Ask Me Anything: bowlofspinach

In an attempt to get to know the community and other users on GP better, we want to allow a different member each week to step into the spotlight.
You can find more information here.

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About me:

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This AMA will run until 03 December 2021.

I'll start with an easy one. What is the story behind your username?

What's your favorite system and why?

How much time do you spend on Gamers' Plane, and are you at all worried that the amount of time you spend here is unhealthy?

Something about horse-sized ducks?

-How hard is it being a moderator on GP and it's discord?
-Have you considered using severe punishment on users? What about international laws?
-How did you got into RPGs?
-There's a local dish; spinach and rice stew. Would you consider trying it? Would that be sort of cannibalism in your case?

What do you you do for a living and what do you wish you did for a living?

What room are you in right now and what are some of your favorite things in it?

Alrighty, let me get to answering the first wave of questions

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I think I've shared this before but it's always a fun story. I heard about GP on a podcast and decided to give it a shot. But I was pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy it or stick with it, so I decided not to go with any of my regular online usernames and just use something random. I was thawing a bowl of frozen spinach at the time and that caught my eye, so I guess I'm a bowl of spinach now.
I have been considering changing my name but at this point, I think it's too established here...
I listed Loop/Flood and Smallville. I like Loop and Flood primarily for their setting. The system is solid as well but it's nothing world-shattering.
Smallville was the system that opened my eyes to how games can get away from trying to model physics and instead model tropes and actively shape the experience of playing with their rules, leading the story in the intended direction. Combined with the fact that it's also about two of my favorite things (superheroes and social drama), of course I would love it.
I basically have a GP tab open 24/7. Sometimes I sleep, sometimes I'm at work. Occasionally, I even meet people in real life. But aside from those times, I'm always on GP.
I'm almost certain that's unhealthy but as long as it doesn't show up in my blood tests, my doctors can't tell me to stop.
I would not ride a horse sized duck because their bones aren't stable enough for that. I did once as a kid sit on an ostrich in a zoo but I later learned that that's not good for them so I wouldn't do it again.
Most of the time it's not too difficult. Sometimes I wish I was just a regular user so I could post and write what I want without having to think about whether that's appropriate 😄
There are difficult moments sometimes when having to figure out how to react to something. Especially because they always happen when every other mod is sleeping.
But overall, I like it. It's a way to give back to the community, I think.
I'm not sure why you bolded part of punishment there 🤔 Maybe @Harrigan can tell me
There's this popular German RPG system, Das Schwarze Auge or The Dark Eye. It has a video game version that a friend of mine played and I watched him play occasionally. He did some research into the RPG and occasionally told me about it but it all sounded really complicated and I wasn't really interested in trying but eventually, he convinced me. We went to our local game store and since that was during D&D 4e times, we were directed to Pathfinder and bought that. I very quickly started getting interested in running a bunch of different RPGs and tried out a whole lot of them before I ended up just GMing Pathfinder for a long time.
And eventually, I found my way here where I basically play everything except D&D-likes
Send me a recipe and I'll consider it. Yes, it is cannibalism but I don't mind. After all, it's not called can'tibalism
I'm a university student and I work part-time in a restaurant/kitchen.
I'd love to be an author but since that's kind of unrealistic, I'll just become a cultist to an Elder God instead. I heard they have good benefits.
I'm in my living room, which houses my RPGs and my laptop, which I like because that's where the GP is. I also have some candles in here. I like candles.

My oldest son has studied the German language for years and quite likes RPGs as well. Are there any RPG systems that have only been released in German? If so, are there any that you'd recommend to someone who likes gritty, fantasy type settings?

What are you studying in Uni?

I don't know about only in German. I'm mostly sticking to the English-language side of things with RPGs. Of course there's DSA, which has been released in English but is originally German. I'm not a fan of it. It's too crunchy for me. But it has an extremely expansive setting that has been grown for decades. Most of that is only available in German, I think, so that might be worth looking into. I think it might count as gritty fantasy. It's more down-to-earth and less heroic high fantasy than D&D, I believe, but my experience with it is very limited.

I also recently bought TftL: Deutschland in den 80ern, which I think is only available in German. Not a system but a setting book.

There's also Splittermond, which is supposed to be good but I don't know anything about.
English and Philosophy.
I somehow had the foolish idea that I wanted to be a teacher. And one for philosophy at that. I don't think that's what I'll actually do but now I'm so deep into my degree that I'll finish it. I'm sure I'll find something else to do with it once I'm done 😄

Soso, eine Deutsche also... Grüße aus dem Süden

Habt ihr in Deutschland was man im RPG-Bereich den (F)LGS (also Friendly Local Game Store, mit Minis, Regelbüchern, Brettspielen, Tischen zum Treffen für Live-Spiele...) nennen würde?

Weil mir ist hier nie einer untergekommen und ich finde das eigentlich schon ein bisschen schade, dass die TTRPG- und allgemeine Spielekultur so vernachlässigt wird (bloß eine Ludothek kenne ich, da kann man sich Spiele ausborgen oder dort spielen, aber das ist auch mehr an Kinder gerichtet).

We do have those game stores with tables for playing live games, though I don't know if I've ever seen RPGs played there. Usually Warhammer 40k or something like that. Sometimes card games as well.
I just go there to buy stuff, basically.

Last year, I went to some RPG day event at one of the local stores and I played a tiny bit of 5e there.

What's your preferred set of safety tools to use when RPing and why?

What sort of things do you like to see from your fellow players in a PbP game?

Fresh spinach or frozen?

I like Lines and Veils. It works to cover the basics and it gives the GM knowledge beforehand to plan around. The X-card (or any kind of encouragement to call out things in the moment when needed and to steer away from them) is very good as well but if you can already eliminate the most glaring issues in advance, that's a great basis. I employ both in my games, as well as an open table policy, letting people know that they're welcome to leave at any point if they're not having fun, getting overwhelmed or whatever, for any reason.
I also try to mark content warnings clearly in advance, preferably already in my interest check.
The main thing is just motivation. That can take different forms but if it feels like players are excited about a scene or game (maybe they're posting particularly frequently or there's a lot of OOC chatter and reacting to IC moments or people make memes about something that just happened in the game...) that's what makes games really fun.

Depends on for what purpose

What is the highest number of PbP games you have been involved in at one time?

That's a good question. Right now I'm playing in 11 games, running 5 and playing in 2 GM-less one-on-one games. It's possible there was a point where I was in more games at once but I couldn't give you an exact number. For sure not much more than this, though

Other than school and PbP, what makes bowlofspinach tick? Are there other hobbies, or a certain type of music? Is there something you've been meaning to learn but you just can't find the time?

What's your favorite food & drink combination?

What's your least favorite episode of your favorite TV show?

What is your favorite German musician and why?

Also, best German movie of the last decade - go!

Also, pineapple on pizza?

What's the one RPG you most want to try but haven't found the right people or the right time to get into?

If I may be so bold, what are you studying with regard to philosophy?

Let's talk Star Trek!

Favorite series? Favorite movie? Favorite character? Best Captain? Favorite ship design?

• Do you still play TTRPGs in person, or virtually on Discord, Zoom, Roll20, Role, Foundry or the like?

• Do your professors know about your pun-powered English-language transgressions?

• Do you pun as much in German as you do in English?

• Why is it you don't play D&D and D&D-like games on GP? Is it the system, implied setting, the way those games tend to be run and played by the GM and players, or something else entirely?

• How many new-to-GP players have you run through your Tales from the Loop starter game now?

• What do you love about Germany? What do you wish you could change?

Do boardgames count as meaningfully different from RPGs for this question?
I love fiction writing and I've been doing more of it recently.
For music, I listen to a whole lot of different stuff but mostly just in the background. I'm not a music connoisseur.
I'd love to learn an instrument but I have absolutely no sense of rhythm so I'm bad at it. I also think learning languages is really fascinating. I was learning Polish for a while but have been neglecting it recently. I'd also like to learn Swedish but it's hard to come up with the motivation sometimes.
Good question. I love all kinds of food. My favorite food would have to be pasta with a creamy salmon sauce. For drink, I would recommend pairing it with a nice glass of diet cola. Because I drink way too much of that stuff.
That is a tough question. I haven't been watching much TV recently at all, more just youtube or movies. Can't come up with an answer to this right now, sorry.
Hm, hard to narrow it down to one. Thomas D is one German musician I really like. He's part of this famous German hip hop band that got very famous for Die Da but he has also made some really great solo stuff.
Not German but German language, at least: Falco is really great, obviously.
I'll also mention ASP, who made two amazing concept albums telling a really fascinating horror story about a man who falls in love with the ghost living in a hotel.
Have I even watched a German movie in the last decade? I don't remember a single one right now
Is something from 2008 okay? Because I really liked Die Welle
Yes
Masks and Monsterhearts
I really liked my philosophy classes in school, ethics primarily, so I decided to study that and English to become a teacher. So just an all-round general thing.
I wrote my Bachelor's thesis on ethics in Watchmen.
Favorite series: Voyager, closely followed by DS9
Favorite movie: Nemesis No, but that's a tough question. I find the shows generally better than the movies. I liked First Contact, just because I like the Borg. I also used to really like Undiscovered Country but I haven't watched it in years and with how little I enjoyed TOS when I tried to watch it again recently, I don't know if I would still enjoy Undiscovered Country much these days. I should give it another shot
Best Captain: Probably Janeway, maybe Sisko
Favorite ship design: A Borg Cube
I haven't in a while. I formed a board game group in my home city recently and we are planning on it but haven't yet.
No, I save up all my puns for you
I find D&D combat to be pretty boring. It takes a long time and doesn't achieve anything narratively that couldn't be achieved much faster in a different system.
Sixteen, unless I miscounted just now. Oh wait, you only asked for new players. Then thirteen. Three of those were people who were just testing the tutorial to see if it's suitable as an introduction and to help me smooth out some edges
I love German sushi. I don't like beer.

Traitor!!!

What YouTube channels have you been into lately?

There's this really great channel that's actually about Tabletop RPGs and PBP in particular that I would recommend to anyone. It's called Gamers Explane.
Beyond that, two fun channels that come to my mind that I could recommend are Big Joel and Jenny Nicholson.
I generally tend to look for longer videos, 20 minutes to an hour or more of people just talking to the camera. Stuff I can have run in the background while doing things or playing videogames.

Not exactly an 'ask', but I will work a question into it. :)
When I saw Liminal was on bundleofholding I thought about you. Thought you might like it.

So, my question: Have you looked at Liminal?

What are your favorite kinds of characters to play? And which character has been your favorite to play?

I hadn't before but looked into it now. It looks interesting and has some pretty positive reviews but doesn't grab me enough that I'm planning to buy it. But thanks for pointing it out!
I'm always interested in new games and this one is definitely the right direction.
That's a good question. I like to play a variety of different characters, which is why I enjoy games where I get to play a number of characters (as GM for example).
I don't think I have a specific type of character I tend to go for as I try to mix it up a bit.

One character I really loved to play was a half-orc in a homebrew fantasy game who grew up into childhood among orcs before beign adopted by a human nobleman wizard. That complicated cultural background was really fun to play. Plus, magic-enhanced punches and rage.
My current avatar is a free artwork I got for a Delta Green character that I played for a bit. She was pretty fun as well. Too bad that game didn't last very long.
A long time ago, in my first game of Tales from the Loop, I played one half of a pair of twins with a crush on the boy who had a crush on my sister. That was really fun as well.
I could probably list at least half a dozen more characters easily but I'll stop myself here 😄

I rarely see you offer your games in The Tavern, yet you have so many. How do you usually recruit for your games?

Looking at my list of currently running games that I'm GM for:

1 on 1 Gaming
- I joined a duet game and after that was finished, the GM and I decided to keep going together with other games and started up this

[Smallville RPG] Shattered Crossroads
- the original GM left and I took over

Cyberpunk in Space
- advertised in the tavern

Death of the Old World
- advertised in the tavern

Notes and GM Screen
- not an actual game

Sidestory
- we just needed a place to play out some scenes for a different game

🖥️ The Council of Elrond
- not an actual game

The Stolen Village
- advertised in the tavern

Cold New World
- I was playing some other games with this player that died and decided to start a duet with them

GP Tutorial - Tales from the Loop
- my tutorial game

Nevermind, "Things from the Flood"
- the original GM left and we kept going GMless

The Ugliness
- continuation of a game advertised in the tavern

Avid collector of physical books, or PDFs work just as well?

How many dice do you own?

Do you ever go with the deluxe editions with props and variant covers?

I love physical books and try to get them if I'm really interested in a game. I prefer physical books for initially reading a system but for referencing rules, I prefer PDFs.
A lot. I used to buy myself dice sets all the time until one time I bought a bundle with like ten full dice sets at once and that kind of ended my dice-buying obsession for the most part.
I did just recently buy myself a D30, just because. And I bought the official TftL and TftF dice sets.
I backed Wildsea at a tier that gets me a deluxe edition but usually, standard editions are fine for me. Unless it's a game I'm really super excited about.

Did we just loose all our Italian players?

I have a hard time getting into Falco, though Rock Me Amadeus is classic.

I happened to live in Germany in 2008 when Die Welle came out and I got to see it in the theatre. It's such a good movie, and honestly one that I wish American audiences could have had wider exposure to. Now I need to go back and watch it again haha

Haven't seen it, but it is adapted from a TV special from the early 80s which itself is based on actual events. I saw it in high school and I still remember it to this day. I should check out this version though.

Well, it's based on a 1981 book, which I assume that TV special is also based on. Though with a lot of changes (for the better, in my opinion). Also it's set in Germany, which is extra fitting for the story.

It's the reverse, the book is a novelization of the TV special.

Ah, interesting. I didn't know that

Movie: The Book: The Movie

Haha yeah pretty much.

So when it comes to Ethics in Philosophy, do you believe in more Relativism or Absolutism? How do you feel about Utilitarianism?

This is a fun idea! :0

- When you were younger, have you ever done something that was pretty reckless and that you would think twice about doing nowadays?
- Do you like insects? A lot of people I know aren't fond of them, but I find them fascinating - do you, at least some of them? :D
- Favorite mythical/fantasy animal? Favorite fairy tale?
- Are you competitive? Do you like PvP games or events? (Edit: PvP in TTRPGs?)
- Any exotic fruit you want to try but didn't get to yet? Or a dish/drink?
- Right now, this very moment, what is the closest item on your right? :D

Edit: whoops, I did no RPG-related questions. Lemme add...
- A world/setting which you'd like to play a game in? Especially if it's something very specific, like from a not very well-known book or a single non-franchise movie?
- Thoughts on disregarding rules and dice rolls for the sake of narrative?
- Do you like fancy dice? :D Metallic or transparent?

I don't believe Utilitarianism is perfect. But it does seem to get unfairly maligned in online spaces, I think. Not every utilitarian is Ozymandias (In fact, none are 😄)

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So many... Let's go through it
Nothing super crazy, as far as I remember. I'll think about it some more but nothing comes to mind right now
I think they're fascinating and I love looking at them on pictures. But in real life, a lot of them creep me out, even if I don't want them to. Especially if they're the kind to move in sudden, really quick movements.
I really like cockatrices and basilisks. They're neat.
Not really a fantasy animal but there is the term "Eierlegende Wollmilchsau" (Egg-laying wool-milk-pig) in German, to kind of mockingly refer to any tool or object that is meant to do the work of a lot of different things. I bet that would be cute.

As for favorite fairy tale... I'm fond of the Bremen Town Musicians, just because I live close to Bremen and so they're very local.
I do have a competitive side that sometimes kicks in.
I do like PvP in RPGs but not really because I want to win but because of the drama.
I always wanted to try Nashi pears and prickly pears, but I just tried both of those very recently so now I have no fruits on my agenda currently. For other foods, I love trying new foods, especially international things. But I don't have anything I have my eyes set on right now...
One of my two stuffed pigs 😄
Not extremely niche but I have been thinking about checking interest for a game set in the world of Eragon, probably playing out the fall of the dragon riders. Not sure what system that would be but letting everyone be a dragon rider could be fun.
[Edit, @FlyingSucculent] Oh, I also would love to run or play a game based on Legends of Tomorrrow
Story always comes before rules and dice rolls. But if you keep ignoring the rules, why are you playing this system? Maybe try to find a better suited one, or just go freeform if you want.
I do. I got really neat wooden dice in the Wildsea Kickstarter. Shipping for those is starting soon so I'll get them fairly soon.
I used to buy way more dice than I do now. I rarely get to use my irl dice these days as nobody has developed a dice tray yet, that connects to the internet and uploads your physical rolls to GP.
@adam, get on that! 😄

Oh, as for fancy dice, I have two of those ghost dice. They're pretty amazing, I'd say 😁

Red pill or blue pill?
Does Faye have the hots for Mikey after all?
When is the next #year_zero_engine takeover?
What's your best thing about DMing and what's your worst about it?

Red pill was a metaphor for estrogen. So that one.
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.......no
🤨
I plead the fifth
Best is that I can just add and play whatever character I want. I get a random idea for a cool character. Guess who's meeting a new NPC
Worst is that sometimes I get overwhelmed having to write up a response in a game I'm GMing and then I push it off for multiple days while it hangs over my head making me feel like a failure as I gather the mental capacity to write something up.
And if players don't appreciate my awesome twists as much as I thought they should

Feeling very seen right now.

Last chance for questions if anyone still has any before the next AMA will start in about half a day or so

Since we can ask previous AMA-ers, I didn't get this in quick enough the first go before the change over.

What question would you have liked to have been asked, but no one thought of it? And what would your answer to that question be?

That's a good question. I just checked through the other AMA threads and there were some fun ones in there that I would have also liked to answer but not one that particularly stood out.
I like "What do you think of X" type questions where I can get all grumpy and complain about minor things 😄

what do you think of Christmas? go! 🤣
(or X, I think we all want to read your opinion about X as well)

What's the slice-of-life genre you most want to try in an RPG that you haven't yet played?

I like it. It's a really nice time of the year. But I rarely get snow where I live and I can't get into a Christmas spirit without it. Especially if all Christmas markets are closed due to Covid. What's Christmas without curly fries and mulled wine?
X is a pretty useless letter. Just replace it with ks. Makes everything look much fancier and more exotic as well.
I definitely still want to give Monsterhearts a shot at some point. Masks as well. I also still want to play an SoL game in a setting that's very different from the normal everyday world, like a scifi one.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

What else makes you go hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

People who pretend they don't like puns. Like, everyone knows puns are the highest form of humor. Why pretend you don't enjoy them?

This is your AMA, so I must capitulate.

Rolls Eyes

Do you write in any of your RPG books?

Which is the B-movie that you just have a thing for and keep rewatching?

It's been a while, but last time I watched it, I really enjoyed Piranhaconda. I think I need to buy some nachos and have another watching of it