Scouting Wide Games in art and on postcards and as RPGs – links

Scouting Wide Games in Art, on Postcards and in Role Playing Games

Happy Father’s Day to all!

My late Dad was an (Assistant) Scoutmaster for many years, who enjoyed Wide Games as a wartime child and as a Boy Scout, so I think he would appreciate this post.

Here below are a collection of links to some of my recent posts on interesting scouting paintings and postcard images, along with RPG elements, which have provided me with inspiration for gaming scenarios for my Scouting Wide Games for the Tabletop Project.

The Scouting Wide Games for the Tabletop Project started out in 2019 as a simple page and posts on this Man of TIN blog but has since grown to become an entirely separate blog.

Here for Man Of TIN blog (and Man of TIN Blog Two) readers are these links as a quick update on this ongoing tabletop gaming project.

Postcards

I own so far only a couple of these curious silent film type Davidson Brothers postcards (above) and have found more images online. I hope to acquire some more affordable examples over time:

https://tabletopscoutingwidegames.wordpress.com/2022/06/17/scouting-on-postcards-the-davidson-brothers-boy-scout-series/

The Wide Game and Scouts in Paintings

I have also enjoyed finding some fantastic scouting paintings such as ‘The Wide Game‘ by George Hillyard Swinstead from the Scouts Heritage Service online via Art UK:

https://tabletopscoutingwidegames.wordpress.com/2022/06/05/the-good-turn-by-george-hillyard-swinstead-1916-scout-painting-and-first-aid-scenario-photos/

https://tabletopscoutingwidegames.wordpress.com/2022/06/05/the-wide-game-painting-by-george-hillyard-swinstead-scout-heritage-service-art-uk/

There is an interesting detail of a wounded Tommy in his Hospital Blues in ‘The Good Turn’ painting by Swinstead, painted in 1916.

Scouting Photographs

These staged photographs and paintings capture a little of the outdoor spirit Wide Games from my original scouting photo snaps collection:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2020/02/17/ww1-boy-scout-photographs-in-my-collection-1/

https://tabletopscoutingwidegames.wordpress.com/2020/02/20/more-early-scouting-photos-from-ww1/

All good inspiration for my Scouting Wide Games for the Tabletop Project.

Role Playing Game Characters and Badge Skills

With the help of Alan (Duchy Of Tradgardland) Gruber, I am thinking through how to add a Role Playing Game RPG / NPC elements of character ability (and badge skills) to the simple Wide Games and snowball fight rules.

My D&D / Stranger Things related blog post introduces this topic:

https://tabletopscoutingwidegames.wordpress.com/2022/06/13/scouting-wide-games-rpgs-dungeons-and-dragons-and-stranger-things/

It could be The Shire, the Upside Down or a D&D scenario map? Your local woods transformed with The Cloak of Romance and a suitable Wide Games gaming scenario and imagination …

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Scouting Wide Games – for Girls?

Along with uniform research for figure conversions on early Scout uniform and that of other youth movements such as Camp Fire Girls USA and British Camp Fire Girls, each having their own page on the blog.

Figure conversions from 42mm range of STS Little Britons Spencer Smith Miniatures LBB30 Boy Scouts to African-American Camp Fire Girls USA – work in progress

There – that brings us up to date with the ongoing Scouting Wide Games for the Tabletop Project. This also fits my DMZ Demilitarised gaming mood.

Blog posted on 18/ 19 June (Happy Father’s Day!) by Mark Man of TIN, 1970s British Cub Scout (Bronze Arrow, retired).

Battling Little Bronte Wolves arrive from Bad Squiddo! And we raised the money to save the Bronte manuscripts too …

My battling little Bronte Wolves have arrived, and are already slugging it out in the role playing games of their “Tropical Yarkshire” ImagiNations of Glass Town, Angria, Gondal and Gaaldine.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2021/10/26/little-wolves-bronte-sisters-vignette-or-potential-gaming-figures-from-bad-squiddo-games/

I haven’t even painted them yet and they are already hard at it … Charlotte, Emily, Ann and Branwell – knock it off!

Any parcel from Annie Norman at Bad Squiddo is always a joy … and a mystery. What strange little quirky extras will it contain?

Previously I’ve had tiny metal guinea pig figures, a herbal fruit tea bag …

and today, a cool Sk8ter Pig Angel sticker.

As I’m a little too old and too easily breakable for falling off a skateboard now, I shall bestow it on my Spla-Fiti Skater Graffiti gangs game as a huge piece of street art on the side of a building.

Great fast return of post and excellent quirky customer service from Bad Squiddo, as good as that of Peter Laing in the 1980s? I’m reminded of this, as I catalogue and blog my collection of these my first 15mm metal figures ahead of their Fiftieth anniversary in October 1972 / 2022

The other great news today …

Just days ago it wasn’t looking good with over £12K to raise …

A few days ago it was struggling past half way with under a week to go to raise the £25K from the public by the end of October.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2021/10/26/gamers-readers-help-save-the-brontes-imaginations-manuscripts-for-the-nation-and-the-bronte-parsonage-donate-to-save-the-honresfield-library-collection/

We smashed it with three days to go!

Thanks to those blog readers who passed on the Just Giving link or donated from your war chests!

A fitting tribute to these first female Role Playing Gamers, historical or fantasy ImagiNations gamers!

Missed giving? You can still donate. More money is always welcome at the Bronte Parsonage Museum / Friends of the National Libraries to secure, conserve and display such Bronte manuscripts …

Now off to paint those Little Bronte Wolves, if they can stop squabbling and scrapping long enough … I know just how their father Patrick Bronte felt. “Martha, control these children!”

More on this blog page of my Bronte inspired ImagiNations gaming here:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/gaming-the-bronte-family-imaginations-of-glasstown-angria-gondal-and-gaaldine/

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 28 October 2021

Gamers, Readers – Help save the Brontes ImagiNations manuscripts for the nation and the Bronte Parsonage – donate to save the Honresfield Library collection!

Give now – https://justgiving.com/campaign/honresfield-library

***** Three days to go and we smashed it! Well past £25K! Thanks to all my fellow gamers and blog readers who contributed!

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/battling-little-bronte-wolves-arrive-from-bad-squiddo-and-we-raised-the-money-to-save-the-bronte-manuscripts-too/ ****

As a gamer with a love of toy soldiers and ImagiNations gaming, I have a lot of time for the Brontes and their intricate fictional Regency and early Victorian worlds of Gondal, Glasstown, Gaaldine and Angria.

If you don’t know them, check out the excellent recent books based on these tiny Bronte manuscripts – Celia Rees’ Glass Town Wars and the graphic novel Glass Town by Isabel Greenberg.

You might also know them through the 1960s children’s fiction book The Return of The Twelves (or Twelve and the Genie) by Pauline Clarke, based on the Bronte children’s original wooden toy soldiers.

The Bronte sisters Emily, Charlotte and Anne and brother Branwell created childhood and teenage imaginary Napoleonic worlds (paracosms) in tiny handwritten books of poetry, prose, drawings and fictional newspaper adverts in the 1830s and 1840s in Yorkshire.

Were the Bronte children some of the first wargamers, ImagiNations gamers and Historical Fantasy RPG players?

I have been playing Bronte inspired ImagiNations games for a number of years now – check out my page for them on my blog here:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/gaming-the-bronte-family-imaginations-of-glasstown-angria-gondal-and-gaaldine/

That is why I am supporting the campaign by UK libraries and The Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth Yorkshire to keep some of these precious manuscripts of the Law Collection in the Honresfield Library in this country and at their birthplace, rather than disappear into private collections after auction.

https://www.bronte.org.uk/whats-on/news/242/save-the-honresfield-library

You can easily donate here https://justgiving.com/campaign/honresfield-library

A small amount has been anonymously diverted from my Man of TIN hobby ‘war chest’ and ImagiNations defence budget towards saving these precious manuscripts.

Go on – dig deep. Surely worth a tenner or more of anyone’s hobby budget?

This is part of our fantasy gaming, wargaming, toy soldier and RPG origins as well as literary heritage to preserve for all, not a privileged few.

One day I look forward to travelling Up North to go and see the Bronte tiny books and manuscripts at the Bronte Parsonage Museum.

* Dear blog friends and readers, please forward and repost / reboot this post this post to others.*

We only have five days left to raise the £25K needed.

Arise, Angria!

Home made Fimo Polymer Clay 54mm figure of an Angrian Infantry Standard bearer with the rising sun flag – Arise Angria!

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 26 October 2021