How I got here: D&D Part 1

 I've been doing a lot of writing this past week and it got me thinking about different tastes or styles in RPG adventures and how what is popular has changed over the years.  It's not a question of better or worse, it's really just about different.  Personally I really like current generation game rules, but if I'm being honest I still really prefer the style of adventures and game content that were published when I first got into D&D.  It got me thinking about my first year playing D&D and the first few products that shaped my view of how the game is played.

When I first got into D&D I was 11 years old.  I had basically no money of my own and my family was tight enough for money that I couldn't just go out with my parents and get the things I wanted (or knew of for that matter).  I ended up doing what every 11 year old focused on one thing they want does; I asked for nothing but D&D stuff for Christmas.  I don't remember in detail a lot of Christmases from my youth, but I remember Christmas 1983.

My younger sister used to get up CRAZY early on Christmas morning to open presents.  After a couple of years of ridiculously early December 25ths my mom had set down a rule that when we woke up we could open and play with everything in our stockings, but no presents under the tree, and no waking her up before she got up on her own. So on December 25th 1983 at about 3:30am my sister came busting into my room with her stocking (mine was leaned up against my bedroom door) to go through our stockings.  Every year since my mom had started this practice my sister had come into my room, gone through stockings, and then we would fall back asleep after she got bored, this year would be the first time I stayed up.  My stocking was full of fruit, nuts, candies, and toiletries (the usual for us) but tucked in behind my stocking leaned up against my bedroom door was my first ever D&D book; The Fiend Folio.

I was thrilled!  Not only was the artwork AMAZING but a ton of my early gaming was playing through Fighting Fantasy  books Warlock Of Firetop Mountain and Citadel Of Chaos.  Getting a D&D book that was filled with monsters with the same aesthetic and sensibilities excited me more than any other D&D book I could have gotten at the time would have.  My sister fell back asleep and I sat up in my bed reading the Fiend Folio from cover to cover while everyone else in the house slept.

Hours later we all  went downstairs and started opening presents.  My mom obviously knew which way my interests were going as the first two packages I opened were a JRR Tolkien box set and a CS Lewis box set.  That was awesome!  I had 11 books to read that couldn't wait to get into, but the next package properly kicked off and interest that is still going strong 39 years later...

This was unbelievable!  I was overwhelmed that I had both a Player's and a Dungeon Master's book!  I'd never actually seen this box set before, I had only seen the the AD&D hardcovers before.  And in 2022 I can't accurately convey what a big deal it was to have my own dice, at that time I didn't even know where I could get polyhedral dice from!  I remember thinking I couldn't wait to get together with my friends after Christmas to start playing with my new stuff, and that was before I opened the Player's book and realized it had a solo adventure I was going to be able to play through that day.  That old D&D box combined newness and completeness in a way that still informs my view of what a good starter set for a game should be.

My final gaming present from that first Christmas was another showcase of how great gaming content was at the time.  My first issue of Dragon Magazine.

How could one magazine have; an entire city setting, an complete adventure, a piece of fiction, and a TON of background articles, and even ads (seriously ADS!) that had tons of amazing original artwork?

Christmas 1983 was my first deep dive into fantasy role-playing.  Next up I'll cover summer 1985 when my philosophy of adventures and adventure writing started to take shape.

-Jay

Up On A Soapbox - Let's put one in the win column!

Hi all!

A couple of months ago I got up on my soapbox to complain about late/delayed/false deliver of crowd-funded gaming products http://worlds-in-conflict.blogspot.com/2020/01/up-on-soapbox-thank-you-for-your.html, today I want to share a quick note about a product that arrived looking awesome, and much sooner than I would have anticipated.

Generally I have been very reluctant to back crowdfunds for single RPG books as the shipping cost to Canada tends to be prohibitive.  Having said that a while back I stumbled on a Kickstarter for a Cthulhu-themed D&D 5e one-shot that I thought would be really appealing to some of my players titled "What Happened To Evy Ashwood?"

On a complete whim I decided to back the project, and then I got my survey right as all everything started going crazy with the global pandemic so I figured that although I would certainly fill it out I'd be waiting weeks or even months to receive my book.  I completed my survey last week, my book arrived today!  I haven't had a chance to read through the adventure yet, but the book is physically gorgeous and contains both a 40 page one-shot adventure, and 24 additional pages of mythos inspired items and critters.

A full review will be forth-coming but I wanted to speak up and celebrate a small publisher REALLY exceeding my expectations and delivering a great looking product promptly.

Thanks Midnight Tower!  I am definitely excited to back whatever you have coming next!

-Jay

Up On A Soapbox - Thank you for your patience

It's been awhile since something in gaming got under my skin but I got an email that really set me off recently.  And like most things that set me off it wasn't really this one email, it was the tipping point for something that had been accumulating over time.

For reasons I'll probably never fully understand I've always been more annoyed than the average person when someone uses some well meaning turn-of-phrase that I know has absolutely NO sincerity behind it.

What was the super-offensive phrase that sent me into a downward spiral?   "Thank you for your patience".

In the past few years I have supported a small number of crowd-funding projects.  I have had the good fortune to avoid any of the notoriously bad, mismanaged, or undelivered projects but having said that my crowd funding 'purchases' have basically broken into good and bad experiences with nothing really in the grey area in between.  The funny thing (and I am genuinely sure this really is just a coincidence) is that to date all of my miniature game crowd funds have been good to great, and all of my RPG crowd funds have ranged from disappointing to abysmal.  In every single case the difference between good and bad has been the use of the phrase "Thank you for your patience".  In the world of small indie publications and productions it seems like its the nature of the beast that delays of various lengths are inevitable.  So what exactly slants my view between positive and negative?

The good.
The good crowd funds I've supported when they hit a snag or delay as a supporter will send me a "Thank you for your patience" email followed by a quick note explaining the delay and typically laying out a new expected delivery date that feels like its in line with the type of delay.  Things like 'our packaging arrived a week late, so shipping will be pushed back a week' or 'our printer is running behind schedule so delivery will be a month later than originally planned'.  No one has to like these delays but it's easy to respect a delay when what is being communicated seems logical, reasonable, and doesn't become endlessly repetitive.  In my opinion most well planned product roll outs won't just blow past deadlines they obviously never tried to hit and won't end up taking twice as long (or longer) than originally forecast.  So...what about the...other projects?

The bad.
The bad crowd funds I've supported don't necessarily hit snags they either set unrealistically short deadlines or they don't truly plan for the time line that the work will require.  Nothing happens, or changes, or goes wrong, one day the supporters just receive an email saying "Thank you for your patience" with a promise that work that was already supposed to have been completed will now be done soon.  So from where I'm standing the bad crowd funders shouldn't be thanking us for our 'patience' they should be thanking us for their own 'interest' because interest is what they're collecting while they neither deliver goods to their supporters nor pay for services that they are still waiting to contract out.

So just for a little context.
The first three miniature game crowd funds I backed all included printed rulebooks, physical miniatures and an assortment of other gaming collateral.  All of them were delivered within 8 weeks of their original projected dates with clear communication around delays and in all three cases I got at least what I had been promised in terms of quantity and quality.
The first three RPG crowd funds I backed were all for single printed books.  They all shipped 6 to 13 months late.  Two of the three ended up arriving as much lower quality productions (recycled artwork, thin paper, bad binding) than were promised and in no case was an attempt made to make up for what had been promised but wasn't delivered.

Communication is king.  If you're thinking about just producing something as a one-off and then disappearing by all means ignore everything I just said.  But if your crowd funding project is intended to launch you as a creator; treat your supporters the way you would want to be treated.

This has been a pretty long rant so let me just conclude by saying, Thank you for your patience.

-Jay

Up On A Soapbox - A Problem That Can't Be Ignored

I just did something that I couldn't have foreseen a need to do when I started blogging. 

I just deleted 3 of my own posts.

This blog has a VERY small following (35 followers and roughly 50-100 hits per day) my words are a drop in the ocean that is the internet, very few people are listening to what I have to say, but that doesn't mean no one is listening.
I've always tried to follow 2 key rules about my blog entries when talking about; products, people and game companies.
1.  Don't say anything positive unless I truly believe what I'm saying.  If even one person respects my opinion then I owe it to them to be honest and transparent and not promote something that I don't believe in.
2.  Don't say anything negative unless I truly believe what I'm saying.  Again I don't want to lash out in a moment of anger or disappointment and unfairly cause someone to feel slighted.

In light of some very serious accusations that have surfaced in the past few days I have deleted my 3 posts referencing (positively) A Red And Pleasant Land.  The author of that book has been accused of some frankly horrific and unacceptable behaviour towards his former partner.  I don't claim to know what happened between 2 people I've never met but I'm incredibly uncomfortable having content connected in any way to that individual with my name on it.

I try to keep gaming COMPLETELY separate from my political or social views as I personally use gaming as an escape from some of the grim details of the "real world" but this is one of those situations where silence and complicity only benefit the abuser.

This will be my only post about this.  I don't want to engage in any internet drama or get into any salacious details.  I just want to close with a simple thought.

If you see something wrong, stand with the victim.

-Jay

Up On A Soapbox: You get what you pay for...or do you?

I recently got some miniatures and scenery (as we do) for gaming and as is often the case when getting a bunch of diverse stuff at the same time I found myself comparing what I had acquired and think A LOT about the phrase "value for money".

Every gamer has a different budget based on many factors ranging from their own real-world financial situation to their perception of what their hobby is 'worth' to what the practical cost of a functional playable game is.  For the purpose of my thoughts today I'm actually going to not include 'budget' as part of the equation.  Budget is more of a question of what you as an individual can actually afford whereas value is more of a question of 'if you bought it, did you get your money's worth?'  For example I personally cannot afford a high end automobile but that doesn't mean that someone who can and then spends that money didn't get what they wanted out of their purchase.

As production technology and materials cost in the gaming industry have changed two product types have emerged with a wide range of pricing from different manufacturers that potentially throw the concept of value into sharp contrast while also often challenging our preconceived notions of what we're buying.  Today I want to talk about laser cut wood/MDF scenery and PVC gaming miniatures.

Years ago most model/gaming building kits were plastic.  Plastic is great!  It holds a lot of detail, takes paint well, and is generally quite durable.  Having said that the cost of plastic tooling can be quite high and can put it outside the price range of new and emerging businesses.  As more businesses have entered the miniature scenery market a number of them have turned to laser-cut wood as a significantly less expensive (less expensive, not cheaper) alternative.  I recently acquired some MDF building kits of roughly equivalent size from both TTCombat and MicroArt Studios.  From a strict 'cost' point of view there is no comparison.  I got nearly 3 full-sized buildings from TTCombat for what my single building for MicroArt Studios cost, but what about value?  When comparing value I got to be quite happy as when I really stepped back and thought about it I felt like both manufacturers gave me really good value for my money.  The MicroArt studios building was nearly triple the cost but had an unbelievable amount of detail, more than I was aware a manufacturer could get from MDF.  The TTCombat buildings were lacking in detail (including in one specific way that really bothered me personally) but when I looked at what I paid for them they still felt like a great purchase and if each building was going to take roughly an extra hour of work to get to where I wanted them, the money saved felt like it more than made up for it.  In short if I was looking to buy buildings on a budget, or if I just plain needed a lot of stuff I wouldn't hesitate to buy a bunch more TTCombat buildings.  If on the other hand I was looking for more polished or realistic buildings I would definitely feel like the extra money spent on the MicroArt Studios buildings was well worth it.

Where my experience was less even was with PVC figures.  I know as I type this many "serious" gamers readily and quickly dismiss PVC figures as 'cheap' and not being nearly on par quality and detail-wise with other materials (plastic, pewter, resin).  First up, I think that's a slightly flawed assumption (I'll come back to that) and secondly there's that question of value.  During the same period I got laser-cut buildings from 2 sources I got PVC figures from 4 sources, as PVC is more prevalent for gamers and in some cases an unavoidable choice for certain games lets talk about both quality and value.

Here we go (in no particular order):

Reaper Bones

Of all the mixed-bags in gaming quality and standards Reaper Bones might be the most mixed-bag of them all.  The figures are some of if not the least expensive on the market.  Having said that the detail level and degree of flex and bend in some of their figures is among the worst.  At the most basic level I think Reaper Bones is the ultimate example of 'you get what you pay for'.  the quality is relatively low (in my experience) but the cost is also low.  I have personally bought some Reaper Bones figures and almost immediately though 'nope, not good enough', but conversely have bought some and been super-happy with what I got for what I paid.  In general their larger and thicker figures (big monsters, sci-fi figs in power armour, etc) are just fine.  I've got a few of their Cthulhu baddies and I'm happy with all of them.  They're also great if you need a horde of something and don't want to spend an arm and a leg, I recently needed 42 kobolds and really wasn't willing to pay for premium quality metal figures at that quantity.  Having said that the Peryton I painted last year fell well short of what I wanted which resulted in me just going out and replacing it with a metal one anyway.

In my opinion Reaper Bones is good value for money and lands on the bottom end of the budget scale.

WizKids Pathfinder/D&D 

To the best of my recollection WizKids pretty much started the PVC thing years ago with their Mage Knight and Clix lines.  Since then they have evolved a lot.  WizKids miniatures are more costly than Reaper Bones but still much less expensive than hard plastic or metal miniatures.  I find the detail level much crisper on WizKids than Reaper so that's a huge plus, they are also officially licensed which means you're be able to get accurate depictions of a number of unique D&D monsters.  Two other big bits of added value are that WizKids packs include hard plastic bases which means no wobble on your miniature bases, and they come pre-primed which means they're ready to paint right out of the package.  I'm a big fan of the WizKids line as the greater depth of detail allows for more painting techniques to be brought into play and the price is great for the budget conscious gamer.  My one reservation (from a quality point of view) with the WizKids  models is bendy weapons, most longer weapons tend to come out of packages bent.  If you build and paint a lot of models it's not a deal breaker as you can swap them with hard plastic weapons from your bits box.

Again in my opinion WizKids are good value for money and if your budget allows for it are (again my opinion) a superior choice to Reaper Bones.

Imperial Assault 

This is a bit of a weird one for me.  I have recently started playing some sci-fi RPGs and was really surprised how hard it was to find non-40K sci fi miniatures.  I really thought the problem was that 40K (and Star Wars for that matter) had miniatures that were so distinctive they really couldn't be separated from their IPs.  Having said that Imperial Assault had enough smuggler and alien types that weren't named characters I felt like I could blend them in.  As far as PVC figures go Imperial Assault is one of the more expensive options (that Star Wars license can't be cheap) but they are still relatively inexpensive compared to metal and hard plastic.  I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the figures themselves as they have a good depth of detail and are well cast.  The two big downsides with the Imperial Assault range are if you're buying them for other games you're playing for a lot of collateral material that you won't use (counters, rules, etc) and of the figures I bought the guns were very disappointing, every figure I ended up using I swapped out their guns as most of them were the weakest parts of the sculpts.

My opinion is a bit split on this one as I think if you're a Star Wars fan these are in fact really good value for money but if you're just looking for sci-fi figures they come up a bit short overall.

Fallout Wasteland Warfare

(full disclosure; this is what triggered me to write this whole thing, it's also why I filled this under 'soapbox' rather than 'review')

  Of my recent acquisitions Fallout Wasteland Warfare was unfortunately my most disappointing from the perspective of value for money, of the six products I'm addressing today it's also the one I had the highest expectations of so that may be playing into my perspective as well.  I was super excited about Fallout but by the time I opened it my feelings had changed almost completely.  To Modiphius' credit they released (and continue to offer) the rules as a free PDF download online, as I had downloaded and read them as soon as I opened the box I set the printed rules aside as they had lost their 'newness' for me.  I also largely disregarded the counters and dice as having read the rules I wasn't particular interested in playing using their rules which meant that collateral had little value to me.  That left me holding a $100 CDN box of 13 PVC figures.  That might sound high, but much like Imperial Assault I recognise my lack of interest in the collateral doesn't alter the fact that it's there and it has a cost.  The figures I got in the box for the most part have a fairly crisp deep level of detail, but their bendyness and warping are on par with the Reaper Bones models, in fact none of my Reaper Bones models have bases that are nearly as distorted as the bases these came with.  When I first got this box I intentionally waited a few days (just to see if I was just 'hot') to reach out to the company about the quality, and I have sat on my thoughts for nearly a month before writing this because I didn't want it to be raging nonsensical garbage, having gone through my cooling off I can ultimately say I'm just disappointed.

My personal opinion; not good value for money, but I would put 2 qualifiers on that.  As I mentioned with Imperial Assault if you're going to play this game and need the stuff in the box it's probably decent value for money, plus an additional consideration if you aren't going to paint the figures and can live with slightly better than board game quality pieces.

So I guess what I'm ultimately saying is if you go into a purchase with eyes open and 'get what you pay for' it's all good.  If your personal expectation doesn't line up with the price you pay and the quality you end up with, then disappointment follows.

-Jay

Up on a soapbox - just because you want my money doesn't mean you want my business

There's a growing trend in the world these days, not just with gaming but with most commercial goods and services; manufacturers and service providers make statements to the effect of "they want your business".  But what does that really mean?

It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately for a really wide variety or reasons but it came into sudden focus for me today.  About a month and half ago I posted another 'soapbox' that was basically me thinking out loud about whether or not I was putting my money where my mouth was from a hobby point of view and walking away without a really clear answer.  By the way; spoiler alert, if you read that last 'soapbox' by the time you're done reading this one you're free to point out that something I said 6 weeks ago is now clearly a lie, I didn't mean for it to be, but it is now.

So from my perspective what's the difference between someone wanting my hobby "business" versus my hobby "money".  I'll use the simplest example I can, and one I can hope most people reading this can at least relate to even if they don't agree with it.  Great brick-and-mortar hobby stores (the ones referred to as FLGS rather than just LGS) want my "business".  They engage with me about what I'm doing with the hobby, they suggest things I might want to try out, they offer me a place to meet with new players and play games.  All of these things help them get my "money" but I get more out of that relationship than just the product that I buy.  The counter point to the Friendly Local Game Store, is the game store run by the curmudgeonly owner/staff who just want you to buy your stuff and get out.  I was recently in Oshawa for work and I saw a model store on my way home and decided to check it out, the place had a crappy handwritten sign on the door saying "no students allowed inside" (it was next to a High School).  The person who owned that place wants to sell stuff, but he doesn't want to have to talk to people.  Or the other less awful example is the traditional discount e-tailer.  Its not that they necessarily give bad service but its a simple good for money exchange with little other interaction.

Now lets talk about game companies.  I've danced around saying some nasty things about a few different game companies over the past few years  I want to give some examples of GREAT customer service where the company wanted my "business" and not just my money, and some examples of terrible service (no names here though) where the company just wanted my money:
Pulp Monsters; years ago I bought bunch of their models and during a move just lost a piece that I needed.  I had it, the set was not defective, I just lost it.  I was completely honest with them that it was all my fault and no error of theirs but could they please sell me a single replacement part.  No, they would not, even though they had not done anything wrong or mispacked a box they sent me a free replacement immediately.  I recently placed another order with them and the package included a handwritten note thanking me for my order.
Dead Earth Games; placed an order with them and within a few days noticed I hadn't received a shipping confirmation.  Sent them an e-mail to enquire if my order had been sent, got an immediate apology that it had been missed and they sent it out immediately (only 3-4 days after placing the order tops) and tossed in some free counters to go with the order.  Haven't gotten around to another order with them yet but feel like that's something I should be doing soon.
A small miniature company in southern Ontario; got my order the day before they started a promo, didn't/wouldn't upgrade me to the promo price or throw in some models to make up the difference, but also sat on the order not shipping it for 2+ weeks.  I paid them, but will NEVER buy anything from them again.
A boutique miniature company in the U.K.; took my order, didn't ship for over a month, when the order arrived it had a note on the invoice that my order had been delayed by a one day closure (how that results in a month long delay is beyond me).  I have bought quite a lot from this company over the years but that has now become my last order with them.
Why tell you all this?  Maybe it's just a rant, but I'd rather think of it as a statement of intent.  I have never asked any company or store for any kind of special treatment or discounts beyond their own promotions and sales, and I have no problem paying a fair price at full mark-up for things that I buy.  But when any vendor treats me as a walking ATM my fuse has gotten really short in the past few years...really short.

And now, I'm going to turn part of my last soapbox into a lie.
Why now?  Why today?  What pushed me to spew all of this out onto the internet today so suddenly.
One company; Knight Models.
I'm going to preface this by saying I don't think Knight Models is evil or villainous, and I don't think anyone reading this should necessarily think what I think about them, but I'm done with them.  They will not see one more dollar from me ever again.
This morning I woke up and found after weeks of rumours in the hobby community and unfortunate event had come to pass; Knight Models had discontinued their relationship with Marvel and would no longer be producing/selling Marvel models.  This was unfortunate but its all just part of how business works and no one should take anything personally from this.
...but...
There was no notice, no warning.  Tons of Marvel products had JUST shipped to retailers for what is now effectively a dead game.  Tons of hobbyists had no opportunity to complete collections, or make informed choices not to buy something that would no longer be supported.  The announcement dropped at literally the same moment that all assets were pulled from their website.
Now a very level-headed friend of mine pointed out that it might not have been their decision, it might have been the way the contract broke down or something they just had to do and that may very well be true, they might have done nothing wrong and had no sinister intent.  So why should I be upset?  Why should I feel they wanted my "money" and not my "business"?  Am I just being immature or overly emotional about something I want?  Maybe.  But maybe not.
In my experience when people get frustrated and angry about game companies discontinuing product its either because they want to buy more, or wish they had bought less, but that's not really my issue.  My issue is that Knight Models has a history of not engaging with their community, of not responding to messages on their Facebook page and not following up on their community outreach programs.  So when a change like this is communicated badly the issue isn't really this change, the issue is that unlike a company that does engage with its community I simply can't give them the benefit of a doubt.

I will not be marching down the street trying to rally people behind me, and my voice is so small in the ocean that is the internet I don't expect this to become some sort of butt-hurt fan-boy rallying cry (nor would I want it to), but think of it as a cautionary tale.  Not everyone feels the way I do, but I'm not the only one who feels the way I do.  If a hobby company can't hear its customers, then eventually they won't be that company's customers.

Well.  This is probably the single most negative thing I have ever written in my life.  But I hope instead of focusing on what is I hope some other company can read this and maybe see what could have been.  It's been a rant but I hope its a call out for a better next time.

-Jay

Up On A Soapbox - Is it the free market, or is it me?

Back up on the soapbox today but less in the vein of a rant and more in the vein of introspection.

When it comes to the gaming hobby I've always been a proponent of the idea of being financially supportive (ie being a paying customer) of businesses that I liked and not only enjoyed their products but aligned with their ways of doing business rather than being negative and outwardly expressive about companies I don't like or don't align with.  Truthfully I've never understood why people invest time and energy into expressing their negative opinions about things they don't "need" to buy or going on a company's forums or Facebook page to broadcast their status as non-customers.  The analogy I've always used is that as someone living in the middle-class I certainly can't afford a new car as often as I'd like but I don't go on car companies' social media sites and complain that their vehicles are too expensive or not for me.  It's always just seemed weird to me.

But in the last couple of months something has changed.  I'm honestly not sure if it's my perception, the industry or just that I'm officially entering 'crusty old man' territory but things don't feel as black and white as they used to.
First up I am NOT going to change gears and start complaining about companies with whom I don't align.  Having said that I now feel I have a third category of companies which makes me understand some of the things I've seen in the past.  Before I was very binary, there were two options:
1.  I like you and therefore I will buy your stuff
2.  I don't like you, therefore I will not buy your stuff
In the past couple of months a third category has wormed its way into the mix:
3.  I don't like you, but I like your stuff enough that I'm willing to overlook that
And this is where the problem comes in for me.  The issue isn't whether or not I should or shouldn't be buying things from manufacturers that I'm not enthusiastic about, the issue is that I have a finite amount of hobby money to spend so anytime I buy from a company I don't care for those are dollars I don't have to support companies I do believe in.

Its a real ethical question for me.  Not because any company rises or falls based on the spending of one hobbyist, but because I feel that the companies that are most likely to get the short end of the stick in these situations are the mom & pops where every sale counts.  I've never been a big fan of living in the grey and  the truth is it actually makes me uncomfortable.  I've been faced with two decisions in the past couple of weeks and to be transparent about it I feel like I made the 'right' choice in one case and the 'wrong' choice in the other.

Tell me what you think?
First situation:
A long-time established company is running yet another Kickstarter to release a product that has already been fully developed and requires NO additional work beyond the actual manufacture of the units they will sell.  This company has been around for 30+ years and this is at least the third time they've done this exact same thing (pre-ordering masquerading as crowd funding) in the last two years.  Every time they do this they almost completely cut their wholesale and retail partners out of the loop in spite of the fact they they wouldn't be where they are today without those partners.  Having said that I REALLY want the stuff they're Kickstarting.  In spite of that my decision was to not order and wait until I can get it through brick-and-mortar retail.
Second situation:
A company that's been operation for 4-5 years and has always made terrific high quality  products that I enjoy I recently purchased a set from and found one of the pieces to be defective.  Defects happen all the time and no one should feel bad about it (lets be fair).  But in spite of that I know based both mine and other people's history with this company that any communication I send them will be completely ignored and my issue will not be resolved.  I can and should be angry about that.  But in spite of that I've just decided to work around it and continue to be positive and enthusiastic about their products.  So am I part of the problem now?

These are two recent examples but things like this happen all the time and we make value decisions about these things all the time.

I've always been a proponent of "put your money where your mouth is" and I'm just not sure I'm as consistent about that as I have been in the past.

-Jay

Up On A Soapbox - A wretched hive of scum and villainy

The Internet.  Yes the punchline to my joke/comment is the Internet, but does it have to be?

I had a few of those experiences this week where I end up asking myself what the hell is wrong with some people on the Internet.  Having said that I have to call out the fact that looking back its been more than 6 months since I last found a group of people who could do with a nice tall glass of 'shut the f**k up' so maybe we're getting better?

When I decided to share my thoughts I first thought I really didn't have anything new to say and if I bothered to type all of this out I would be re-hashing old ground again, but as my thoughts took shape and I stopped to consider why I was disappointed I realised I'm starting in old familiar territory but I kind of end up somewhere new (new to me anyway).

Last night on line I was following a thread in a discussion connected to one of my current favourite miniature games.  A new person to the group asked a rules question that was very rules-lawyery but not inherently unreasonable or confrontational.  Within seconds the group split into two armed camps.  Side one took the position that if the rules don't say you can't do something than you can do it and finding these sort of opportunities in the rules are what make the game challenging and fun.  Side two took the position that the rules exploit clearly broke a part of the game and turned something that should have been simple fun and made it a rules-lawyer/power-gamer dick move.  From a personal point of view I identify more with the second group but I think that's more a question of play style than a position on what is right versus what is wrong.  But what came at the end is what really bothered me.

After a not-surprisingly hostile and immature debate from both sides one of the participants on side two declared he was leaving the group permanently because this kind of nonsense is what makes things not-fun for him.  A number of people called out the person leaving the group as being a poor loser and the memes flowed freely.  And that's when the troll (because as of now in the story he's not a person, he's a troll) who asked the initial question started doing his victory lap.  Because for a Troll the goal is never really to have a question answered, it's really just to be declared right in the eyes of his imaginary peers and to see someone else hurt and vilified for questioning him in the first place place.

Now again, I'm not naive enough to claim this is unprecedented behaviour on the Internet, but should we all just live with it?  The first sign to me that someone is being a bully is when they feel the need to constantly assert that they are NOT being a bully.  Should we all not be calling people on this kind of crap when we see it?

Years ago the NFL passed rules against excessive celebrations in the end-zone after a touch-down.  Is the Internet hobby gaming community really less civilised than the American football community?

-Jay
 

Up On A Soapbox - Age Of Sigmar

It seems like everybody with an Internet connection is sharing their opinion on Warhammer Age Of Sigmar so I figured I'd take my turn.

Years ago I used to watch an animated TV show called King Of The Hill.  The show followed the adventures of Hank Hill a propane sales manager from Texas where the main source of the comedy was frequently Hank's confusion that some of the people around him didn't share his stereotypical simple conservative American values.  In one episode (I don't remember the main plot) Hank is confronted by a left leaning activist-type who questions the morality of his profession.  The dialogue between the two of them went something like this.
ACTIVIST - Your whole barbecue business glorifies the grilling of meat taken from animals using fossil fuels!
HANK - I used those same words with a more positive attitude to sell three grills this morning.

So here's what the talking heads on the Internet seem to agree on about Age Of Sigmar:
1.  The rules are really stripped down
2.  It's basically a beer and pretzels game
3.   Some of the special rules for characters/units are kind of funny
4.  It's an entirely new game that has nothing in common with previous editions of Warhammer
But what the major disagreement seems to be about is whether or not these things constitute a good thing, or a bad thing.
Personally I don't think good vs bad in this case is something that can be quantified and measured.  I think the real question is; your type of game vs not your type of game.  I don't think a points system and a lot of complex rules necessarily make for a balanced or better game (chess anyone?), but I can completely understand where some people find the lack of familiarity discomforting to the point where it's become a logical jumping off point.

For me, I'm super excited about Age Of Sigmar.  It really seems to put the idea of simple fun back into the game.  I also felt like I was done with Warhammer before this, not out of some sense of rage or old-git syndrome but because I was just bored of it.  This is new and fresh and invites me to use and paint (and yes, buy) small quantities of cool models and play quick fun games with them.

My last thought incidentally for all the competitive and tourney players who think that the game lacks depth; when Warmachine originally launched it was supported by a single page of rules and everyone thought it represented a quantum leap forward in thinking for miniature game design.

-Jay

Up On A Soap Box - Who are you playing games with anyway?

It's funny how some times the trolls on the internet will get all up in arms about something in gaming and it takes awhile to realize that it isn't the first time you're hearing a point being argued by a group of people who get all up in arms about feeling like someone is telling them what to do.

About two weeks ago decent quality preview images of the new Blood Angels tactical squad starting appearing on the net.  People could have talked about the terrific paint jobs, or the evocative imagery, or the fact that it was practically a bitz box you could use to customise dozens of generic marine kits you already had....but no....the main "discussion" was about the new 32mm round bases they were standing on.
Within seconds (literally) forums exploded with "they can't make me re-base all my old figures" and "I can't believe I have to re-base all my old figures", it was an unbelievably negative reaction to a minor product change.
Years ago I had collected Void and Warzone miniatures, and when Void got re-packaged and re-released as Urban War it transitioned from 25mm bases to 30mm Warmachine style bases, same thing for Warzone when it re-emerged this year.  My reaction was to carry on basing my models on 25mm bases to keep a consistent look with my existing painted models.  Other people (I'm sure) chose to go back and re-base their models to match the new look, either decision is fine....but it's YOUR decision.

Around the same time this tempest-in-a-teacup went off I was also spending a lot of my time on line getting ready for my D&D game.  As an aside I decided to re-watch a bunch of episodes of I Hit It With My Axe.  The thing I thought was funny was that in the comments section under one of the videos was a series of questions (polite mind you) about why the figures were based inconsistently to which the GM replied that he honestly didn't care about bases and he just used whatever was at hand.

I've also noticed a trend among "serious" Warmachine players to mark out their facings on their bases, not really an issue but seriously; can you and your opponent not agree which direction a model with eyes is facing?

So my question (it seems like it's always my question on these things) is; who are you playing games with that debates about base size being advantageous or facings being off by a mm or two inform your decision about how you enjoy your toys?

It's YOUR stuff, do what you will with it and your only real goal should be to enjoy what you do with it.  There is no "they" or "them" coming over to your house to police how you build, paint and collect models so do what works for you.  And if your opponents aren't cool with that find new people to play against.

Next year I'll be working on those new Robotech models, I'm sure they'll make an appearance in a Battletech game on their round bases at some point, hopefully that doesn't fry anybody's brain.

-Jay

Up On A Soapbox: (non)-Rules Part 2 of 1

When I wrote my little rant a few weeks ago about house rules one of the suggestions that Darren made was to address the issue of out-of-print or older games not being viewed as good by virtue of not being current.  At that time I really didn't feel like I had a lot to say on that issue but since then three things have happened that have made me circle back around:
1.  I'm currently playing an RPG from the 80s
2.  Games Workshop announced a new edition of Warhammer 40,000
3.  Wizards Of The Coast has their new edition of Dungeons & Dragons right around the corner
So let's take a step back and look at old games and why some of us don't love them as much as we should.

One of the beliefs that has long existed in hobby gaming is that if rules are not in-print or game systems aren't being supported this somehow makes them less worthwhile than games that are living and flourishing.  The first thought that came to me that highlighted the absurdity of the situation was I got a mental image of Hasbro announcing that they were discontinuing Monopoly and would never bring it back to the market again followed by literally every household in North America pulling their copy of Monopoly out of a closet somewhere and throwing it in the garbage.  That would never happen, why?  Because Hasbro not selling new copies of Monopoly doesn't change how the game box you already have in your home works.  Which is obvious.....but somehow we can't apply that same logic to an RPG, or miniature game or CCG......

My own unfortunate bad experience with this mentality came a few years ago.  I was never a huge fan of D&D 3 or 3.5 edition so when 4th came out (which I still like a lot) I got rid of all my 3rd edition books.  I happily embraced 4th edition and never looked back.  Then I found out how great Pathfinder was....and realised I could use all the 3rd edition D&D source material I had gotten rid of of because it was "old".  Live and learn I suppose.

My recent positive experience with this was when I started playing Top Secret S.I.  A few friends have asked me to describe that game and for current gamers with a strong GW foundation I have described it as a less crunchy version of Dark Heresy.  To be clear I've played Dark Heresy and I enjoyed it and have nothing bad to say about it but; is a less crunchy version of those same type of rules lower quality by simple virtue of being 20+ years old and out of print?  I certainly don't think so.

A lot of just general rambling this time out but if there has to be a moral to the story I guess it's simply the fact that if you like an old game it being old shouldn't lessen your enjoyment.  And once a game is out-of-print don't think of it as dead, think of it as complete.

-Jay

Up On A Soapbox: House (non)-Rules

One of the regular hyperbolic statements those of us who enjoy sci-fi and fantasy miniature games have to endure while perusing the web is "I'm never playing ___________ again!  The new __________ rule totally ruins the game!"

Sinister motives are frequently attributed to rules changes, things like selling more of a certain type of model, bringing balance back to a broken tournament system, etc, etc but the truth (I believe) is that more often than not game designers or game companies are worried about either some notion of game balance or game length.

Back in the youth of sci-fi and fantasy war gaming there really was no play-testing.  If somebody had an idea for a game they published it, if they were really organised the tried a few games out with their personal gaming group and then they published it.  In those days it was not at all uncommon to adopt or invent house-rules to reconcile things that didn't work when you were gaming those systems at home.  Somehow with the growth of both the on line community and various tournament communities there seems to have developed a belief that games must be played as written at all times so that groups of strangers can war game without getting bogged down in endless disputes.  But honestly; how many of us game regularly with strangers?

As war games have grown up I've found that rather than lacking for rules that cover specific situations most of them have far more rules than you will actually use during the playing of your average game.  So here's a thought; what if we ignored the rules we don't like?

I recently had a debate with a gaming friend about a game we both claim to like but we seldom actually play because every time we're done rolling dice and packing away our miniatures we realise we don't actually like that game as much as we thought....but I'm going to end on that one.

Flashing back to my relatively recent past the prime example that came to mind was back when Apocalypse and the Baneblade originally got released for 40K.  I had a friend who really wanted to play with his new shiny plastic Baneblade but he didn't really have an Apocalypse sized force.  We pondered this problem for what in hindsight was an embarrassingly long time before I finally just said "screw it, let's use your Baneblade in a regular 40K game".  I took a few more anti-armour weapons than I would in a normal game and it all more or less balanced out.  in addition no game designers showed up at my house to beat me up for misusing their precious rules and then Internet was completely silent on the issue of how two people played a game amongst themselves.

I also remember more recently there being a big blow back against GW for not initially releasing their flyer rules to independent retailers and therefore a lot of independent retailers banning the use of flyers from their shop events.  Putting aside all the industry-politics and negative feelings of the time what if a group just decided 'no flyers' because they don't like how they impact the game?  Wouldn't that be a valid decision for a group of players to make if they thought it would make their own personal games more fun?

I guess what I'm really trying to say is that when you buy a game; it's YOUR game.  It's not the internet's game, it's not the tournament circuit's game, and it's not the publisher's game so play it the way YOU want to play it.  And you if you have a like-minded group of friends you might find that some games you had soured on or passed over are in fact really fun to play.

So on that note; who says losing your warcaster should immediately end a game of Warmachine?

-Jay

Up On A Soapbox: Now Hiring Wizards, No Experience Required

I've been a role-player and a miniature gamer for almost 30 years now and in that time I've been able to find miniatures for almost everything I could possible need for a fantasy RPG no matter how bizarre (half-orc monk?  yep I've got that) but in spite of that there is one figure that I feel has consistently eluded me; the low level human male wizard.

There are literally hundreds of 25-30mm male human wizard figures out there but they all seem to either be old-men patterned after Lord Of The Rings wizards which just doesn't gel with my idea of how a low-level wizard would look, or they are "battle" wizards armed and armoured in a way that doesn't really work for a Pathfinder or D&D game.  Ironically as soon as you start looking at elf or female human figs there seem to be a lot of good choices but I can't seem to find a human male that fits the bill.

I can't tell if my problem is that I'm being overly specific or if my problem is that what I want isn't what other players and GMs want but I would love to find a half-dozen or so male human wizards that don't look like high-level bad-asses.

Anybody out there have any suggestions?  Anybody out there encountered the same problem?  Anybody out there have their own "why can't I find this?" type of figure?

-Jay

Up On A Soapbox: badly sculpted vs badly designed

The other night I assembled and primed 2 more Iron Kingdoms figures for my upcoming Witchfire trilogy game and I found myself having an odd thought "these figures are really well sculpted...but kind of badly designed...huh...never seen that before..or have I?"

Anyone who's collected miniatures for any length of time will have unfortunately ended up with some poorly sculpted figs (details too shallow, arms that run off into bodies, proportions that are just wrong, etc) it's pretty common and is happily pretty easy to avoid.  But what's a lot more rare is when you get a beautiful, well-sculpted figure with lots of great texture and detail but still suffers from some sort of critical design flaw you just can't get past.

So, I assembled Father Dumas and Vahn Oberon the other night and was immediately struck by the fact that neither of these guys have feet!  Now to be fair they're both sculpted with long flowing robes that would for the most part conceal their feet but each of them has an area where the left foot (oddly the same on both figures should be visible.  On Father Dumas the left side of his robe is slightly raised...but there is no foot underneath, on Vahn Oberon the back left side of the robe is slightly raised...but still no foot.  Honestly I like both of these figures (you should see them painted before Christmas) so I kept looking at them trying to justify in my own mind why they're sculpted this way, but I really just ended up making it worse for myself.  When you trace Father Dumas' leg outlines through his robes it starts to look like he's got some weird knock-kneed stance going on and rather than conveying a sense of movement it looks like his robe is getting blown up from underneath a-la Marilyn Monroe (which doesn't really seem appropriate for a priest).  Vahn is slightly better but his legs are posed like he is walking to his right while he's twisted at the waist significantly to his left and his staff is pointed at a roughly 90 degree angle to the left of his body while his eyes are turned roughly 45 degrees to the left...it's not awful....it's just weird.

Neither of these figures is so bad that the odd design choices are a deal-breaker for me but it got me thinking; how many other figures are out there that are well sculpted but oddly or illogically designed?
Any thoughts?

-Jay

Up on a soapbox: Crowd-funding

Today I'm beginning a new semi-regular (not too regular) series of entries on the blog I'm calling "Up On A Soapbox".  Basically it's just going to be me giving you my 2-cents worth on an issue I see affecting gaming and the gaming industry.  To be really transparent about ALL these entries they really are just my opinion and I would certainly like to hear any responses any of you have.  And now without any further ado...crowd-funding.

I decided I wanted to speak about crowd-funding in the gaming business because I've spoken up about it a bunch of times on Facebook and I realise that some people might have misunderstood my position and I'd like to delve into it a bit more deeply.

First up let me say I think crowd-funding is GREAT!  Not just for the gaming industry but across the board.  It gives aspiring artists and business people a chance to bring products to market that might otherwise never have seen the light of day.  I think crowd-funding is the best example I can think of in recent years of the free-market actually working the way it's supposed to.
...but...
Based on the success that a lot of independents in the gaming industry had in the early days of Kickstarter and Indiegogo something has changed, and that thing is larger more established companies jumping into the pool.  Now on it's face I don't think there's anything wrong with that but in the last year or so I have seen 2 products on Kickstarter from companies that have been in this industry for 30 years or so that are basically part of their existing product lines and 2 products from a company that is owned by the license holder of the product they're "kickstarting".  My issue with these types of releases is that they are little more than thinly veiled attempts to cut retailers and wholesalers out of the marketplace.  When someone new or unconnected or any kind of outsider goes this route they are trying to succeed in the face of an industry that they have no support from but when you've had other businesses contribute to your success over the years and you cut them out of the pie at your first opportunity I think that's just low.

I'm not saying anyone reading this should boycott crowd-funding or anything radical like that but what I am saying is this; if you get value from your local gaming store don't buy products you could be buying from them (and will end up playing with in their store) from other sources just because they're cheaper.  Our local gaming stores need all the support we can give them and the good ones have earned our business.

Agree?  Disagree?  Let me know.

-Jay