The Lady in the Dress: NDNG Welcomes Sylvia

Interview by Troy Hill, Photos courtesy of Sylvia Urquhart Smith

No Dice No Glory is pleased to introduce the newest member of our staff, Sylvia Urquhart Smith.

Sylvia is a common attendee at major gaming events and was recently reporting live from the NOVA Open when Mitch Reed got to talk to her. He was able to convince her to lend her talents and experience in the table-top gaming scene to us here at NDNG.

If you’ve been to an event with Sylvia, you’re likely to remember her as “the lady in the dress,” due to the unique 1950 style of dress she wears to be easily recognizable.

Here on NDNG, you can expect to see her posting and interacting in our social media feeds.

I recently began corresponding with Sylvia, to learn more about how she became involved in gaming.

Gamers may know Sylvia’s husband, Steve Urquhart Smith, from his involvement in designing, writing, and playing games. His most recent efforts have been directed at the upcoming Korea book for Bolt Action from Warlord Games.

Below is my conversation with Sylvia, edited for grammar and length.

Basic info about you: 

I started working with Jon Russell in early 2017. [Editor: remember her husband’s connection to Warlord Games]. My first convention was actually the Warlord Games convention 2017 over Memorial Day. I travelled with the demo team for a year until I was preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan. (Didn’t happen for personal reasons) after that, I branched out on my own as a freelance convention reporter.

Mitch said he saw you again at the NOVA Open, with phone in hand making videos. What were you doing?

While at NOVA, all my videos were uploaded to their Facebook account. I mingle with the gamers and vendors and that is how I get connected and get my next gig.

NOVA is very special to me because it is a charity event. They support , and the . I am a cancer survivor and am at a higher risk for breast cancer because of it.

As a soldier, I am automatically drawn to the Fisher House because of the amazing work they do for our troops. I know several families that have been recipients of the foundation due to health complications or deaths. I am proud to say I am part of the NOVA family and to be a part of the $90,000 plus they raise this year.

Where have you worked in the Gaming Industry? or in General?

I may not “work” in the industry but I am very active in it.

What about personal life and career?

I am a career Soldier with the Oklahoma Army National Guard. I was full time as a Federal Employee for several years but eventually walked away from that to spend more time with my family. This allows my family the ability to travel to the different conventions as we please. Plus I am very proud to now be a stay at home mom that gets to volunteer at my kids’ schools and be overly involved in their extracurricular activities. Yes, this includes various parts of the hobby.

How long have you been gaming?

I have been involved in the hobby for almost 10 years now.

What was your first table-top wargame? Who was your opponent/game group? Did you win? (the how did you get into gaming questions)

My first exposure to table-top was with Warhammer 40K. I actually didn’t start really gaming until 2016 when we moved back from New York. I mainly painted the family’s armies. My husband, Steve, introduced me to the hobby when I met his sons.

I actually had a really hard time finding a way to click with the boys. One night when Steve and Cory were playing a game of 40K and Christian was trying to paint his Tyranids, I picked up a paintbrush and started painting with him. That was the first time Christian really opened up to me and we clicked. After that moment I was hooked.

We literally “blended” our family using this hobby. After a while, the boys started bringing their friends over to paint and play which morphed into me cooking all day to feed a hoard of teenage boys as they came in to play various games, mostly Dungeons and Dragons. I [would leave them] a kitchen full of food. Steve and I would wake up to teenagers sleeping all over the living room floor, and the food was gone. Almost eight years later those same kids are now in their 20’s and still come over on Sunday nights to play D&D!

You told Mitch and I that you’re a mom who games. What kind of games do you and your family play? 

I started in the hobby just trying to find some common ground with Steve’s boys but as the youngest two girls got bigger they didn’t know anything other than gaming. They have found their own place within it.

Kade our youngest is a sculptor, painter and is cutthroat when she games. She is learning to play D&D now and has no mercy. She actually left her oldest brother Cory’s character for dead on the dungeon floor one night.

Derah, our middle daughter loves to sketch and has just really started to find her place in the hobby.

We are actually looking to find a way to have some of her sketches 3D printed so we can paint them up for her. She has also started playing Test of Honour and loves anything Star Wars.

Even our other daughter, Angelica, has been pulled into the game like it or not. She just got engaged to a local D&D player. Poor girl just can’t get away from it.

Cory is our painter, he has been trying his hand at the airbrush and is very good. He is the one we turn to when we need terrain painted for Demo tables. Christian is our ringleader. My husband may not want to admit it, but Christian is the reason I have stayed in the hobby for so long. His constant drive to have friends over and to play every week is why it has literally taken over our house and our lives.

Kade is playing a zombie game at a local Oklahoma City convention.

My husband Steve has transitioned over the years from being the dad gaming with his kids to being the businessman and author. He actually sells Firelock Games products at conventions and runs demos of , while I run around doing interviews for various companies or organizations.

What is your home like, with such a gaming family?

When I say that the hobby has taken over my home, this is no joke. We have converted the spare bedroom into an office where Steve can write and I can do my videos. The bookshelves in there are covered in models and books for the hobby.

Some are for research for writing, some are rulebooks and even painting tips. Then you move to the “Hobby Shop” that is everyone’s armies, where everyone goes to paint, sculpt, and even draw. It’s that place where we can go to be alone and find peace when we are stressed or we can go spend some much needed time unplugged as a family.

Honestly, it is where our family spend about 50%of our free time, so it is well loved and LIVED IN! Then you have the “game room”. This used to be my dining room that was furnished with beautiful antique furniture. Well, that furniture has been moved and my dining room table has been turned into the family gaming table. So now we all gather around the dinner table to throw dice rather than food.

Because our family is so into gaming we tend to travel to several conventions a year, and no distance is too far. We have gone to Nova Open two years in a row now. We plan to go to LVO out in Las Vegas and Adepticon in Chicago this next year and yes we typically take our family with us when we can. I love how my girls are growing up embracing their passion and I never worry about them getting lost in the crowds.

Maybe part of that is because they usually wear a 1950’s style dress like me and people automatically know they belong to “The Lady in the Dress”. Some families vacation on the beach. We vacation at conventions. I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way!

If you listen to the , Brad is fond of saying we are in a renaissance of table-top gaming. Do you agree with that? If so (or not) what have you seen in the gaming communities to lead you to that?

I actually don’t listen to that podcast but I would have to agree with that statement. There has been a dramatic change in the gaming world in the 10 years I have been involved.

Sylvia is taking on Adam, game designer of Star Wars X-Wing, in a demo of the new X-Wing 2.0

I have seen companies come and go, rule changes completely upset the entire community, a shift in the way companies do business, even seen the way gamer’s talk to each other change. I remember the first time Steve took me into our local hobby shop and I felt so out of place. I walked in there and it was like in the movies when the room falls silent… not because I was dressed like a movie star, but simply because I was a woman.

Ten years later there are women working at the store, women are on the board of local conventions, and it is an environment where young girls are feeling empowered and encouraged to join in the pickup games. For example, when Kade was only about five she would go to help Steve run tournaments. The community would embrace her being there and would even allow her to play with them. She still enjoys walking up to Demo tables at conventions and asking if she can throw the dice for the players. It is her way of asking to join the game.

If you see Sylvia at a gaming event, be sure to say hello. She’ll probably be recording video, or learning a new game. You might even see her demoing a game. You never know, she might point her camera at you.