54mm Victorians

If you've read any of the COMMENTS on the posts on this blog, than chances are you might have bumped into my good friend Otto. Otto and I have had many discussions about gaming-- gaming designs, gaming ethics, gaming morality, et. al.

I think it's safe to say that one of Otto's bette noirs is the decline of civilized behavior in society at large. Many of his game designs (including the excellent MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT IN VIENNA) touch on this dearth of common grace in mankind.

Two of the subjects of our occassional discourse are the focus on violence in most game designs today (and the lack of "peace games" as a tangent to that point), and the notion of a Victorian Roleplaying Game. NOT a game about killing natives in a pitched battle somewhere on the fringes of civilization, mind you, but a real "living in Victorian times, interacting with Victorian people, in a Victorian fashion" kind of game. Otto had been making his "miniatures" 2D style, by making cutouts from Victorian costume coloring books (usually from Dover Publications).

I just discovered a third dimension that might be of some interest to Otto.

Rosedale makes a lovely line of Victorian civilians (and military, but that's a side issue, for once):



The figures are all done in 54mm and can be sold painted at a high gloss (which I don't like, but somehow I don't see this detering Otto).



In terms of character, they really do evoke the time period-- they are not the best scuplts by a long measure, but they look and feel right somehow. They probably appeal MORE to the Toy Soldier/Collector crowd than the gaming crowd that Otto and I belong to.



They CAN be purchsed unpainted which lowers the price, but they are still a bit dear for me, alas. However, Otto has recently joined the ranks of the landed gentry and is hard at work planning his Germanic "steading" in the wilds of Pennsylvania, so he may welcome the diversion of Victorian civilians.