OT: So... Who am I gaming with?

[stonegod]

It's OK. You can admit it. We won't hold it against you .

My former dept. head still identifies me as "the one from California."

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

My former dept. head still identifies me as "the one from California."

Shouldn't he have nicknamed you Hollywood? Or is TV not an accurate depiction of southern US mores?

 

[CaBaNa]

Ha ha ha! Hocus Pocus is my favorite example of that.

[MENTION=36973]stonegod[/MENTION], that explains why you're the keeper of the lore.

 

[dimsdale]

Hello all. My real name is Kruk. Not really, it's Dave. Although...out of all of the characters I roleplay, I'd have to say that Kruk and I have many similar personality traits. I'm happily married (12 years now) with three children. I teach middle school math, this being my 16th year. I love it...never a dull moment. Yes...that makes me an old fart...well, middle aged old fart, but I am in tune with my inner child .

My wife and kids tease me terriblely for playing pbp. I take their abuse proudly and in stride, as I continue to attack the forces of evil with Kruk, Grakk, Max, Knoepf and Rumbum. I try to explain to my children that there is nothing better than coming home from a tough day at work, picking up an axe, and chopping the arm off a zombie, but they just don't seem to understand...sigh! They shake their heads and give me their best eye roll. Has anyone ever experienced an eyeroll? <shuttering at the thought>

I've really enjoyed the Enworld experience, now finishing up my 2nd year. I'm looking foward to many more years of adventuring with such a creative group of people from all over the globe.

I do enjoy a beer or two...or five every now and then. I'll have to try some of the ones mentioned in this thread. I only drink ales as I find the darker beers too bitter.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

I only drink ales as I find the darker beers too bitter.

Ah, a chance to be an insufferable know-it-all, hurray! Friendly warning; Ignore this post if you don’t care about beer.

Most of the dark beers are ale, dimsdale, though color has nothing to do with a beer being an ale or not. And in fact, the bitterest beers are frequently both ale and pale!

What makes an ale as opposed to a lager is the temperature at which the fermentation occurs; low temperature for lagers and room temperature for ales. This affects what kind of yeast is used and how it behaves. Lager’s fermentation tends to be more thorough and leave a smoother taste with little aromatic sediments. Ales tend to have a stronger taste because there are more residues. It’s more complex than that but even I can’t get into the technicality of how yeast breaks down sugars in different condition.

As a gross generalization, lagers make the bulk of the mass market beers (Bud, Coors etc. are all lagers) while ale are favored by aficionados (read; beer snobs like me ). It’s a bit unfair though, because quality lagers certainly exist and Germany is the king in that field.

What determines the color of a beer is the temperature used when the malt is dried (before we get to the fermentation). If you let it dry on its own you'll get the common gold color. If you heat or smoke it you'll get the deeper shades from caramel colored to pitch black. Roasted Malt can give flavors of coffee or chocolate to beer. But it has little to do with bitterness.

Bitterness of the beer is principally caused by hops; what kind was used, how fresh, what quantity, with what kind of water (mineral content has big impact) etc.

And bitterness is not an ugly word. You get used to it just like you get used to it in coffee. In my case, I used to put 2 milk and three sugars in my coffee by habit while in parallel developing a taste for some bitter beer (India Pale Ale, mostly). Then one day I suddenly realized by accident I preferred my coffee black!

In conclusion, good beer is like wine. It’s an acquired taste. The good news is that unlike wine, quality beer usually isn’t that much more expansive than the commercial fare, especially if you discover the local micro-brewery.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Hello all. My real name is Kruk. Not really, it's Dave. Although...out of all of the characters I roleplay, I'd have to say that Kruk and I have many similar personality traits. I'm happily married (12 years now) with three children...

Oh, an my hats off to another family man! dims, renau, H.M... Plenty to go around.

I'm a recent uncle and godfather (the little darling just turned a month old today) and I'm getting all of the fun stuff and none of the hard work! Wee!

 

[Voda Vosa]

Hello all. My real name is Kruk. Not really, it's Dave. Although...out of all of the characters I roleplay, I'd have to say that Kruk and I have many similar personality traits. I'm happily married (12 years now) with three children. I teach middle school math, this being my 16th year. I love it...never a dull moment. Yes...that makes me an old fart...well, middle aged old fart, but I am in tune with my inner child .

My wife and kids tease me terriblely for playing pbp. I take their abuse proudly and in stride, as I continue to attack the forces of evil with Kruk, Grakk, Max, Knoepf and Rumbum. I try to explain to my children that there is nothing better than coming home from a tough day at work, picking up an axe, and chopping the arm off a zombie, but they just don't seem to understand...sigh! They shake their heads and give me their best eye roll. Has anyone ever experienced an eyeroll? <shuttering at the thought>

I've really enjoyed the Enworld experience, now finishing up my 2nd year. I'm looking foward to many more years of adventuring with such a creative group of people from all over the globe.

I do enjoy a beer or two...or five every now and then. I'll have to try some of the ones mentioned in this thread. I only drink ales as I find the darker beers too bitter.

Ah the dread eyerolls! My girlfriend just don't get it too. I've had more than a couple of fights about role playing and even about these forums. Me and my group have to gather at another house as she won't stand us playing all day. We make a session once a week as most. We are currently playing M&M 2e and having a blast. Since I started studying at the university we had dropped it, but now we have our titles and careers finished, we've found time to gather once again and game a little. I missed it.

So Dave, don't let eye-rolls get in the middle of your entertainment! Perseverance pays, even my girl had to admit I write English better than hers, who had former English teaching, while I started gameing after just one year of learning. My whole vocabulary comes from En World!

 

[evilbob]

I'm also a big RPG fan and have been since I knew what they were. Been playing D&D for a while, although I have to confess all the recent (like, last 3 months recent) changes are starting to make me very weary of the product. Prefer computer games, and I'm a bit of a WoW addict, although I can quit at any time! I'm actually a fan of really bad beer: if it actually tastes like beer, I probably won't drink it.

As you can tell from my spelling, I live in the US. And I think that's about all I'd like to share with all you dangerous internet predators!

 

[Moon_Goddess]

My name is Darwin, LoL duh. I run a computer repair shop. I've got a great girlfriend, who totally doesn't understand why i do stuff like this, though I have tricked her into playing Minecraft, and 2 sometimes good/sometimes evil cats. OH and 2 gerbils.

I've been playing RPGs, Since well before I knew there were tabletop RPGs, I kept trying to create my own video game rpg on graph paper for my brothers and sister.

I've been doing play by post since on fateful day when I saw Vadania in the PHB and created an account under her name, then I noticed someone had created a Regdar, next thing I knew Piratecat was running us through Nemorden's vault and the rest is history.

 

[DMDanW]

Hello, my name is Dan, and I'm an alcoholic....Oh, wait, wrong group.

Alright seriously now, I'm Dan, 34 years of age and have been gaming in one form or another for around 25 years. I'm married (10 years now) and have 2 boys, ages 5 and 7 who keep me terribly busy. During the day I run the Manufacturing Planning department for a company that builds engineered electrical power distribution and control products. At night I attempt to balance being super dad with all the regular chores and obstacles life throws at me.

When I can I try and squeeze in the occasional movie, some reading time (other than when in the "library") and as much as possible some videogame time. Other interests include Hockey (Go Canucks!) and CFL football (congratulations Montreal on another Grey Cup victory).

[sblock=Gaming History]
My gaming career started off with Battletech, which I believe is now refereed to as Classic Battletech, a fun tabletop giant robot combat game.

Soon after at around the age of 12 or so, I began playing MERP (bonus points for anyone who knows what that one is) and started DMing soon after.

MERP led to Rolemaster which led to years of migraine headaches due to the 'rainman' level of math required to play.

Played a little AD&D in around that period, but switched over to Paladium RPG, as the one guy around with the D&D books stopped playing. A few years of Paladium led into some Rifts RPG which led to more migranes, this time due to the lack of math (or any logical rule-set for that matter).

It was at about that point that gaming took a backseat to teenage shenanigans and a gaming hiatus ensued for a few years.

Got back into gaming in my early 20's with a lot of the same guys I had gamed with in high-school and we began playing once a week. It was not long after that started when 3rd edition was announced. We decided to switch into D&D as it was a fresh new edition that everyone could start fresh from. So began a long run of weekly game nights, where we rarely missed more than 2 or 3 sessions per year, up until my first son was born.

Even being married to someone who does not understand why I play "geeky" games did not have the impact that having a child did. My spare time instantly disappeared and I had to step away from gaming.

I did get back with my gaming group a little while later, but then once again my wife and I decided to have another little one and since that point my weekly game nights have been on hold.

For quite a while I attempted to live vicariously though the others that still gamed weekly, through email updates and even to the point of having the sessions voice recorded so that I could listen in after. That didn't cut it either, and frankly was the crown of geekness upon my head.

That's when I stumbled upon the ENWorld forms (which I had for years visited for DM advice, especially when running RttToEE), and more specifically the pbp section. I lurked for a while and then one day just decided to jump in. I had so much fun playing that I soon had to give DMing a try (Which in RL I prefer to do anyway) and love that too.
[/sblock]

So aside form that (which turned out to be a lot longer winded than I planned so I threw it in a sblock) I am currently hooked on a few videogames. I play Civilization V whenever I can plan to sit in front of my home PC for extended periods of time (OK, OK, when my wife lets me), as it is one of the best in the series IMO.

When I feel like I need to let out some Rage I Play Combat Arms, a free to play online FPS, that I surprisingly liked (as I was never much into the shooter genre and only tried cause it was free) and is in itself quite addictive.

I have also recently discovered Minecraft, which has not only sucked in quite a lot of my free time, but also that of my 5 and 7 year old sons, whom I now have to share and negotiate computer time with.

OK, so that's me.

(Oh, and no offense meant by my opening comment. Alcoholism is a serious issue and nothing to joke about.)