Gaming

My Gaming Pages

• Dedicated pages for games I play
  • Battlelords
  • Car Wars
  • Chill
  • Dungeons & Dragons (D&D)
  • GURPS
  • GURPS Shadowrun
  • Shadowrun (Third Edition)
  • Mordheim
  • Traveller
  • Warhammer 40k
  • Werewolf: The Apocalypse
• Gaming-related hobbies
  • Miniatures (as a game/hobby unto themselves or aids for RPGs)
    • Painting (primarily, I am talking about painting minis)
    • Terrain-making (primarily, terrain for miniatures and RPGs)
• A myriad of gaming topics
  • Calendars & Deities
  • Character Creation
  • Finding Gamers
  • Gaming Conventions
  • Gaming Links
  • Gaming Gear
• RPG Resources Online
• Some of My Characters

Gaming - what do I mean?

When I speak of gaming, I refer to role-playing games, boardgames (including wargames), miniatures warfare (aka "tabletop" games), and a host of associated gaming activities, to include assembling and painting miniatures, terrain-making, and computer games. These pages focus mostly on games that involve playing with other people.

More often than not the question that garners the most interest is - what is a role-playing game (RPG)?  To me, an RPG is akin to a small improvisationl troupe.  The players gathered about the table have characters to play that have defined characteristics and one person, the referee (game master, dungeon master, etc.), directs the action, resolving the consequences of the players' actions within the milieu he creates.  Personally, I am a fan of flights of fancy of the mind exclusively, so although I love to play characters with accents on occasion, I am not a fan of dressing the part or live action role-playing (LARP).

I prefer to use maps and miniatures to clarify the situation at hand and, I think, give the imagination a helping hand.  It avoids a lot of arguing/tension about where this character is with respect to this thing or that.  Also, most heroic games involve combat of some sort, and then the miniatures can be invaluable. As a side benefit, I get some use out of the miniatures I paint, another enjoyable hobby unto itself.

Note, however, that gaming is only as good as the group you are in.  Running a game is a subtle art and it's also best to be sure the group is composed of people you would like to be around.

For some other thoughts on what an RPG is, take a look at the following pages:

• "What is Roleplaying?" - straight up information on what RPG are & how they work
• Confessions of a Dungeons & Dragons (tm) Addict -  interestingly the view of a devout Christian and D&D enthusiast, looks like there's hope for them yet. :-)

Computer gaming has been found to be good for development as this article explains. Not a big surprise that hours-long puzzle solving, interactive, and often hand-eye coordination tasks would do this. It's not very hard to watch a television or sit around in a shopping mall.