Monster Man Contest II: Questions!

With the Monster Man Contest II underway, I have received some questions about the rules. Here are the answers, which I will also add to the original post when I get a moment.

Who has the publishing rights to my entry? 

You do, of course! I'm not intending to publish these, except insofar as putting them here is "publishing" them -- it's just a fun exercise in community creativity.

Can I publish my entry on another forum, blog or website and just send you a link instead of emailing you? 

Certainly; please do!

How many times can I enter?

Let's say up to three entries per person, but no one contestant can win more than once -- in the unlikely event that someone places in the top group with multiple entries, I'll just count whichever one has the highest number of votes.

Monster Man Contest II!

OK, so last time I said I would run a second Monster Man contest it ... basically didn't happen. I was too busy to promote it effectively and I only got a handful of entries, and I just let it slide. But no longer! Monster Man Contest II is in full effect, and there are fabulous prizes to be won! How would you like ... a print copy of The Hyqueous Vaults? Or a £15 gift certificate to Diplomatist Books? Maybe you'd like a collection of monsters from Spes Magna Games? Or a special monster surprise from yours truly? Well, all you have to do is make a monster!

Here are the rules:

1. Go to this article about D&D monster names created by neural networks.

2. Pick a monster such as the Slug, Spectral or the Mommy, Greater

3. Create a Monster Manual-style entry for your chosen name, with a description and stats for your favourite edition of D&D. Or your favourite RPG, whatever it might be. I'm not the boss of you! If you want to add a picture, that'd be double cool.

4. Send it to me by July 14th. You can email me (gonzohistory@gmail.com) or share it with me on Google+. 

5. I will post the entries here and ask listeners to vote on them by August 1st, choosing the top three entries. 

6. I will create an episode of Monster Man for the winning monsters. Winners will also receive a print copy of The Hyqueous Vaults (with removable cover!) and more. And everyone who reads this will get tons of fun monsters to read about and enjoy!

7. You can enter more than once if you like, but you can't win more than once.

And that's it! Go make some monsters. Share this contest with your friends; the more the merrier.

New year, new campaign: the Great Mutant Caper

My ongoing campaign of the post-apocalyptic RPG Other Dust is ... well ... ongoing! In the last few sessions, the players have been solving a murder mystery and looking for a treasure map. This culminated in a heist at the closest thing a junkyard bartertown has to a luxury hotel. I decided to set the whole thing up with miniatures, because representing multiple different things going on simultaneously is an important part of the heist genre. 

The hotel and its compound.

The caper-comedy genre is one of my comfort zones, I think, and part of that is because it's possible to introduce consistent genre elements in a way that's still surprising. I decided to just make a quick random complications table that would let me keep things moving without having to plan everything out in advance. I rolled once every so often to get things like "a vehicle arrives" or "unwanted social interaction" or "room service!" just to keep the NPCs moving around the space.

A consortium of investors try to get Jeb interested in their new product. 

The law! The red-robed junkborgs, merciless enforcers of The Perfesser's law, turn up when Jeb sets off the alarm.

Twiggs spots lizardy medical genius Patches tampering with the ingredients outside the kitchen.

Twiggs fails to talk his way past the housekeeping staff.

Our heroes(?): L to R: Jaime, Twiggs, Jeb, Reesix

The night manager is having a pretty bad day. 

Another thing I'm working on

Last year when I went to Salute, I mentioned playing in a game refighting the battle of Lodi Vecchio. This was a lot of fun, but it also wasn't just any Lion Rampant game, it was part of an ongoing project exploring the relationship between medieval history and wargaming. I'm happy to say that the project is now in its second phase and I'm helping out with the web aspect.

So check out Gaming a Crusader Castle, won't you? There'll be more stuff going up on there in the coming weeks as we create scenarios, write articles and more. We'll be going to games shows throughout 2018 and 2019 to show off the Byblos Castle keep model by Supreme Littleness Designs and also to run some games using a range of different historical systems, starting with Claymore 2018 in Edinburgh.

In the meantime

A lot of my time lately has been taken up with various projects that I have either talked about here or will hopefully talk about soon. But I haven't stopped playing games! Despite my enthusiasm for Ghost Archipelago, many of my local gamers remain devoted to Frostgrave, and that's fun too. We've been playing a lot lately at the games night hosted by a local book store. In fact, their games selection is pretty good -- and as a Cambridge University alum, I'll get a discount, at least as soon as my alumni card arrives. So that's pretty good!

Anyway, I've created (or more accurately recreated) a Frostgrave warband and returned to my age-old practice of just getting my butt kicked. We usually manage to get two tables playing at once, so here are some photos from the most recent event -- they're mostly the other board, since the lighting was better over there.

A cultist sniper takes aim high above the battlefield.

There's something sinister about these nuns. 

This player's warband is made mostly of classic Citadel models.

Most of the shots of my table came out a little blurry, but it looked OK on the night. 

Although we did eventually take out this warhound, he earned his kibbles, holding us off for several turns.

My apprentice and his team spread out among the ruins to look for ... "clues."

I love the variety of colours on these cultists; mine are very drab. 

Anyway, I'm having fun and really pleased with the effort a big book store is making to cultivate its gaming community. It's mostly board games there and a little D&D, but we do make a fun spectacle. People often come by and ask what sort of game we're playing; I should put together some starter warbands for kids or whatever.

Diceni 2018

Diceni is a gaming show in Norwich that I keep meaning to go to and never do, but this year I found myself at a loose end and decided to pop over and visit it. 

I really like the format of the show: it's a ring of traders surrounding a core of demo and participation games in a big open area in the centre of a building called the Forum. This is a big sort of community centre that also houses a cafe, a theatre, the public library and so on. What this means is that people are always moving in and around the show. I saw a lot of parents there with their kids, and lots of those kids happily playing games. Entry is free, which I imagine helps there. 

Here are some bad photos I took of the show floor: 

As you can see, it's pretty big, but not huge; it's very much set up for people to rock up, do some shopping, maybe play a quick game and then head out. Here are some of the things I saw: 

Have I ever been to a British gaming event where Bez wasn't doing his thing?
He was at the first ExiliCon, that's how dedicated the guy is. 

This game was being run by people from the Random Platypus forum.
It's a sci-fi variant of the Walking Dead: All Out War rule.

I played a game of the Osprey samurai game, Ronin. 

I got thumped quickly, but it was a good-looking table.

This big Marvel participation game seemed to be very popular. 

People playing Warmaster. Seems like a thriving community!

 There was a pretty good mix of traders there, including Ainsty and The Assault Group on the miniatures side, as well as another historical manufacturer -- Hellion? I don't recall. There were a couple of other minis game companies around, including the guys who make Mythos and Purgatory. There were also board game companies, people selling dice and other accessories, and the thing I like most: second-hand games!

Guess who bought Kryyyyooomeeeeek?

A friend of mine is very into this game, so I thought I would pick it up when I found it for £4. I flipped through it at lunch, and while I don't have much to say about the rules, the way the setting material is written is bananas.

Anyway, I also took the chance to visit a friend who works nearby, and had a walk around Norwich, looking at some sights and doing some shopping. 

I liked the concept of Diceni as a very accessible show in a public space. The location makes it good for drop-in visitors, and most of the display games were fun and colourful. I feel like if you're going for a drop-in event, Saturday might be better, but I expect there are more potential clashes on the Saturday of a Bank Holiday weekend, so it's a trade-off. If, like me, you have other stuff to do in Norwich, it's a fun way to spend a few hours. 

Salute 2018 recap

I went to Salute in London, as I do. I was trying to be responsible in my spending, but I still saw and did some cool stuff. I didn't take as many photos as I normally do.

Anyway, here's what I did: 

I participated in a speed painting contest, and I won! My job was pretty rough; lighting wasn't great, tools weren't perfect, etc. I think I won because I did a little rudimentary wash on the armour plates and the hair. 

I won a bunch of swag as a result of this contest, including Salute exclusive models from previous years and a set of brushes. I'm pretty excited about these brushes, actually: brushes were on my shopping list. I'm probably going to sell off the surplus models, since I already have one of each of these. 

Speaking of free models, the theme for this year was WWI. Last year's theme was a centennial one as well -- the Russian Revolution -- and this year's model was not just one model but three, a little diorama showing British, French and German soldiers at the end of the war. 

I'm going to mount them on a plinth and paint them up as a war memorial sort of a scene, I think. 

Speaking of WWI, there were some living-history types around, and they had brought a very imposing looking mockup of a WWI tank.

What else did I do? I painted some models at the Mantic paint-and-take, including a couple of the new models from Star Saga. I don't know that I'm going to play the game, but a character in an armoured spacesuit armed with a length of pipe will certainly come in handy in my post-apocalyptic game. 

Here are some things I saw: 

I really liked the colour scheme in this dungeon created by Mierce Miniatures.

I think this cool-looking science fiction board was at the Wild West Exodus stand,
which may mean I have misunderstood that game. 

I always enjoy a VBCW game.

This Seven Years' War game was all done with paper miniatures.
There are a bunch of these books, including one for Hastings. I'm kind of tempted to check them out, although I think the ones with brightly-coloured armies in serried ranks are probably the best candidates.

This board was for a game called The Drowned Earth. If it's got apes hunting dinosaurs, it has my interest. 

Some friends of mine were playing a game called Moonstone, which features a goblin riding a pug.

Wargames Illustrated were hosting this cool board for a druid-themed game.

Here's a close-up of the Wicker Man. 

This amazing sci-fi vehicle is a Poundland Toy with some added bits and a hell of a paint job. 

I was pretty restrained in my purchases. I collected some Kickstarter models from Bad Squiddo Games -- photos coming soon, hopefully -- and I bought some models from Bear's Head Miniatures as well. I also picked up some scenery for Frostgrave and Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago, as well as the new FGA book, The Lost Colossus. I'm gonna have to make some colossal scenery. Speaking of scenery, I picked up a prototype Wasteman piece that I hope to be able to show you soon.

It was also good to see friends, including people I don't often get to see other than at wargames shows. You never get enough time to talk to people at the show, but it's still good to catch up and say hi. I do like the post-show social atmosphere of BOYL; honestly, it's the main reason to go on Friday. I had a few conversations that reminded me that BOYL is actually pretty soon and that if I'm meant to be participating in some of the things I hope to participate in I had better get a move on.

The downside is that I have a big project deadline coming up and a lot of words I need to write over the next two weeks, so painting time is going to be pretty limited. In fact, I'm forcing myself to schedule some as a form of stress relief.