Ask Me Anything: Aironfabio

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Aironfabio

bowlofspinach

Sep 12, 2022 2:39 pm
Aironfabio
In an attempt to get to know the community and other users on GP better, we want to allow a different member each week to step into the spotlight.
You can find more information here.
About me:
Name: Both Fabio and Airon are fine
Joined: tried in 2018, but for real October 2021
Age: 35
Pronouns: He/him
From: Italy
RPG Interests: Pretty much everything. I love game design and reading about games with mechanics suited for a genre or a mood. Started playing in 2005, I have no nostalgia for old chunky games with too many bizarre rules such as AD&D and love the current explosion of different systems and philosophies. Co-author of Not The End, RPG of the year at Lucca Comics and Games 2020. Also a lot into podcasts and actual play such as Dimension20. Me and some friends have a pretty successful actual play podcast in Italian.
Non-RPG Interests: Traveling, learning about history, cultures and food around the world. Edu-tainment about any subject, in podcast or video form (a lot of history as well). Mountain hiking. Trying to raise a daughter that's a good person.


Ask Me Anything.
This AMA will run until 19 September 2022.
Sep 12, 2022 3:51 pm
What's your favorite Edu-taunment podcast these days; any that you must recommend?

Also, what is your favorite period of history to learn about?
Sep 12, 2022 4:13 pm
What's your favorite music genre and favorite bands?
Sep 12, 2022 4:32 pm
How prevalent is the RPG community in Italy? I live in a country where it's hard to just find a group to play with, so I'm curious how other countries outside of the US have fostered their communities!
Sep 12, 2022 5:03 pm
Tealed says:
How prevalent is the RPG community in Italy? I live in a country where it's hard to just find a group to play with, so I'm curious how other countries outside of the US have fostered their communities!
Was going to ask the same thing. What's the gaming culture like for my southerly neighbors?
Sep 12, 2022 6:47 pm
Quote:
southerly neighbors?
I'm sure you mean southerly Nabors
Sep 12, 2022 7:51 pm
bowlofspinach says:
I'm sure you mean southerly Nabors
Silly me for misspelling, naturally that's what I meant
Sep 12, 2022 9:04 pm
Dunko says:
What's your favorite Edu-taunment podcast these days; any that you must recommend?

Also, what is your favorite period of history to learn about?
Uh, favorite is a hard one. I get bored periodically and charge subjects. Right now I'm listening to "Fall of Civilization" about... well... historical empires that crumbled.
A special place for me will always have season 1 of "Ear Hustle" about life in prison, produced and recorded by actual inmates.
Also, I know it's almost pointless to mention it, but Professor Barbero's history lessons and lectures are amazing. He is a great history divulgator. Of course it's in Italian.

Favorite period: I like pretty much everything, but probably from the Renaissance to WW1. Thirty Years War, French and American revolution, Italy's unification, just about everything about colonialism and de-colonization.
Sep 12, 2022 9:08 pm
Windyridge says:
What's your favorite music genre and favorite bands?
I'm ashamed to say I listen to very little music.
I was into classic rock and metal as a teenager, now I mostly listen to music if it's related to stories, such as songs with lyrics that have a "plot" or soundtracks that evoke a movie. Also a bit of classical music.
I'm pretty into rock covers of classical songs and love the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
Sep 13, 2022 6:58 am
Tealed says:
How prevalent is the RPG community in Italy? I live in a country where it's hard to just find a group to play with, so I'm curious how other countries outside of the US have fostered their communities!
It changes region to region, but it's pretty good overall. Groups of organized play pop up quite often and reach decent numbers; conventions are repopulating after lockdown; a lot of comic book and boardgame stores are expanding their RPG section; our Discord server had dozens of online games every week during Covid lockdown - and so did many others; the most popular radio station in the country recently launched Dugeons & Deejays, where celeb deejays play for the first time with an experienced DM; several games designed by Italian studios reach decent success on Kickstarters even for international releases (great example).
Last edited September 13, 2022 6:59 am
Sep 13, 2022 7:10 am
1. What are the most popular rpg games in Italy?
2. What is your RPG gamer origin story?
3. How and why did you decide to learn English? What's a great Italian word that doesn't have an English equivalent?
Sep 13, 2022 7:44 am
nezzeraj says:
3. How and why did you decide to learn English?
Chances are he learned it in school, mandatory English lessons are a common part of the curriculum all over Europe
Quote:
Within primary education, a very high share of pupils learn English in a majority of EU Member States. Learning English is mandatory within secondary education institutions in several Member States, and so a number of them have close to 100 % of pupils learning this language already in primary education, as shown in Figure 1. All or nearly all (99-100 %) primary school pupils in Cyprus, Malta, Spain, and Austria learnt English as a foreign language in 2019, as was also the case in Liechtenstein, Norway and North Macedonia. In addition, at least 9 out of every 10 primary school children learnt English in Greece, France, Latvia, Poland, Italy, Sweden, and Croatia.
Source
Sep 13, 2022 8:09 am
nezzeraj says:
1. What are the most popular rpg games in Italy?
2. What is your RPG gamer origin story?
3. How and why did you decide to learn English? What's a great Italian word that doesn't have an English equivalent?
1. D&D 5ed by far of course. Other than that you find everything - PbtA fans, old style Vampire and Chtulhu LARPS, a ton of narrative games; I get the feeling that the OSR/OSE fanbase is much smaller than in the US. I have a hard time gauging how popular are Italian-designed games as I'm in a bubble that tends to play then more than the average, but they definitely had some success.

2. High School in the mid-2000, playing Morrowind, reading Dragonlance Books and Lone Wolf "choose your own adventure" Game Books. A friend told me there's this thing called D&D that was the amalgamation of all the best parts. Landed on a few websites and forums, TOTALLY LEGALLY OBTAINED D&D 3.0/3.5 rulebooks and tried out with classmates occasionally. Then I found a stable gaming group in 2008 through one of such forums – my first real campaigns were with M&M 2nd edition, Call of Chtulhu and Pathfinder.

3. High school, a friend did a year abroad in the US and when she came back I realized we were learning nothing in school. So I proceeded to TOTALLY LEGALLY OBTAIN Friends and Scrubs episodes and watched at least one every day for 2 years, twice in a row if I missed a lot of words.
Most Italian words I can't translate are regional. I more often find myself consciously using an English word in place of an Italian one. I guess I do the opposite as well but it doesn’t register in my mind. I’ll try to notice it.
Last edited September 13, 2022 8:09 am
Sep 13, 2022 8:21 am
Ah, the universal experience of technically learning English in school but getting your real practice/knowledge from media
Sep 13, 2022 8:38 am
That's why I asked lol. I teach English in South Korea and learning in school usually doesn't get people much farther than very basic conversation skills. It takes outside study and motivation to get good in a language.
Sep 14, 2022 2:27 pm
Tell us more about Italian-designed RPGs! I'm woefully unexposed to them.
Sep 14, 2022 4:06 pm
What about history attracts you? Is there a favourite era or event? Perhaps a particular writer or strain of thought?
Sep 14, 2022 4:07 pm
How much air can you fit on one fabio?
Sep 15, 2022 7:18 am
BedzoneII says:
Tell us more about Italian-designed RPGs! I'm woefully unexposed to them.
There's been a ton lately!

Two Little mice is probably the most successful publisher; Broken Compass is an absolute gem recomended to everyone who loves pulp adventure;
Household has an amazing setting and great art (the system is a bit unfocused and lackluster)

in Broken Tales you play a redeemed villain in an upside-down fairytale - again, incredible art style and good system.

The publisher I work with has several titles: Not The End is a universal narrative system aimed at making every action and every decision have very powerful consequences. Knights of the Round: Academy is an anime-inspired Mecha-shonen game that really gets the core of its reference genres.

Some honorable mentions that so far lack an English translation.
- Valraven is pretty much Berserk: Golden Age with the serial number filed off, a game about war and how it either breaks you or makes you stone cold.
- Memento Mori is a low low fantasy set in the plague-ridden European Dark Ages, all about corruption of your body and soul, and has been successfully hacked to play Bloodborne.
- Green Oaks is about the crazy adventures of retirees in a cursed nursing home, it has mechanics for gossiping and complaining; and in a standard session you may expect to defeat a cabal of cultists in order to get back your favorite brand of candy in the vending machine.
Sep 15, 2022 8:49 am
Phil_Ozzy_Fer says:
What about history attracts you? Is there a favourite era or event? Perhaps a particular writer or strain of thought?
I feel histoy falls at the perfect intersection of educational and narrative content. I like tech and science and economics, but nothing like a history lesson can be told as if it was a tale.

I love pretty much every era and place - I have a preference for periods of change - such a the transition from Renaissance to Modern Age.

I love Alessandro Barbero's lessons and conferences. He is a gifted divulgator, very skilled in keeping the allure the Great Leader narrative while contextualizing it in the realities of socioeconomics and mentality of the time, so that the legend of a single person doesn't overshadow the real causes of change. I never read his historical novels though, I don't know how good a writer he is.
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