Galleries!

Inspirobot knows how to display lots of information at once.

Word.

So, image galleries have been split up and are waiting.  You can access them from the top menu under the title of the site, or you can click here.

I've split the galleries into Miniatures, Terrain and Battle Reports.  Going forward, these sections were going to balloon a little bit, so like other sections of the site I'm making it easier to find what we need and add a little flair in the design of the overall site as well.

We've got a lot of photos coming up for 2020, so watch this space - and check the galleries regularly!

Also, any feedback you've got for the site / network design, I'd be thankful for.  We're getting it going, one ratty sail at a time!

Iron Seer's Lost Year

Inspirobot knows what sort of paperwork to put through.

I'm back on this High Horse again, ready to blog in style for 2020.  Did you miss me, blogosphere?  Can you hear me wailing?

Ugh...so long since a post on this blog.  It's embarrassing, but what happened to my rhythm last year?  Just look at my post history, you can tell something went down.

The good news is, there is no bad news to tell about why I flaked out.  I just wasn't sure where I was going with Iron Seer, and I thought I really needed to do some layout changes as well.  Since we use the site a lot for reference in games, I tried a lot of different builds last year for the user interface and ran a lot of tests of various things on social media and this site. 

After all that, I came to find that I don't really care about a lot of it.  As far as all the internet stuff to keep up with.  SEO's and hits and all.  I'm going to lean back on just making a neat blog to look at.

I had to do some soul-searching as far as the hobby goes.  It's been a rough few years for me and all my plastic soldiers.  I've been pretty well a hermit, and a very crotchety one at that.  Blogging was taking up too much of my Adventure Time.

So, I just had to take some time away from the keyboards and really just get back into my hobby.  For a while there, it felt like the website here was the main hobby I had.  So I stepped away for a moment, and I wasn't sure I was going to continue with Iron Seer in it's current form.  Even so, I kept writing.  I have a ton of articles to get published, but I got tired of backdating them.

I keep two blogs here on Iron Seer Dot com for different aspects of my game groups.  It seems like the best answer to keep our games easy to find and for visitors to peruse, but I update them both irregularly.  I'd like to keep a rate of one post here on Iron Seer per week about hobby stuff and wargames, and one post per two weeks on RAW RPG.  It's just I'm more into wargames, and I get to hobby a lot by myself so I can create more content for Iron Seer's main blog.

I wasn't sure what was going to happen last year.  I didn't know if I would even return or run games anymore.  However, toward the end of last year, we made a fateful decision that brought me back into the hobby and ready to organize games at full force.  I'll talk about that decision in another post very soon, but for now just note that once it was made almost every gamer I knew asked me when they should be showing up.  The CLUB rears itself from the sump anew.

We all have choices and options.  My Lady tells me that's all anyone ever has.  After last Summer, my outlook on a lot of things has changed, boiled down and left me to be ok with it.

I realize that I was asking myself the wrong question.  I kept asking "what would be best for my local community" instead of "what's the best time I can get out of my hobby".  We all have a limited amount of time to do this kind of thing.  We all have work and responsibilities, and we all have the same amount of time.  If you're not into it, then you're out of it.

I've been trying to accommodate all the folks for far too long.  You have to be having fun, and you have to think of yourself first.  You can't run a good game and make a good time for a community of people if you're chewing sour grapes all the time.  So, I let go of a lot of notions I had that carried over from other clubs and experiences I've had with various game groups and decided to shake it up and see what new 'notions' would wend their way to the top.

That brings us to the subject of Iron Seer Campaigns going forward.  Undoubtedly, this is one of my major strengths and I will definitely continue running campaigns.  However, the focus of said campaigns may shift from a general "grand melee" vibe and will run the gamut of things I want to try.  We have lots of games to play, lots of new things to try out.

Currently, we'll be looking at games in three and six-month competition windows, depending on the game.  We'll also have year-long competitions, beginning this year with a massive Frostgrave campaign.

For 2020, our Wargames Schedule will be available on our social media.  You can check out the Ada Oklahoma Tabletop Gaming Guild here on Facebook, or follow Iron Seer on Twitter.  Be sure to join the group if you're close enough to game (that's pretty much anywhere in Oklahoma, North Texas or even Arkansas) and give us a shout out!  If you want to get your group in a joint-campaign with us, send us an email at contact@ironseer.com and we'll start working out the narrative.

So remember next time someone asks if you want to join a game that they may not ask a second time.  Be kind to your game buddies and treasure them for all their worth.  Above all, remember the one other thing that applies to your gaming that you must absolutely accept as an adult human:  You'll never have time unless you make it. 

It's all on you if you game or not.  Only that which you manifest lies before you.  Jump the hurdles, and get to the game...or admit defeat and surrender your models to the nearest Iron Seer.

New Players & First Sessions

Inspirobot knows how to spread it.

So, I now have a hard and fast rule that I learned the hard way must always be obeyed.

New players, in their first sessions, should be brought into the hobby with Dungeons & Dragons.

Now I hear you all moaning "BLEH NOT SO" and "MAH FURTS GAEM WUH XXX" but hear me out.  I wouldn't say that for no reason.  I have reasons why I'd want new players at my table to experience D&D instead of any other system for their first time playing.  Reasons born of first-hand experience.

You all mostly know my credentials, but suffice to say I've done a lot of games and I've broken in a lot of new players.  I've seen just about every which way it can go; from newb to pro and everything in between.  From all that, I have found (by and large) that a "gamey" environment is the best for any new gamer.  Especially for new gamers.

Why D&D?

It's very basic, you might say.  Especially Basic.  This is easy for newer players to understand, and if you're using an older edition will immediately grab their attention ...with the tension.  Ahem.  5th Edition is bad for new gamers, because it's immediately boring.  That pretty much goes for any "story-game", but more on that later.

If the player already has a 'gamer mentality'; e.g. has played a video game; the tropes and rules of D&D are very easy to get to grips with and understand.  All the numbers will make sense, and even some of the more advanced items like nonweapon proficiencies will easily be taken into account.

More than that, the settings will be easy to digest.  They are all takes on Lord of the Rings, for the most part.  For the worlds of D&D (these generic high-fantasies and whatnot), not much understanding is really needed by a new player.  Most of them, such as Toril or Oerth, pretty much fit the bill of your 'standard' fantasy world.  All the tropes and creatures will make sense right out of the gate with very little exposition or explanation.

Set up a 'fun' and 'gamey' scenario to accommodate the new players.  Don't take it too far in the opening acts, you know what I mean?  Focus on the dice, the miniatures, the 'spectacle' of the game.  Make it tense, but story-lite.  Lean heavily on the action and game elements the players might be familiar with.

It doesn't really have to be D&D - but it needs to be something 'like' D&D.  Some Examples in my library include:

• Pathfinder
• Warhammer Fantasy
• Palladium
• Star Wars D20
• Shadowrun

If you don't follow this course, you might end up with what I experienced to finally change my mind - Real Life Religion Change.

At the time, the club had a breakneck schedule.  We had a couple (who were about to be married, incidentally) join the group who were friends of some newer members, and they had never played the game before but were very interested in doing so.  We had just wrapped up D&D, and moved into a World of Darkness game.

This was to be a story-rich game (storytelling?) and no one even ended up dead this time.  However, the subject matter was rather taut.  It involved spirits and demons and what I felt might be a realistic depiction thereof, and it used our local area to build this story and it's verisimilitude.  For the first time I really, really had the audience's attention and wove that spell of dread around the entire table.  Everyone was truly immersed and engaged.

And then the couple stopped showing up.  No messages were answered.  The very next thing we saw of them , they had gone to a local church. A video was shared on social media of their new Baptism ceremonies.  All the tattoo/emo-metal and sk8/punk attitude was gone.

While this is sort of a point of pride for me, I caution you against alienating folk in such a manner.  There wasn't even much in the game that a 'gamer' would find revolting.  It was all spiritual subject matter, Twilight Zone style moral conundrums.

Neither of them have ever spoken to me again.