Ask Me Anything: DarK_RaideR

Story behind your username?

Favorite thing about the planescape setting?

OK, looking at your age, who is your favourite pro-wrestler? Do you ever use them as inspiration for RPG characters?

(Macho Man would be great. Ooh Yeah!)

Original questions, coming through!

At what age and how did you get into ttrpgs? I'm quite curious, as we're around the same age.

GM, player or both? Why and in which case is which?

If you wanted to play something ridiculous, what would be its theme? Would you rather be a player at it or a GM? What kind of wacky character would you play?

What's your favorite color/kind of cat?

Do you prefer small cats or large ones?

Do you have any cats? If so, pictures?

This question had pretty good results in FlyingSucculent's AMA, so, are there any games you're planning to run soon here on GP? Or are there any systems/games that you've desperately wanted to be a player in and have been waiting for someone else to run here?

Back in the wild west days of the internet, an early teen me was using a variation of my real life name as an mIRC username (yep, that far back). Only used the program to chat with classmates and people I already knew, but then I discovered a Greek server named "ad&d". I joined and one of the admins sent me a PM to let me know that newcomers were automatically muted, but I should change my username to something more relative to the server's theme in order to show others I'm "one of them" and get unmuted. So the first image that came to mind was a Conan-esque scene of mounted raiders atop a hill, overlooking a small village they were about to raid. The "Dark" part and how it's all stylized was just me being an edgy teen. Ever since I've used it as my online handle pretty much everywhere.
How it makes players reassess their priorities and aspirations. What good is "getting rich" as your drive in such a setting? What's the point of wanting to be the greatest warrior when you can hop on a few planes and face legendary warriors of old? How's a cleric or paladin's faith affected when they can go to their deity's plane and meet them in person? That kind of stuff.
Meet Macho Goliath Andy Cabbage:

I made him for a silly one shot game.

I used to be an Ultimate Warrior fan, but learning of his ultra conservative and anti-LGBTQ+ knocked him of that pedestal. Opposite case with Bret and Owen Hart, I thought them boring but as I understood wrestling better and learned of what class acts they were backstage, Owen especially, I became a fan. Gotta respect the greats like Taker and Austin, never was a fan of the Rock due to how bad he'd bury others when he'd speak. Loved the original ECW version of Rob Van Dam, no clue what's gotten into his head these last few years since he hooked up with Katie Holmes (Pot. It's probably pot)

Out of modern wrestlers, I'd say the murder grandpa Minoru Suzuki, "Session Moth" Martina and Jordynne Grace.

1999-2000. Me and some friends knew of Dnd and it's base mechanics having played Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, but ad&d was way too complicated by that point to get into and its local community of players was... not so welcoming. That's when 3e came out, I grabbed the starter box on a whim and we were off to the races! Which leads me to...
Since I owned the starter box, I was the de facto DM as I read and prepped until we'd get together to finally play it for the first time. After we finished those adventures (remember, not even the Player's Handbook had been published yet) I grabbed a collection of 2e adventures and a free conversion guide. Everyone looked to me as the DM due to prior experience, but another guy also wanted a go so we flipped a coin and yet again, I was the DM.

Ever since, I've broken the forever DM mold but I still have a ton of games I read and want to play so the only way to play them is to run them for others. GP has actually provided a few opportunities to avoid that, such as kalajel's 5 Torches Deep and aironfabio's Spire games where I get to be the player in a game I've been wanting to try.
If I was the GM, I'd want to run a game of Wicked Ones. It uses the Blades in the Dark engine to have players be the monsters and set up a dungeon, but it's humorous since it draws inspiration from the likes of Dungeon Keeper and War for the Overworld.

I've played various wacky characters, especially when I wasn't really invested in the game to begin with, but I'm currently going through a 5e detox phase since part of my issue with it is how it looks and plays too much like a Saturday morning cartoon, so I'm going the opposite way of wackiness.

Ha! Lucky you! I got the very same box just looking for board games. Having no experience on the universe though and since the translation was poor to say the least, it just gathered dust on the shelf.

- Favorite music album (or a musical/movie)? If none, then favorite song/track?
- Are you interested in Ancient Greek mythology? I feel like it's one of the things Greece is often associated with, but I wonder how locals feel about it.
- Do cats and motorcycles ever mix? :D If you have cats and motorcycles, do cats like sleeping on motorcycles?
- What do you like the most about Warhammer Fantasy?
- Favorite or most memorable thing you ever cooked? Or the most extravagant recipe you tried?

Yes.
Cats.
I have one, my gf has 3 before I met her and we've rescued a bunch that we've found foster homes for. I'll post pics when I'm not on my phone.
I just started a Stars Without Number game after wanting to try how an OSR mindset and sandbox approach would work in a sci fi game. Also I don't really have a game system of choice for sci fi games, so this might become it.

I'd love to give Wicked Ones a go, but doubt it'd work in PbP format due to all the "talking stuff over" mechanic involved. Might be convinced to use the forums for a crunchier game I'd like to try like RuneQuest or HackMaster. I'd join a game of Earthdawn, Eclipse Phase or Heart: The City Beneath on a whim. Those enough?

Is there a Greek RPG that should be translated in other languages because it is too cool, and everyone should know about it?

Yeah I was lucky enough to get the one in English when it was like the only 3e product around. Must have gotten rid of it at some point, likely along with the books when they released 3.5. Found an old version of the translated Greek one gathering dust on some shop shelf few years ago and grabbed it for a couple of Euros. Part nostalgia purchase, part for the hysterical mistranslation, part for the dice and tokens in it.
Can't really stand musicals, but I was raised on The Blues Brothers, which I adore. Albums and tracks are way too many to choose one. Know it sounds like I'm dodging the question, but there really are!
It captivated my imagination as a kid and I think it's an early seed of what blossomed into my RPG hobby. Unfortunately, I cringe way too much every time I see any RPG try to go there (looking at you, Mythic Odysseys of Theros) and as far as the locals go, anything ancient Greece been sadly overtaken, commodified and instrumentalized by tourist salesmen or nationalists.
Yes! Motorcycle seats were made to be comfortable, plus they often come with the benefit of warmth from a human butt that was earlier there and/or from an engine underneath, so of course cats sit on them. I'll have to look into my photos folder, I have one where we parked our bikes to find them overtaken by a swarm of at least 30 stray cats that'd turned them into a hangout.
Its sense of humor and unwieldy magic. Side bonuses include rolling for career, high lethality and not being overtaken by militarists like its 40K cousin.
Most memorable cooked, I'd say one summer that I was camping alone by the beach, I'd found an unused wok at the garage before setting off so I carried it with me, built a little stove with rocks, fired up some charcoal and made myself a gumbo. Currently, I'm going through my ground meats phase, recently made some stuffed cabbage leaves for the first time with a thick egg and lemon sauce.

As for extravagant, I've had stuff in fancy restaurants, the kind we watch on shows like Chef's Table serving x "with tiny foam bubbles on top filled with the scented smoke of y" and although most were nice, none has really stuck with me as a memory. I can tell you about weird stuff if you like, it's only been a few years since I first tried beef tongue or sheep brains (both delicious btw).

I'd say the one I'm using for my solo game on GP but its main attraction is that it's written in Greek from the start so there's no hilarious mistranslations (see the chat with Antiproduct above) and set in an implied Byzantine setting so it's easier for Greek players to tap into our history and draw inspiration from. Both qualities that would be lost in translation and not cater to a non-Greek audience, I'm afraid, take those away and it's just a 0dnd retroclone.

Sadly, most Greek RPGs are vanity projects by DMs who wanted to bring their custom worlds and homebrew rules to book format. They're also written in English anyway. Can't think of a great one to suggest, but Soulmist has a lot of hype to it and killed its Kickstarter goal so you might want to check that out.

Great, so we can see this game in action! Thanks.

I hope you did the only right thing and abandoned your bikes, gifting them to the cats forever.

---

You keep mentioning horrible translations. Any particular examples that stuck in your head (and that can be explained to non-Greek-speakers)?
Are there any points of translation where you think the Greek version of some RPG improved on the original?

As promised, cat photos:


This one's my cat. In a box.


These are my gf's cats. The one up front is the oldest, has an issue with his eye and is a big ol' floof who lives to cuddle, eat and sleep (in that order). The B&W is her favourite, the middle child. He likes to be left alone and especially hates the youngest one in the background, hence the sour face. The youngest looks like some Norwegian forest cat, but is actually extremely reclusive and stealthy.


Here's a photo of the two older ones cuddling, to prove my point above.


These are a pair of orphan strays we rescued a few years ago. They were neutered and exported to the UK, where my gf's sister lives, just before covid hit. I named them Yannis and Thanasis, the Antetokoun-bros.


This guy I found outside my parents' home last summer. He was rescued, neutered and now lives his best life with his parents and his adopted black kitty sister.


This guy was rescued about a year ago along with his two siblings. He was adopted in early January.

Those cats are all so adorable! ❤

You know, I thought there were but I tried to formulate an example in my head and just couldn't, the silliness is gone once you try to re-translate stuff into English. I think the biggest issue in translating medieval fantasy RPGs is that we don't have the foundation to support stuff based in medieval Central/Northern Europe:
- The language lacks the terminology to translate weapons, for example, so any words used will usually sound extremely scientific and elaborate, giving players a hard time to understand what is what.
- The folklore doesn't include goblins, gargoyles and all that, so again you either use an elaborate word that ends up sounding silly or you just go with the name in English, which feels odd being dropped amidst all the Greek.
- Likewise, concepts like bards or druids are hard to touch upon, since there's no such Greek tradition or example to draw upon.
- Culturally, we don't do anything like Renaissance Fairs. Our medieval history is monks in monasteries, peasants toiling the Earth and imperials murdering each other to ascend to the throne. Adventuring heroes, spellcasting and alchemy, monsters ravaging the land, there's very little of that as we grow up (especially in the pre-internet days).
Come to think of it, these issues also come up when watching something like Lord of the Rings or the Witcher, subtitles are weird sometimes.

These cats are absolutely adorable. They make me wish for some quality cat cuddling, especially B&W and his friend. :D
And it's very fitting that the black cat is the one to be caught mid-motion. These tend to be wild in my experience. XD

Also, cat being in a box is a cat way; humans don't understand the meaning behind this sacred ritual.