My Gaming Plans for 2021-2022

As I tried to assemble my thoughts on what my goals should be for the next twelve months, I looked at at the last three or four years' worth of these posts.  I'm pretty consistent, with two or three raging successes, a few lukewarm accomplishments, and most of my disappointment with pet projects or outright pipe dreams.  And if I temper my goals with my most successful posts from last year, I think I have a good mixture of practical and pie-in-the-sky with the One Big Goal.

This year's theme will be a Return to the....

The blog will always be named Gaming with the Gnomies, so I need to continue to focus on gnomes, then everything else that tickles my fancy. 

1. Gnomish Space Marines: The Adventure Continues:  Here's hoping year two of the GSM goes as well as year one, if not better.  Actually using the figures in a game is my secondary goal.
2. Gnome Wars: If I can paint the GSM, my Gnome Wars figures should be a piece of cake.  I'm shooting for completing the Gnomans and one more unit. Regular small-scale skirmish/role-playing-esque games (a la Flintoque inspired scenarios) would be great as well.
3. Star Wars d6: Let's keep the ongoing campaign the blazing success that it has been, even if I'm looking for solid evolution to a new general storyline.  Of course, the recent introduction of a new player, and a properly eccentric character, may throw all that off the rails.
4. Pulp Alley - Tomb of the Serpent: My pulp games have some of highest traffic of all my posts, and moving from Savage Showdown to Pulp Alley and their Tomb of the Serpent campaign should bring up the page views and still be fun.  There's a lot of prep work involved, and the campaign is LONG, so wish me luck!
5. Face to Face... with Cthulhu: Barring a disaster, we so need to return to regular face to face gaming, and Cthulhu Invictus might be enough of a change to ignite that.
6. Looking For a Friend, at the End of the World:  Another option is running Twilight:2000 needs to be face to face, needs tangible handouts.
7. Gaming with the Kids: Gotta try something different to keep things interesting, as we still reach back and occasionally grab a game from the library.   Still thinking Gamma World might fill that need... or moving directly into Pulp Alley.
8. Top Secret: Spice Girls:  No, my Spice Girls project doesn't involve a security clearance.  I am going to have a little "fun" and try to stat out the Spice Girls.  I won't label this one a disappointment if it gets shelved, but I'd like it done faster than some of the Buckaroo Banzai idea I've had spinning around for years.

#RPGaDay2021 - Day 29 - Spice Girls the RPG, Using Top Secret

Day 29 of #RPGaDay2021 and they finally drop "SYSTEM" on us... on a single word weekend no less?

 Like a bad clickbait website, let's list all the options that 8 years of #RPGaDay has given us.

First System Purchased: Red Box D&D

Favorite Game System:  AD&D 2nd Edition still get the nod, although Call of Cthulhu is closing in.

Favorite System I Never Get to Play:  Still goes to Talislanta, although it's been awhile since I played Call of Cthulhu.

Favorite System I Stopped Playing:  The list grows longer as the years pass, but GURPS still tops it.

With that out of the way, let's talk  obscure games and the Spice Girls.

Ever since we started singing "Wannabe" as a gag at Karaoke back in college, the Spice Girls have taken over a disturbed part of my soul.  I've managed to include them in some of one-off online games, involving  Kim Cattrall, and formerly introducing Pumpkin Spice into the fold.

I've used Risus, and would be happy to do so again, if the time and mood struck me.  

However, I have a bit of a death wish.  I'd like to set up the Spice Girls RPG along the guidelines of the oldest System I still own - The original Top Secret. 

This might be the level of crunch to kill the concept, but I own the boxed set, and I think it would make a great project for me to set up and run with the guys, possibly face-to-face when that is feasible.  I daresay, once the characters and backgrounds are generated, this might be my new, definitely "weird" convention game.  

Stay Tuned!

(Painting) Rocketman!

The normal non-COVID world is getting a little crazy, so I'll post what I can get, with some hope that something else can get painted from the painting queue before the end of the month.  

After painting Kim Jong-Un "appropriately," it was time to paint up a second one more befitting to his nickname, "Rocketman!" 

KJU with RPG from Brigade Games

Next Up:  More Space Dwarves, Forge Father halftracks, and a slew of individual figures. 

Project 350: Maintained identically 508 (333/175) from 508 (333/175)

I adore my project manager I set up on Google Drive, but my enthusiasm overwhelms practicality and basic reality.  Like every human, certain cues can cook the creative juices in a different direction, and a trip cleaning the painting bench can stoke the fires of a pretty cluttered painting queue.  A lot of the projects are getting completed, but we're looking at Christmas 2021 release dates to be posted.

And it doesn't help that Bernie Sanders is re-igniting my Spice Girls Espionage RPG ideas that I put on the back burner until Summer.

I already had Old Spice in the game, and Pumpkin Spice, even Turmeric!

#RPGaDay2020: Day 5 - Kim Cattrall Saves the Day!

Day 5 of #RPGaDAY brings us to the first one-word prompt that gave me a lot of options other people might take, but personally stumped me:  "TRIBUTE."

I've done a lot of tributes to my friends and fellow players over the years, but none of my remaining, awesome friends jumped out to me for an "Ode to."

So I'll write a short tribute to actress Kim Cattrall, the woman who saved my Christmas in July RPG session.

But not from this movie....

I usually don't run holiday games, but with our online game, I've regaled enough tales of Christmas-themed games I've played in the past, and Krampus-related games yet to come, that I offered to run one last year.  It was a 5e game using the ongoing campaign's characters and went quite well.

That allowed me to pencil in a Christmas in July game, and at the time, I had this for my inspiration.

God Bless the internet

I did some "research," outlined a revised version of the movie, and despite the concept, I wasn't getting things to gel, and it languished over the months of COVID.

As July neared closer, I did two important things.

• I made the characters the Spice Girls.  I had run a secret-agent/Charlie's Angels-style game in the Fall using the Spice Girls, with the punchline in the title, "The Search for Pumpkin Spice."  The best problem of all?  Using Risus, it was near perfection.  Using a bit of Girl Power and some new characters, rescuing either the truck, the hero, or heroine seemed to lack some depth.  And yes, I understand I'm complaining about depth in regards to the Spice Girls.  
• Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall's character from Big Trouble) was not going to be the damsel in distress or the heroine who needed support, not in 2020 dammit! In fact, to allow some plot progression, I reached back into Kim Cattrall's TV and filmography for some basic plot hooks.

As a man who dated women in the late 90's and early 00's, I've spent many hours sitting on the couch with them, watching Sex and the City.  Samantha Jones is a perfect character to get involved in some weird high-stakes/kidnapping intrigue.  Let's queue her up as the missing person the Spice Girls must find.  

And after dealing with the Sex and the City vibe, we throw a curveball and have witnesses put her in the direction of an old department store with an inordinate amount of mannequins, a fight sequence with the rival department store's staff, and some more clues with Sam's long-forgotten ex-husband, who is now the manager of the department store.  

A few more clues and role-playing, and we can get them seeking out, and tailing a truck full of toys into a strange part of Chinatown.  Insert big fight at the beginning of Big Trouble, with a twist and it satisfactorily made for a great session.  

A quick view of Wikipedia reminds me how many more movies she was in and how much more I can use in future Spice Girls games.  It also questions my moral core why I haven't cobbled together a Police Academy game.

...And just in case anyone wants to read all my Odes to my fellow players, from 1979 to present: 

Ode to Charles
Ode to Dave
Ode to Wooly
Ode to Bill
Ode to Scott