Red On Blue In Nottingham
As I’ve mentioned in a couple of my previous newsletters, there is going to be a new wargaming event in Nottingham next year, called ROBIN – Red On Blue In Nottingham.
As well as myself, there will also be seminars and demos from fellow former Games Workshoppers Rick Priestley, Alessio Cavatore, John Stallard, and Michael & Alan Perry. I’ve also taken the plunge and committed to run a demo game at the event, although at this stage I’m not sure which of the many games I’ve been working on will actually be ready to take – you can read more about my dilemma below.
In case you’re not signed up for my newsletter, here’s a bit from my last e-mail about my preparations (or thoughts, at least) about what I’ll be doing at the ROBIN event.
Early next year is a new event, ROBIN, being run in Nottingham. I’ve been asked to do a panel, seminar thing, which all sounds great fun. On top of that, I took a bit of a leap and asked for some space to run a demo game. Now that was a few months ago and it’s reaching the point that I need to decide exactly what game I’m going to put on…
It doesn’t have to be a game of my own design. It is, after all, perfectly allowable to run demonstrations and participation games of existing rulesets. I could theme something for Open Combat, for example, or maybe make a nice board for Anyaral: The World of Twilight.
But that does seem a bit of a wasted opportunity. I’ve been tinkering around with various rules designs for several years now – well seriously for about five years for some of them. Giving myself a bit of a deadline to have something workable would be a nice stepping stone. It would also be a great chance to put an idea out there, in front of actual gamers who aren’t me. I think I’ve got some neat ideas, but are they the sort of game that will gain a following if I was to publish them?
I don’t need to have a full rulebook ready to go, just enough to put some miniatures on a table and run a few games. Some of my rules are in that state already, some aren’t. And like many gamers my attention span is fly-like in duration so that what I want to work on changes pretty much on a weekly basis.
At the moment I have a set of World War Two rules that are, aside from actually playing some more games, good to go. While the beauty of the system I am designing is about giving players the choice to field whatever they want from their collections, and a scenario generation system tailored to pick-up play, the gameplay could easily be showcased on a demo event too. This is my default position.
I have some rough Old West gunfight rules based on poker that are quickplay, which might be fun to turn out. On the downside, I have the figures but not painted, and absolutely no terrain yet… Good convention fodder, I’m sure, but more work than the WWII game.
And then I come round to my game of the moment, a hankering for some 15mm massed mech combat. This is perhaps the game closest to my likes and interests, and hence something of a work of passion. The reality is though, aside from a few vague thoughts, I have nothing written, no miniatures painted (and probably not enough unpainted for what I have in mind), and no table to play on. This could be the spur to get me going, or a massive rod for my own back.
And of course, by this time next week I might have changed my mind again…
So get the date in your diary, and I’ll see you there, and maybe let me know in the comments which of those games tickles your interest.
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