Useful listing of British Role-Playing-Related Conventions which is up-to-date and includes some boardgaming events.

(Wait a minute, I said I wasn't posting any more!)

Perhaps you've noticed that I am no longer posting regularly to nimrods. I suppose I've just lost the blogging urge for now - the urge to link to, comment on, enthuse about, recommend, criticize, record, journal. Speaking to this general, anonymous, largely unresponding audience doesn't appeal at the moment. Maybe it will later.

Come back in a month or two.

You must have heard of Greg Costikyan - he designed Pax Britannica, The Creature That Ate Sheboygan, and much much else. Check out his new weblog: Games * Design * Art * Culture.

And how's this for a manifesto?

Low art is what's fundamentally important. Low art reflects what's actually going on in our culture today. Low art expands the boundaries of the possible. Low art is vital, exciting, vibrant, disturbing, cool--and, generally, fun. Popular music, genre fiction, comics, independent film, weird shit on the Internet--and games.

That's where it's at, man.

Grand Theft Auto isn't art? Then I guess neither is Fatboy Slim, Sandman, or King Rat.

This is a dumb argument. Games are art. Most of them are bad art, to be sure.

You don't have to agree with me... But this argument is fundamental to everything else that's going to appear here. This blog is going to treat games as art. Everything else follows.

My New Year resolutions:

1) Eat breakfast
2) Play wargames
3) Go skiing
4) Drink wine
5) Don't smoke
6) Go Ceroc dancing

Notice I've set the bar very low. I'm going for 100% this year, so I'm only resolving to do things that I already do. That way my self-esteem is boosted without me having to adjust my behaviour.

Here's the webcam at Saas-Fe Bergbahnen in Switzerland, where Phil and I will be skiing next week. It looks blooming cold to me!

NimrodCon went off pleasantly last Saturday. We had 9 people all together, with Advanced Civilization on one table and 1830 on the other. So no room for lightweights after all! John triumphed in Civilization, which was wrapped up at about 11:30 after 9 hours of play. I felt confident of victory most of the way through 1830, but I was deluded - Dave beat me by only $300 or so. It was a great game, quite intense and competitive (although it was threatened several times, no companies were "dumped" on other players) and we got it finished in 6 1/2 hrs - very good time for us.

It was good to see some less familiar faces turn out, such as Scott who escaped from family commitments for a few hours, Gavin who was taking a break from the bright lights of Bermondsey, and William who made the journey from Portsmouth specially. Thanks for a great session everybody - we must do it again soon.

Here's wishing a very happy Christmas to all my readers (all 3 of you). I hope that tomorrow morning you get to unwrap some brightly coloured boxes with Medium Complexity or 3-5 players written on the side. But don't get too excited so that you can't sleep tonight.... In the meantime you can read Steffan O'Sullivan's lovingly done tribute to Columbia Wooden Block Games including Hammer of the Scots, which I'm expecting from Santa tomorrow!

Terminal City Gamers has a preview of Mare Nostrum:

This game is a direct heir to the "Mammoth" civilization games of yesteryear that mixed military strategy, economic management and diplomacy. Its theme is the study of the first civilizations that spawned around the Mediterranean Sea, the roman's famous "Mare Nostrum". The game's main departure from its ancestors lies in the rules' relative lightness and simplicity, and the significantly shorter amount of time required to play it through.

If it lives up to its promise I could get very excited about this one. Civilization is one of my all-time favourites.

Why does Christmas suddenly turn us into Catholics?

My church is normally so "low" that we won't even display a bare cross at the front for fear of provoking idolatrous thoughts. But yesterday the church was ablaze with candles. At the front were painted plaster images of the Holy Family, a huge crib with a plastic Baby Jesus, the glittering pagan totem known as the Christmas Tree, and a winter flower arrangement festooned with the sacred plants of the Druids.

Simon Szykman is a serious collector of one boardgame - Diplomacy. His website lists over 60 variations of over 35 different editions of the Diplomacy boardgame, 14 editions of Diplomacy variants and 9 versions of commercial Diplomacy software, 7 editions of books on Diplomacy, and over a dozen Diplomacy-related items produced by the amateur Diplomacy hobby.

This is unusual! Rio Grande games has released an official expansion to Puerto Rico as a free download! Terminal City Gamers provide the details.

Well I negotiated the Inland Revenue down from £20,201. "Send us £110 and we'll call it quits," they said. "Done!" I said.

Don't miss this. If you're a gamer you've been there. Dan Bosley's hilarious account of his attempt to get some friends to play Trans America:

“So let me explain how we play....”

“Is this going to take long? Do you have Pictionary?”

“No,” I reply. “This won’t take long. This game is quite easy. And I do have Pictionary. And we could play Pictionary after this game if you like.”

“Pictionary’s a great game. It’s fun to play.”

“Yes,” I say, “Pictionary is fun. Would you rather play that instead?”

“Oh, don’t listen to her. I don’t like Pictionary. I’m no good at drawing. Let’s play this game. You said it’s good. So how do we play?”

“What’s wrong with Pictionary? You don’t have to be a good artist. You just have to be a good guesser. I haven’t played Pictionary in a long time. We should get our own copy of it. We have Monopoly at home, but we don’t have Pictionary.”

“Hey, I really like Monopoly. Maybe we could play that instead. I can’t remember the last time I played Monopoly. But that’s a really good game, and everyone already knows how to play!”

Well, I think to myself, isn’t this peachy?

Yesterday I got a letter from the Inland Revenue demanding £20,201 with menaces. Hmm, must be some mistake, surely? This might put the dampers on Christmas a little!

Phil is back from university for Christmas. I've missed having a resident opponent in the house, so I was pleased when he challenged me to Up Front! last night. We played the City Fight scenario, setting up at Relative Range 2 so that the shooting could start straight away! Almost immediately my squad's MG34 jammed, and then broke on the repair attempt. Phil's Yanks took advantage to rush forwards into buildings. My movement team were taken out by Close Assault. As a last throw I attempted to move my fire team forward but got caught in a hail of fire. Half my squad dead in just a few seconds. Game over.

Phil is disturbingly good at this game. I can't remember ever beating him at it. Still, the Christmas break will soon be over......

Financial advice from Nick Denton: IG Index has introduced a tradeable bet on the average house price in the UK. There was pretty much no way to do this before; I checked. It's particularly useful now, with UK house prices teetering on the edge of an ugly correction. So here's an idea: take out a short -- bet on a decline. That will ease the pain if house prices collapse.

I went to the doctor this morning to get a wart on my finger removed. It was a very "basic" procedure - no anaesthetic. I felt like one of Steven Maturin's patients as the doctor cut away at my finger with a curette, then dabbed acid into the bleeding wound. Ouch, that made my eyes water! Now, instead of an unsightly lump, my finger has an unsightly hole.

Why I Like Zarcana Better - Andrew Looney gives his reasons for preferring his original Icehouse/Tarot game over the redesign:

To judge from reading Jake's essay on the redesign of Zarcana into Gnostica, the newer game is so totally superior to the original that no one would ever wish to play Zarcana again. I went along with this thinking during the decision to include Gnostica, and not Zarcana, in Playing with Pyramids, since it only seemed appropriate to include one tarot card game in the book and I wanted to give Gnostica a chance to find an audience with as little interference from its predecessor as possible. However, after giving the New Kid on the Block ample time to impress me, I have come to the conclusion that I greatly prefer the original game. As a counterpoint to Jake's article, here are my reasons for disliking Gnostica.

It's frustrating - I have still played neither game because of my reluctance to possess a Tarot deck.

How many games is too many? Recently one guy on ConSimWorld owned up to possessing about 2,500 games, mostly wargames! I have about 65 and that is starting to feel like too many. Maybe I've watched too many episodes of "The Life Laundry", but I'm feeling the psychological weight of all these unplayed games bearing down on me. Just too many worthy but complex and time-consuming games waiting in the loft or the spare room. Games like 7th Fleet, Squad Leader, Wooden Ships and Iron Men, ThroneWorld - sitting at the back of my mind like a bad conscience. Maybe it's time to have a little clearout. Maybe I'll get organised and find out how to sell things on EBay. Or maybe I'll just give them to people who help me win in multiplayer games. But yes, time for a nimrod life laundry. Especially as I've just ordered Hammer of the Scots for myself for Christmas.

Another geeklist - Scott's Desert Island Games.