ... I'm disappointed. I was stoked to hear that they were going to do Ork Freebooters ... I was like ... hrmmm ... I don't really see how they'd work WITH human rogue traders ... I guess if they have an all Ork crew or something ... sweet (I'm still hoping that is the way they are played ... if not its going to be ultra lame and very much against the fluff). Then they announce that the second race is Kroot?!?! Huh?!?!?! Why???? I can see eventually doing Kroot ... ok ... ya they are kinda cool. But why not diversify a bit ... why Orks and Kroot??? I'm going to buy it ... I love Orks ... always have and I'd love to play an all Ork crew. From the looks of it they are going to have various Ork classes so it should be that way.

For some reason I've always seen the Kroot as a race of Gungans ... not so slapstick ... but none the less kinda contrived and out of place. Anyway ... I hope there are more ships and gear, etc. for the standard RT game and I hope the next book is out soon ... because this one is kinda ... meh. Hopefully the Ork stuff rocks though and once its out I change my mind :) Anyway Jar Jar ... erm ... Kroot ... are comin at us soon. Hmmm ... wonder what the warsphere stats are ... lol ... naw that's too big and cool to be included.

Nostalgia for club mini gaming of olde ...

2010-06-26T14:46:00.001-06:00

Best value for one's time and money ... in terms of gaming for the past decade I've vehemently and vociferously argued that the right kind of mini gaming took the cake when it came to that question. RPGs ... ya ya ... if you have the right kind of group they are great. But the barrier of entry is low on RPGs and to be blunt you get alot of odd ducks that aren't fun to game with in the ranks of RPG players. Store trolls ... jerk power gamers ... criminals ... lol. Board gaming ... well ... its a bit better ... but it suffers from many of the same problems that the RPGs do. You get a mixed bag of fans ... some people only care about winning and don't really like to socialize much during play. Then the new paradigm (thanks Fantasy Flight Games!) in board games verges on the collectible ... its turning into an expensive hobby if one doesn't already have a massive collection. If you have a good group of board game fans you can spread the costs ... but in my case (and in many game groups) I'm the host and I tend to have most of the games we play.

So for me personally mini games ... mostly GWs Warhammer 40,000 with some dabbling in WHFB, Necromunda, Warmachine ... has been what I've done. For six or seven years I had miniature gaming utopia ... I found a huge group of amazingly like minded mini gamers who loved the modeling, painting and backstory of the game as much as they did playing. There were few power gamers in our midst and we as a group kept them in check ... we ran balanced lists with alot of fun fluff lists. We had a traveling 40K RTT team where we'd go to other towns and play competitively. We went to every So. Cal GT and Gamesday as a big group. It was really an amazingly fun time ... I really miss it ... it was a golden age of gaming for me.

Over the past few years I've had a massive upheaval in my gaming life ... I've had to relocate to a new area. Had to search for new gaming comrades, etc. etc. However, even before that miniature gaming began to decline. I had always chalked it up to several key members of our old mini gaming club moving away (back around 2007-2008 our 40 person game club lost five of eight founding members in a one year period to relocation/corporate transfers/etc.). So our gaming group morphed into more of a "pan" gaming group ... we did more RPG, more board gaming, even some Xbox-LAN party stuff. It was just as fun honestly ... but it was different ... not really in a bad or a good way.

Since that time I've had to start from scratch in rebuilding a home gaming group and a gaming club. It was easiest to find people looking for a D&D group ... so I did that first. Then gradually we branched out into other RPG systems and then to board game nights. I have several members of the home game group and game club who are mini gamers ... yet I have really struggled to get that off the ground.

We have a really nice store here locally ... with a pretty big 40K group playing down there. But its all competitive players and an absentee owner who pays not attention to what is going on in the store. So its very cliquish and there is not one bit of anything that interests me about hanging out down there or playing that type of over competitive game. Its really not an environment conducive to recruiting club members/home gaming group members. But also every time I go in there ... and every time I read comments on BoLS, etc. etc. I realize just how much the GW hobby has changed since 2000. It really has me strongly questioning whether or not mini gaming is even viable for me at this point. I have no anger about it ... I'm just staring cold hard facts in the face ... and more and more asking myself the question ... is this a hobby that has anything to offer me anymore?

I've been looking to historicals, etc. as possible alternative ... but even there ... unless you have a group that will get into those systems along side you ... whats the point.

Yet getting RPG groups together, getting board game groups together ... couldn't seem to be easier. I've found 30 people in a year who are cool to hang out with, laid back fun people who are interesting to talk to and idle away a Friday or Saturday evening over a board game or RPG with. So I'm seriously considering deep mothballing for all mini game related stuff ... a Stalin-esq purge of my mini collection via the ebay gulag to just convert those to board games and RPGs. Am I being to quick to judgment? Anyone out there having similar thoughts, or had experiences like mine and figured out a way past the great mini purge??

I'm just questioning the return on investment anymore ... not money ... there I think minis are king. I mean I'm playing with 15 and 20 year old models. When it comes to historicals ... I've seen people playing with minis from the 1960s ... just as useful today as when they were freshly painted for the first time. But time ... getting high quality mini gaming together is huge work. It just doesn't exist at stores anymore, I don't care what anyone out there says. For your preference perhaps you can find good mini gaming at stores ... but I do not like the randomness of players ... dealing with having to watch your minis as random people come by and pick them up ... kids ... etc. having to endure crappy terrain and either complete competitive players who cheat and could care less about whether or not your having fun ... or having to basically do what the store should be doing and demo the game to new players. I don't mind demoing honestly ... I've done my share of that and would happily at one of our club meetings or at my house for a friend. But the overall picture of mini gaming has really declined for me. I've come to realize that my experience in Las Vegas was very rare, we had the stars align for a brief time ... a really cool group of mini gamers came together and formed an amazing club ... but all good things come to an end.

I have tried for a year to re-ignite the flames of good mini gaming ... but I'm still standing over a wet patch of tinder ... no closer than I was a year ago.