If I Had a Billion Dollars (If I Had a Billion Dollars...)

... I would buy you a monkey

(Haven't you always wanted a monkey?)

It was GenCon weekend, where the dreams and fortunes and dozens depend on the success of a single show, hundreds of the best players in their hometowns realize that they're only average, and we rekindle the cosplay, geek girl, or just plain booth babe debate for the first time since Comic-Con.

...And for the record, the latter issue is just a gender-related extension of "Hostile Nerd Syndrome".  I'll address that at a later time. 

One thing that I've found interesting is the lack of any news/updates from the friends I have attending.  No embedded reporters for me at this con, they're too busy with Munchkin tourneys, Cthulhu Masters, and writer's symposiums... a million other things.  I hope this means they're all having a good time.

But back to today.  Today.... is for dreaming...

So, I've won a billion dollars (post taxes, if I want to be greedy I'm going as close to Scrooge McDuck style as I can).  How would that change my gaming lifestyle?

For starters, it would allow me to relocate a few people back into the fold.  While I couldn't specify WHERE this relocation would be, it would be great to get a few people closer to schedule regular gaming, you know, outside of those random flights to Switzerland to ski the Alps.   It's also a great opportunity to burn a few million to help set up some companies that my friends might have been dreaming of.  I do have a LOT of friends in the programming/software/IT spectrum.  Don't know if they can work together longer than 4 hours every Wednesday night, but I'm willing to try it out.  

I would start buying product lines and companies!  D&D?  Not since the late 90's.  Wizards?  Not since they produced their own RPGs. 

Here's the list:

• Chaosium - With the success of their Kickstarters, this might not be priority number one (and it wouldn't be to stop 7th Edition, althought I might reconfigure the next print run to a 7.1 combined book).   For the last two decades, they have simply needed additional cash flow and two more editors.  This might allow for a few more out of print books to come back to life as a reprint, or a completely new book (Kingsport?).
• Steve Jackson - secretly finance a new edition/printing of Toon BEFORE they announce the Kickstarter.
• Topps - I believe Topps stills own the rights to Battletech, and every form of them shall be in my possession (I'll even take take clickies and the CCG if it makes things go smoother.) All licenses stay the same. 
• Legions of Steel - This is a god-awful mess, and a little cash could easily grease the wheels.  Plus I'd like to play a game of giant LoS Mecha combat, with multiple big-bad vehicles and UNE Superfortresses on the table.  Hell, if I get bored I could rewrite the rules and recommission the sculpts for Abyss and actually make it cool.
• Burning Plastic - Yeah, I already have this, per se, but I could finish the 2nd Edition, print off 10,000 copies and distribute them to the masses.  Perhaps I could find out if I could buy the rights to the classic moulds and release a box set, just like the ones you could get out of the back of a comic book, in days gone by, only this time the figures are normal size.  In addition to that I could throw a pile of money at the true genius behind the game, just to avoid lawsuits.  I'd do the same for his Agitator: the RPG concent
• Pig Wars - I heard this is out of print, I could simply pay for a print run.
• Gnome Wars - There are other things I would do regarding Brigade Games that I'm not at liberty to discuss, but I would simply pay for more metal and supplies to be able to hang individual gnomes on a rack display, a five figure box, and an army box.  Plus I'll have time to edit Gnome Wars 2.1.
• TWERPS - A leather bound TWERPS Compendium, even if it's a unique copy.  Same with Risus.  Both for the sheer irony of it.

I would go crazy with my gaming purchases:

• Call of Cthulhu - despite my multi-million dollar investment, I would simply go to the Chaosium website and order close to one of everything.  All the small press items they don't stock, or are out of stock I'll get directly through those companies. Cthulhu has been very very good to me these last couple of years.  They should get rewarded.
• Miniature Building Authority - not one of everything (some things I'll need more than one!), but a nice Middle Eastern set, a European two set, a Spanish building set, and some Africian/polynesian grass huts shouldn't fill up an entire room of my new house (unless I drain the indoor swimming pool and they're all set up in there.
• Hackmaster - the 5th Edition GM Guide and Hacklopedia of Beasts.  Those will look good on my mahoghany barrister bookcase shelves.
• Gnomish Space Marines -  I will blow up the already overpriced eBay market on Squats to assemble my army, using some Hasslefree figures for power armor.  Lots of camo, hunter orange, plus some Nascar insignia for the power armor, not because I like that, but because I can!
• All the King's Men:  My 54mm Revolutionary War armies shall be built, and the Wyoming Massacre shall be done in such an epic scale.
• Eureka/Reaper - A mice warrior/mousling army needs to be built, for fantasy and Gnome Wars, perhaps even my own version of Awful Cheese Hulk with the sci-fi figures.
• Just Eureka - All the Frogs/Turtles/Toy Soliders/Teddy Bears one could stand, plus some modern Afghans and African figures.
• Brigade Games - complete figure lines to run my Tanga Campaign "accurately".
• Formula De - all the boards... and somehow run them together like a bad Cannonball Run.
• Magic - I have played in years, but I would assemble my beloved Treefolk deck to its former glory.  I may even buy mutliple Black Lotuses just to get them out of circulation. 

Write my books

• I could write the ultimate book on the Samoan Civil Wars, and write up orders of battle for wargaming purpose.  I would enjoy those research trips to Samoa and New Zealand.
• Burning Plastic, 2nd Edition
• Gnome Wars 2.1 (I've already volunteered to be editor, at least a proofreader.)
• The Encyclopedia of the Gnome World - a long term project for Gnome Wars covering the history of the Gnomes at War, from the mythical era until the Spanish Rice Uncivil War.  I'll do my best to incorporate all non-Brigade product lines that are appropriate (such as using Eureka Teddy Bears as African Askaris, frogs as savages, etc.)

And of course, if I feel like recreating Brewster's Millions and need a money pit to legally waste money, I could open a comic/gaming store.  Whether it's the Pegleg Gnome, or Viking Comics and Games, or I just buy whatever exists legally of Dreamscape Comics and build a new empire of geekdom with it, this could keep me out of worse trouble.  Plus it would help employ those don't qualify under the computer/internet start-up idea.