Ruminations On A Gaming Life...

 

 

I will be the first in line to claim that I somewhat mercurial in my gaming tastes. Nevertheless down the years there have been several periods which have really stuck in my head, and indeed several board or roleplaying games which likewise, have remained constants for me over almost four and a half decades.

In some cases, it's been the subject itself, but more often than not it's been the games I played with people I really cared about or enjoyed spending time with. As I have said previously, my lifelong love of Renaissance wargaming has dried up because of the fact that someone (and there are few) I respected and thought of as being as close as a brother has decided for his own reasons that we are no longer compatible.

That was what made me realise that the driving factor can be the people, not always the system or subject  which makes me love a certain type of game.

I'm an introspective type by nature, and I have recently been delving once again into the things which I remember about my years in the hobby and industry.

I can clearly remember a period where as a teenager, I was feeling depressed and moreover alone. My peers at the time (well, one of my peer groups with whom I spent most of my weekends) were going through one of the periodical spats of cutting out one of the group from the picture. It was my turn, and had I not been in a fragile and complex place at the time, I would have just let it all pass. But, my life was seriously bad at the time and I needed those friends. 

I couldn't tell them what was troubling me. Teenagers can be dangerous confidantes and most teens can't really talk about things of a serious nature in a constructive way. Let's face it, teenagers can be callous and cruel - it's the way of things - so sharing your problems can just make thins worse.

Anyway, I was in town on my own when two older gamers and a girlfriend, bumped into me and suggested I join them for a walk around town and a bit of lunch. I did this for several weeks and then as the fun wore off for my 'mates' I drifted back to the centre.

But for a few weeks I would meet up, and would go for the best and largest salad sandwiches I'd ever seen. It was only a few years ago that I found out that they could see that if I was on my own, something was wrong. These wonderful people, went out of their way and spent their time making me feel valued and part of a group. I will be forever grateful. 

I never got to thank Chris, who sadly passed away a couple of years previously.

I can clearly and with amazing clarity, remember that first sandwich, upstairs in a wonderful little cafe on High Court in Sheffield city centre. I can still taste it 40 years later. I can see the cafe, where I and those brilliant people were sitting.

Some of my best times were also spent on long bus journeys with Darren, Martin and Roger over to Doncaster to visit the late Terry Wise in his 'Wargamer's Attic'. Walking from the centre of the town to the suburbs, finding new shortcuts through what was and still is a notorious red light area just to get a gaming fix.

Jo and Lisa dressed as fairies and Chris and Pete dressed as Ghostbusters on Christmas Eve in Games Workshop as we 'Limpets' did our annual 'Mooch' around all of the game and comic stores in Sheffield, before all saying 'so long' for almost a week of Christmas festivities, mabe meeting up once before the new year. Spending Christmas Eve night, playing Renaissance galley warfare with Alan, with whom I spent less and less time as my hobby took over and the friends I made therein, becoming more important than a friend with whom I had gone through Junior and Comprehensive school with.

Walking into Games Workshop in the Winter, the night dropping like a black velvet blanket, trying to get a fix after school and still get home for 6PM. The smell of coffee and Poly-S paint, the soft lighting and subdued colours of the store as the staff wound down for the day after 8 hours at the coal face of gaming. More often than not, I'd get on the bus with Alan, clutching a new piece in an ever enlarging gaming jigsaw. Often, I'd be back out of the house and across the city at a gaming club by 7PM, barely seeing my parents and then having my Dad drive me to and from these clubs up to six times a week.

All of the above also link to a particular gaming theme, in much the same way as hearing 'Incubus' by Marillion makes me want to read the Ringworld rules, or 'The Seer' album by Big Country has me looking at Jacobite armies or 1/200th WW2 forces.

Those nights when my parents were on holiday in my late teens, where Roger, Darren, Keith, Simon and I, would fight totally unbalanced games using those Skytrex 1/200th tanks and troops across the spacious lounge of the bungalow where in a few months my life would change forever, with me being thrown out on the streets by my parents to teach me a lesson, but instead, turning me out and against them permanently as I struggled to understand who or where I fitted into the world.

Once again, this coincided with a peer group pogrom, with three of us this time on the receiving end of a childish vendetta. As I sat with a suitcase in the Halamshire Hotel on a Friday night in the center of Sheffield, I met a group of Goths with whom I became friends, and who saved me from the streets. 

What followed was 4 years of not seeing any of my old friends. After all, they'd left me out in the cold and I wasn't mature enough myself to reach out to them

I became even more of an outsider. Older gaming friends thought I was on drugs and the rumours followed me. But, although I may have done some truly stupid things in my time, I have never been at all interested in getting high. But, back in '85, black hair, black clothes and a chip on your shoulder indicated that you were a 'druggie' in more traditional circles.

As I have already mentioned in the past, I did meet two people who were gamers and Goths. One was a friend from school, the quiet Ian Hill, and a friend of his the quietly imposing Andy Needham, with whom I am still friend to this day, despite doing my best in 1995 to destroy my friendship with Ian, by being basically a twat with honours.

Ian and Andy were big into Napoleonics (and still are, the poor misguided fools), whilst I was into the newly released 40K and dipping a paw into large Franco Prussian War games using Peter Laing figures as well as a never ending WW2 battle in the attic of a rented house, the room having been the bedsit of the girl who I would go on to marry and live with to this very day, she having moved to Leeds when I once again, acted the twat. It's testament to that fine lady that we got together in 1988 and travelled life's highway as a team thereafter.

There's a theme here, you may see, which in actual fact goes right back to the time when I parted ways with so many of my peers and indeed my family.

It made me bitter and harder than I care to think reasonable, but at the same time it did make me resilient and self sufficient, which has served me well, but equally has made me all to ready to be a loner, even cutting off my nose to spite my face.

But through all this, I gamed, gamed gamed, and that kept me just on the right side of sanity through some mad times.

It's the reason I suppose that I more often than not now collect both sides when I get into or return to, a given period. It's expensive, but I only have to rely on myself. Besides, I am more than happy to host games for those who want to play something and my wife loves to put on a spread for those who hang out in the gaming room.

Let me say here an for the record, that I miss chatting with Roger, gaming with him or just ripping the piss out of each other, but I guess he has his reasons and if he wants to keep them to himself, I have to respect his decisions. But, it does mean that my hobby has lost a bit of it's sparkle, which saddens me deeply.

Conversely, it has made me look in detail at what I want to play, and has led to a bumper year of acquisitions and additions, as well as some refinements to my terrain collection too. If you game here, I want it to not only be a good atmosphere, but also  for it to look good. 

I'm currently trying to resist 1/3000th naval gaming. It was one of the first things I saw being played at Sheffield Wargames Society when Steve Roberts introduced me to the club in 82. Likewise, I am resisting 25mm Marlburian gaming, something I have fond memories of playing with the gentleman wargamer who is John Armatys.

So far I am holding up well to temptation, but with another campaign season less than 8 weeks away, I can't guarantee that I won't give in to temptation.

Now, if you will excuse me, I better o and feed the pack of Scotties who allow us to live with them, and then knock up a tasty supper and watch me some Hill Street Blues.

TTFN

- And hey... Let's be careful out there.