I miss my big fish in a small pond status.
In the days of yore in the mythical land of Ioway I was the person who knew "everything" about guns.
This stemmed from two things. First, I had been in the Army which confers "expert" on your gun opinion regardless of actual knowledge. Second, I'd voraciously devour any book about guns I could find.
Actual paper books! I know!
I have learned so much about so many guns since then I think I can safely say I didn't know much; but in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king!
Today the level of expertise I brought to the gaming table is readily available with Google (or Bing) and a smart phone.
Now my pond has grown and while I am no smaller, there are much larger fish out there. In the giant pond, I am merely moderately sized (heh; I'm small enough to be thrown back). But it was nice being an unquestioned expert for a long while.
I remembered today what set me on my path of learning guns.
TSR's Top Secret. It had one of the most frustratingly "realistic" gun combat rules we'd ever played. Nearly literally "get hit - get dead". Guns were not to be trifled with.
My character had an Uzi, but I had no idea how big an Uzi was or what it looked like and I wanted to draw a picture of my character. So Dad bought me a book. In the pages of "Small Arms of the 20th Century" by Ian Hogg I learned that there were many guns not listed on the table in the game. I also noticed that the game claimed the Galil was a .22 with different stats than the M16 and 5.56... The Galil issue is the first time I managed to use my "expertise" to sway the GM. The rules failed to properly account for the fact that a Galil ARM weighs as much as two M16A1, but it did say 35 shots as opposed to 20; with the ruling from the GM the Galil was a vast improvement. 8th grade gamers always go for more shots! More shots is why there was a Browning HP on so many character sheets.
More shots is why there's a Glock 17 on a lot of my character sheets where fifteen shot wonder nines had become passé.
I don't game much any more. My fellow gamers are 1,600 miles away and it's hard to get together at the same table. The local scene really rams home that I'm a LOT older than the typical gamer. I still learn something new every day, though.
The gaming thing had me digging up esoteric guns like the ZH-29 because you could get a detachable magazine-semi-auto in 1929 in a common caliber like 7x57mm in Brazil. Thanks to Ian at Forgotten Weapons I know a lot more about it; but it's funny because he's doing reviews of obscure guns that I know about to get around some arbitrary date set to prevent player access to "better" weaponry.
Restrict me to a bolt action integral magazine rifle will you? Oh, I can't have a gun that didn't actually see production and I can't use a military caliber? Remington Model 8 in .30 Rem, please...
In the days of yore in the mythical land of Ioway I was the person who knew "everything" about guns.
This stemmed from two things. First, I had been in the Army which confers "expert" on your gun opinion regardless of actual knowledge. Second, I'd voraciously devour any book about guns I could find.
Actual paper books! I know!
I have learned so much about so many guns since then I think I can safely say I didn't know much; but in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king!
Today the level of expertise I brought to the gaming table is readily available with Google (or Bing) and a smart phone.
Now my pond has grown and while I am no smaller, there are much larger fish out there. In the giant pond, I am merely moderately sized (heh; I'm small enough to be thrown back). But it was nice being an unquestioned expert for a long while.
I remembered today what set me on my path of learning guns.
TSR's Top Secret. It had one of the most frustratingly "realistic" gun combat rules we'd ever played. Nearly literally "get hit - get dead". Guns were not to be trifled with.
My character had an Uzi, but I had no idea how big an Uzi was or what it looked like and I wanted to draw a picture of my character. So Dad bought me a book. In the pages of "Small Arms of the 20th Century" by Ian Hogg I learned that there were many guns not listed on the table in the game. I also noticed that the game claimed the Galil was a .22 with different stats than the M16 and 5.56... The Galil issue is the first time I managed to use my "expertise" to sway the GM. The rules failed to properly account for the fact that a Galil ARM weighs as much as two M16A1, but it did say 35 shots as opposed to 20; with the ruling from the GM the Galil was a vast improvement. 8th grade gamers always go for more shots! More shots is why there was a Browning HP on so many character sheets.
More shots is why there's a Glock 17 on a lot of my character sheets where fifteen shot wonder nines had become passé.
I don't game much any more. My fellow gamers are 1,600 miles away and it's hard to get together at the same table. The local scene really rams home that I'm a LOT older than the typical gamer. I still learn something new every day, though.
The gaming thing had me digging up esoteric guns like the ZH-29 because you could get a detachable magazine-semi-auto in 1929 in a common caliber like 7x57mm in Brazil. Thanks to Ian at Forgotten Weapons I know a lot more about it; but it's funny because he's doing reviews of obscure guns that I know about to get around some arbitrary date set to prevent player access to "better" weaponry.
Restrict me to a bolt action integral magazine rifle will you? Oh, I can't have a gun that didn't actually see production and I can't use a military caliber? Remington Model 8 in .30 Rem, please...