My name is Tae. Pronouns are He/Him. I was born in Massachusetts in 1990, but I move around a lot now for work.
D&D Experience: I started playing D&D 3.5 in 2008 and have pretty much played or DMed a game at least every other week since then. In 2011, I switched to playing the Pathfinder RPG and have been on/off playing 5E since 2015. I've consistently played or DM'd on Roll20 since about 2013.
Playstyle: I like my characters to be directly involved in the storyline, building reputations with significant NPCs and chasing after plothooks and adventures with a sense of purpose and tenacity. Bringing the other PCs together to work things out and overcome challenges gives me a thrill and a sense of comradery, so I do my best to try to get other players to involve themselves, especially when their characters are well suited to the task at hand. Generally, I tend to play frontline tanks, but I can be pretty versatile; I just like being in the heat of things when combat starts and holding off enemies from going after my allies.
Other Tabletops: "Changeling: The Lost" wasn't bad, "Mutants and Masterminds" and "Shadowrun" which both had settings that I just couldn't get into, and "Exalted" which I thought was completely terrible trash with a cliche setting and terrible mechanics. I prefer to stick to Pathfinder and 5E, because the mechanics tend to be fairly balanced and I'm just more of a Fantasy type of player; High Fantasy, Low Fantasy, Dark/Horror Fantasy, Medieval Fantasy, etc.
Describe yourself as a player: I'm the player who always shows up early to the game, because D&D is not just a hobby for me, it's basically a personal obsession. I'm the player who has to be directly involved in the storyline. I always play characters who fight in melee; tanks, because I love being on the front lines. I try to play interesting characters with deep backstories that define them through race, class, history, personality, experience, down to the very ways they move and speak. I always like playing something a bit a ways from the stereotypical, though. Recently; I played a half orc who hated orcs for slaughtering his human village and set out to defend humanoids from monstrous humanoids, a half-elf with a childhood story hero who tried to live up to the image of that hero despite being only a silver-tongued coward, and a human who is social awkward and began worshiping the deity Sarenrae after his mother died to find purpose in his life that ultimately led him to seek a better future for all beings in the near world. I prefer to avoid speaking out of character, but when I do, I try to contribute something to make the game better for everyone or speak subtly as not to interrupt the session.
Previous DM describes me as a player: "You're a bit by-the-books, not very talkative in-character and the sort of player who looks for a way to make their character be motivated by the GM's plothooks instead of making their own or going with it for no reason. You play the quiet stoic a lot, but you at least do it well which goes a long way in making the role tolerable. You're more than willing to go with the party on almost anything if you can think of a reason to do it and while you'll bring up a rule conflict the instant you see it, you'll often be fine with the GM going 'yeah I know, I don't wanna do this that way'."
Availability: Friday 2000 MST - Sunday 1800 MST. I only work weekdays and if something comes up, a week ahead of time will be the very latest I inform you. Likely, I will notify you weeks ahead of time with weekly reminders.
What makes Dungeons and Dragons fun: I think what makes D&D fun is never really knowing what is going to happen next. Always looking for that new challenge and experience. Unlike just playing a video game, a D&D game is literally never the same twice, even if you play the same pre-written campaign. The other players always make things more interesting, and having a unique cast of others to play with keeps things fresh, because as a campaign goes on, characters develop and interact and I've found that good players build upon them and make them more complex. Their actions and the world that the DM creates always makes for some interesting encounters and experiences that you just can't have with other mediums. Exploring these new and weird situations with other people is just fun at its best; unique, intriguing, hilarious, exciting, and just plain epic.
Longest Running Character: Rid Aestharin, a tiefling bloodrager or barbarian, depending on the game I was playing him in. I've rewritten him numerous times, but he's always a very capricious man with obvious demon heritage expressed in both appearance and personality. Brutish and crass, but reckless and raging only in battle. Otherwise very charming unless angered or frustrated; always seeking to humanize himself and fight against the stereotypes set for him, despite his natural inclinations. He was constantly trying to prove himself merciful and compassionate to others, to fight only against those who sought to do harm to innocents.
Favorite Moment in D&D: My most favorite moment in D&D is actually one of the many things about me that you can read about on my profile, if you'd like to know more about me, but I will also post it here for ease of access, because there's a lot of info in my profile that I don't want y'all to have to search through: One time, playing an Eberron campaign as a Lion Shifter Barbarian, my party was trying to help our Halfling War Mage escape capture by his dinosaur-riding clansmen who were hunting him down for desertion. When we attacked their camp, they released a tyrannosaurus to kill us all and it nearly swallowed our cleric whole. But he was adjacent to me at the time, so I asked the DM if my character could take his place. For the next round, my allies went all out in blasting the vicious dino; our archer filling it with arrows until my character managed to push his blade out of the creatures neck and slice off its head (Hercules style, if you've seen the Hydra battle from the Disney movie). When the tyrannosaurus fell; my barbarian, covered in T-Rex bile, climbed out from its neck hole and stepped over to the cleric before simply uttering "... Ow." But the party had won and their halfling ally was free to continue adventuring with them, so we all celebrated by going back to the tavern that the bad guys had first tracked us down to and getting completely trashed while we recanted the whole thing and basked in the glory of our victory together.
Funniest experience playing D&D: I played a one-shot a while back, or at least it was a one-shot for me, since the rest of the group had already been playing and my friends more or less invited me to pop in for a session as a "guest character" since I was in town. So after hearing that the players had gotten in trouble with the town guard and were about to be tried in court, I decided to play the lawyer. Only, I didn't play an actual lawyer. I played a Charlatan posing as a lawyer and investigator from the Lord's Alliance faction. Thing is, he was a kleptomaniac and kept taking things from the various establishments the party was visiting when the other players weren't looking. However, one of the characters kept passing insight checks that made them suspicious about he he kept disappearing. That character basically spent the rest of the session trying to catch my character in the act of thievery until it was time for the trial. Chaotic good himself, my character pretended to be completely Lawful to the point of establishing himself as a bureaucrat when defending the other characters in court. As the defense; he made claims for the necessity of evidence by paperwork and ultimately established the guards and prosecutors as negligent, lacking evidence, and poorly enforcing necessary safety and liability regulations (yeah, it went that far; the DM was baffled). In the end, the character who had been suspicious of him the whole time learned to completely trust him. And my character used that trust to steal a precious heirloom from their house and then disappear forever. That character's player was so upset, but everyone else couldn't help but laugh at the entire situation.
Player Preferences: I'm the type of player who enjoys getting involved in the plotline and will find good in-character reasons to do so, so that I can have the best roleplaying experience possible, especially with NPCs. But perhaps the real enjoyment comes from roleplaying with the other players, as I really enjoy building in-character relationships between PCs, since they tend to lead to more character development and really help me flesh out who my characters are at their very core, down to the nitty gritty details.
Character Preferences: I love being in melee during combat and feeling like a warrior in general, but I generally avoid playing straight 20-level fighters, because they just don't get enough "flavor mechanics" - not enough skills and special abilities that are useful outside of combat, which is more than half the game and I really want to take part in it in a more supportive role. In addition to exploring the setting and storyline, I really enjoy helping other player's accomplish their character's goals by playing the sort of character who tends to be more interested in making time to help out others than to focus on their own goals. Or rather, their own goals are heavily influenced by what's going on around them. As for races, I generally play humans or tieflings with the occasional half-orc or half-elf and maybe something more exotic if it fits the backstory and character concept really well. Generally, I play good alignments; neutral or chaotic, but sometimes I enjoy purely capricious or morally gray characters.
Motivations: I think I want what most people want out of D&D. I want to have fun. I don't want to know what's coming. I want to use my imagination and develop my character along with other interesting party members and see the world that the DM creates and all of its interesting encounters and experiences through his eyes in a way that no other medium can provide. I want a unique experience with some laughs, intrigue, adventure, and excitement.
Pet Peeves: I'm only really bothered by the basics; people taking too long on their turns, showing up late, delaying the game with OOC chatter, metagaming, too many interruptions, etc. The sorts of things most players dislike anyway, especially intolerant attitudes and behavior. I tend to speak out fairly often when people say things that are particularly ignorant.
Taboo Topics: Sexual assault on PCs
Interests outside of D&D: Favorite TV show is Game of Thrones, favorite anime/manga is Berserk, favorite movie is a tie between Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland and Princess Mononoke, favorite Disney movie is Hercules, favorite thing to cook is BBQ beef ribs, favorite sport is MMA, and I also like to box and boff (medieval combat LARPing). Though, I spend most of my time gaming. Some of my favorite games/series are Baldur's Gate, Legend of Zelda, Chrono Trigger, Arc the Lad, Megaman Legends, Azure Dreams, Final Fantasy (7-10+the original Tactics), Breath of Fire, Tekken, Radiata Stories, Dead or Alive, Kingdom Hearts, Tales of (Symphonia, Vesperia, and Xillia), Dragon's Dogma, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and For Honor.
My favorite character in fiction: Guts from Berserk. Like me, he's not very talkative. He has a traumatic past that far exceeds the simple bullying of my own. But he refuses to die. He continues to press onward and struggle day in and day out. I've struggled with thoughts of suicide in my past. But seeing a character like Guts, who throws himself headlong into battle to protect others, to get revenge, and to destroy what is truly horrible in his world is a reminder that I should never give in to the terrible things in life; not abuse from others nor my own dark thoughts.
How my other interests inspire my story telling: I think they've inspired my storytelling by making me very focused on people. It's the allies that stand beside you and the interesting NPCs that fill the world that make a story what it is. I just want to be standing amongst the heroes of those stories; a character fighting for what they believe in: perhaps the most intrepid of the party's plucky and diverse heroes.
Expectations for a Campaign: Adventure and Jolly Cooperation! I like a mix of combat and RPing, but find that combat/dungeon-heavy games are more fun/useful early on in a campaign when the party is just getting used to each other; whereas mysteries/puzzles/politics are more fun when party members become familiar and backstory-based adventures/session-long RP is best once both the players and their characters are all established friends (and/or allies). I generally enjoy meeting new people and often find myself engrossed with the creative expression many of them show with and through their characters. I believe that adventuring, above all else, is a team sport best played by learning to know your teammates and how every member of the team can support one another for the sake of their success and survival; so I'm hoping not to encounter other players that are "disruptive" to the team or the game in general.
Other Stuff: I am willing to use any form of communication most preferred; I have a pretty solid mic and webcam, and am perfectly fine and literate when it comes to text-only. I can fill out whichever character sheet you prefer. I usually tend to favor myth weavers, though.