Sure sounds like a fine way to restart
my blog.
1. If you had to pick a
single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
The (post-)AD&D insight that "everything kewl
= a dungeon."
As in...
John McClain fighting euro trash bank robbers in
a skyscraper...that was a dungeon.
Jurassic Park.... is one big dungeon.
Each season of '24' is essentially a dungeon.
With the Big Bad Terrorist as end-boss and Jack Bauer as the almost-solo player
character ;-)
2. When was the last time you GMed?
Last week. I ran one of my text-chat
based game sessions. The participants can all type fairly fast, so that's great
cuz we lose none of the "flow" of table-top rp'ing. Text chatting
actually helps players and GM to structure their mutual responses better, I've
found. Needless to say meeting each other across the game table is still
preferred!
3. When was the last time you played?
Circa october 2011. I play a reluctant
old-timer who turns to Lankhmar's Thieves' Guild for a job to pay the rent.
Nobody believes this cover story and nor should they, heh heh! But it's a nice
built-in mystery that the GM has planted and which the other players may
uncover in time.
This GM's pace is still a bit slow but I
like his Lankhmar game because it's Old Skool Gaming without beating its own
chest about it. And because it's nice to accomplish things while running with
this rogues' guild.
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an
adventure you haven't run but would like to.
The long-guarded gates to the Eldritch
Horror realm are opening all at once, it's up to you & your band of Heroic
Species to prevail against all odds.
5. What do you do while you wait for
players to do things?
My players are energetic and awake, so
they don't leave me time to twiddle my thumbs!
6. What, if anything, do you eat while
you play?
We're on the time-honored
Bring-Your-Own-Calorie-Bomb tradition. Occasionally a brave soul will cook, and
cook well. Might even be me ;-)
7. Do you find GMing physically
exhausting?
It's usually pretty strenuous,
yeah. Might also have something to do with my love for semi-live acting out how
my NPCs and monsters move and menace the heroes.
8. What was the last interesting (to
you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
After a heist in that Lankhmar game, I
talked the runaway-from-home elven thief of our group into visiting a
Good-aligned elven temple. Ostensibly to gather intel where my human character
couldn´t go, but in the process the elf got get a glimpse of returning to her
roots. That was a cute scene.
9. Do your players take your serious
setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
While I'm not averse to the occasional
'shits-and-giggles' session, I find that's it all about focus. In that sense
roleplaying isn't that much different from (improv) theater. Overall, when I
"signal" my players that serious stuff is about to hit, they have no
difficulty getting in the mood.
10. What do you do with goblins?
We blows 'em up reaaal gewd...
Naa, in defense of down-trodden goblins:
you can still have lots of iconic fun with these simple critters- just ask
Peter Jackson.
(Remember that scrawny orc duo who
wheedled with the uruk-hai for permission to eat "just the hobbits'
legs?")
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you
saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
I always take bits & pieces from
well-crafted movies, tv shows and novels. I mash them up and try to present
them in a fresh way. Ideally my players will resonate with such things big
time, since it's all about the archetypes and letting players have the
spotlight. And making them squirm in that same spotlight, too, heh heh.
12. What's the funniest table moment you
can remember right now?
It was this Star Trek rpg we ran with
homebrew rules back in the late 199os. Enemy Klingons were breaking down the
door to the room where our captain (herself a Klingon - on loan to Starfleet,
as it were) and our security chief (unflappable Vulcan, and yeah he was still
quite different from Voyager's Tuvok) had become trapped. While we (the rest of
the player characters) were frantically trying to beam them out, the following
dialogue ensued spontaneously:
Security Chief: "We should hurry,
Captain. The first Klingon sword just stuck thru the door."
Captain: "No need for panic, man!
Back home we have swords crashing through doors all the time."
13. What was the last game book you
looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at
it?
I find myself leafing through Keith
Baker's 2004 "Eberron Campaign Setting" every so often. I've never
run Eberron but I think it has some fresh takes on the classic Dungeons
& Dragons elements. Some very crafty stuff there. The only thing holding me
back is that I think that Wizards of the Coast went overboard with the
"gritty, endless intrigue" side of Eberron. Stuff like that tends to
bog down games, as players become mired in it. Plus, I've noticed most players
simply like to beat the bad guys, at the end of the day.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG
illustrator?
I think the artists behind the
Pathfinder line are doing great stuff to bring classic fantasy staples into the
21st century. Other favorites have portfolios on deviantart.com:
kerembeyit, Andreas Rocha, and Keith Thompson, to name just three.
15. Does your game ever make your
players genuinely afraid?
I ran a close-to-lifelike realistic,
serial killer one-shot adventure with a co-GM once. Our players still remember
that game as the most chilling they had ever played. For some that's talking
about a 'career' of 20+ years of gaming. Still --- afterward we were glad to
return to our cleaner. Fantasy epics.
16. What was the best time you ever had
running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
In my muddled memory I recall having
great fun & tense combats with the old Temple of Elemental Evil
mega-module. Though even there I added and changed plenty so arguably this
ain't a perfect example of a module.
17. What would be the ideal physical set
up to run a game in?
We once ran a semi-LARP game where
players tackled what was basically a sequel to Twin Peaks. We had this complete
penthouse to ourselves where we hung draperies in a maze pattern that players
had to navigate, in-character. I NPC'd a very creepy "Killer Bob" and
I swear that I witnessed some players literally taking minutes to gather their
courage to get into that maze. That was a darned kewl game.
Aside from that, and a more sustainable
recurring setup: a couple of couches, easy chairs and a table will do fine. Oh,
a nice touch we've added in our AD&D group is a huge, casino-style die
rolling board which prevents dice from bouncing off the table and onto the
floor. It also promotes fair rolling since everyone can see the dice results
clearly.
18. If you had to think of the two most
disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
On one end of the spectrum, I love Call
of Cthulhu. We use a homebrew game system for this too, since Chaosium may have
made a fine game but the rules were always much too wargamery for us. The
defining element of Cthulhu rp´ing is that your characters are going off the
deep end, it's just a matter of roleplaying the descent into madness well. And
hopefully taking a few of those slimy beasties with you!
At the other end of the spectrum, my
greatest love is Dungeons & Dragons (we backpedaled quickly to 2nd
Edition after seeing the traffic-light-syndrome of 3rd- and consecutive
editions). I love AD&D -and some worthy spinoffs like Pathfinder- for its
classic, ageless Clash of Good versus Evil. At times corny as heck, at other
times surprisingly roleplay-fertile.
19. If you had to think of the most
disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
I can tell you about some ironic, or
out-of-left-corner influences: The Order of the Stick web comic is
not only a hilarious read for anyone who ever played Dungeons & Dragons;
the themes and memes it addresses really have 2 or 3 layers to them. It's so
brilliant because on one hand, it's just "ripping D&D a new one",
yet also it takes an at times brutal look at how the fantasy classics CAN (or
should) work. I dunno, maybe it's just me but it got me thinking. What if,
instead of being defensive about some of fantasy gaming's "corny
elements', you could actually make them work? OotS sure does so, on several
occasions.
A completely different influence was
Saving Private Ryan, and its "prodigy child", Band of Brothers.
I wouldn't advocate making your RPGing that gritty
(though if that's your cup of tea, you could do worse than model your
storytelling on Messrs. Spielberg and Hanks). No, what I mean is that SPR and
BoB in one stroke showed me that genres never need die (look at the state World
War II cinema was in prior to 2000). AND that grittiness can be combined with human
warmth and gripping storytelling.
The latter I found lacking in
enthusiastic-but-deeply-flawed productions like the Battlestar Galactica
remake.
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you
want at your table?
I love players with an inner fire. They
can be the mousiest, shy type but as long as they can bring this inner core to
their characters, that core that calls for justice, freedom, glory...they can
reach the stars in my games.
21. What's a real life experience you've
translated into game terms?
Getting lost and racing to find the way
back to my hotel while there was still daylight, one holiday in the winter
Alps. It reminded me that it's the primal things we humans value. And that the
simplest things can make compelling drama.
22. Is there an RPG product that you
wish existed but doesn't?
The kewlest thing to GM would be this
epic, all-or-nothing clash between the forces of Good and Evil, in a classic
fantasy setting. I think nearly all game products sort of tiptoe around this.
Most GMs also seem to shy away from That Big War. Which is a shame because the
players I know would love this end-of-the-world kind of Battle. I guess many
people feel that it would be too complicated, to have the player characters do
meaningful actions on such a bigger-than-life canvas. Yet I keep seeing gamers
thrill at epic productions like Gladiator, Star Wars, LOTR and even on a
seeming smaller scale, the TV series Fringe. All of these have this Epic War to
End All Wars in common. So it always struck me that we thrill at something we
don't seem prepared to put into our games. That seems counter-intuitive to me.
23. Is there anyone you know who you
talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
I will occasionally oblige the colleague
or acquaintance who is merely "game-curious." Yet usually, the person
will either take up gaming eventually (guess I'm inspiring! Or a bad influence,
heh heh)...or they won't, and in that case the interest gradually tapers off.
