An advice column meant to cover all of the unanswered questions that the hobby of wargaming generates. Send your letters to Doctor "J", 930 Mellish Drive, Lapeer MI 48446 Dear Doctor "J". Having recently been introduced to the hobby of historical gaining I was most enthused about tabletop gaming. The friends I have made locally are a great bunch of fellows, and they even invited me to a large Eastern gaming convention. As a first time attendee I was taken aback by the number of heavy gamersbeat over tables with the lower end of their jeans hanging at half mast. Not since the plumber came to work on our garbage disposal have I seen a more flagrant display of butt cracks. This was compounded by an assortment of underwear that appeared to have been worn for the duration. Like an Olympic games judge I wanted to get a set of grading cards to give points for the best of the butt cracks. There were lint impacted cracks, pasty pale pimpled bottoms, and one guy with a tattoo that encircled his waist reading "I eat all my road kill", which his girth could testify to was true. The disgusting display of posteriors has left me with a severe case of CON-PHOBIA. Severna Park, MD. Dear CON PHOBIA. You are not the first person to have his sensibilities assaulted by the gross display of bargain basement bottoms. Our suggestion for remedying this problem would be that the folks putting on conventions should require all attendees to wear both a belt and a set of suspenders. This would keep the flesh being shown well above any high water mark of disgust. Just be thankful that there are not chapters of nudist gamers! Dear Doctor "J". I think that I have discovered one of the secret thrills of our hobby. That is the high one gets when sneaking newly purchased figures into a basement workroom long after the wife has gone to bed. The longer I'm in this hobby the more I'm convinced that the piles of unpainted lead that accumulate in our workshops is due to our need for the SNEAKY FIX. If we were above board with our spouses, there would be no fair or mystery in sliding downstairs with armloads of figures to be painted. This leads to accumulations of unpainted metal that it might take a fulltime painter years to paint. Could there be some twelve step program to help those of us who are caught up in this mania? Signed "SNEAKY PETE" Tulsa, OK. Dear Pete. What you are facing is common to the majority of married gamers. Like stealing watermelons from a neighbors patch as kids, the taste of snuck in lead is in itself the ultimate high of the hobby. Deep in our hearts we are all disgraced by our wanton lack of control when we see a new bag of figures on the local hobby shop shelf. In most marriages there are only two big issues that couples fight over, money and sex, and the issue is usually not enough of either of the two. With wargamers, the truth being known, the issue of snuck in lead would pour gasoline on any possible flames of marital discord. Our mania for collection unpainted Figures is driven by the same urges that drive coin and stamp collectors. What one has to do is be realistic about his piles of lead and try to right off the urge to pull one over by sneaking in more stuff. It is most important to let your spouse know that she and the family will always come first, and that this soldier business is nothing but a hobby. Keep in mind that if you predecease your wife, that she will no doubt be selling all your wargaming goods at a garage sale for pennies on the dollar. Dear Doctor "J". It was recently discovered at one of our monthly club gaming sessions in a rental hall that a particular fellow who seems to win more than he loses has been using weighted dice. The discovery was made when he rolled his own dice and a B.B. painted black fell out of one of the pips on the rive side of the die. At this point the guy nearly fainted, and then he claimed that he had just borrowed the dice from another club member. This didn't set well with any of us at the table and we immediately took a straw vote to see if he was guilty of misconduct. It was unanimous that the cheater was intentionally trying to pull one off and we proceeded to drag him into the men's room where we applied a lengthy swirly to his forehead in one of the stalls. He fled the gaming hall like one who had been tarred and feathered, and he has not been heard from since, but we have heard from his attorney. This chap is suing our group for gross and mischievous conduct, with intent to do bodily harm less than drowning. How should we handle any future episodes of similar misconduct? Our gross misconduct insurance will cover this one! Signed, The Dipsters of The Pipster. Hoboken, NY. Dear Dipsters. May your club motto be "El profane piscatoras, dos weildo", or "ALL CHEATERS WILL SLEEP WITH THE FISHES". Back to MWAN #97 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1999 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com