Ask Me Anything: Nezzeraj

What was your favorite character you ever played?

Thank you for asking, self! My favorite character was from the longest game I played in, CoC's Masks of Nyarlathotep. Roland Renaux, a private eye and pulp scifi/horror author from Louisiana. I used a Cajun accent in character that was a mix between Matthew McConaughey and Gambit from the animated X-men. He sadly died in the second to last session we played by getting spaghettified sucked into an extradimensional vortex.

Lol! I wondered what was going on there.

Lol well it seemed the energy died down so I wanted to give it a little boost and also I always wanted to be asked that question!

Okay, then let's ask the inverse as well. What was a character you played that didn't end up working for you and why?

That's a good question. If we're just talking one shots, it was from the Veil game. My character was an advanced cybernetic lifeform with memory problems and crazy abilities and it was just so foreign I couldn't relate. For a longer game, it was the last time I played 5e in person, and I was a half-orc monk. I wasn't too experienced with 5e and I was testing it out and there were just so few options that I couldn't really make anything I was interested in. He was so bland that I quit 5e after that haha.

What’s a game that pleasantly surprised you/surpassed your expectations?

And what’s a game that let you down/didn’t live up to the hype?

By game, I suppose I should say "RPG rule set" and not, of course, a game on here. (My Vaesen game takes that spot.)

What was your single favourite moment/scene in a PbP or IRL game, and why?

1. Two answers for the first one. Dungeon Crawl Classics and Apocalypse World. DCC and especially funnels are very fun and also really make you attached to your characters in a way most other systems don't. Even if you roll a character with bad stats and terrible gear, you really start to root for them as they are mercilessly killed usually in one hit. The randomness the game offers as well as the multitude of options makes it amazingly entertaining. Apocalypse World made me see games in a new light. The moves system, the playbooks, the clocks. It is so unique and really lets the mechanics support the more important aspect of telling a fun story with interesting characters. The core rulebook is also extremely well-written and eye-opening.
This will take some thinking so I'll some back and edit when I've decided lol. Ok, thought about it. My first thought was something I mentioned earlier with the BW game in the final session where we killed a bunch of oni and escaped. But if it was more a scene that I think about often as kind of eye-opening, it was my first full campaign where I played a Pathfinder summoner in Rise of the Runelords. My summoned creature was demonic looking and I summoned him in a school as a magical demonstration and I made all the kids cry and freak out lol. For some reason, I assumed because I was the hero it would turn out alright, but having the DM making the kids react realistically to seeing a demon summoned from nothing, it really made the world feel more believable and that my good intentions wouldn't always have good outcomes.

What game did you start with? What game did you first GM?

When did you move to PbP play, and why?

What are, in your opinion, the best traits in a good GM?

For games that have a bit more combat, do you prefer a grid with tokens for visualization, or theatre of mind style play? Why?

What activities unrelated to RPGs do you draw inspiration from for ideas in PbP? e.g. Nature, Sports, TV, chainsaw choreography, books, etc.

I'm not really a fan of horror, so I haven't explored that corner of rpgs much other than one game of CoC which i enjoyed but still don't really crave to play. However, I'm intrigued by the Dread rpg because of its Jenga mechanic. Feels like that would build suspense that ends in inevitable disaster in an exciting way, but I could also see it not really working as well as expected. Have you ever played Dread? If so, what do you think? Do you think there's a clever way to adapt it for PbP?

*Edit added link.

My first ever game was a one-shot to introduce me to D&D 3.5. My first proper campaign was Pathfinder's Rise of the Runelords. For GMing, my first time was a one-shot I made with a Steampunk supplement for 3.5. It was terrible but a great learning experience lol. It was going to be a theft at a World's Fair-type expo where scientists introduce their latest inventions, and one of the inventions gets stolen and the PCs were supposed to help out. Well, my brother didn't take the hook and basically said, "Why do I care? I don't know the scientist and I have no connection to him so I don't think my character would get involved." The game lasted maybe 30 minutes at most haha. My first proper time GMing was Pathfinder's Serpent Skull AP, which was fun enough but a terrible choice for a first-time GM and I regret choosing it lol.

I moved to PbP because of the pandemic and most of my gaming group had moved back home so I didn't have anyone to play with anymore.
The best traits are improvisation and reading the room. I think the most important thing is for everyone to have fun, and I see a lot of games flounder because the GM sticks to either the rules or the adventure too closely and it causes frustration. The best advice I ever read was "Plan situations, not plots."

The older and more experienced I get, the less I like combat-heavy games. Combat is only one type of conflict resolution, and often not even the most important one. But every now and then I like a good hack and slash just for variety. As for maps and miniatures, it is pretty mandatory on the few heavy combat games I do like, like Lancer and Iron Kingdoms. In general, I prefer theater of the mind if I can.
Most of my inspiration comes from books or movies, and usually from the stuff I don't like lol. I always think, "Man too bad they did this. I would have done it like this." And that is where I get most of my ideas. I'm not really a big ideas person, I think I like settings and motivations more. Give me conflicting politics in an exotic environment and I'm sold.

Sadly I have not played Dread (or Ten Candles) but they are on my list for when I ever have in-person gaming again. I don't think you can exactly recreate the tension in PbP, but maybe something similar with a card-draw mechanic instead. I don't know enough about Dread to be any more detailed than that though.

That's a great idea. I've heard a good exercise for writers is to re-write a favorite story from memory and change any parts they don't like to suit their own preferences or address critiques of the original, but hadn't thought of applying that to my games. Thanks for sharing.
I've wondered whether a short, simple, timed, maze-tracing mini-game, where the longer it takes and errors going outside the lines accumulate over the course of players turns bringing everyone closer and closer to doom. But I imagine that would be quite a complicated feature for GP to add. But Adam still has a few days left in his advent calendar, right 😜 (joking). I've heard of ten candles, but don't really know the premise, I'll have to check it out too.

do you have a favourite 'dead' game from way back that you still play, or that you wish was reprinted as a new edition?

I only started playing in 2008, so I am only familiar with the newer stuff. But there is older stuff I have heard about or older editions that I would like to see done right. Number one would be Shadowrun handled competently. Every new edition seems to be worse than the last. I would love to see a new company handle it and really try to fix all the problems and not just release new editions as a cashgrab. Second would be a game I only know about through an review video, and that's The Price of Freedom, which is an alternate history where Soviet Russia invades the USA and you play freedom fighters. Basically Red Dawn the RPG lol. It seems really over the top and humorous and I would love to play it with a group of friends. Third is a new edition of Burning Empires that fixes a lot of the core mechanics that most people don't like. Last is a new edition of Eclipse Phase that gets rid of their terrible core dice mechanics.

I don't have this so I can't really vouch for it, but Grodzicki's work is generally pretty stellar...

Lowlife 2090, an alternative to Shadowrun.

Awesome thanks for this! Checked out the link and I can tell you one thing I absolutely love is in the book there is a "Core Features" section that gives you the basics of the whole game and is immensely useful. Except for being d20 based, I like a lot of what I saw there. I'll definitely be checking it out more.

Don't hold the d20 thing against it -- I'm not a d20 fan either, and I *really* like Low Fantasy Gaming, Grodzicki's fantasy game. Fabulous stuff.

And I think I'll keep this as my trademark question:
Which is the B-movie that you just have a thing for and keep rewatching?


There Nej.