Essay Contest Winner "What I like about the fantasy miniatures gaming hobby..."
The following essay was the winning submission for an RPG Host essay contest held earlier this summer. It is reprinted here exactly as it was submitted. Congratulations to the winner, and a big thank you to all those who entered.
I like the Fantasy Miniature Gaming Hobby, because my memories
of when I first started gaming are tied to miniatures. That
was better than 20 years ago. Hard to believe I'm that old! I
have had many enjoyable experiences while gaming ever since
that time. But some of the best times are yet to come.
I saw this game in the store -- not D&D, but close. It was
Chainmail. Something about little armies of tabletop
miniatures, set in medieval times. Great. I always thought
the miniature armies of the British Victorian era were cool,
(like those shown on the movie The Young Winston Churchill)
but this was even better. I Bought it. I Read it. I Liked
it! But the problem was I didn't have any figures yet. So I
made up my own counters, using index cards. After awhile, I
saved up some money, and bought a few stands of pikemen, some
cavalry, and some archers. Soon the collection grew. I wasn't
really good at painting them at first, but I tried, anyway. My
style was like, dunk, next, dunk, next!... I repainted alot of
them as I got better. I'm the musician, my brother is the
artist. HE really could paint those little buggers! I was
good at building catapults, siege towers, trebuchets, and
ballistae out of matchsticks. They looked pretty cool with a
little wood stain, and some twine here and there. I had
several of each. They would be used and abused later in the
school club I joined.
Then awhile later, I saw TSR's D&D, and Melee/Wizard by
Metagaming. I liked the Melee/Wizard rules better, because
they seemed more concrete, more exact, more... suitable for
miniatures! So some of my old Chainmail set of figures found
new life! I made photocopies of the hex maps, and glued them
to a piece of paneling. Now I had about a 3'x8' area with
which to do battle. I'm also a model railroader, so I
liberated some trees and other foliage from my set. That
paneling with the hexmap was great, especially if we had to
stop in mid-adventure, because I could just pick the whole
thing up when we were done playing, and move it to the spare
bed in my room. When velcro got popular, the hills, houses,
trees, etc. all got some of that on their bottoms, and I put
some here and there on the hexmap. It made it easy to
reconfigure the whole thing for new and different battles.
Melee/Wizard had little cardboard counters to cut out, and so
when the bashes *really* got big (literally 100's of figures,
gamed by 10-12 people), I would use them plus the miniatures.
Usually, the miniatures were for the party, or the good guys,
or the most important participants, and the counters were for
the monsters. My school had a large (30 person) gaming club,
and we'd pool our resources for figures, things like wall
sections, furniture, etc. The pinnacle of the club's
achievement was when a few of us made a huge castle out of
plaster of paris/paper mache, plywood, and other materials. It
had several floors, complete with flooded moat, and 3 dungeon
levels. You could lift each level off the thing, to get at
whatever area you required. It was the coolest! The thing was
heavy, so we liberated an old A/V cart for the whole thing, and
it was mobile!
We hosted a local convention, and we got on the news with our
castle and thought we were big stuff. C'mon, we were 15!
There were alot of useful supplements available, one was a
bunch of walls, chests, stairs, etc. that was in the middle of
a Dragon magazine. Plus I liked the dropped/broken weapon
rules from Melee/Wizard, and the fact that if you missed, your
spear had to end up somewhere. The little counters with axes,
swords, and daggers that were included in the counter set were
perfect for this.
Due to space considerations, going off to school, me moving to
an apartment, my parents moving to a smaller home, I had to get
rid of much of what I had. It was hard to do. I'm terrible at
throwing out stuff. How do you choose? I sold alot of it for
a fraction of what it was worth. And the club at school
dissolved (anti-D&D sentiment from an ultra-religious
community), and the group stuff was divided. I don't remember
who got the castle. Hopefully someone is still using it...
Well, move time ahead to the present. I'm married, and in my
own house. My wife is a gamer, too, so she "understands". I
have a son now, and it won't be long until I will be
introducing him to gaming. I remember the pleasure the figures
gave me and my buddies. I don't know if I'll start him out on
D&D, or just what system I'll introduce him to first. But I
know the miniatures and that big hex grid will have a part in
it. For beginning gamers, it's the perfect way to explain the
abstract stuff, like, "the orc has a flank shot on you, it's
harder for you to parry, and your shield is useless". Or, "a
giant comes out of the north-by northwest passage. No not the
north one, and not the northwest one..." It's easier to
conceptualize things that you can see. And pick up.
That will be a special moment, the first time I see the
excitement in his eyes when he defeats his adversaries, and is
counting the gold pieces... I think that will really be the
most rewarding thing -- me and my son gaming together, spending
time exploring, me challenging his wits, encouraging his
creativity, and fostering his ability to work with others.
But maybe we're all still little kids, in many ways. It's just
neat to admire your little army, all lined up and awaiting your
commands...
