Gavel Nazing

I had planned a post for last night, but then Real Life ^(tm) got in the way and I had all of an hour for NaNoWriMo, packing my lunch, showering, some personal correspondence, reading and some prep for the old school session I'm running Saturday. Needless to say, the post fell by the wayside.

And that's kind of the point of what I was going to write.

Behold, the Gazing Navel!

On the train ride home last night, I listed all of the tabletop gaming projects I have going on - including the zine and this blog. There are sixteen. Sixteen. 

I readily admit I have gamer ADD, but I didn't realize it was quite that bad. 

Now you may have more or you may have less, but it's not the number that matters - what matters is, are you giving all of them the time you want to? Any of them? What's that expression? Jack of all trades, master of none?

Not that you have to be a master of anything hobby related - if you have to do it, it probably isn't a hobby  -but wouldn't I make more progress if I focused on one project at time (or say, 4 or 6)? No wonder it takes forever to get an army on the table or another trip back into the dungeon!

We only live once and we can't do it all. How, then, to spend the time we reserve for hobbies in general and gaming in particular? Assuming that hobbies are somehow essential  (from my perspective they seem to be, but it really depends on your culture, socioeconomic status, etc.) Is this too introspective? It feels like I'm asking "How can we live a good life?" (we all know what is best in life*)

Here they are - this includes campaigns, playing, painting minis, reading, writing, researching etc. - in no particular order:

1. Six Iron Spikes & a Small Hammer
2. this blog
3. Assembling solo rpg tips/systems into one document
4. The Ever Expanding Dungeon
5. Solo-RPG outside of TEED.
6. Samurai social game
7. Heroclix
8. The Wastelands: USR social game
9. Dungeon crawl social one-shots (b/x. one Saturday, one in December, hopefully to be replaced by a campaign in 2014)
10. Great Northern War
11. 28mm Fantasy
12. WWII 1/32 (Europe, Eastern Front)
13. WWII 1/72 (Pacific)
14. Flames of War: Open Fire! (Europe)
15. Helvetica Campagin (VSF/Imaginations)
16. Save a Dead Tree

I wasn't sure about including some things, like my Sci Fi games. These are sporadic at best. But there are no minis to paint, no rules to study and no ongoing campaign; just set up and play. So I left it off the list.

Let's add NaNoWriMo which isn't necessarily related to gaming, but in my case it is, in  part. So that makes 17 things, but at least NaNoWriMo is over by the end of the month (at least officially).



*To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.