I’ve been thinking, oh oh!

 

I’m going to ramble a bit I’m afraid, so here’s some pictures, feel free to stop reading after the sheep.  For Christmas I got this lovely pastoral set of 3D prints that I got around to painting as therapy while my brain was churning on the other stuff, hence the sheep.

I also finished some more terrain pieces for post apocalypse.  The walls are printed card over foamboard again.  Renedra oil drums again.  And a fun kit of stuff for the tires.

I also knocked this guy up from a Traitor’s Toll guard and an 0200 hours guard dog.

You know how much I love playing with plastic kits, so the Stargrave Scavengers boxes 1 and 2 I got for my birthday have had 1 sprue from each turned into Nomads for 5Klicks.

And finally … sheep!

So what had me churning so much that I felt painting sheep was a good idea?  I was thinking through the different campaigns I have on the go at the moment and wondering why I wasn’t getting excited about which game to put on the table next.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying them all, but part of that is about switching between them as the fancy takes me, and that becomes a pain when even rules from the same designer differ.

I’ve mentioned before my aborted plan to get into Silver Bayonet because it was do different to everything else I was playing, and I think I’ve realised another thing about it, and some other games.  

Games that try to be both head-to-head and solo are still really head-to-head, the crossover doesn’t work, the emphasis is on outfoxing your opponent and I don’t get any fun from that.

Then there is this whole thing about Adventure Wargaming or Narrative Wargaming, which I do get and really enjoy, but they seem to be trying to again be a crossover, this time between a wargame and a roleplay game, and that also is not working for me.  I think it’s because wargames have always been seen as a simulation.  

What do they seem to have in common though that is causing me this angst? They try too hard to simulate the combat.  Roll to hit, ah yes you hit, but did you get past the armour? You got past the armour huh, yeah but did you actually disable them? Multiple rolls? All I want to know is whether the bad guy is down!

When I write a battle report, I don’t mention every dice roll that happens, I talk about the fun stuff, the whacky stuff, the unexpected, the calamities.  So what am I playing for?  Clearly for me I’m playing to see what happens, and what that means for my characters, and how that will influence what happens next.  That’s what I play for.  

So, great, that all churned over, conclusion reached, go back to sleep right?  Oh no, that’s not me at all.  What do I have to do?  Naturally, I have to go and create that thing that I want to play but doesn’t exist.  Oh and if that’s just too easy I want it to work the same way in multiple settings so I can swap around as the mood takes me without having to learn new mechanics each time.

Challenge accepted!  Here comes the Horrendous Gaming solo tabletop adventure system.  Truly solo, truly about the adventure, and there are eight Editions already planned, enough that I can check myself at each stage and go “yeah but how will that work for X” to keep the overall  goal in play.

Why am I telling “you” this though?  Well it’s like this, if I run out of steam I can keep telling myself “I can’t stop now, I’ve told people I don’t even know that I am doing this!”.  While if I pull it off and anyone ever says to you, “Hey have you heard about this cool new Horrendous Gaming thing?” then you will be able to say, “Heard about it?  I was there when it started!”.

If you read this far and didn’t just stop at the sheep (and they are lovely sheep so who can blame you), I thank you.  If you come back next week knowing I’m going to be spending even more time self analysing a game system you’ll probably never touch, then I thank you even more, though possibly have concerns over your sanity.  There will still be pictures though, of minis and terrain, so it may be worth dropping in anyway.  

Oh and if you came here at the end, when it’s a thing that you bought, played and hopefully enjoyed, just know that some people were here all along and watched me sweat my way though it hahahahaha.

All the best, Dean