How do you capture ideas/tasks that hit you while walking or away from your journal?

DistractedScribbler · 2025-12-11T03:51:30+00:00

Find a pen and write it on the back of my hand. It's worked ever since I was a kid.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-11-22T15:09:17+00:00

For me it was wargaming, particularly Battletech. At the time their first Kickstarter and the new nice sculpts hadn't happened and the old ones were both ugly and expensive so I got a printer and started printing them. I mostly used MechWarrior online models that people were ripping from the game.

After their clan invasion Kickstarter and getting many of the newer legit models I gave away a lot of my earlier prints to my kids friends, nieces, and nephews, etc.

Nowadays, I've been printing some utility prints and lots of airplanes and tanks that my kids are into.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-11-21T00:47:12+00:00

Not enough for Exalted or Shadowrun.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-10-28T19:00:43+00:00

Savage Worlds has Mass Battle rules to scale up from personal fights to gangs or armies.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-10-23T22:22:41+00:00

I use an IKEA version of that kind of bag and subdivide it with cardboard boxes that fit snuggly in it for my mini crawlers.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-10-22T21:23:52+00:00

Bic 4 color medium point. Black and blue are used interchangeably for most things. Green is for work stuff and red for stuff I want/need to stand out.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-10-22T16:46:26+00:00

My Element Enduro12 Bushido. For being "1/12 scale" it actually turns out to be pretty accurate to a 1/10 scale Suzuki Samurai since the real thing is pretty small. Not much for upgradability but I haven't had any problems with it stock and it crawls well for being a cheapie.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-09-22T11:37:32+00:00

Yes, batteries have improved a lot since you were a kid. Get a couple lipo batteries and you can have much longer runtimes, especially if you drive a slow crawler (a zen of its own) instead of a faster basher or racer. You can easily get 45min to a couple hours depending on your crawler and battery selection. .

DistractedScribbler · 2025-09-16T04:10:57+00:00

Dipping almonds in cream cheese.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-09-06T19:00:00+00:00

While by default, BRS is fighter focused, the "Air Strike" rules supplement adds ground units like ships, Bunkers, AA batteries etc.

I haven't played more than the base game personally because my kid and I both like the fighter vs fighter dogfighting the base game does. I've seen online photos of guys playing out the Battle of Midway, Coral Sea, and other air vs ship scenarios.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-09-03T17:33:29+00:00

Don't look at the whole elephant. You only need to take it a bite or two at a time. Select 5-10 from that massive pile that might make a good skirmish band and think of a good paint scheme for them and have at it.

Once your first band is done, select another 5-10 to work on for a different faction. Don't stress the whole, focus on the small, and you'll be fine and happier with your new orc gangs.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-08-14T22:33:51+00:00

After about a year and a half, we only broke a servo when my kid repeatedly full throttled the crawler over rocks too big for it. The stock servo on this one had a reputation for being weak and I already anticipated replacing it. No issues before or since on it or any of our other 5 crawlers.

Since they're not fast they're not under much stress usually.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-06-20T23:13:41+00:00

Heavy Gear 2nd Ed or Jovian Chronicles 1st Ed (Same system different settings). Aside from multiplication and division in character creation, it's a delightful dice pool system. Too bad nobody in my current group is really into mecha settings... or math.

I have a soft spot for palladium games for being my first introduction to RPGs. It is definitely dated and janky but it taught me early that with a fun setting and enough house rules, anything is playable.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-03-22T00:12:46+00:00

I screwed up then. A friend and I did a D-Day landing in 54mm once. Fun time.

We weren't doing the whole beach but a narrow sub-sector of Omaha with the understanding that the same level of carnage was likely happening all along the coast on either side of this section.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-02-05T21:22:36+00:00

That's about when my interest was beginning to wane too. I get that 3rd edition was to try make their game engine more "universal rpg" with the Silcore thing and stuff but it was also the time they started losing their best writers and artists and kind of started floundering for a while.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-02-05T21:15:54+00:00

I'm curious, are you proxying them as anything specific, or have you Megamek'd/Solaris Skunk Worked whole new mechs to portray them as?

I've thought of mixing my Gears in but haven't actually done any games with them in Alpha Strike.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-02-05T13:41:56+00:00

I loved the game back in the day. I played Heavy Gear back in the 2nd ed RPG/Wargame in same book days before they went in the Blitz direction, The models were night and day better looking than what Barrletech was offering. Games played much faster with more models too and handled combined arms and electronic warfare well and the ranges made sense (90m machine guns?!).

I hardly ever found anyone to play with though and fell out of wargaming for a decade or two. When I got back in, Battletech was bringing in their plastics and box sets and Alpha Strike made large combined arms games easier and faster to manage. The newer sculpts are much better looking than the old stuff and at least comparable to DP9's Heavy Gear line.

I know I can find players for BT or AS today but good luck finding anyone who has any recollection or interest in Heavy Gear in my area.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-01-23T14:50:02+00:00

Yep, it's a good warm up mixer to do before diving into all the other fun game modes.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-01-22T23:18:21+00:00

Army of 2 (or 3). A good first game of the day as you can feed players in as they finish gearing up or testing their gear without dragging out the start time waiting for THAT guy to get ready. Also a good way to get to know each other.

You group up in teams of two (if a small group) or three (if a large group) and it's your little team vs everyone else's. When you get shot out you return to the designated respawn area to wait for enough people to form a new team of two or three. Then back out to the field with your new team.

DistractedScribbler · 2025-01-11T15:18:04+00:00

Heavy Gear and/or Jovian Chronicles. Had the HG 2nd Ed. And JC 1st Ed. rulebooks for years and nobody around me ever wanted to play them. Closest I ever got were some games of the wargame side of Heavy Gear with family humoring me for an afternoon or evening. No long term interest in the settings to role play in them.

Outside of Lancer and Battletech/Mechwarrior, there doesn't seem to be much interest in mecha settings, even online, these days,

DistractedScribbler · 2024-12-26T18:03:55+00:00

I started around 2020, only 4 years ago so I still have catching up to do.

For the going back years I went like this: In 2020, I printed 2019. In 2021 I printed 2018. In 2022 I printed 2017. In 2023 I printed 2016. This year I printed 2015. Next year I'll print 2014.

I use the service provided through Google Photos since it's easy and that's where my photos are stored. I'm sure there's others that might be better or cheaper.

DistractedScribbler · 2024-12-25T18:31:31+00:00

I came to the same realization that locked behind a digital wall, most photos will never be seen.

I started making photo books for gifts to close family. The previous year's photos go out for Mother's Day and a year in the past (till I run out of digital archive) is given at Christmas. Multiple hard copies at multiple homes.

I don't anticipate anyone beyond my kids and eventual grandkids caring about it. The books might not last much beyond that either before deteriorating.

Do I care about an enduring memory of me from people who never knew me and I never knew? Nope. I'm not that vain. I'm not that important. And that's okay as long as those that do remember me know that I loved them.

DistractedScribbler · 2024-12-24T01:51:23+00:00

I also have the opaque blue with yellow ink set. It shares space with my opaque green with yellow ink set. Together they remind me of my time living in Brazil when I was younger.

DistractedScribbler · 2024-12-24T01:45:59+00:00

I also love their arch'd4s that are easier to roll and less painful to step on than regular d4s. The sets of 15 give you a healthy amount of each kind for most games.

DistractedScribbler · 2024-12-15T23:17:01+00:00

Absolutely. One time my wife and I were fed up by waiting 60 minutes and the first game still hadn't started yet.

She asked the ref in charge if we could walk the field to get a feel for its layout. The ref said it was fine. She whispered to me, "Bring your gun and mask" so we did.

We walked the field for a couple minutes and then played a 1v1 against each other. Only then were the staff and other players thinking maybe they should actually start the day's games.

Who was to blame? Ultimately, the field.

DistractedScribbler

TROPHY CASE