Schweig’s Project List, Oct. 2015

In preparing to attend Nuke-Con Oct. 2-4 in Omaha, NE, I’m assembling a host of materials: signs for my numerous events, adventure components (scenario, character sheets, tent cards, handouts), rulebooks, compact miniature wargaming bits (tanks, terrain, reference cards). I managed to order two portrait-oriented Lion Flip-N-Tell Display Book-N-Easels to compliment the stand-up landscape portfolio I’ve had for years. These work really well as double-sided sign holders, with the portfolio format allowing me to easily change signs as needed. They also fold flat for easy packing and transport.

Nuke-Con provides me with a guest table where I can hang out and chat with con-goers when I’m not running games. I’ll have two of these portfolios set up on the guest table with information about my con schedule and products, while the third serves at my gaming tables to identify the event and display any in-game reference materials.

In trying to devise interesting information for signage to inspire guest-table conversation I thought I’d offer a brief outline of some of the projects on my immediate “to do” list. I regret many of these have languished for years, set aside when real-life jobs consumed my energy and then when my full-time parental duties took over my life; but with the Little Guy in kindergarten full time now, I have a little more time to focus on developing and completing game projects for publication.

Making Use of What We Have

As a gamer I keep long lists of games and components I’d like to add to the extensive collection of materials I already possess. But sometimes the urge to run a particular game hits me when I don’t quite have all the appropriate pieces; at these times I rummage through the components I have and “make do” with something close, crafting a new game experience to use what I have on hand. Some recent flea market acquisitions inspired me to take this approach on several levels to create an unexpectedly interesting game experience I’d otherwise never pursue.

A Panzer IV waits just inside the

Bois de Bavent behind the minefield.

The regional miniature wargaming convention I recently attended hosted a Sunday morning flea market where gamers could set up on a table to sell their unwanted wargames, painted miniatures, history books, and other wonderful diversions. An old friend had some zip baggies of various Axis & Allies Miniatures (okay, and some Star Wars capital ships from some Wizards of the Coast game I’d completely missed...that I couldn’t resist). The pre-painted vehicle minis work well with 15mm-scale World War II miniatures games like Flames of War (though I’m sure diehard players would cry heresy!) and my own Panzer Kids, still in the development pipeline and awaiting what time and focus I can pry away from real life. Since Panzer Kids focuses on tanks, I was naturally looking for armor; most vehicles I collected when I was buying into the game’s frustratingly randomized booster packs consisted of German and American tanks, with a scant few British ones.