stream of consciousness

We should bring back vests and ties as gaming formal wear.

OK, just throwing out some odds and ends for your light reading before getting back to the meat and bones of this place.

The BBC reminded us that it is the 100th anniversary of Little Wars by H.G. Wells, the predecessor to all modern wargaming. 100 years! How excellent is that.

As noted previously, I enjoy painting, but I am not great at it. And a lot of it is stressing over the completion. Painting the first 90% of a fig is easy. But that last 10%? Ugh. Tiny details that are so easy to mess up, not finding something embarrassing until you've taken the picture for the blog, etc. Giving myself artificial deadlines or challenges can help ameliorate this. The recent push has been to complete my Checkmate cast for the 7tv forum thread and I can say, last week, I got that put to bed, finally. Whew. Pics up here in the next few days. Then I'm giving myself a few days to just assemble and paint random things, then to press ahead for an IHMN company. Or two. Nose, grindstone.

The impending arrival of Blackwater Gulch kickstarter figs, and playing around with the IHMN rules, have me thinking about the Wild West, too. (Because, frankly, the IHMN rules would work great for a Weird West game as is, and the second book will address that area directly.) For some good resources, Jarec goes over Wild West gaming options here. And blogs like this really make me wonder why I never got around to this setting before now.

But when I start thinking, I hit up on one of my favorite RPGs from back when: Deadlands. If you think of it as Shadowrun in the Wild West, you're off to a good start. And even more specifically, since it was the 90's, there was a collectible card game for the same setting: Doomtown. The game itself was decent, but the setting was chock full of material. And each and every one of them would make for a great IHMN company. The Maze Rats are pretty much a pirate version of the Tong. The sinister Whateleys would be a great way to bring in Lovecraftian themes, and the upcoming book will give us some great stuff for the Sioux and the Flock. So yeah. Lots and lots to do.

Anyways. Here's two other good pieces for reading, continuing with whatever theme you want to make out of this post. Maurice clued me in to Anatoli's commentary on "historical wargaming and realistic expectations." Even if you're not a historical gamer, it's worthy material. Another thought provoking read for gamers of all stripes is this article by Charlie Jane Anders on the "7 deadly sins of worldbuilding." Minis gaming doesn't always involve the same level of details, but it certainly got the wheels turning over here. (Definitely gave me some ideas on terrain I'd like to do for Relic Knights.)

So yes. Soon, more painted figs, and more pics from this weekend's gaming-o-rama. If anything comes from the IHMN/Doomtown rambling, you know you'll see it here too. Eventually. After I come up with five other great projects to distract me.