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

[Sullaf]

Hi,

I'm 23, living in Holland (the real land of freedom ) studying Business Information Systems (don't ask me what it is, I don't know either) at the University of Amsterdam and have been playing since about 8 (red box thingy). Sometimes I play alot, sometimes I don't play for months. During the weekends I'm a barkeep at a local pub, which pays for my college costs (yes the life of a student is a poor one) and offers me free beer

I am rather divided into two individuals. One side of me is the social guy who likes to flirt with girls, go out with friends, get drunk and do stupid things. The other side of me is rather serious, a geek, likes computers (yes I feel like a god if I spend a whole week trying to fix a computer and eventually it works), plays dnd, likes to be left alone with a good book and frowns upon world politics (wrong forum, I know ) . Then again most people seem to like me this way so why change?

I have been with my gf for 2 years now and although she sometimes frowns upon my 'geeky' side, she is the sweetest girl in the world and accepts me for who I am (which is a good thing if you are geeky)

We have a dedicated group of friends (which includes Ravellion, one of my best buddies and a killer DM (as in he really kills pc's... hard and ruthless)) who 'try' to game each fridaynight (before hitting the pubs) but the older we get, the less time we seem to have (funny that) and our gaming sessions have gone full stop, although we are working on a comeback.

I've been lurking around the boards enjoying other peoples posts, but not much of a poster myself (for one thing, my English isn't all that great) although I do like the PbP sessions, but I am quite happy just doing that. Best of all: I won a prize for helping Morrus go to GenCon! Woohoo!

And Clerks is the best movie ever, no matter what you all say!

 

[buzz]

I'm 31, married (with 3.5 kids)...

Ah, so they have d8 hit dice and better favored enemy bonuses?

:ducks:

Anyway, this thread has been a pretty interesting read. I'm very happy to see that so many teachers and clergy are part of the ENWorld community. To all of you, I say: INDOCTRINATE THE YOUNG!

Anyway...

I'm Buzz, and I'm a gamer.

33 tomorrow, and have just made it through my first year as a husband... utter bliss. Currently a Web designer getting by on consulting work, but could really use a stable job, if such a thing is even possible any more. I have a B.A. in English from one a' them thar black-turtleneck-n'-cigarettes colleges on the East coast.

Politically, I'm fairly libertarian (small "L"), and religiously, I'm fairly agnostic, but with some Taoism thrown in. I tend to get really riled up about defending women's issues, despite not being one. Basically, I'm one of those psychos who actually enjoyed reading Atlas Shrugged.

I started gaming in 1980 with the "blue book" Basic D&D set; the days when real gamers used chits! AFAIC, Runequest is pretty much the RPG by which all other RPGs are measured. My current fave systems are d20 and HERO.

I read quite a bit, though my enjoyment of good fiction has been curtailed by the seemingly endless supply of great gaming books coming out lately (damn you Steve Long, DAMN YOU!). I'd probably list Harlan Ellison as the author I enjoy and admire most, while Heinlein, Card, Leiber, Niven, Tolkien, and Zelazny would make my list of "other authors I enjoy a whole lot."

I really like reading graphic novels as well, but I wouldn't say that I'm an avid comic collector. Alan Moore rocks my world, as does Kurt Busiek.

I've never been too hardcore into computer gaming, though I did get hooked on the original Civilization for a while. Frankly, I prefer games that are a social experience; I spend enough time sitting alone in front of a computer at work.

The only TV shows I watch with any regularity are Gilmore Girls, Smallville and Enterprise (I'm a Trek whore), though I keep my eye peeled for MST3k. I'll happily watch That 70's Show, The Simpsons, and even, uh Friends while my wife and I have dinner. Honestly, though, I'd rather be reading, spending time with my wife, or lurking on ENWorld and RPG.net than watching TV.

I hardly go to movies any more, but will gladly leave the house for LOTR or X2. Most are simply not worth the high ticket pirces; that, and I don't need to "shhh!" anybody when I watch a DVD at home. Fave films include: Excalibur, Bliss, Shawshank Redemption, The Man Who Would Be King, It's a Wonderful Life, Aliens, Raiders..., and, the mother of all movies, This is Spinal Tap. I also have a really high tolerance for "chick flicks," e.g., I genuinely enjoyed Anne of Green Gables. Sorry, guys...

My other main hobby is music. I've been playing guitar for about 17 years now, occasionally even getting paid to do so. U2, XTC, and the Police are my musical holy trinity. I am, however, also well-versed in the funk. Though I'm a little less Eddie Hazel and a little more Leo Neocentelli...

Now, my main musical outlet is Gyrating Bhtch (we've been having server issues, so apologies if the site is down). There's oodles of profanity and other silliness in these songs, so please be careful where and with whom you listen to them. All I can say is, I don't write most of the lyrics.

We generally get together once or twice a year and write and record as many songs as possible in the span of a day or two. We also do Christmas parody songs. We've written and produced a musical, "Captain Flywheel and the Produce Section," and will be performing our Christmas material as part of the "Christmas, My Ass" show this year at the WNEP theater in Chicago.

So, there you go. More info than you ever would have wanted.

 

[Surfal]

I'm a 35 yr old male living in northern Virginia. I've been married for 10 years and have two children, ages 5 and 2. My wife is gaming-tolerant when it comes to RPGs.

I started playing when I was 12, played all through high school but not much in college except for one year. Played fairly steadily after college, and have for the past 10 years run a game that meets about 6 times a year (!) but is a great deal of fun. That's my only FRP game at the moment.

I'm into miniatures games, boardgames and boardgame design. My current faves are Tigris and Euphrates and Cities and Knights of Catan. Other entertainment includes video games (SFC, Myth, Total War), carpentry and golf.

Professionally I'm a consultant in the transportation systems industry. It pays the bills.

 

[Tom Cashel]

From his mother's womb untimely ripp'd, Thomas Cashel Fitzmaurice O'Boyle O'Flynn spent his early years watching The Flintstones and Star Trek with his dad, and his middle single-digits being bounced being divorced parents. In high school he discovered RPGs and comic books, and many sunny days were spent indoors rolling dice and creating the tales of Oakenstaff (aka Karadd-Tak of Arabel) and Eliot Tarnweb (the so-called Emerald Sage). After high school he began a decade-long program of college classes, rock-and-roll musicianship, Discordianism, and Thai stick...which left him with a Master's in English and a healthy disdain for seriousness, pomposity, ritual and tradition alike. These days he enjoys writing, gaming (until recently), NY Rangers hockey, and the occasional acid flashback. He reads voraciously and works as a Managing Editor for a Washington D.C. association. He just got married last May, and Mrs. Cashel is learning to tolerate his quaquaversal ways. You'd be well-advised to put him on your Ignore List at your soonest convenience.

 

[Jazz]

Hi, I guess its my turn,

I am 30 years old, brazilian, married for 3.5 years, no kids, and a huge dog (english mastiff) named Spike. My wife hates rpgs, computer games and science fiction. But I love her from the bottom of my heart. We have and agreement and I can play rpgs twice a month.
I am currently playing in 3 groups of D20 games. I gm a D20 Star Wars game set in the Rebellion Era and am a player in a D&D Scarred Lands Campain, where I play a druid. The other game is a Dragonstar one where I play a female rogue/fighter in her way to became a shadowdancer.
I have been playing rpgs for 14 years now. It was really hard then cause we had so little material here in Brazil. It was very hard and expensive. But now things are better. We have a big distributor that sells to all the country and we also have some FLGS.
I am also an architect that works for a famous office here in Brazil and I also have my own desings and constructions.
I buys as much material as I can, but the price is really an issue here, so I have been looking forward to buying more pdf material.
EN has been a second home for me in the past years. I really love this place.
Best regards to you all.

 

[Farganger]

I'm fast approaching 40, very happily married for 8 years to a wonderful fellow Yalie who games a bit as well, but, alas is soon relocating to LA to begin graduate study at USC's film school. (A fantastic opportunity, but very tough on us, since I am remaining in Boston, a city we both love and don't want to lose our connections to.) My wife and I don't have any children, but our Beacon Hill digs do harbor a rather vicious cat, prowling among the tottering stacks of books.

I started playing D&D in the mid-70s, when only a beamish boy, and sporadically role-played through a stint in the Marine Corps and college at UC Berkeley, although more often Runequest or Villains & Vigilantes than D&D itself.

I had a long hiatus during graduate school in Oxford and law school at Yale and during my first few years of practice (managing to pretty much miss 2nd edition), but joyfully returned to gaming a few weeks after 3rd edition hit the stands.

Currently, I run one weekly game and play in another (and am quite happy with both groups), play a good bit of NWN on-line and just wish there was more time in the day frankly. (I do spend a bit too much time reading boards like this one, and mentally ordering and reordering details and plot-threads in my campaign!) I have left private practice and now work as an attorney for an asset management company, where I am busy but less focused on billable hours, which is a good thing indeed.

Hm . . . what else do I do? I am a book collector, enthusiastic if undistinguished wine and Scotch drinker and active on too many boards and in too many Boston clubs - at least I'll have plenty of places to eat dinner while my wife is away at USC!

 

[Rel]

Marine Corps and college at UC Berkeley

I'm guessing that led to some interesting conversations.

 

[Old One]

I'm guessing that led to some interesting conversations.

Hey Rel -

I was just thinking the same thing! Wonder how the flower power crew at UC Berkley handled a former leatherneck...

~ Old One

 

[HellHound]

31 years old, married with two kids.

Did very well in High School until it bored me. Dropped out of Honours Biochemistry in second year and became a professional body piercer and industrial music DJ.

Went back to school several years later in Machining, but dropped out hwne I got a big industrial job in my home town. Moved back home to the farm I grew up on with my wife and kids and worked in the steel mill for 5 years before being laid off for a year.

Just before being laid off, started e-publishing d20 books under my wife's company name of Ambient Inc. (which were quite the success).

Got recalled to the Mill, and have just finished getting fired as of this week (well, tomorrow).

I'm overweight and have poor willpower at best (thus I have never seriously lost weight). I don't drink very often (four or five times a year), but when I do, I drink a lot. I don't do a lot of drugs (anymore), but have a love for the ritual intake of Lysergic Acid twice a year on the longest and shortest nights of the year. When depressed, I resort to shopping for RPG stuff to cheer me up. The result is that I own over 100 different RPGs now (I think the count is 117), and I tweak ALL of them before playing them.

I love organization, but am poorly organized because I do it in spurts when it interests me. Once it becomes important or mandatory, I lose interest in it (I am quite the procrastinator). I grew up with hippies and thus am very 'liberal' in outlook and couldn't imagine living anywhere but Canada except possibly one of the very liberal countries in Europe.

Over the last two years I have discovered something new about myself. I LOVE selling stuff. In fact, I love it enough that I am going back to school this September in order to take Business Management & Marketing. Although I hate wearing a tie, I am willing to wear a suit all day if it means never having to work night shifts at a steel mill again.

I'm a fervent Discordian (and am considering doing a Principia D20 Discordia as a joke for April 2004), neo-pagan, santerian, who-knows-what personal religion I have built up for myself. I don't see myself as VERY religious, but I certainly have my beliefs in higher powers.

I've been married for 7 years to a lovely woman whom I met through the BBS (old-school forums) and S&M scene. We have two lovely daughters. Our farmhouse is slowly collapsing around us, but as it does, we get to look out over 200 acres of farmland.

 

[Rel]

Hey Rel -

I was just thinking the same thing! Wonder how the flower power crew at UC Berkley handled a former leatherneck...

~ Old One

As I understand it, Old One, there is no such thing as a former marine.

Incidentally, though you know I already hold you in high regard, I did not realize that you were a West Point grad. I'm impressed. It does help explain why your tactics are so excellent.