On writing

A sideways jump from the usual topics dear reader, but I hope no less interesting. I've been thinking about content, ownership and copyright. Now I'm no legal eagle and I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of that side of things, but when talking content you can't not brush up against the sweaty backpack carrying, black T-shirt wearing, monster that is copyright.

When I was a youngster playing Advanced Heroquest and there was no internet, (believe it kids!) once we had played the standard quests that came with the rules and the issues of White Dwarf I'd purchased, we made up our own. Now if I passed those on to a friend at school, would it be okay for one of GW's lawyers to step in and throw a cease and desist on me for doing so? Of course not and I would never suggest they would have done anything of the sort. Now in the age of internet, we all are writing extra scenarios and home rules for the products we play and then sharing them with "friends" across the world. Is it the same? Well, most likely not, if we're honest. It's probably a legal grey area and I'm no expert, I'm not claiming to be. Most companies probably allow it as it encourages their own product, only getting involved if they feel it gives their company a bad name. Then what if I had a blog full of Heroquest scenarios and it became super popular (just bear with me and pretend okay?) and I had thousands of readers and decided to monetorise my blog? I turn on Google Earnings and watch the pennies come in. Is that wrong? Well of course it is, I'd be making money off a property owned by GW. It's my work, but using their intellectual property. Yes it's a big company, but actually there are shareholders, hell I might even know some. I owe them some bank. Don't I? 

It's even easier to consider if I flip the scenario, if it were my own fictional universe, I think I would want some control at least. I guess I would be flattered if I wrote a sci fi novel and someone put some fan made rpg rules on the web set in my universe. If however they completely messed with my characters and changed them to how they felt they should act instead of staying in the spirit of the story I would be cheesed off. If they were selling those rules, or making money off their website where they were published? I'd be calling my solicitor. (or investigating if I could afford to call a solicitor.)

The lines become fainter when you are looking at historical wargaming. There is no intellectual property, just historical facts. But there are rules. How many different ways can you roll dice to get random results? Do you go with multiple sided dice or try and stick to easily available D6? I've dabbled in writing my own rules, sometimes "Frankensteining" others systems, sometimes starting from scratch. (The dream to publish an original work may happen one day.

) Sometimes I have to ask myself am I using a rule mechanic just because it is original or does it actually make the game work? The main thing I find is that all the best game mechanics have already been done. 

Of course the rules I do write that are original, I then have to decide whether to publish on here for free or clutch on to them with the hope they may have some potential for publication one day. Are they good enough? Are they original enough to not put me in copyright legal wranglings?

Luckily I don't have to worry too much about these scenarios. 

A. I'm not really on the radar of anyone right now, having a blog that has a minimal readership. (I don't even get Spam comments in my blog.)

2. I don't make any money off this, I do it for the ego of people reading my ramblings.

iii. I don't really have anything good enough yet for anyone to steal from.

So, to wrap up on this topic. I recently entered a competition to write a piece of fiction for the intro to a fantasy rulebook and my entry was not successful. (Obviously not otherwise you all would have heard about it already so much!) So, after putting a lot of effort into to the writing, I was wondering whether to hold on to the text and tweak it for some future use. Then I decided that it shouldn't sit on a hard drive but be out there to be read and I should move on and write something new. After all it isn't my universe I was writing about. So below is my short story. As always please comment at the bottom of the blog, I love feedback, it proves people are reading this and not just the spambots. Also it shows you have survived to the end. 

Dark Lord Dunmharu.

“The Gargoyles are restless my Lord!” Tareth the Mage shuffled into the candlelit throne room of the Dark Lord Dunmharu. The old Elf clutched the wall, hurrying to approach the master with his news. He eventually found himself at the foot of the throne and collapsed into a heap. “Something approaches.”

Dunmharu heeded the old man’s counsel. He may have lost his sight, but he saw in many other ways. 

“Show me.” Said the Dark Lord.

Tareth reached into his cloak and pulled out a corked bottle of liquid, throwing the contents onto the floor and muttering dark incantations. Images appeared in the puddle. A strange creature with features of a rat, but the size of a man, stood upright, walking on two feet. Clad 

in crude leather armour and carrying a rusty sabre, the creature’s red eyes shone in the almost darkness of the cellar in which it crept.

“What do you see, Master?”

“I know not. But I will not have it wandering about my cellars.” The Lord beckoned one of 

his guards and gestured to the image in the pool of liquid. “Find this creature and bring it to me.”

Once it had been found and brought before him Dunmharu asked the creature, “Do you speak?” Clad in chains, four guards stood around the beast, it struggled to break free. 

“I ssspeak.” Replied the rat.

“What are you?”

“I ssspeak.” The rat repeated. It hissed at the Dark Lord and struggled against its captors once more. The chief guard struck it across the back with the flat of his halberd and it stopped. 

“We Ratkin. We essscape.”

Dunmharu climbed down from his throne and approached the creature, he was curious where the Ratkin had come from, this was no creature of Pannithor that he knew of. Had those foul, bearded Dwarves been tinkering with nature again? It certainly had the stench of the Abyss. 

Dunmharu lifted its arm. The Ratkin’s scars, old and new, around its neck and wrists spoke of a life of captivity.

“Where have you come from?” he asked, examining a tattoo on its forearm. 

“We essscape.”

“I tire of it.” Said Dunmharu, “Take it away and throw it in an oubliette. Maybe if we find more out in the Wastes, we can put them to work.”

The Ratkin was dragged away screaming in protest. Dunmharu slouched back in his throne, Blind Tareth stood to go. “With your leave, I will retire, sire.”

“Of course, Tareth. You’ve earned a rest.”

Tareth began towards the exit, his stick scraping the flagstones to guide his way. Before he reached the door, a shadow dropped from the ceiling, knocking the old man forward towards 

the floor. The shadow was a second Ratkin, dressed in black rags. As Tareth fell the Ratkin drew a dagger across his neck. The blade did not cut deep, but the old man was dead moments after he hit the ground.

“Dirty Ssspellcasster!” screeched the second Ratkin. Dunmharu was already on his feet, sword drawn. The guards at the door were not as quick to react, but soon drew their blades and advanced on the creature.

“Leave it. This is my sport.” Commanded the Dark Lord, taking a step forward. His long, curved sword held out, arm up, blade pointed down. “How many of you are creeping about my halls?”

The rat bared yellow teeth, drew a second longer blade and leapt at Dunmharu. The Dark Lord parried the first strike. This creature showed some skill with the sword. The Ratkin managed to break away and pass through under his blade arm, clambering up onto the throne 

to gain some height. As the two swords clashed Dunmharu could see trace of poison had been applied to the edge of the blade, he knew he would have to avoid even a superficial cut from 

this assassin’s attacks. Kicking out the throne from under the Ratkin, parrying a lunge and a remise from the acrobatic beast, Dunmharu quickly lost interest in the humour of the fight.

He put all his strength behind a wrath blow down towards the Ratkin’s shoulder. The rat tried to block the strike, but its blade just snapped as Dunmharu’s heavier sword followed through, killing the beast.

At that moment the candles in the hall began to snuff out one by one, until it was pitch black. 

Then from the shadows multiple pairs of red eyes began to appear about the hall. Dunmharu smiled to himself.

“Now this is getting interesting.”

Painting your models

I've mentioned many firsts on this blog. My first wargaming army (more than a few models skirmishing) that I rolled dice with was, like many a wargamer, Space Marines. I'd read battle reports in White Dwarf of second edition 40K between Blood Angels and Orks and so the classic red look Spam had appealed to me. Blood Angels, painted Blood red, not rocket science really. I can see why a lot of beginner hobbyists began with Spam, you can get away with a simple paint job and then you improve your skills taking on the more complicated looking character pieces.

Once confidence set in, I decided to take on vehicles and a Dreadnought. Wanting to speed up the process a bit I purchased a can of spray paint, Blood Angel Orange. Hang on, Orange? Thus began my education in the weird world of wargaming paints. 

So, my tanks were orange and my troops were red. Don't believe me the colour existed? I have a pot I found at a car boot sale more recently.

Yep, that's a tube of Beattie glue as well. I'm keeping it preserved for prosperity.

Sometimes I check my paint box and grumble at the number of pots that have dried up and despair at how quickly it has happened, then remember that they are probably four or five years old and it's been six months since my last check. Then I counter that argument with myself by pointing out the twenty five year old pot of Polished Blue that has not dried up. Why can't they all be like Polished Blue! (Good old reliable, discontinued Polished Blue.) Then I cry tears into the dried paint as I realise I have been doing this hobby for a quarter of a century. Then the tears make the paint useable again and all is good in the world.

Remember these? Yep, still not painted them. You've all got some in a box somewhere, reminding you how long you've been playing.

Another sign of ageing is the number of times I have mourned the loss of a favourite colour, oh they tell you it's been replaced by an identical colour with just a different name, they show you the colour conversion chart but it's just not quite the same colour is it? Yes I've been taking my sweet time painting my current project (normally counted in months or years) but I need to colour match exactly.

Found some of these once in a toyshop on holiday, bought their entire stock as the colour was discontinued in the official GW stores.

I'm not blaming any one company either. I've tried other companies too. Coat D'arms are a good alternative if you miss the good old GW days but even they have problems sometimes.

Split lid? It's fine, the dried up paint makes a good seal to keep the rest of the paint fresh!

Then of course if you want to avoid all the issues of lids, why not try a pot with a dropper top? That's fine, but I always end up putting more on my pallet than I actually need.

These are all grumpy old man problems really. No-one can expect paints to last forever, even if the old school ones do. As for actual coverage and pigment matching, don't get me started...

Clearing out some space

There is an excellent scene in the movie Incredibles where Helen Parr calls her husband to announce they are officially moved in. She has finally unpacked the last box following their last house many months ago. I sometimes feel like that's how we are going to be, it's incredible how much stuff one can accumulate over the years and I'll openly take the blame myself. 

It's really hard to throw things away. Sometimes its easier to think there may be a future project use for that spare bit of mdf or sprue. That obscure mimeograph copy of old tank warfare rules found at a second hand book sale will be played one day. Every time I put together a box set of 36 plastic British line infantry I carefully snip off all the spare unused bits from sprues and squirrel them away somewhere in case I need them. (please don't stop giving us all these choices however, Michael and Alan, I'm certainly not complaining.) Sometimes I even paint the parts on the sprue, so I have tubs full of already painted British infantry arms like some bizarre field surgery dumping ground. Multiply this by all the kits I own (also taking up valuable limited storage space) you can see why I have to have a purge every now and then.

At one point my "bits box" filled a 90 litre storage box. When would I ever start a project that needed that many arm swaps? That's weirdly what most of it was, human arms, ork arms, space marine arms, hormagaunt arms. I guess I could have made a 1/56 scale model of a section of Jim Henson's Labyrinth?

I promised myself I wouldn't start any painting or modelling until I had finished clearing the old flat and tonight I can comfortably say that task is finally finished, with a lot of help from the Father and Brother in law.  So I can allow myself the luxury of trying to find the box with the paints and brushes in now. Of course I am also fully aware that I also made myself public promises to get some more Napoleonic models painted ready for September and the new year has brought that deadline looming into focus. It will be here before we know it. If you see me at Salute in April, ask me how my Prussians are coming on.

In a serendipitous moment, the last personal item I moved from the old home was a wargaming item. Left on a windowsill to be carried as he wouldn't fit in a box and almost forgotten, my 28mm scale Orky Stomper was squeezed into a plastic dustbin for protection and brought across in the final run. He was pretty much the last thing to leave the flat.

This chap is a reason I do keep some things in a bit box. Made from an old Land Raider, a Spam Land Speeder, some plasticard and bits from a Poundland toy, this old scratch build predates the official GW kit. My only reference came from the Epic scale Stomper.

So, sometimes it is worth keeping the odd bits and bobs, recycling and all. But also bear in mind, it might be worth having the odd sort through your bits box every now and then. You might even find a complete kit or two you can sell at a bring and buy stall.