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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HellHound" data-source="post: 4395117" data-attributes="member: 3397">Crossposted from my waffling thread:IntroductionI go by HellHound or a variant thereof on a dozen or so different RPG boards. My name is M Jason Parent, and I've been heavily involved in RPGs for over 26 years now. I've been a publisher, a writer, an illustrator (not a very good one), cartographer, and a rules-tweaking monster. I've run games in just about every genre and every style, from some seriously Monty Haul AD&D1e campaigns, to deep role-playing sessions in a variety of systems. I'm currently running games for 4+ gaming groups in a variety of systems - Dungeons & Dragons, Star Frontiers, Lacuna Part 1, Dark Heresy and Vampire: the Requiem. I've run a dozen or so RPG fansites over the years and am a chronic rules tweaker. I bring RPG books wherever I go and have a small stack on my office desk as well as a room dedicated to them at home.In 2002 I published my first professional product, and then won my first ENnie award that summer at Gen Con. Since then, I've been closely involved with the ENnies as an observer and volunteer since Denise got the job as Business Manager. After years of watching from the sidelines and helping behind the scenes, I figure I now the job better than anybody who hasn't already done it.1. When did you join the RPG hobby and what inspired you to become involved and stay with it?I started with D&D in 1980. I've been playing, without more than a 6 month break, for 28 years now. I'm one of those "system hoppers" - I've run or played over a hundred different games over the years, starting with the various TSR offerings and Traveller back in the 80's, and moving on to just about every game style and genre under the sun (with a lot of my teenage years spent playing a variety of Palladium RPGs). But I also keep coming back to D&D - running a BECM D&D campaign on and off for 12 years, and rediscovering D&D with the release of 3e in 2001 which then lead me to release my first "professional" RPG product.2. Since you joined the hobby, what roles have you played (e.g. vending, professional writing and publishing, freelancing, reviewing, convention organizing, homebrewing, playing, GMing, etc.)?Yes.Actually, I've never worked in the retail side of gaming. But I've been a writer (for Ambient, ENPublishing, Mystic Eye Games, Fantasy Flight Games, Paradigm Concepts) & publisher, I've worked with conventions (and was on a panel about epublishing at Origins a few years ago), and I've run a whole slew of RPG fansites (some of which are still around - such as my Star Frontiers, CyberPunk, deadEarth and a few other sites). For most of my gaming time I've been running games. I've run over a hundred systems over the years, and I've written house rules for a large number of them or tweaked them towards purposes I'm sure their authors never intended.3. The ENnies require a major commitment of time and mental energy. What resources do you bring that will help you discharge these responsibilities? Will your gaming group or other individuals be assisting you?  Does your family support you?I have an extensive background in game mechanics and design from 1980 onwards. I own in excess of 200 RPGs, at least half of which I've run, and a few of which I've actually been a player in. I don't read fiction much anymore, I bring RPG books to read when we go on family trips, when I go to bed, and there's always at least one RPG sitting on the 'reading desk' in the bathroom beside the throne. I also have 4+ gaming groups with a variety of members, all of which are willing (well, except for one player in one of the groups) to pick up new games and try them out with me.And I have the support of my family. Dextra (the current business manager of the ENnies) is my wife, so I've seen the ENnies run from the sidelines for years now, and am aware of the commitments involved, and so is she. Between her support and the support of my kids (13 and nearly 17), I know I'll be available through this.Plus, the 'crunch time' of the ENnie judging process falling on the first week of July gives me an excuse to bail on extended family gatherings for Canada Day.4. Judging requires a great deal of critical thinking skills, communication with other judges, deadline management, organization, and storage space for the product received. What interests, experience and skills do you bring that will make you a more effective judge?My day job is marketing director for a small firm with a lot of IT infrastructure - which means I'm constantly maintaining a dozen or so projects that require constant attention, hands-on action and reporting, and documentation so everyone else in the company has a clue as to what is going on.At home I have an entire room dedicated to nothing but games (and dance studio space). I know exactly how much product the judges receive every year, and the full collection is hardly enough to make a noticeable change on the shelves in that room.And what do I bring to the table? 28 years of meddling with game systems, playing games to the breaking point and beyond, modifying games, and in more recent years writing game supplements and even RPGs. And a wide variety of games at that - I've run or played in long-term campaigns of Gamma World, Omega World, CyberPunk, Shadowrun, B/X D&D, BECM D&D, AD&D1, D&D3.x, CyberPunk, Vampire the Masquerade, Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Star Frontiers, CyberPunk, Boot Hill, Recon, Call of Cthulhu, Top Secret, GURPS Autoduel, Traveller, MegaTraveller, CyberPunk, Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay (both editions), TMNT, RIFTS, The Palladium RPG, Robotech and I'm sure a few more that I'm forgetting - not counting the games I've only played or run a few times.5. What styles and genres of RPGs do you enjoy most? Are there any styles or genres that you do not enjoy? Which games best exemplify what you like?  Do you consider yourself a particular system’s, publisher’s or genre’s “fanboy/girl”?  My personal favourites are generally modern-day and near-future RPGs. I have an unhealthy obsession with firearms trivia. That said, I also run and play a lot of Fantasy RPGs because they provide a lot of freedom in character concepts and MacGuffins.I keep trying to come up with game genres that I don't like... but I can always think of a game in that genre that I love. For instance I'm not a fan of the Shadowrun setting, but am a fan of several other similar settings and games. Overall, I'm not happy with games that are written with the base assumption of the characters working as "operatives" and having missions handed to them by the GM. But then again, one of my favourite RPGs is Lacuna Part 1, a game that is exactly that on the surface. I tend to dislike point-buy character creation systems, but was blown away by the setting of Alpha Omega this year.I like games with a strong social conflict system - games that play up social settings as much as physical ones. I like games where something is drastically shifted from the paradigm you expect. I like games with a fairly unified mechanic so you can learn the main rules structure in the game with a simple role-play scene and fight scene. I like death spirals - no matter how unrealistic they are. I'm a total CyberPunk and Post-Apocalypse RPG fanboy. I'm also a fan of companies that support organized play in a big way - that kind of support for the player base gives me a case of the warm fuzzies.6. What system do you think is best designed? Is it the one you play most?This is the hardest question in this process.The game I play most is CyberPunk 2020 - it is DEFINITELY not the best designed system, in fact I play it in spite of the system.While I love the unified mechanic of the new World of Darkness, I don't like how it plays out in combat.I think d20 came close to being an incredible game system, but was bogged down by complexity. I think that True20 tried hard to clean that up, but didn't go far enough. For one-shot games, the simpler the better. This makes games like Lacuna Part 1 ideal for me (roll dice equal to your appropriate stat, difficulty of all rolls is 11). For extended games, I like games that provide a gentle power curve and reward process that improves characters gradually but also immediately. If the resolution mechanic of CyberPunk was not a straight d10, it would come close to this ideal for me (and if the game wasn't so shopping-oriented).In the end, a game system has to support the setting and vice-versa. That's what makes it work for me. 7. What games have you played in the past year?  List up to 10 RPGs you have played the most.Since GenCon 2007 I have played the following role playing games:Lacuna Part 1 - The Creation of the Mystery and the Girl in Blue City: I run this game whenever I have a gathering of gamers and non-gamers and people who don't play in my regular campaigns. It's my RPG obsession of late.D&D3.5: Specifically an Arcanis game and a random dungeon crawl game. We introduced our kids to gaming through D&D, and this is the game they love to play.CyberPunk 2020: I've been running the last ever CyberPunk 2020 campaign for our group for 18 months now. I'm a total CyberPunk junky.New Tribes: This is my own house-rules edition of CyberPunk. Ran a version of it for the first time for New Year's Eve to introduce a group of 9 players to a game other than D&D. One of the players had never role-played before, and the rest had never played another RPG. It was a rocking playtest of the game system.Exalted 2nd Edition: Pulled out the sample game and ran it for my D&D group. They found it interesting, but the player most into crazy acrobatics ended up playing the tank and in the end the game kind of fizzled.Star Frontiers: Yeah, the classic oldie from TSR. Ran a few games of Truane's Star Vice, a game where toupee-wearing dralasites in pastel suit jackets try to interrupt the drug trade around Truane's Star, to the sounds of 80's mega-hits.Vampire: the Requiem: Finally started a chronicle of this last summer and played a few sessions over the past year. Not impressed with how the combat system seems to be working, but happy with the rest of the game.Werewolf: the Apocalypse: Ran two games of this to introduce the oldest daughter's boyfriend to non-D&D games.Scion: Started a new Scion cycle two weeks ago.B/X D&D: My favourite flavour of D&D, but unfortunately we discovered it is NOT our D&D group's favourite flavour after three sessions, much to my chagrin.Warhammer Fantasy RP 2e: Ran two (awesomely fun) short campaigns to convert a player from miniature wargaming to roleplaying.8. Briefly summarize the criteria you will use for judging products in the different categories. How will you deal with comparing products of vastly disparate lengths, medium (PDF vs. print), or mechanics to prose ratios? Will innovation and originality play a major role?Originality yes, Innovation sometimes. Innovation for the sake of innovation is tiring, it has to suit the game, advance the story, or somehow really WORK for me to enjoy it. Originality is important, not that all th ematerial has to be original, but for example, if reading a book on necromantic magic, it should present ideas in a way that doesn't remind me of other books on necromantic magic.I've been a PDF publisher. I love the medium. However, the medium has it's limits. A huge PDF product is a pain to read - I'd much rather read it on paper. A very small product, or a product designed for a lot of referencing works very well in the PDF medium, as do adventures.After reading thousands of RPG books over the years, I look for a product that makes me stop reading it and go "wow". Better than that, a book that makes me start talking about the game to my wife and friends. Good mechanics and good prose both get me excited. A well-written game can make me want to play it, even if the mechanics bore me... and really cool mechanics can make me overlook shortcomings in other material in order to give them a test-drive.9. How will you judge supplements or adventures for game systems whose core rules you are unfamiliar with or you believe are badly designed? What about for systems that are out of print?First I would try to hunt down the rules for the supplement or adventure if I don't have them. If I do have them and don't like the rules set, I can still be excited about the supplements - as a long-time home-brewer, I've often taken supplements for one game and used them for another. I've run adventures for CyberPunk games over the years from at least a dozen different game systems (and vice versa - I ran a CyberPunk-feeling D&D campaign where I converted CyberPunk adventures to Eberron).For out of print systems, I would talk to my extensive network of gaming friends to obtain a copy of the rules if possible, otherwise I'll evaluate the product based on using it for another game of a similar feel.10. How would you like to see the ENnies change (categories, policies, etc)?  What should remain inviolate?I would like to see my wife a little more often. After the judging is over, she seems to go into ENnies overdrive for a month and goes to bed every night at 2-3 am. However, I can't see how to arrange this while she's the business manager, so I figure that jumping onboard will make it more of a family event.BONUS: (optional) If you were an RPG, what would it be, and would you play it?I would be an RPG where you play a robot on a variety of pharmaceuticals (with the base assumption that for some reason these drugs have the regular human effects on these robots), trying to save the world from Ninjas while also preventing your own cybernetic brain from exploding.It would use d4s and d12s primarily, and include optional rules for use as a drinking game (or for use with the consumption of other intoxicants).I would play it once, get way too far into it (anyone at the Feng Shui table from Origins a few years ago knows what I'm talking about), then my brain would explode.-----------------BONUS BONUS:I have worked in the RPG industry in the past. I have self-published books and had RPG material of mine published by other publishers. I have a history with these publishers, and I am married to the current Business Manager of the ENnies.However, I keep my biases under control, IMO. I have a history of dislike for a few companies over the years, however I still play some of their games, and am blown away by others of theirs and promote them. I am also not a hardcore fanboy to the point of it colouring my perceptions of a game.With regards to my wife (Dextra) being the Business Manager of the ENnies, I feel that this is more a benefit than a problem. I am probably more aware of the ENnies process than anyone who has not already been a judge. When Dextra has questions about products and their eligibility in certain categories, she usually already comes to me for advice. And finally, because I'm running to be a judge this year, she has asked that a third party with a proven track record for valueing democratic process take over as returning officer for the judging panel elections. -----------------I am over 18 years of age and can enter into a legal contract.I have had noprofessional relationship with any RPG publisher from the period of May 2006 to August 1st, 2009.I have in the past done freelance work for several publishers (Fantasy Flight Games, Mystic Eye Games, Paizo, Paradigm Concepts), published my own work under Ambient Inc. and E.N. Publishing, and was full partner and co-owner of E.N. Publishing.My employment requires a fairly high skill level in communicating in the English Language.</blockquote>

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