Ask Me Anything: Nezzeraj

That's a great mix of games. Do you get a chance to play all those IRL too?

1. What's the "nezzeraj" moniker from? Do you use it elsewhere, and if so, how long have you been doing that?
2. Are you playing in or running anything live? What?
3. Decision time. If you had to give up either live RPGs at the table, or all PbP RPG play... what gets thrown overboard and what gets kept?"

Hah! Ninjaed by Adam.

Who’s your favorite PBP poster that also lives in Korea?

Do you feel any responsibility for introducing me to this site, thereby sucking up all my free (and not so free) time?

LMAO!

How did you got introduced to ttrpg and at what age?

So many great questions! Except for KCC's of course, absolute rubbish ;)
I only played D&D or Pathfinder for about the first 5 years of my gaming life, and once I discovered how great other games were, I went the opposite direction and try to play anything I think I'll like. I have played or run all of those systems IRL except for Shadowrun which I've only played a little on Roll20. Once corona is gone I would like to run more IRL.
1. Nezzeraj came mostly from the World of Warcraft random name generator lol. It gave me Nezz-something but I didn't like how the ending sounded so I changed it. This was way back in 2006-7 or so and I've mostly been using the name ever since. I use it everywhere that came after that date. I think only my Steam account pre-dates that so I have a different name there.
2. I don't play anything in person at the moment. Korea is still doing poorly with their current corona plan and only now are most people vaccinated. I just wrapped up a long term CoC Orient Express campaign online, and I ran a few one shots or mini-campaigns since then. Starting up a Forbidden Lands campaign after we finish a CoC modern one shot I'm doing online.
3. I'd give up PbP easily. While I do the enjoy the extra time writing more thoughtful posts and flexing my writing muscles, nothing compares to the spontaneity and energy of in-person games. I also have terrible memory so I tend to forget things easily when a single scene stretches on for a month. (I'm notoriously bad at remembering party NPCs lol.)
You are. And no, you're welcome lol.
My youngest brother got me into it when I was 23. I had moved back home after getting my 2 year degree and my brother had a gaming group that played D&D 3.5. The DM ran a one-shot to introduce me to the game and I was hooked. I went to the local bookstore to read over their books and learn more. Little did I know 4e had just released like the week before and the books I read were a completely different game than what I had played lol. I bought the 4e set and played a little bit of it but really didn't like it. That same time Pathfinder was in alpha or beta and I downloaded the free rules and enjoyed the much closer similarity to 3.5. Bought Pathfinder when it came out and that was my first official foray into TTRPGs.

Other than your younger brother, are there any other family members that share your interest in the hobby?

Sadly no.

What's the weirdest or most unusual game setting you've ever played in (live or pbp)?

What was your (secret) guess for who would die first in the Camp Bloodbath game? :P

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

Are there any great RPGs or RPG settings local to Korea that you have seen, or wish would occur?

What helps you recharge for another session after spending time at the gaming table?

- Do you like miniatures? Have you ever tried painting one? :D
- What do you think about LARP (Live Action Roleplaying)?
- Favorite horror book, if any?
- You mentioned WoW - do you still play any MMORPGs?
- Any great board games made in Korea (or is it USA?..) and not very well-known anywhere else?

1. Can you explain the appeal of Burning Wheel? I'm aware of its complexity, but how would you pitch it to someone?
2. Cable or wireless Shadowrun?
3. What is the best RPG you've ever read that meshes the Cthulhu Mythos with another genre?
4. What's your most treasured memory from playing a role playing game?

The Veil, a "cyberpunk" PbtA game. It calls itself cyberpunk maybe because of themes, but it's far future and very post-modern. It was a really strange game with strange playbooks that I still don't understand lol.
Declan! But I had an unfair advantage in that anyone who has played with KCC knows he has supernaturally unlucky dice rolls haha. Any game that isn't roll under, it's safe to assume KCC's character will die first lol.
The clever answer is "the last episode" lol. Recently, probably the VIPs episode of Squid Game.
TTRPGs aren't very popular here. The only game I even know is played is Call of Cthulhu here. A westerner who lives here did make a Korea-inspired campaign setting for 5e though! You can find it here if you're interested: Koryo Adventures
Player feedback. A few compliments (I'll even take white lies lol) go a long way to motivating GMs.

1. I tend not to play games that are tactical enough to need maps and minis, but I do like minis for artistic reasons. I have painted a few! The first big campaign I ran was Serpent's Skull for Pathfinder and I bought and painted a mini for each player. I think I've painted about 6 or 7 minis in total.
2. LARPs have never interested me. I know a lot of people like the fantasy of being another person, but I like RPGs for the stories that are made and joking with friends. I don't think I could stay "in character" for a LARP session lol.
3. That's a hard question. It by Stephen King is very high, as is The Troop by Nick Cutter. If you allow me to include short story collections, High Cotton and Bumper Crop by Joe Lansdale, Demiurge by Michael Shae, and Sefira by John Langan. I think "N." by Stephen King is the greatest single piece of horror fiction ever written.
4. Yes! I continue to play FFXIV since the ARR days. I played WoW for a long time, quit at the end of Legion.
5. Yut nori and baduk (Go in Japanese) are the only two I'm aware of. Baduk came from China though and is somewhat well-known. Yut nori is fun but it's just a game of luck and not skill so it's mostly played by kids.
BW is for people who don't want a power fantasy, but instead want to see a character develop organically through tough decisions. I would only pitch it to people who I already know well, and who I know like that kind of game. Many people want to create idealized forms of themselves as escapism and that's fun, but that's not what BW is about. I would pitch it as similar to method acting. If you want to play individuals and really get in their headspace and explore a complex world, then give it a try. I think of any RPG, BW needs an experienced GM who not only knows the rules, but also knows how to push on character's pressure points to get them to make tough decisions.
2. Cable! I like the late 80s/early 90s aesthetic of Shadowrun, and don't think it should necessarily reflect the advances we make in our own reality.
3. I can't really think of any that I'd call "good". CthulhuTech had a lot of promise in concept, but wasn't a fan of the execution. I like the game Tremulus which is a PbtA hack of CoC, but that's not a mix, it's just a straight up horror detective game lol. If you know of any please let me know!
4. If it's a single memory, it'd have to be the last combat of the last session of a Burning Wheel campaign. Only two characters were left alive, the other remaining character and I were escaping a seige of oni on our castle and we were fleeing on horseback. Against all odds we rolled like every die a success and fought off all the oni and escaped to ride off into the sunset. It was epic.

Well, I like to keep all my high rolls for when I’m playing Call of Cthulhu. -.-"

Achtung! Cthulhu does come to mind, though technically it's just CoC in a different time (unless you run the new 2d20 Modiphius system). As a pure crossover, I recently discovered Apocthulhu which is nice and exactly what it says on the tin: post apocalyptic stuff in a world that ended not by a nuke but by some Lovecraftian horror.

Apocthulhu sounds interesting, I'll check it out!

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.

Lol I'm so happy you asked! I love B movies so there are a lot. Deep Rising, Evil Dead trilogy, EuroTrip, The Blob, Return of the Living Dead, and They Live just to name a few.

Care to tell us about your user avatar?

+1 for Eurotrip. It's one of the peak 2000s comedies for me, and seems to have aged really well. It holds a special place in my heart, partially because I was the perfect age for it.

I used to watch Eurotrip multiple times during my volunteering year so it has kind of a special place in my heart as well. Not sure if I would still enjoy it if I watched it now. But then, it was great 😅

Oh I just randomly stumbled across it on an art site. I don't even remember what I was searching for lol. But I love Egyptian and steampunk aesthetics so to find art that had both felt like a special twist of luck so I have been using it since.

I watched it a few years ago and it still holds up! I think it's just so silly and fun, nothing too dark ever happens and it is just a feel good movie. I usually watch it when I'm not feeling good and it always helps.