I’m a 48-year-old tabletop enthusiast and musician with a quite a bit of gaming experience under my belt. I'm currently involved in a couple games, playing both D&D 5th Edition and Gallant Knight Games' TinyD6 (Tiny Dungeons, Tiny Frontiers, Tiny Supers, etc). I've also been involved with the Cypher System (Numenera, The Strange), Stars Without Number Revised Edition, Star Wars (FFG), and Five Torches Deep in the past couple years. Further back, I had a history with Palladium games (Rifts, TMNT, Nightbane, and others) and D&D (mostly 3rd and 4th editions), and dabbled in a lot of other titles along the way (Shadowrun, Paranoia, MERP, WEG's Star Wars, among them).
While I enjoy the games I’m involved in, there are plenty of other systems that I own and still haven’t had the opportunity to play: City of Mist, Godbound, Coriolis (or other Year Zero games, like Tales from the Loop or Forbidden Lands), Shadow of the Demon Lord, Fragged Empire (or any of its spin-off settings), INFINITY (or other 2d20 systems, like Conan or Star Trek Adventures), Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, FATE, and Apocalypse/Dungeon World, just to name a few.
I love crossing genres—science fantasy, steampunk, cthluhupunk, alternate histories—that take me to places that excite the imagination. I like playing a wide range of character types: from stoic warriors to charismatic scoundrels, devout crusaders and mischievous bard-warlocks, honorable assassins and fatherly sages. I'm the sort that likes to create my character once I've seen what others are playing so I can best fit the group, and I love weaving backstories together before gameplay starts (because I not-so-secretly loathe the "You meet in a tavern" opening). However, I have two soft spots: redemption arcs and character families that are still alive (which is, for some reason, a rare find among adventurers).
Above all things, I want to have fun. Depending on the group, that might mean staying in-character for three hours of intense pathos; for others, it might mean 30-minute tangents of Monty Python jokes in between botched rolls on a d20; and sometimes, it’s the thrill of tactical gameplay and well-executed maneuvers with a group. But, whatever group I happen to be in, it’s always something enjoyed together. When I come to a gaming group, it’s with the intent to be as welcoming and friendly as possible out-of-character, so that we can all build camaraderie and trust in-game. I believe that everyone at the table (virtual or otherwise) is there to have fun, and we all play a role in helping that happen. If people at the table are hostile toward each other (whether it’s overt, through underlying tensions, or masked behind “characters who can’t play nice with others”), that’s a group I won’t stay in for long; I believe that Life is too short for bad gaming experiences.
My deep dark secret is that my first game was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness back in 1985, long before I ever sat down to play D&D for the first time. I cut my teeth on Palladium games during the 80s and 90s, spending my weekends playing Rifts, TMNT, Palladium Fantasy, Robotech, Heroes Unlimited, Ninjas & Superspies, Beyond the Supernatural, Nightbane, and more. And the truth is, those crazy days—where we often didn’t stick to the rules, our maps were hastily-scrawled stick-figure drawings on notebook paper, and our parties were a mix of hobos, powered armor pilots, and fledgling dragons—still hold a warm and chaotic (and aberrant) place in my heart.
I’m a reasonably social gamer, and like conversing before and after games. I prefer using Discord for voice communication, but can be convinced to use Google Hangouts or TeamSpeak in a pinch. I seriously dislike using Skype because of the inability to adjust everyone’s volume individually—asking me to use Skype is 95% a dealbreaker for me. Roll20’s native voice option isn’t great, either (I’ve rarely been in a game where Roll20’s voice/video didn’t cause problems for someone, forcing us to move to an alternative). I don’t have access to a webcam.