Musings On The Stupidity Of Youth, That Damned Podcast And Project X Revealed Amidst Secrecy And Subterfuge.

You know, it doesn't seem like two minutes since I was roaming the streets of Sheffield with friends almost totally drawn from the world of gaming. But by criminny, it's been 40 years now... I have contact with one friend from school (mind you I was never gregarious) and probably half a dozen friends I would trust with my wallet, decreasing to three I'd confide in and one I'd trust with abolutely anything. 

Those half a dozen all came from gaming. There would have ideally been more people I was still in contact with and indeed I'd like there to be, but you see, I am a rather black and white person. Cross me in earnest and that's it, you don't exist beyond a passing hello at a show or in a store, and if we were pretty close at some point, perhap a brief message at Christmas. 

 I'm not proud of this, but it became my coping mechanism in my late teens and early twenties. I have found that roleplayers in particular can be a bitchy breed - I cannot begin to explain why, beyond the fact that we are always adopting larger than life personas, and we get lost in them - and indeed it's roleplayers with whom I've generally come to the stickiest ends with. 

In the late 80s I was barred from GW to set an example to other 'limpets' that there were boundaries. It was a prett well organised thing and whilst I knew nothing of it, I had 'friends' who were given part time jobs there in return for playing their part - In fact it was 20 years before I found out the truth, and for those 20 years I was estranged from a group I needed to be part of, and also acquired the emotional equivalent of a full set of top end Samsonite. 

The damage was done. I was able to forgive those involved and slept better thereafter, but forget? Nope. You see, I had built up callouses on my emotions and to put it not to delicately I had come to believe that 'fuck them before they fuck you' was the default setting. Indeed, although former friends may have forgotten, I alas, had not. It happened at the time I was starting to get a more adult view of what life involved, but before I was emotonally rounded enough to brush things away, and so, like soot in a wound, it became tattooed into me. 

Now at 53, I really want to reach out to some of those people, maybe have a beer once or twice a year and chew the cud over the golden years. To this day, I cannot forget that last time I saw Pete Armstrong before he died, I blanked him because we'd had one of our clashes. 

He forgot I was not 15 anymore, and in turn I ignored that and applied the same manner he had with me when I was much younger. End result, I felt somewhat smug at giving him a taste of his own, but in doing so, I am left with a a bad memory because I could not keep my emotions in check. 

And trust me, I'd pay money to have Pete give me grief one last time. 

The trouble is that when we are in the formative years, we tend not to really, deeply, think about how fleeting our time on this planet is. I was a new parent at 21, starting out in life with the woman I've been with for 33 years. It probably did me good because I was on a downward slope to oblivion. 

I say this without hyperbole. I was estranged from Roger and some other frineds whom I cared for more than my own siblings. I was lashing out at everyone and had become involved in the Goth scene and all the sordid petty vendettas that led to. 

Admittedly, I made a couple of friends and met my wife, but my real friends, the roots connecting me to the gaming earth, were not there. One or two lingered for a while, but in those days the clothes you wore and the music you listened to could build walls which were insurmountable. 

I have learned in the last few years that a few of those friends (obviously) had their own troubles and like me, kept their problems to themselves. If only we had perhaps been able to vocalise those issues, look beyond tribal rivalries and at least keep in touch. 

20 years without Darren, Roger or Paul was a long time. 

It's odd that in the last 25 years, I've seen David's mum & dad more than David. Paul went through a phase of thinking that as an adult he had no connection to the youth he was, which is to my thinking at least, the wrong way to view things. If you lose connection to the youth then the man ages all the quicker. I guess it's a belief that it matters how others see you. You have to be serious at all times, and do grown up things. 

Well yes, sometimes you do, but bitter experience has taught me that letting the inner youth run free makes life more enjoyable, doubly so if you have friends who also know that truth and with whom you can 'just be', without judmental box ticking. 

I think perhaps, it would have been useful if my first D&D book also came with guidelines for navigating the maze that was being a teenager. 

Anyway, I am determined to make up for as much of that lost time as I can with the few people who I want to spend time with and who on the other hand can cope with me. Nevertheless I really do mourn what I missed/lost and have had to come to accept that the odd bit of depression will occur, and just deal with it. 

Moving along, I was listening to the Armchair Adventurers podcast 'The Grognard Files' last weekend (as was Roger it turned out) and they were talking about Dragonquest by SPI. 

Back in the day, this was one of the 'also rans' in Sheffield. I recall vividly, seeing it on the shelves of Games Workshop and Beatties, but it never seemed to sell. I never bought it, because it was like The Fantasy Trip one of those games that we self-professed 'afficianados' arrogantly thought to be 'absolute bollocks', quite wrongly (no surprise there you cry).  

So, now I am looking for DQ and supplements eager to make up for lost years when I could have been playing what seems to be a pretty good game. A friend of mine from the days of Dungeons & Starships is a great fan of it, and as I consider him to be something of a gaming aesthete, he must be right. 

I was also surprised to find my original copy of Ringworld on eBay priced at an eye watering £150. It is quite distinctive, and as much as I ache to get it back, I just can't make myself shell out that price... Still, it was great to see something I last saw when I was 16, and which gave me the same frisson of pleasure as a kiss with a girl at the school Christmas disco - probably moreso, come to think of it. 

And now, to Project X... 

Oh, but I have been a cruel and evil cad, and a poor friend recently. 

You see, Roger is, as I have said time and again, like a brother to me. I respect him, and he is one of maybe 3 or 4 people who can speak their mind to me without me loing it. 

He'll cringe a bit when he reads this, but tough sht buddy, the days of having to be Alpha Male about things are no more. Deal with it! 

Despite the above statement, I do sometimes fear telling him my gaming ideas, because you know, he has this way of looking at me (thank God for lockdown restrictions) and a way of sending me a pithy one-liner of an opinion which makes my blood run cold as I try to type a response. 

Me: 'Cape Wars Rog'?' 

He: 'That's going nowhere.' 

Me: 'Ah, OK, right, scrap that. What about Sedgemoor.' 

He: 'That's a one trick pony.' 

Me: 'Right...' 

*PAUSE* 

Me: 'I was thinking just 'club sized' armies.' 

He: 'I have no idea what a club sized army is...' 

Me: 'Oh yes you fucking do!' 

He: 'Wanker..' 

That kind of thing. 

So, as I have had an itch to scratch about the First Carlist War for around a decade, and finding that I had available funds to realise it, what with the lack of shows until at least the end of 2021, I found myself looking at pictures on the Perry Facebook page and then started that dance that is 'unit size + playing area x cost to pay painter x Rogicule Factor (TM)' and although Roger was a bit dismissive, I was a sneaky bastard and a terrible friend. 

Yes, I planned a project which involved a 6 month spending plan with 30+ units split approximately equally between Carlists and Isabelinos, using the same size units as in those pictures, which I thought would give plenty of scope, some serious eye candy and which more importantly, I did not have to get Roger to buy into, because although we have a history of collecting the same things , we also have a history of collecting some odd stuf individually such as 30mm flats (R) and Peter Laing 15mm Prussian FPW (M). So, I thought it might be fun to surreptitiously collect these two forces and get them all ready to spring on Roger at a later date, hopefully avoiding the one-liners and the fearesome 'raised eyebrow'and along the way giving us even more opportunity for banter and dice rolling.

I hinted that I had a project on the go, but refused steadfastly to tell my best friend what I was up to, indeed, I made my wife swear not to tell, because she's a nicer sort than I and would feel ashamed of my behaviour. 

But, so did I and at last, about a week ago, when the money was spent, I fessed up. 

Oh I sang like a canary, pointing out that whilst I had been a poor specimen of friend, my intentions were for the best. You see, I really took to heart the sentiments Roger expressed a while ago about gaming in our Autumn years and it's been a primary focus and motivation for me ever since. 

But there you have it, the competitive 15 year old popped up and behaved shabbily. 

I spent yesterday writing 30 painting briefings for my painter of choice, who has recovered from the 800+ New Model Army troops I commissioned last year at the start of Lockdown 1, and who, has finally stopped waking up at 2AM with a scream of 'VENICE RED! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'.

 I have to admit that Roger is for me a barometer of reason, and he often makes me reconsider perhaps two out of three possible projects, which is a good thing I assure you. But, I am having me those Carlist and Isabelinos! 

And there you have the week's musings. I spent last week feeling like death from my first C-19 vacination, and although it left me feeling like a Liverpool Docker's underpants for 36 hours, I would urge you all to get your jabs. Mind you, not having wine for 48 hours was a step too close to damnation. 

The wife threatened to give up altogether and in return I threatened to go vegan and allow nothing of animal origin in the house. That was resolved with a decent chardonnay on Monday. As I drifted in the arena of the unwell, I contemplatedf a man still recovering from a fever and general malaise was browsing the Perry website, and, was of a mind for an imaginary campaign, he’d use Argentinians from the Triple Alliance range versus British from the Canadian Intervention… Sort of a pre-run of the Falklands. 

No fucking way would Roger, that stalwart Son Of Gilder allow me to get that one past him, I fear. On Thursday I put my back out, and I've been using a TENS machine since Thursday, making me recollect the 'Wireheads' of the 'Ringworld' series of stories - Funny how life imitates literature sometimes. 

 

TTFN