"I'm a butterfly and need help" Topic

Folks – this may be a mid-life crisis point for me (I'm 48 this year before you ask, married with two kids and a hard but good job)

I have a problem (beginning to sound like a soap program now – yuck) and wonder if I should give up trying to fix it…

My problem is that, like a butterfly, I find myself flitting from topic to topic and game to game but never being able to settle.

To try and help myself I have:

1) Restricted the topics this wonderful board shows me
2) Archived the 2000+ links I had collected (though I am now back to 200-300)
3) Started a blog to keep me focused and to shame myself over the money I am spending and not playing with
4) Sold two cupboards worth of rules and figures and games that will never get used
5) Moved into the smallest space in the house I can work in
6) Taken up an Open University course
7) Archived all the PDF rules and games I have bought (how many GB arrrrgghhhh)

BUT

a) I still spend too much time here with you good folks
b) Spend way too much money on bits
c) Never seem to finish a project
d) Look at new shinny toys and go – I could do with those
e) Still not a member of a club
f) Find myself harking back to the original games I played (inc. Ogre, D&D, MBT etc)

is this because

a) I have not found what I want to game
b) I am a spend-a-holic on gaming bits with little will power
c) I just want to collect and admire rather than use (Gollum syndrome)

Thoughts – giggles – advise please.

Andrew
blog.kings-sleep.me.uk

Well, if (c) collect and admire floats your boat just get out of the "complete a project" guilt trip and enjoy collecting and admiring.

(a) is a problem no doubt. I collect four periods (up from 3) each in its own scale. I do flit from project to project withing that set, but it does help with some focus.

I also have one collection that is enough for both sides in a game. With that period and scale, it is easy to complete an "addition" since I am not trying to start from scratch.

I dont understand how that's a problem.
YouTube link

Amen Brother. I'm in the same boat. Maybe we can start a focus group. You know like AA for unfinshed wargamer. Admitting you have a problem is half way there. I'm sure we're not the only ones. We could meet once a week. Become sponsor for one another.

Yesss.. I need help and I'm not ashamed to admit.. Not anymore. Amen Brother..

8(

If you play games which require small armies you could start lots of armies but still finish and game with them.

Hello, my name is Chuck and im a Hoard-a-holoic. Too many times I hear a good review of a new game or see a great batrep only to find myself shelling out cash for figs and a game that may not see the table for years if ever. I tend to have the "buy it now before it dissapears" mentality along with the "ooo thats a bargain mentality". A bad combination. I have started to try weeding out the stuff I dont want here on TMP. Mainly stuff I know that I will never get to or have such a small amount of that I will not get any use out of.

I'm 33 and have been doing the same thing for the last 5 years. I'd say you are ahead of the game.

I made headway by finding people who think exactly like I do and a painter who can help me crank stuff out. When it becomes a group effort…things get finished. Sometimes you just need the company of people who understand your imagination.

@Olaf

If you play games which require small armies you could start lots of armies but still finish and game with them.

Been down this line and the problem is that I have now started three sets of skirmish wargames this year and still not rolled a dice! All in all this seems to have made it worse.

@Lentulus / cloudcaptain
Maybe you have hit something – with no regular opponent I should try to finish one thing for both sides and then join a group / add to this?

@RavescraftCybernetics
I really need to do something solid rather than flit for myself more than anything – the 'I am what I am' never sits well with me. Maybe I am feeling the need for a legacy in my private life rather than just work?

@Papasync
Thanks for the offer – the flight costs may stop all gaming spend so it would work in a round about way. Hold on though I would need to read something on the plane trip so would still need to buy rules…

@chuck05
You have summed it up 100%

Andrew
blog.kings-sleep.me.uk

My problem is that, like a butterfly, I find myself flitting from topic to topic and game to game but never being able to settle.

At least you're not "a leaf on the wind". I gather that can end badly….

You say that you've "Started a blog to keep me focused and to shame myself over the money I am spending and not playing with" but does the blog really break it down and make it easy to see where the money is going?

I do something similar on my blog (amongst all the other stuff) but structure it so I can see exactly where the money is going -
This year: link
Last year: link

Now, of only I did the same thing for beer…

I found that being a member of a club helps focus some of what I do as there is always something going on at the club that I can work on units or armies for.

Mike

Focus? Complete projects? What do those words mean?

Good one, Doug.

I suggest you look into the 32 hour day. It's the new Next Big Thing.

My friends & i have formed a local self-help group to comiserate about our plans for painting, finishing or projects, etc.

We liken it to a 12-step program, but keep tripping on step two or three. Fortunatly we have each other for help & to let each other know of our next-big-thing.

I'll call tonight and get this weekend sorted out – that should solve one problem at least!

As for Magpie Syndrome – I find that this place and RPGNet are too good at inspiring you to do new things, and then giving you the URLs for the manufacturers so you can buy all the bits. It's true – we're enablers of the worst sort, we'll just drag you down with us…

Clubs are a problem for us oldies, I think – after a day's work, I have kids to pick up from school, help sort out the evening meal, do a couple of small chores, THEN think about going back out for another 4 hours. And plenty of GW-centred clubs start early for the kids, so they're right out. All that makes me an irregular club attender at the best of times.

As for accumulating stuff, have you thought about "smart" collecting? Put simply, when you buy a new force, it MUST be playable against one of your existing forces.

So, for example, you start with explorers/archaeologists vs nameless horrors or dinosaurs.
Then add some natives (African, South American, Tibetan, whatever).
Then add 1920s Chinese warlords and troops. Or get some Boxer Rebellion Chinese to do double duty.
Then European colonial troops plus characters (spies, clergymen, ladies).
Then White Russians, for a Back of Beyond or Centra Asia game.
Then Bolshevik forces, for a Russian Civil War game.
The White and Red Russians can (kind of) pull double duty for the Spartakist Rising in post-WWI Germany.
Then a handful of pulp street characters (cops, gangsters).

Add scenery in the same manner as you go along.

Start with the basics – hills, rivers, trees.
Add village scenics (adobe buildings are great for a huge range of periods and locations).
Then some redbrick city buildings (will do for Victorian times through to modern day, and covers Europe and the US).

At every point in the collecting process, you have a range of games that you can play – every force that you add gives a couple more options. And it means you cna take both sides for "pickup" games wherever you go.

Think about generic rulesets too, or at least stick with one publisher that produces suites of related games (Two Hour Wargames is good for this) – you get a core set of mechanics, then all the "chrome" you need in each new ruleset).

You sound like me but several years younger. Find a club but don't look at anyone else's toys or you'll find yourself buying 20mm plastics & WRG 6th edition.
If the club incudes a figures manufacturer leave at once, I've already promised myself some of the Baggage Train's shiny new 10mm Normans when they enter production.

If you enjoy it, what's the problem?

If you don't enjoy it, then stop doing it.

This is not rocket surgery.
-Kle.

"I should try to finish one thing for both sides "

Well, works for me. Of course, you may have just doubled the workload on "finish one thing" too.

I was facing this exact problem a few years back and have now managed to get a gaming "zen" state of one completed army and one "in-production" army.

I simply sold everything I had, even if I thought "ohh but that would be useful when…" or "but this issue has an article on…". If I hadn't used it for AT least a year it was useless and was sold.

The only things kept where those of sentimental value i.e from family etc.

This got me down to army and one set of rules but more importantly allowed me to really, really focus and squash the butterfly within me. By actually being able to see my entire collection in one go and not hidden in files and boxes I could see exactly how much I had to paint before I could treat myself to anything new. And it worked a treat!

And by complete I mean, painted and played with AT LEAST 3 times.

I know this isn't everyone's approach but I thought I should share it!

I was facing this exact problem a few years back and have now managed to get a gaming "zen" state of one completed army and one "in-production" army.

I simply sold everything I had, even if I thought "ohh but that would be useful when…" or "but this issue has an article on…". If I hadn't used it for AT least a year it was useless and was sold.

The only things kept where those of sentimental value i.e from family etc.

This got me down to army and one set of rules but more importantly allowed me to really, really focus and squash the butterfly within me. By actually being able to see my entire collection in one go and not hidden in files and boxes I could see exactly how much I had to paint before I could treat myself to anything new. And it worked a treat!

And by complete I mean, painted and played with AT LEAST 3 times.

I know this isn't everyone's approach but I thought I should share it!

I am doing the same thing myself. Stuff that can't be sold, such as the surplus figures from multipacks from my 15mm Russian Civil War, I am giving away. If I can't give it away, I throw it away; Shock Of Impact rules and lists, haven't played 'em for over 20 years, nobody wants 'em even for free, righto, bin!

I'm being ruthless and intend to end up with my 15mm Macedonians taking up 4 lever arch file boxes, my RCW both sides taking up another 4 boxes and my 15mm Wars of The Roses (WOTR being my current project and being in the process of painting) goes into a toolbox for safe storage. Current rules will be on the shelves, the only unused set I won't get rid of is WRG 6th edition plus its lists. The ONLY unpainted lead will be one or two spare figures to be painted up as replacements just in case of breakages should they occur.

Then, when my WOTR Yorkists are painted up, and only then, will I start another project and have unpainted lead in the house. I'm not even being nagged to do this by Mrs AlanYork, I just hate clutter.