I'm back!

It's been a while. I know I always say that, but it's REALLY been a while. The guilt of not being able to get my act together and record a podcast was eating me up and I was thinking of ways in which I could at least get a some audio recorded and uploaded. Should I just say 'hello' and chat gibberish for 2 minutes as a place holder? No. I thought I would wait at least a few weeks so there was enough material to spout gibberish for longer. And so here we are.

...in Geneva in fact. I currently find myself living in a small town just outside the Swiss city with pleasant views of Lake Geneva and Mont Blanc (just about visible through the trees) And it's this change of scene that's somewhat responsible in the lag time for me to get my hobby up and running again which in turn has had a knock on effect with talking into the microphone.

Thus I'm pleased to say that after the stresses of relocation, traversing Europe several times and trying to get my head around the new locale I've actually managed to get some painting done, some gaming done - wargaming and game books - and discovering new game stores which has given me a nice glow of satisfaction. Thus I thought I would share my experience with you and just generally check in and say what I've been up to.

As mentioned this is a stream of conscious podcast so nothing is rehearsed, it's all shooting from the hip warts n' all.

Some focus is given to this podcast with the game I've been tinkering with these past couple of months. Namely 'Rusty Dagger' by Rob Salters. A fun and simple solo - yes solo - skirmish wargame with really small footprint, few minis and (something I forgot to say in the podcast) polyhedral dice to satisfy the lust of all you fellow dice addicts. Basically great little and very affordable game - check it out, link is below.

I finish off with a few random words about Jonathan Hicks' 'Those Dark Places' Industrial Science Fiction role playing published by Osprey Games. A rules lite, yet grim and doom laden game for those who enjoy the genre of films like Alien, Silent Running and Outland. Maybe while living in Switzerland I'll figure out a way to semi-solo it with minis. Watch this space.

On a technical note there is minimal (ie none) sound editing for this episode as I wanted to get something uploaded pronto.

It's good to be back!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/403558/Rusty-Dagger-Solo-Adventure-Zine-Game

Greetings podcasters - Thank you for your patience!

I’ve put off recording and editing this latest offering as I’ve been under the gun regards our family relocation. The last couple of months have been a stressful blur of boxing household items, contacting international removal companies, deciding on schools for the children, choosing where to live and generally all the hassles that accompany such an upheaval. Not mention working a job too!

Well, I don’t want to bore you with the ins and outs of my life at the moment but such is the state of things.

Thus it is into this maelstrom of chaos that I try to find my gaming compass and look for some direction and inspiration from my dice. Truth be told, I’ve not had my gaming mojo on and to quote the wise Vince Noir from Season 3 of The Mighty Boosh “I’m just not feeling it”.

Basically to much going on to want to set-up a game. Although in a way I’m making excuses, I’m sure rolling some dice and moving some figures around (the ones not boxed up in storage) would be amazing therapy.

Never underestimate the power of gaming for one’s mental health.

This episode I’m coming to you from the Slovak-Hungarian border a second time as I’ve dropped off my two daughters to be with their family while the wife and I run around finalising things both in The Netherlands and our new home of Switzerland. Still lots to be done so I thought I’d force myself to take a walk and muse about games to try and take my mind off things – and it worked!

Today’s game in question is Free League Publishing’s ‘The One Ring’ starter set. A rather nice package that delves into JRR Tolkien’s world by taking The Shire as a starting point and by use of a simple and easy to grasp two D12 and D6 pool system. The box contains three booklets, cards, character sheets, dice, a huge map and even has information on the inside of both box halves. The game practically bursts out at you.

I guess in a small way I’m surprised I bought this as I already have two other Middle Earth set games – ICE’s MERP and Decipher’s Lord of the Rings Role Playing Adventure Game – so why buy another? Impulse is one reason, it looked to good to pass-up. But also I suppose like every Tolkien fan I’m always seeing what other game designers’ take on Middle Earth is. Is it hack & slay, lots of journeying and moral dilemmas or something else. Without giving to much away, I think The One Ring does things rather well. I may even buy the incredibly light rule book some time.

One the technical side of things, apologies for the wind howl on parts of this recording. Hope it doesn’t bore into your mind like the Eye of Sauron…!

Greetings loyal listeners. Thank you for tuning in to another stream of consciousness podcast in which I cast my eye over my collection and talk about the things that come into my head. Hey, it's a system that works. More or less.

Today I was inspired to get out the microphone as I picked up a brilliant game from the annals of tabletop gaming. Namely Avalon Hill's Diplomacy. Yes, the classic game that was one of the inspirations for Gygax and Arneson as they went about developing their own gaming system. While the game that has little - actually nothing - to do with orcs, swords, magic or treasure, its subtle influence should not be ignored. From a personal stance it's magical that a random purchase in a dusty Dutch 2nd hand store connects me with those heady pioneering days of RPG development.

Alas impending changes in life mean much of my collection is in boxes - mostly the wargames - so my opportunities for dice rolling and escape through gaming is a bit limited, but thankfully still available. More is revealed in the podcast, but who would think 10mm Pendraken and Warhammer Fantasy Battle 2nd edition would work so well together. 

Finally here are some links a couple things discussed:

https://em4miniatures.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-RVJyNpfDk (this YouTube link is for the Goth band The Sister of Mercy's video 'This Corrosion'. Apparently an influence on 80s era GW design)

Welcome podcast listeners to another episode of Two Shelves of Gaming.

As usual I felt a gentle internal pressure to get another episode out there, but as per normal the eternal question of what to talk about stumped me. Luckily I was contacted by a listener called Mark to who had heard about me from the Bedroom Battles podcast and answered a question I had from episode 12. Namely the title of a game book series I once owned in the 80s in which you could end up being killed in your dreams as you attempted to regain health points. The series was called 'Grail Quest' and was set in the era of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Mark had been lucky enough to pick one up at a charity book sale (Jammy git)

It's different to Fighting Fantasy in that the passages can be longer, pages long in some cases, in which a rich story and colourful characters are revealed to the reader. Also the character you play isn't some muscle bound, armour clad and sword wielding warrior, but instead a simple farmer from the sticks. More country bumpkin than dungeon defiler. Plus the book is divided into definite waypoints and sections instead of being a flow of passages.

Additionally - and this is the one of the things I didn't like first time around - the book has lots and lots of humour in it. The book doesn't take itself to seriously at all and even when you are killed it's all treated as a bit of a laugh. In either case getting killed is more an inconvenience to this game book series, something you can get around and even helps with subsequent attempts.

So definitely a breed apart from FF - not saying either is better - just different.

Now, I don't own a physical copy of the book, but I was able to download it via the rather good anna archive website (link below) Take a look as you may discover books you didn't know existed back in the day. Plus most of them are no longer in print so this may be the only way you'll see them. Thank goodness for the internet.

A couple of technical points for this recording is that there was a lot of cleaning going on, so I had to pause and edit out sections where the loud jet engine noise of a Dyson Vacuum cleaner was in the background. I've tried to remove most it. Also I didn't get a chance to read the book in detail so had to review it in real time as it was on my computer, hence much sound of the mouse wheel as I scrolled up and down the pdf.

Anyway, excuses over. Enjoy!

Link to gamebooks:

https://annarchive.com/hotu_gamebooks.html

Greetings podsters!

It has been a while since my last offering so I was feeling the slight pressure to get something recorded and edited before time stretched out any further. A combination of procrastination and not knowing what to pick off my book shelves next created a perfect storm of indecision - and talking of storms, Eunice was battering the Dutch coastline as I recorded this episode, you can hear it howling in the background. 

The game I chose for this episode, or rather the adventure module, is 'Race for El Dorado', a rip roaring pulp adventure set in the 1920s/1930s that takes players from a ship sinking in the Pacific ocean to a Peruvian coffee plantation and finally into a lost valley full of dinosaurs. Or does it? Let me explain. The adventure is for the Dream Park role playing game, which is based on the books of Larry Niven and Steve Barnes. This game setting is slightly peculiar in that the players, and all the adventures they have, don't take part in a world or universe, but rather in an artificial virtual reality theme park set-up full of holograms, actors and special effects. Basically everything they encounters in the course of this adventure module is fake.

With me so far?

Essentially when you sit down to play this game, you the person (aka the player) has a PC who in turn plays a role in a themed adventure setting. The way I look at things is this; it's a game, within a game, within a game. 

Admittedly I'm not familiar with either the source material or the details of the rules, but this creates a bit of head scratching on my part as I'm kind of thinking, "Why have such a set-up for a role playing game? Isn't this unnecessary?" 

While the adventure itself is a roller coaster ride of thrills, spills and dangers, it's all fake - not just for you the player, but also for your PC. As I read through the module I kept having twin thoughts of it looking like immense fun to play, but at the end of the adventure what happens? Does one of the technicians mentioned early in the module switch on the lights, wheel away the backdrops and start sweeping the floor? What's the point is what I'm ultimately asking. Yeah, it's fun, but what happens after...?

Anyhow, it's a curio of my gaming collection and one I randomly picked up 2nd hand in Manchester's Travelling Man game and comic store some time in the 00s. 

To find out more here are a couple of links to the rules and source material:

https://www.scribd.com/document/463166716/DreamPark

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Park

Warning! This episode contains a couple sections of poor audio and a mnemonic malfunction.

Greetings podlisteners, I thought I would try something a bit different for this episode.

I thought I would try and record things in the great outdoors.

‘But, why?’ I hear you ask.

Today’s episode scratches the surface of fantasy game books with some passing attention given to the Fabled Lands game book series. The thinking being, this book series convey a sense of the vast almost endless possibilities an adventurer can have while wandering far and wide over the land. Thus I thought I would do a small wander across the section of the Slovak / Hungarian border I am currently staying at in order to get the juices flowing as I attempt another stream of conscious unscripted podcast.

In this episode I talk briefly about my relationship with game books starting with Choose Your Own Adventure and Interplanetary Spy, before moving on to Fighting Fantasy and chronicling the sad tale of how – and why – I decided to throw them out in one cruel snap decision (one which I rue to this day).

My reintroduction to game books came via one of my visits to a local Merseyside charity shop in the late 90s in which I stumbled across the first two Dragon Warrior game books as created by Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson. Believe it or not this was the first time I’d heard of, yet alone, seen the game. Yep, it’s true folks. The reason is simple; at the time this system came out I was no longer an active Fantasy Game Booker. Thus any of the times I would have gone into a book store that held FF, or other game books, I probably wouldn’t have perused that section. Hence, they were not on my radar at any level. Nor do I recall seeing them advertised in any of the White Dwarf magazines I irregularly bought.

Regardless, it was this chance 2ndhand purchase that led me to ultimate investigate the other works of Dave Morris and associates which has caused me to purchase many of the Fabled Lands and Blood Swords series. In the case of Fabled Lands there’s no way I would have been aware of their existence as I was living in the Czech Republic when the first of them was released – remember kids, pre-internet era – I just wasn’t aware of what was happening in the wider gaming community. Yet alone able to keep track of things from mid-90s Central Europe.

Needless to say I’ve been making up for lost time and have been eagerly purchasing both series which are available as print on demand.

Overall I think these are well crafted products with a nice spin on the fantasy game book concept. Also they’ve kick started my interest in FF too – if only I hadn’t chucked them all out back in the 90s *weeps*

Finally on a technical note, my idea to record outdoors suffers from very loud wind noise in a couple of sections. Apologies, it’s annoying and makes things difficult to hear. Also I forget what year it’s going to be (!) although I rectify this latter fault with a jarring sound edit.

Happy New Year gamers!

https://fabledlands.blogspot.com/

Seasonal Greetings folks! Yes, it's that time of year again, with Christmas just around the corner I thought I'd get my finger out and record another podcast before things got to busy. But what subject should I choose this time?

Well, I thought I'd start out easy and re-cap what I've been up to since last time. I've been busy in my own way; some painting, some wargaming and some rules learning. It's been a mixed bag albeit a very satisfying one. I briefly discuss my Anglo-Zulu project using both Osprey's 'The Men Who would be Kings' and 'Black Powder' before switching to fantasy using Warhammer Skirmish and One Page Rules' 'Age of Fantasy, Skirmish' system. The latter being a very rules lite and straightforward set allowing you to get stuck into the thick of battle right away. Check 'em out, the link is below.

Also I was coming to terms with painting the fantasy equivalents of Gregg Allman and Freddie Mercury. I kid you not!

Now, I had wanted to discuss a couple of things beyond the 'what I've been up to' side of things, but I ran out of time talking about the title of this podcast. Sure I could have just extended the running length, but for now the 40 or so minutes seems long enough, especially given the odd monologue I've chosen. Namely, my interest - nay obsession (!) - with dice.

Yes folks, today's episode is all about my dice. It's as simple as that, or is it? I've been collecting dice since I first got into gaming and now have hundreds of every type commonly used in wargaming and RPGs. But why do I have so many? There's no logical explanation for this. Sure, every time I buy a boxed set or RPG set it may indeed come with a set of dice, but this doesn't explain my dice mountain. Is there something wrong with me? Is it just me? Are there others who suffer from this eccentric affliction?

It's been one of those gaming things I've had floating around my head for some time, so I thought I would go ahead and try to collect my thoughts in audio form for the benefit of the gaming community. 

Plus, for me, each dice purchase usually has a reason - and a story - behind it, so it's not all random or crazy.

Am I talking sense, madness of revealing an un-diagnosed psychosis?

Listen on and find out.

...oh. And by the way that thing I was trying to describe is a 'Dice Tray'.

https://onepagerules.com/

Greetings folks!

I thought it was high time I recorded another podcast and the inspiration for this episode is a holistic assessment of my miniatures collection - the ones I've painted, the ones I hope to paint and the ones - gulp - I may never paint. But first the backstory - last weekend marked a milestone in my wargaming activities; I actually finished painting all my Pendraken 10mm miniatures (yay!). I ordered them just before the first lockdown of 2020 and promptly set about undercoating and using my newly purchased Citadel Contrast Paints on them. However, after I'd painted up a few units I kind of ran out of steam and flitted across to solo wargaming Frostgrave. Fast forward to earlier this year and I decided to have another painting drive which bore much fruit until I ran out of steam. Again. The saga finally ended last week when I finished off the remaining cavalry units. So altogether they took well over a year and a half to paint (eek...)

While I'm proud of the way they look and the effort I put into them, its the sheer fact I've finished a relatively major painting project that's giving me some elation. But, it got me thinking, I've got loads of unpainted minis - many of which have remained unpainted for years, decades in some cases - am I ever going to get around to painting them? 

Wargaming is like many other hobbies, the sum of many small purchases can get out of hand and morph into hoarding. We may not realise this and furthermore many wargaming forums have a kind of smirking acceptance that having an unwieldy lead pile is a natural facet and by-product of practicing the hobby. 

Like many wargamers I'm kind of torn between the Scylla and Charybdis of genuinely wanting to paint everything I have, but on the other hand feeling a pressing need to sell some things that I reckon I just wont ever get around two. These tidal forces are forever in turmoil.

It's not just me. I was recently listening to the excellent Across the Pond Wargamers Podcast and a couple of times on the episodes, guests and hosts have mentioned they may never ever around to painting everything they have. 

To compound matters, over the past few years I've been stripping the paint off some of the first minis I ever painted. Citadel and Grenadier figures I got way back in the mid-late 80s. That got me thinking too; I last painted these over 30 years ago, am I going to forget about some of them again for another 30 years?

It's thinking like this that makes me ponder minis, paint, the universe and mortality - I kid thee not. 

There's more to wargaming than dice, minis and rules.....

Greetings all!

It's been a while. A few things have conspired to keep me away from recording my random musings about my gaming collection; being away on holiday, not being able to decide on which game or product to talk about and wanting to get hold of a decent microphone. All these simple things have conspired to delay me getting my act together and making the latest episode.

Another conspirator were my actual gaming shelves...! Yes, folks, due to the amount of stuff on them I completely overlooked the fact my two shelves contain several doors and drawers, in many of which are yet more wargames, RPGs and adventure board games. Thus I opened one and was confronted with my sizable Osprey games collection - while some are out in the open - many were squirreled away in the dark recesses of my Ikea monolith. It this latter location was the first edition rule book and a couple of supplements for Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City.

Thus they are the subject of today's sonic ramblings. As is my way, this isn't a detailed assessment of the rules or discussion about the design history, but instead more of a how I got into the game and what it means to me. I think this is becoming my niche in a way.

I make brief mention of the fact I was a guest of Matthew McCloud on the 'Bedroom Battles' wargames blog and podcast - look him up!

Also I've tinkered with the introduction and 'outroduction' of the podcast with a few sound effects and music. Seems OK to me, not the best there is out there, but gives a bit of a buffer between clicking play and hearing my voice.

Anyway, enjoy!

It's been a while!

I've been absent from the podwaves on account of the weather being so nice - with the beach being but a ten minute bike ride away I've been catching up on my body boarding or honing my SUP skills. Also I was a bit of a loss about what I talk about next. Having quite a few games to choose from gave me a case of what I gather is now called 'choice paralysis'. However, fear not. Due to the fluke of nature, I decided upon the D&D Gazetteer, The Elves of Alfheim for this episode.

While I wanted to do something other than D&D, picking up the book suddenly game me a rush of nostalgia and emotions from those crazy days back in the early 90s when I'd just started University in London and bought the book in Oxford Street's Virgin music store. A bit earlier I'd joined a gaming group and it re-invigorated my RPGing to the point I decided to actually make a purchase with my hard earned student grant (them were the days, eh?)

In either case the Elves of Alfheim made me realise that this whole D&D thing was a huge world with endless possibilities. It illustrated how Dungeons and Dragons wasn't some random collection of non-related dungeon bashes, but rather a rich world to explore and get lost within. Heady stuff! I'd paid lax attention to the Mystara map in the Expert Rule Book. Only considering it dull background waffle you could ignore on your way to the Isle of Dread. Ah, the folly of youth. If only I'd paid more attention and hadn't been so focused on 'hack and slay' I'd have seen earlier that there's - literally - a whole world out there.

Anyway, only a short one today. Enjoy.