A bit of Dungeons and Mali-meh

So it's been awhile I know, and I know that traditionally this is a Malifaux blog and it's been a long while since there's been any of that here but I thought I make an attempt at a post while I had some time free.

First off the reason there's not been much 'faux is because I've not been doing and 'faux related stuff lately. Painting has dried up and playing has died off. Other than the podcast I haven't really thought much about Malifaux at all. I don't think it's particularly a problem with Malifaux at the moment more likely it's an issue with my limited attention span and the fact that currently Malifaux isn't the easiest choice when I want a game with my mates and I'll almost always take easy if it's an option.

What I have been playing for anyone who hasn't been following the blog is Dungeons & Dragons, which I have been thoroughly enjoying. So I'm going to have a brief ramble on about that before I try and tackle my Malifaux problem.




As I've said before with me as DM and a group of the Abnormalifaux clan as players we have been meeting up in a trendy bar, rolling dice, doing voices, and generally bringing the tone down with our geekiness. (There is a bit of sticking out like sore thumbs around the cocktail sipping folk but I know they're just jealous really)

We've got into a decent rhythm of meeting every other week for a few hours of gaming. We're a fairly large group (I'm fairly large without the group I know but...) with around seven players, I say around as this fluctuates depending on who can make it, with work and holidays and the like cruelly getting in the way but even with a few people bunking off we tend to have a good crowd.

We've been running through Horde of the dragon queen, which while not perfect is fun. I've tried to tweak things here and there to fit in better with how the group works and also to fit more with how I like things, this due to lack of any real knowledge on my part is mainly done by trial and error.

You can follow how the game is going on the blog as a few of the players have been kind enough to write up their characters view points on each session.

So far I have to admit I've been enjoying DMing, it chimes with the natural bossiness of my personality while also letting me hide behind a screen and pretend I have any clue what is going on ( which is scarily close to how I survive at work) There have been a few challenges mostly revolving around me scrambling to find out what a rule means or look up what the stat line for an NPC is. (Make notes people! Best advice I can give so far is prepare for each session and trust notes over your memory)

Luckily the group already get on fairly well so I don’t have to do much in the way of crowd control but trying to make sure everyone gets something out does take a bit of brain space, seeing who just wants to role play, who is more keen to roll as many dice as possible, and who just wants to be there.

Another challenge is trying to pace things, there is a pace that the characters want to go and a pace that the book seems to need so I have to find some sort of middle ground between the two, once again as a newbie DM I’m generally running this on what I can fit into a session and how many sessions feels right for each chapter, slowing some things down and speeding through others.
It’s going to take a bit of practice to get that right but as long as I don’t cause too much havoc no one will know (they don’t read this so I’m safe there).

Okay so back to Malifaux, or lack of it to be honest. I’ve been steadily more meh with ‘faux as this year has gone on. Despite having a great start to the year, getting in loads of games and events with not terrible results my interest in playing has been on the down slope for the last few months.

But it’s not just playing that’s dropped off even painting has taken a hit and that is probably where the issue started. My downer on the game syncs up with the point where I started to get excited about a new painting project.

The new project was Sandeep, I had big plans for him and his crew both on and off the table. I wanted to really push myself with painting him, really try and hit the limits of what I can currently do. Which was great and to a point it was successful too I’m fairly proud about how they turned out, but there was a down side that being it took bloody ages to get done.

So this meant that I had a crew I was really excited about playing but couldn’t as they were sitting on the painting desk (oddly my better half keeps referring to my painting desk as a “dinner table” but that makes no sense as you can’t eat at it because it’s covered in my painting gear) so I got more and more excited about playing a crew I couldn’t, and less interested in playing the ones I could.

So after many weeks of work Sandi and friends were ready... but I had no time to play thanks to adulting and stuff. More time passed and then Sandi made it onto the table, not a practice game but at a tournament.

And do you know what I didn’t bloody enjoy it. The event was great as were my opponents but three rounds with an untested master was hard. I'm far (very very far) from a good player and Sandi isn’t the simplest of Masters to run and truth be told not a master that I think fits my style at all.

So Sandi was a bit of an anti climax. Looked good but not my style. This flop was followed by another life induced break from gaming time and no real drive to fight that.

That leads us to now. I’ve got no major hobby projects on the cards, no plans for a game for almost a month while everyone else goes full wave 5 mode. Then two, two day tournaments in succession.

What the next step is I’m not sure but expect some more D&D posts before you get any Malifaux content.

I'm going to try and take part in Wyrds Iron painter for as long as I can to see if that kicks off my hobby bug again. As for gaming I'm thinking the only cure is to just bloody play some Malifaux.