The Rogues' Gallery

[Hooper]

Well, hello all.  I'm Hooper.  That is my name.  My Only name.  I'm like Cher, or Bono, minus the fame, wealth, and talent (depending on who you ask - some say they lack this too).

No, seriously.  That is my name.  I'm a husband, father of one with one on the way, small (minuscule) business owner with a 9-5, captain of a chapter of starfleet international, member of h.o.g., and one of the founders of the Quilt City O.G.R.E.s.  

Moving on past useless info.

I am mostly a 3.5 user, though I do like some Old World of Darkness, which is what I first played as far as RPGs go.  I've also played World of Warcraft (world champion of uselessness too! http://www.wow.com/tag/Venwe/ ).  However, I haven't played WoW in almost a year, and have been solely an RPG player.

I hate extreme optimization and most people who do it, as they refuse to admit that they don't roleplay it correctly (i.e. I'll take some small flaws to get these min/max traits I want, but won't roleplay the flaw).  I believe that the Same Game Test, and all material by Frank and K, is overpowered cheating hidden under circular thought.

I've played in, as I said earlier, Old WoD, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Star Wars, Star Trek, WoW RPG, and Warhammer.  Mostly, however, our gaming group now roleplays in Valgora - our homebrew world (see sig).

Our influence is our gaming.  Every session creates new places, people, and events that add to the world.  

[LordVreeg]

Hooper, welcome aboard.
I'm sure that anotehr family man will help instill this group with a good dose of reality.

Oh, wait, we make fantasy worlds...never mind...

[Nomadic]

Hooper, welcome aboard.
I'm sure that anotehr family man will help instill this group with a good dose of reality.

Oh, wait, we make fantasy worlds...never mind...

We don't need no stinkin' reality...

[Tillumni]

welcome to the forum, and do hop by in the irc too.

we're not that scary...honest.

[Hooper]

we're not that scary...honest.

Usually when that has to be stated, it is a lie.  ha.

Thanks all.

[Sarandosil]

This seems like the most appropriate spot for this. I've changed my display name to Sarandosil. I'm not really sure why I signed up using my real name ages ago, but I've been using the name Sarandosil for all my online gaming stuff so this way it's consistent with the rest of my online activity.

[Mason]

Hi.
I'm 24, and married with no kids. I'm a tall lanky bastard that probably drinks too much, and definately smokes too much, but we all have our vices. I like good conversation, and a good sense of humor. Politics and religion should be checked at the door, as we've all had the same 4 a.m. drunken conversations that go no-where and that concern things nobody can really do anything about.
 
 I work six days a week as a chef at a pub on the corner here in my small Virginia town. I used to play guitar in a band, until I realized the harsh reality of the music business. I once thought of being an actor, but again stark-cold-reality set in.
So I found my love for creativity in the culinary arts. I never went to school, but I have worked with some very talented chefs over the years, and it is amazing what you can learn just by asking questions. I dropped out of high-school , but have recently enrolled for the coming spring semester at my local community college. I hope to be a teacher of history or english someday.

The first video game I ever played was the first zelda game. My second was Metroid, and I was hooked. I started writing around 3rd grade, and just gradually fell into a fantasy/sci-fi genre with the help of Tolkien and Robert Heinlein, not to mention Hermanne Hesse, T.H. White etc. The list goes on.

I never actually played D&D or anything of the sort until about two years ago, but I had been writing 'worlds' for about ten years. I loved to draw maps as a kid for some reason, fascinated by a world atlas I got for some long ago christmas.

Other than that my influences are based on video games. Chronotrigger is still to date one of my all-time favorite games along with final fantasy 7, and 3. (or is it 6? Whatever the american version is).  And...that's about it.

[DungeonMaster]

Pleased to meet you all. I ran into this site while looking for map-making programs.

General Gaming History
I started playing wargames at age of 14 (barring the 5000 little army men I had as a wee lad) and was introduced to RPGs (AD&D) in 1982 (age 16). Tried pretty much most of the RPGs that came out, other than anything connected to hamsters/turtles. A short (?) list, most the AD&D stuff (not after 2nd ed.), some of the D&D (not much of a fan), Gamma World, Traveler (and trav2000), Twillight2000, Mechwarrior, Star Wars, Star Trek, LotR, Vampire, Top Secret, James Bond, Warhammer (and 40K), a couple superhero things, a pirate game'¦and probably a dozen others I can't recall.

Of the many games played, I'll always be drawn to AD&D 1st Ed.,used in conjunction with most of the supplement books. The close second is Warhammer.

I gave up gaming when I moved to Panama 8 years ago, this was because of a lack of players and a linguistic barrier (although I can get by, I'll never be able to express myself as needed to run a game). In any case, this site has inspired me and I'll begin an active search for players.

As a tragic side-note; the storage area where I had placed my books/games/etc developed a severe water leak and had a serious rat problem. After it was all said and done, 95% of my gaming resources were destroyed, including approximately 20-25000 irreplaceable hand-written pages of maps, campaigns, notes, and my beloved stacks of 5x8 cards that I was using for cross references. Needless to say, I vomited when I discovered the damage.

Personal Likes and Dislikes
Imagine the likes/dislikes of a flexible paladin, and that would be me.

Strengths and Weaknesses in game design
Strengths would be experience, wisdom (?), and a natural ability to tell a story.
Weaknesses, mind-mapping distractions and lack of completion. Also plagiarism, having played so many different systems over the years, when I'm writing something up, I almost always 'create' an older system with just a few tweaks here and there.

Influences
Many of the old classic fantasy/sf/history authors, and a large smattering of the issues of life in general'¦and Guinness beer.

In closing, even if I'm not gaming, I still open up an old 'Dragon' magazine (of the few survivors (sigh)) every now and then or I'll draw up a map (I LOVE map-making). And since I've been reading this post for the last week or so, I'm thinking about creating a campaign'¦More later.

Until then, be well.

Best Wishes.

PS: I wanted to mention, you folks are doing a great job and I look forward to learning more about the CBG and it's 'interesting' members.

[LordVreeg]

We are pleased to have you, my friend.  Stay awhile, and we shall learn together.

[Hibou]

Welcome to the Guild, guys. Be sure to join us in the IRC chat at irc.otherworlders.org, channel #thecbg, ESPECIALLY if you like discussions involving tight leather, lolcats and the occasional cryptic reference to gaming.

[Lmns Crn]

Some people surpass a language barrier by playing online! One of my favorite games ever was run over IRC chat, and had players from both U.S. coasts, Austria, the Netherlands, and (briefly) Australia. The Americans logged on midafternoon local time, the Europeans stayed up late, and the Aussie woke up at some godawful hour of the morning and played until the sun rose.

Anyway, welcome to you.

[DungeonMaster]

I had thought about online play (using chat), but with an extremely shoddy internet connection(long story involving a village/laptop/cell-phone), I'd not only be frustrated but frustrating...

Cheers,

[jasonwire]

Good evening

My name's Jason and I write. Repeatedly, and obsessively.

I'll let my writing do the talking. This weekend, I'll post my work so far from my growing project, Fragment.

I'm not a gamer, and I'm not a DM. I merely create.

So far, I've been refining one era of history (roughly 1000 years) on one continent (out of 10), with the focus being on realistic political history meeting science meeting a plausibly documented magic system.

Here's a brief overview.

Fragment has a fully worked out evolutionary history, tracing the path each race has taken from primitive life to current subraces. Currently, I'm workign on Sudimar, a human dominated continent in the south of the Fragment, during the 6th Age, a roughly Renaissance Era time period.

I'm hoping you'll enjoy my work so far. I'm not looking for collaboration right now, simply opinions. I look forwards to chatting to you all.

Jason

[Nomadic]

Welcome... enjoy your complimentary cabbage:

\@/

[SamuraiChicken]

I suppose it is about time I post on here (actually I would have done so earlier had I known what this thread was for).

Gaming Systems and Gaming History
I was first introduced to role-playing games in high school with 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons. Only in the last 3 or 4 years have I played games using other systems, such as Legend of the Five Rings and Song of Ice and Fire. I've heard about Exalted and World of Darkness, but I have never played them (though I have looked over the rules a bit and know a few people who have played them, so I have some familiarity). Despite experience (or knowledge) in these other systems, I've only DMed in D&D (both 3e and 4e).
Now I primarily play 4e D&D, though I'm constantly trying to find or build a rules-lite gaming system for the times I want a shorter game with quick character creation and fewer rules to remember.

Likes & Dislikes, Strengths & Weaknesses in Game Design
I love building worlds, yet very few of them ever get to the stage of being playable (since I usually skip from one setting to another). I have a stack of random notes all containing ideas, which I only occasionally go though to rewrite, edit, and save the best bits on my computer.
I absolutely love brainstorming. Often I get together with friends to simply talk about campaign settings, and often we come up with some interesting ideas. Online, I tend to do the same thing: If I spend the time to read a homebrew setting, I will inevitably comment on it (typically with praises, ideas, and suggestions).
For campaign worlds, I like both Sci-Fi and Fantasy. I find 'classic' settings to be bland and uninteresting (such as Tolkein rip-offs), while settings that do something completely different are interesting to me. The entire campaign setting itself need not be completely original, but so long as a major aspect is different from the norm (perhaps it depicts a classic fantasy race in a different style).

Other than not following through on a lot of my projects, of my biggest weaknesses is that I have a hard time coming up with adventures. I can build a plethora of worlds, and yet get writer's block when it comes to running the game (the most difficult part is starting off the campaign: why are the characters working together, and what makes them continue working together even after the first adventure ends?). Because of this problem, I'm trying to constantly remind myself to write adventure possibilities into the world while I'm designing it. That way, there is something for the PCs to do no matter where they go.

Published Settings that I use/like
I have never GMed in any setting I didn't create, and I'd have to say that I don't really care for published settings (whether I'm a player or GM). I prefer homebrew setting because it ensures that the GM knows everything about the setting, unlike a published setting where the GM has to constantly reference a book (or multiple books).
If I had to choose a published setting to play in or GM, I would go with Eberron simply because it is a setting that is different enough from your traditional fantasy setting and the setting itself makes a lot of sense. I like shades of grey instead of black and white (it seems more realistic), and you can tell that the author has put a lot of though into how the setting actually works (probably due to the setting's homebrew origins). I have never played in an Eberron game, though I think I would enjoy the experience.

Major Influences on World-Building
Truth is stranger than Fiction, with quantum physics being the prime example. I love looking at history and science for ideas, since there are so many interesting things in these subjects. I like to put as much realism into my campaign worlds as I can, because by doing so it makes the world more believable. When it comes to magic, I still try to make it believable and consistent within the setting.
It's hard to pin down specifically on what influences me, since most of my ideas just pop into my head. I'm a little bit of an insomniac, probably because I get my best ideas when I'm getting ready to go to bed (sometimes scribbling down notes like mad late into the night, just so I don't forget about it in the morning).
Edit: I almost forgot - I get a lot of ideas from looking at pictures online. I have a series of online art galleries that I look at, and they have been the source of many ideas. Some of the most consistent pictures are those of landscapes and cityscapes, since they work as a nice visual for what fantasy worlds look like.