Ask Me Anything: ireneofunyes

You're in six active games across five different systems. Do you have a favourite for PbP?

Did/do you play IRL too? If so, what things took you by surprise with PbP games?

You're quite new here. What were your first experiences with GP? How did you end up here? Was anything daunting or confusing?

What features do you feel GP is missing or could improve?

Which of the D&D classes do you feel like describes you the best?

What’s your favorite thing to show visitors when they come to your home country?

I had a chat with a friend of mine about GM and player -styles. We concluded that there were two fundamentally different styles.
The crunchie style, where each element has one or more rules that could be adhered to. Games systems like shadowrun cater very much to this.
The freeform style, where the rules are guidelines to the game flow, and one consults the few rules when the player/gm wants to achieve something specific story-wise. Game systems like FATE cater very much to this.

I'm definitely lean more toward the freeform style. My friend suggested that it was because as a programmer and data analyst I wanted to get a counterweight to the otherwise unforgiving rules of programming.

What kind of player / GM are you?

The most basic but most essential question asked in every AMA, is there a story/reason behind the username?

What's your favorite food to make and/or eat? And, if that isn't a national/regional dish, then what's your favorite Turkish dish?

I'll answer these two questions in tandem. I cannot exactly say I have a favorite for PbP but since as far as I know none of these systems we play are specifically designed for PbP, they all have their respective challenges. For one, I thinl D&D is one of the least suitable ones for PbP, especially if the setting is a combat-heavy one. Among the ones I'm playing right now, I honestly cannot decide between Alien RPG or Fate. Alien RPG flows very good in PbP because it is hard for me to roleplay retro sci-fi characters. I wouldn't be that confident during a live session game. For the second question, yes I play IRL and the reason I like playing PbP, despite all of its challenges, is the fact that I get to learn new systems, play through them and (if I have enough time) carefully construct roleplay posts. Besides, I get to do all these while making new friends.
I just googled it, actually 😃 I guess I was looking for websites like this where I can play PbP games and Google recommended here to me. I was a bit confused by the "games" list and how can I apply to new games because that section do not include new games (or did not, I haven't used it for a while). It took me a while to discover the Games Tavern. My first experience was a D&D 5e game in which we played as kids and started at level 0. Not surprisingly, after almost six months we're still playing it and I'm having a lot of fun.
Well, it's not a subject I put a lot of thought, actually. But if I had to say something, I would say it'd be good id there were more detailed options to handle things like NPCs or system specific issues.

Definitely wizard 😃 I find it admirable for someone studying and learning through their way to gain such powers. I myself is a strong proponent of the idea that there is always room for improvement for an individual if they have enough time and spend enough effort.
Is it weird that this scenario never happened? 😃 I mean, I live in Istanbul in Turkey and there are some traditional places to show here if someone outside the city to come here but I've never had a foreign visitor. I usually take people to my favorite restaurants 😃 I'm not much of a traveler but discovering new and interesting places to eat, that I love 😃

I would say I'm closer to the freeform style. I'm a wannabe engineer so going through a system, learning its intricacies and experiencing them satisfies me a lot but I would only enjoy that style if there were a whole table of players who think exactly like me. Otherwise, it is a burden on other players to keep track of all those little details. Honestly, I don't know how people played D&D 3-3.5 and Pathfinder 1e back in the days when online play was not such popular (or outright did not exist) and everything had to be done on pen and paper.

As long as it makes sense and the people at the table are comfortable with it, I don't see any problem to change the rules and introduce some homebrew/house rules.

It is the name of a character from a Borges story. The name is actually Ireneo Funes, not Ireneo Funyes. In the story Ireneo is a man who has a perfect memory. He remembers eveyrthing he experiences and in a way this makes him an extremely boring person. I like Borges' writing but to be honest I'm not a big fan. I just thought it's a unique nickname and claimed it. Quickly realized that people incorrectly assume it's a variation of the name "Irene" and they refer me as "she/her" but I got no probem with that as a first mistake 😃
Uhm, tough one. Favorite food to make would probably be burrito. I like combining different things into a giant wrap because it guarantees that I will be full 😃 Favorite food to eat, I would say ramen. As you can see I have a thing for food that combines different seperate ingredients into a unity. As a Turkish dish, there is a food called "besmeç" in my hometown. It's like a meatball but made with "bulgur" plus meat, which is, how to put it, a form of processed wheat that you can also use to make rice. It has a very distinct taste, most people outside of my hometown do not like it but I absolutely love it.

Haha, yes I was reading it as Irene-of-Unyes (as in "No") or Irene of Onions ;D

But interesting!

What is something you look to for inspiration for your own game prep that you believe is a great resource?

Irene of Onions, huh? That’s new 😃
I assume you mention as a GM. It depends on the game I’ll play. For D&D I like wandering through published adventures, even old modules. Though I don’t read all of them, skimming and understanding the core idea often helps to develop unique ideas of mine. For a generic game, I usually go with science fiction and Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica are always great inspirations to me. Star Trek not only enriches me and increases my hope for future. BG is more a pessimistic one in certain aspects but it has great dramatic details. Taking a traditional concept and placing it in a different setting is also a good exercise. You know, "bla bla in space" kind of things.

Ooh, you brought up Star Trek! So, I will launch my Star Trek questions like a full spread of photon torpedos. What's your favourite ST series? Favourite movie? Favourite captain? Favourite ship design?

I may have overselled myself on that a little bit 😃 I only watched TNG and partly the reason is I like it so much that I don’t want to consume it for a short time and deprive myself of the joy of watching Star Trek. Right now I’m about to finish the third season of TNG and after that my plan is to watch TOS, DS9 and Voyager along with movies. Maybe if I have more spare time in the future I can lean on watching them but I only get to watch TV shows during lunch or dinner, and those I usually spend with my girlfriend, watching our favorite sitcom comedies. There isn’t much free time to concentrate on watching Star Trek but I’m okay with it. As I said, the day I finished the TNG would be a sad, sad day for me.

I've been doing that as well. But I also thought it could be "Ire Neo Fun Yes" (like "I are Neo..."). Haha! :) I'm glad I can stop breaking my head over it now.

Question: Do you play any instruments? If so, which one(s)?

My answer to this question is unfortunately no. In the past I've started learning two different instruments at two different times. When I was a kid me and my friend used to go to a guitar course for one summer vacation, but our attention quickly withered and we stopped going. Then I have a one month of piano experience, again with another friend. That didn't continue either. I'd want to have learnt and played an instrument until now but with every age it seems I'm too late...

-I am curious about the availability of RPG books in the Turkish language: is this a thing, or do you have to buy most books in English/other languages for lack of translations?

-any Turkish original RPG or setting that the world should know about?

-the Cats of Istanbul, shown in movies and photographs as well-loved by the citizens, lazily watching over the waters of the mighty Bosphorus: myth or reality?

I'm afraid the availability and accessibility is very low. Firstly, there are no official translations. I only know of the Turkish version of Fate Condensed, which is translated by the initiative of a Youtube content creator who is also a TTRPG fan. Other than that knowing English is a prerequisite if you want to delve into this hobby. Even if you kno English, physical copies are almost impossible to get. The ones that can be bought are extremely expensive. That's why people usually consult illegal contents as far as I know like pdfs that can be found online.

I only know of a setting book called Sviland. It's developed for D&D fifth edition. It's not a Turkish RPG though, just developed by a complete Turkish crew.

Cats are definitely a reality. They practically own the city. They owned my university as well. In one of our campuses it was almost impossible to eat something without some fat, arrogant cat coming to you and claiming it, waiting for the opportunity to jump and run away with your food.

This is a great way to be a Star Trek fan. It's not about how much you've watched but how much you love it ☺️.
All good things...

Turkey has a pretty robust film industry. Here in Canada on Netlix, I enjoyed a Turkish vampire series called Immortals. What's a great Turkish film that you've enjoyed?

Netflix shows are generally above average in terms of TV shows in Turkey. I highly recommend Kulüp (The Club) if you like historical drama. Local channels usually produce cliche and bad shows.

Well, I recently watched a movie called Aaah Belinda. It's 1986 movie, a pretty feminist one directed by a then-famous director, especially interesting when you think of how male-dominant that sector was back then and this movie is directed by a man. In it a modern actress is about to play at a commercial, which portrays a dull housewife. Belinda is a shampoo brand and the commerical is about how "beautiful and satisfying" the shampoo is :D At one moment she finds herself in the world of the commerical where she is actually a housewife with two kids, living a highly limited and oppressed life. I like finding gems like this, older movies tend to surprise me on that manner.

That movie does sound pretty interesting

Yeah, it was. I'm not sure English subtitles can be found for it but if you happen to find it I highly recommend the movie.

Not a tabletop RPG per se, but I'm pretty sure the wondeful Mount & Blade videogames were developed by an all Turkish team.

Yes, this is true. Turhish video game companies (or rather a group of enthusiasts) usually lean towards mobile games and even if they produce video games they are generally small, indie-like games so Mount&Blade is an exception in this case.

my 'Trademark Question' ©Antiproduct:
What do movies and television get wrong about your culture?
What's your favorite Nic Cage movie?
What is your least favorite episode of your favorite TV show?

Well, I haven't seen much global productions mentioning Turkey or rather directly happening at Turkey. Maybe you have seen those memes where whenever an event takes place at Mexico on an American movie/tv show, there is automatic yellow filter placed. Maybe they do it to represent how hot it is there but it's still silly to represent a whole country just by one color. I think similar things are valid for my country as well, they probably over-sell the "oriental" aspect of it. Local movies and tv shows are another case. Especially tv shows, which do nothing but portray rich people, usually CEOs or rich families. OR, if they try to portray "regular" people, usually they are in such a bad situation that it's not realistic.
Not seen much of his movies, unfortunately, especially recently. I remember watching the Ghost Rider wen I was younger but that's it.
When you think of it, first two seasons of it contain much more bad episodes in comparison to the third, which had only one not-so-good episode, I guess.