[OT] Who are YOU and what do you DO?

[Sidereal Knight]

I'm a white male, 31 years old (born on Friday, August 13th). I have lived all my life in Indiana, and currently work as a web developer and computer programmer for the Indianapolis public library. It's a great job... I do what I enjoy while helping people. (Now if I could just figure out how to play D&D at the same time... ) I also do some freelance web site development, and volunteered my skills for some other non-profit organizations including the local racing greyhound rescue group.

My partner and I will be celebrating our 7th anniversary this fall. (I am openly gay, and am "out" in all facets of my life.) We don't have any kids, but we share living space with 4 cats and far too many books. I introduced him to D&D a couple of years ago, and now he's getting ready to run his first game.

I started playing D&D in 5th grade after being introduced to it by some cousins. I've played most of the incarnations of D&D as well as Ars Magica, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, and Vampire (during my angst-ridden college years). Over the years I have also sampled everything from Toon and Paranoia to Gamma World, Top Secret, and Champions.

I have been playing with my current gaming group for the last 8 years. I'm not the DM, but I have been known to take a turn when our main DM needs a break.

Beyond D&D, I enjoy reading SciFi and Fantasy literature, photography, going to movies, light hiking.

I tend to be rather reserved until I get to know someone, and I tend to fall into the trap of over-compensating for this shyness with people I want to impress.

I did attend GenCon this year, but I wasn't able to spend as much time there as I wanted. I missed all of the ENworld get-togethers, but I probably would have ended up tongue-tied in the corner

However, I did get to play in a Mutants and Masterminds demo run by Steve Kenson himself! (Great fellow, excellent GM, and very personable... He was kind enough to sign my book, and I'm the envy of all my friends )

As you can tell from my post count, I tend to be a lurker (see the note about my shyness above). I never feel that I express myself well in print.

Well, back to lurking...

 

[Cedric]

Howdy guys...I'm 31 and I live in Austin, Texas. I'm just recently married as of June 14th (since our Daughter just turned 3, we thought it might be a good idea to get married, heh).

I'm a pretty unconventional person with unconventional view points on life....thankfully so is my wife. We're both Pagan and Polyamorous.

I didn't have the chance to get started gaming until I joined the Navy. First tried out gaming at 19...and I've been doing it every since.

I've done a lot of different jobs in the past (Electronics Technician, Nuclear Plant Operator for the Navy, Technical Instructor, Electrical/Electronic Lab Testing, QA Lab Associate, Customer Service Supervisor...and a few more).

Currently I work for Dell at their Headquarters in Round Rock, TX as a Senior Wireless Networking Technician...which I must say I enjoy a great deal. (great company to work for or buy from...I own 4 Dell computers).

I'm happy to see a few people who posted were from Lubbock, TX. I was born there (though I moved away when I was young), but my family still lives there...and it's nice to see gaming going on in Lubbock. On a side note...if you live in Lubbock, TX I highly recommend the Carne Guisada Burrito's from Rosita's on 34th and Ave A....food of the gods, I swear it.

Cedric (well...ok, my name is Greg, but when I started here my character's name was Cedric).

 

[CanadienneBacon]

I lived in Lubbock from 1993-1997. Lubbock is mostly bad memories for me, but they do have some good restaurants. Like the chili cheeseburger joints, and all the other mom 'n pop burger and burrito shops.

 

[Mort]

29, living in Chicago. I'm an attorney and work for a firm specializing in bankruptcy. I'm married with no children and one cat.

 

[Agback]

G'day!

I thought we were supposed to list this stuff in our user profiles, but since we are repeating it here I'll repeat it here.

I'm 38 and single (never married): a retired economist living on my annuities and investments. When I retired from the Australian Public Service (Bureau of Transport Economics) I sold my expensive semi-detatched house in Canberra and moved back to Kempsey, the country town where I grew up.

I started playing RPGs with AD&D at Sydney Grammar School in 1980. Since then I have also played Traveler, Rolemaster, MERP, Champions (three versions), Marvel Superheroes, Justice, Inc., James Bond 007, both Star Wars the Role-playing Gamess, Space: 1889, Vampire: the Masquerade, Vampire: the Sabbat, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, CyberPunk 2020, Call of Cthulhu, RunneQuest, DragonQuest, Castle Falkenstein, The Fantasy Trip, In Nomine, Bushido, Fading Suns, Immortal, Hunter Planet, Chivalry & Sorcery (3rd edition), Legend of the Five Rings, Flashing Blades, Privateers & Gentlemen, ForeSight, HindSight, and ForeSight Enhanced, not all of which I can recommend. I have taken part in a couple of freeforms (that's Australian for 'LARPS') but I found them not to my liking.

I was involved with the role-playing club at the University of New South Wales from 1982 to 1984 (I designed the module Escape from Fortress Fohgidon for their first mini-con), and at the Australian National University from 1986-1989. I collaborated with Tonio Loewald on some of the ForeSight flexiforms run at CanCon and later with the redoubtable Andrew Smith on the very successful Canberra by Night Vampire event, a successful Jack Vance fantasy freeform (mostly his) and an unsuccessful Jack Vance SF freeform (mostly mine). In 1998 I ran an SF freeform at Sydcon called Uninvited Guests, which was very good but with didn't attract the interest I had been hoping for.

I designed a very detailed non-conventional fantasy setting, Gehennum, of which a partial description is on the Web. I also designed a rather detailed firm-SF setting called Flat Black, on which an unsuccessful comic book project was based. At the moment I am working on a novel set in Gehennum and a random planet generator for Flat Black.

I am unable to pursue my passion for RPGs at the moment because there seem to be no roleplayers closer than about two hours drive. I am also finding that there aren't very many people who share my other interests hereabouts. I think that I might move to a town with a university in it and do a Graduate Diploma or Masters in history or planetary science or a PhD in Economics so that I can meet some more like-minded people (and, with luck, some intelligent and intellectual single women).

Apart from RPGs, my interests are cooking, wine, SF, fantasy, biology, planetary science, [digital] photography, history, and body-surfing.

I am 179 cm tall, and since I retired I have got my weight down from 127 kg to 97 kg: I'm aiming for 86 kg by the beginning of summer (December) and ought to make it by October. For some reason people I meet casually all seem to assume that I am a Rugby player. You can see my photograph at <http://www.enworld.org/modules.php?...ame=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php>.

Until now I have always been too busy to travel overseas, and had better things to do with the money. But now that I am no longer working, and now that I'm spending rather than saving, I have scheduled a trip for the coming Spring. I will be in California for the second half of September and in Monmouthshire for the first half of October.

I have a dog, a three-year-old Labrador bitch named 'Lily'. My favourite writers are Mary Renault and Jack Vance. The last book I read was Worlds Apart: a textbook in planetary sciences (Consolmagno & Schaefer 1994, ISBN 0-13-964131-9). And I suffer from bipolar mood disorder.

Regards,


Agback

{EDIT: coding, spelling, punctuation}

 

[mac1504]

28 years old, ex-Army, and working as a general manager for a start-up miniature game company called Hundred Kingdoms by Black Orc Games. Perhaps you saw us at GenCon?

 

[tarchon]

Cool. I'm 31 and a Kemetic Orthodox priest (one year ordained as of next Monday, two years as a ritual technician, three helping with administration).

You weren't at GenCon were you? I sat next to an orthodox priest who'd been there when I was waiting in the airport Monday morning.

 

[Jeremy757]

I'm 29, male, and from Dallas. Born and raised in Texas. I have lurked here since this place existed but for some reason only recently started posting.

I have a B. S. degree in printing and work at the copy center (or reprographic center as they call it) of a major drug company here in DFW. Imo not talking your kinko's type copy center either, I'm talking industrial strength high volume copy machines. We are everything a print shop is but with copy machines instead of printing presses.

I was introduced to gaming back in 89 when my best friends mother found and bought the ODD Red Box thinking it was a board game me and my friend could play. We were horrible confused at first but me and my two best childhood friends taught ourselves how to roleplay. A year later I bought MY first roleplaying game Top Secret SI. I had to convince my mother that the stuff on the picture in the advertisement I showed her didn't come with the game. Ohhh, those were the days.

I have played or ran pretty much every game under the sun. In college I ran an Earthdawn campaign for three years. It was the longest consecutive campaign I ever ran with the same players, and for the most part same characters. At the same time I ran one of the more elaborate Earthdawn fan sites at that time, called Jeremy's Earthdawn.

I currently run a (soon to be 3.5) Forgotten Realms campaign set in the Vilhon Reach and Pirate Isles.

I love all types of music, but my favorite is Jazz: Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Rippingtons, Spyro Gyra.

I read when I can, which is probably more then the average joe. The last few books I read were a biography of John Adams, Days of the French Revolution, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and I am currently reading a biography of T.E. Lawrence.

I think that's me in a nutshell, but psychodrama free.

 

[francisca]

34 year-old white guy, who has been told by the family historian I am a nearly direct line descedant of Charles Martell (though I make no claim, as I haven't personally verified it). I have been married 8+ years to my best friend who is also a great wife and mother to our 2 boys, ages 4 and 1.

I'm a computer systems engineer at a proverbial "large, conservative, midwestern university". There, I maintain Solaris and Linux systems. I also teach computer systems architecture part-time at the same university.

Wife is a non-gamer, but very supportive. I've known her since 7th grade, though we were not childhood sweet-hearts.

Started playing D&D in 7th grade, picked up Gamma World after that. I quit in high school, then picked up RPGs again in 2000, and started running a 3E game in 2002. I have way more RPG material than I'll ever use.

As far as Music: Rush is at the top of the list, then various guitar-oriented bands follow. I'm also a fan of classical and celtic music, some hip-hop, jazz, even a little country.

Books: fave authors include Fritz Leiber, Tolkien, Asimov, R. E. Howard., Phillip K. Dick. About the only non-fiction I read is history, mainly cultural works and military history. My current reads: Hero with a Thousand Faces by Campbell and Warfare in the Classical World by Warry

Movies/TV: I love Monty Python, Farscape, Babylon 5, Futurama, Samurai Jack, and the History Channel. It is my goal to never ever watch another Reality, Doctor, Lawyer, or Cop show as long as I live.

Other than that, I enjoy spending time with my wife and kids, making loud noise with my guitar, hunt and fish when I can, and try to keep the local politicians in their place via the local paper's opinion column.

edit: I'm also looking for a Hackmaster game in the Lafayette/West Lafayette, IN area.

 

[MerricB]

G'day!

I'm a 30 year old Australian, currently living in a bluestone house on Mount Bolton, Victoria, Australia.

I'm a computer programmer by trade, and I work at Ballarat Grammar School, primarily dealing with their computerised reporting system.

I've been playing D&D for about 21 years, and Magic for slightly over 9. One of my main hobbies is writing articles about one or the other.

I'm also somewhat musical - I sing as a tenor in the Ballarat Choral Society. At the moment, we're rehearsing the German Requiem by Brahms for a Nov 30 performance. I've been known to play the piano a bit and compose as well.

I'm probably best known for my (passionate) defenses of 3E, 3.5E, WotC, Magic 8th Edition and the D&D Miniatures games, the odd review I do, and my legacy as a Killer DM.

Cheers!