Ask Me Anything: KCC

1. On a scale of 1-10, how happy are you that I introduced you to GP?
2. How does your wife allow you to buy so many gamebooks?
3. What game are you looking forward to running/playing the most? Which game(s) are you completely uninterested in playing?

4. Why frogs?

What was your favourite character you ever played?

How did you get into pbp gaming in the first place? Do you prefer it over gaming at a table? Why?

What do you look for in a game that keeps you interested as a player?

1) Haha! 10. Very happy I joined. No regrets on that front. It’s become part of the daily routine. Kids asleep, posting time!

2) She’s very understanding. I’m lucky. She’s even talked about buying a more comprehensive bookshelf to hold them all, as the number creeps ever upward. Her understanding of the games is almost zero, however. It’s the perfect spot to be in!

3) I always come back to being excited to run Call of Cthulhu. It’s the human fighter of roleplaying games for me! I could play X or Y but wouldn’t it be better to be a human fighter?

Right now I’m on a "mundane characters" buzz. The average kid in Tales. The grumpy old man surviving the apocalypse. Let’s me build up some character (at least I hope).

As for games I’m not interested in… Hard question, as I buy so many. I am wary of too much homebrew. Or a game where I feel like there would be too many questions where the answer is "well, in this world…" or "in my world there’s no…"

It’s a problem I encountered in Numenera a lot. I felt uneasy in that world because so much of simple roleplaying was undercut by "John lifts his cup of coffee to his lip… Wait, would they even have coffee? Or tables? It’s a billion years in the future! Forget the whole thing!"

There’s no reason at all! :D and I’ll let you in on a secret, I am currently on the market for a new icon, and it may not even be a frog (though they were still my first item searched! "Frog dressed like Santa."
Hmmm… in real life, I had a real fun time with a Ranger character that I ran through an altered version of Ravenloft 3.5 (I think). It was first ever game of D&D with some good friends. He became a vampire unfortunately but held on long enough to rid the realm of Strahd with his Paladin ally.

In PBP, phew. That’s a hard one. I had a great character in Okri Merryhelm, dwarf fighter. My first character on this site.

Or maybe Gilly Puddlefoot, halfling halfling in @funfungiguy OSE game. But there have been many memorable characters in the last 15 months. It’s hard to say!

@nezzeraj asked me to join as the pandemic ramped up here in South Korea. There was an old school game starting up that he wanted to try and asked if any of our then-group would be interested. I was, and so signed up to the site and that game.

In a lot of ways, I prefer PBP to in-person play. It’s easier on my schedule. I have two kids and a tough job, so time is tight. @nezzeraj has been very patient with me as I muddle through having two kids under two. It doesn’t leave much time for sitting down at a laptop on Sunday night for our game.

@nezzeraj will also attest to the fact that I’m quiet at the table. I don’t roleplay and I go with the flow. I’m very much a "I’m here to roll some dice and possibly stab things" kind of player in real life, the exact opposite of how I am on here. I don’t like combat in PbP as it drags the game to a halt.

But our in person game is vastly superior to PbP when it comes to that unbeatable human connection. Call of Cthulhu when it all starts to fall to pieces and the whole group is laughing all night. It’s a great time. I laugh on here, too, of course. But when the group is riffing, and @nezzeraj tries to hold it all together, it’s a great time.

Last question: Pace is a huge one for me. Sticking to the pace advertised. Keeping the story going, and giving every character something to do. Bending the rules a little is always good for the sake of making PBP a smoother experience for all!

What is an Irishman doing in Korea?

Met my wife in Ireland when she came to study English. After two years, or there abouts, she got homesick. She missed the food and the defined seasons, whereas Ireland is very wet and dreary from one end of the year to the next.

So we came here, supposedly for one year, over five years ago. I teach English over here to pay the bills. We get along okay. It’s a serious business over here.

Do you prefer PbP or RL play? What do you think some of the advantages are of one over the other?

If you could put a Loop anywhere in the world for a new TftL setting book, where would you put it?

Oops.

Ok then, a different question that isn't hurried because I'm embarrassed that I missed an entire post: Favorite foods!

Wait what?

;)

- Curious as to why you don't roleplay at the table, but do (in spades) here. Are you describing your character's action more in narrative form? Is one format influencing the other in terms of your overall play?

- What was the first RPG you played, and was it love at first play with the hobby?

- What was the first game you GMed?

- What's your worst RPG experience to date?

- Just how much do you hate your Tales from the Loop group who, um, don't color inside the lines very well?

I hope these last two don't blend into one response.

Then I was in Pohang/Osan for about 3 months, there was these pale slimy eels that would swim around in aquariums full of their own mucus in the windows of Korean restaurants, which evidently people eat, allegedly raw. Personally I didn't care for the food when I was there, and certainly wasn't brave enough to try the weird eel things.

1) Do you enjoy Korean food, in general?
2) Do you know what the snotty eels actually are, and do they actually eat them alive, and have you ever eaten them, and did you enjoy them?
3) If you carried a single polyhedral die in your pocket every day to make important life choices with, which die would it be, and is that your favorite die or just the one you think is most convenient for making important life choices with?

Being on this side of the world, I’d love to see the 80s that never were in Korea, China or Japan. Even somewhere a little less covered like Vietnam or the Philippines. Japan is the one that screams ‘most likely’ to me. But then again, Free League don’t seem interested in ‘most likely’.
Hmmm… Korean fried chicken is excellent. A weekly indulgence. I also like ‘dakgalbi’ which is a kind of communal chicken fried… thing. It’s the thing I eat when I most feel like leaving Korea.

"Could I really live without dakgalbi?"

Favorite things I miss eating from home: Western Chinese food. Fish and chips (especially the chips). Sausage rolls.

Favourite Korean MMO?

Since you like CoC, the thought of becoming a cultist must have crossed your mind before. Which Old God would you devote yourself to?

1) I’m a lot more reserved in person, I suppose. I’m talkative and sociable, to a certain extent. But I’m no actor, and I have that very (un)healthy Irish idea of "notions". Can’t attempt anything without someone saying "Look at me man over here, putting on the voice and all. Thinks he’s Daniel Day Lewis, does he?"

PBP allows more time for character moments and internal monologue. And time in general to really add in some extra details. In person, well, I want to make my action and then let others have their turn.

2) First I ever played was a heavily homebrewed Ravenloft. First ever roll was a Nat 20. Second ever was a Nat 1. And I’ve been cursed ever since.

And it was love at first sight. We even finished the module. That’s yet to be relocated, I think.

3) First foray into DMing was an ill-fated 5e game that died when I made the move to Korea (understandably). It was fiiine.

In Korea I was more of a player but did manage a few sessions of Warhammer 4e, which was fun. Other than that, it’s just been what you’ve seen here. I’m none-too-experienced.

4) It might have to be getting some pretty long, detailed messages from DeJoker on here expounding upon all the ways in which my DMing was insufficient. Dropped the games I was DMing back then, and even a few I played in where he was another player. Almost dropped the site too, truth be told, as I was a fresh face back then.

5) My Tales crew feel like characters independent of a DM. Like I could come back in ten years and they’d still be there, living life and getting into trouble. I love them.