About

A correctly designed Cave removes your nerd from the physical world and plants him firmly in a virtual one complete with all the toys he needs.

The Nerd Handbook – Rands

My name is John and I live in Dublin, Ireland. I completely recognise myself from Rands’ excellent post The Nerd Handbook, quoted above. I spend an inordinate amount of time in my Man Cave, which is indeed packed with toys and my partially completed projects. Many of these projects involve games – computer games, board games, wargames and roleplaying games. These lovely little systems provide the frameworks for the virtual worlds I like to disappear into when I can.

I’ve been into table-top roleplaying games since I was 12, when my friend bought AD&D from a mail order service he found in the back of a magazine. This was the beginning of many years of exploring D&D, Traveller, 2300 AD, Call of Cthulhu and a number of other ’80s RPGs. About 1993, I stopped playing these games as life got busy and the group I played with dispersed around the country to various jobs. I did not stop completely, someone would organise a game once in a while, but there was no longer any regular and sustained play as we’d enjoyed in more carefree times.

What this blog is for

This blog is mostly for myself, to serve as a record of my game collection and my attempts to get it under control. It’s also a means to track my attempts to get playing again, rather than just collecting. It may also be a way to share any thoughts and game materials I create along the way if I feel they’d be of use to anyone else. I’d also like to get in the habit of writing regularly again. It’s something I used to do a lot, and I’d like to exercise that particular muscle again.

What I like to play

I am a Sci Fi gamer at heart, my favourite games have always been in that genre – first Traveller, then 2300 AD and a few more besides. However, I’ve actually played more fantasy games than anything else (mostly various forms of D&D and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, first edition). I’ve played a little Call of Cthulhu, and would really love to play some more, but finding players who enjoy having their character slowly descend into madness is more difficult than finding someone who enjoys the D&D style of accumulating power by climbing levels.

I also like Boardgames, although I’m not especially good at most of them, and I’m making a concerted effort to get back into table-top war gaming in 2022. I used to play a lot of Battletech and some of the Games Workshop WH40K line of games. I plan to get back to playing Battletech, some skirmish games and maybe even some historical war games this coming year, too.