Ask Me Anything: witchdoctor

It's a common question but I've always felt like there's an interesting story behind your username and avatar. Mind sharing?

So, how are you enjoying the Weekenders game and Al? 🙃

My Username is one I've used pretty frequently online. It's mainly derived from an injoke about my job. I'm a laboratory technician at a hospital so I draw blood & run tests on patients. I made an offhand comment once about "reading the entrails and rolling the bones" to see what was wrong with an ER patient and the Doc overheard me. For a while afterwards that Doc always asked for a "consult with the Witchdoctor" when calling for a lab draw. The name just stuck and I started using it online.

As for the avatar pic, it's a nice representation of a Medicine Wheel. It's an important symbol in some Native American tribes & nations. While it's not traditional in mine, it doesn't exclusively belong in another's closed ceremonies. The different colors represent different things depending on how & why you'd use it, as do the four cardinal directions. It's a meditation side, reminding us that there are other points of view beyond our own.
I'd have preferred the skull at the center to be a bison skull but I didn't make the art and it's still something I'm very happy to use.

The Weekenders is a fun game! While I have trouble with whimsical tones I definitely don't mind others who can pull it off. It's very nostalgic and it makes me stop and consider the differences between 1983, when the game is set, and now...especially the differences in attitudes and what was considered "normal" for the era. There'd be a wholly different feel to the game if it were set in the Now.

Alana is a fun character to play off of. She's like a lot of people I've known over the years so I can understand her as a character pretty well. We'll be lucky if she doesn't end up in some kind of residential care facility by the time she hits high school, though.

What's one part of the world near you that you haven't yet visited but want to? And why?

Mammoth Caves is relatively close to where I live but you'll never catch me anywhere underground, especially in a cave. No way, no how.
I'm not particularly claustrophobic but there's just something about the depth of caves that I never liked.

Let's talk cryptozoology!
What mysterious critter that you know of, was sighted/lives in the legends of Tennessee (the more obscure, the better) ?
And, are you going to investigate?

There's a few weird things in Tennessee (other than the people) but one most people don't know about are Raven Mockers. They're from Cherokee myth and can be found throughout the Appalachian Mountains. They're evil magic workers, invisible except to other magic workers, who steal the hearts (physically, not metaphorically).

Investigate? Not likely. As far as I'm aware, I'm not magically inclined and some things are meant to be left alone.

Awesome critters!
(takes frantic notes for their Weekenders game)

Oh no, Witchdoctor! You should have told B about something cute and harmless instead!

Choose:

5, 3, F, & all of them

Call me a monster but after getting food poisoning from undercooked steak I absolutely insist on it being well-done. And by well-done, I mean I like my steak the same way I like my droids...with plenty of carbon scoring.

Toast? I like a light crunch and mild stiffness. Anything beyond that is just sandpaper. A little butter and a super thin layer Marmite/Vegemite perfectly accompanies the eggs below. Oh, Chokecherry jam is THE BOMB for a sweet and tart topping for warm toast.

Coffee? I LOVE the smell of brewing coffee but I can't stand the taste. A hint of coffee is fine but anything more than an appreciable amount in it is a no.

Eggs? I'm a fan of them just about any way they're cooked, except maybe poached. I can't remember if I've had them prepared that way before. Back when I was weightlifting pretty heavy, eggs were my go-to protein source. Cheap, tasty and can be prepared a dozen ways so you don't get sick of them.

What was one of your favorite characters that you were able to build out the background and mythology?

Bedzonell ran an Aberrant game here on GP that I had a lot of fun with. I decided my character had been around a while so I spun out a while team he'd been part of prior to the story events & what had happened to them. He had a rather unique home base to operate from and it spun out a weird, wacky and wonderful life of it's own, touching on some 60s & 80s pop culture as it grew. The base was an abandoned amusement park originally called Mystery Mountain. According to the backstory, my character and some plucky teens (and their dog) uncovered it as a front for an underground supers deathwatch arena in the 1990s. The notoriety led to the place getting the unfortunate nickname of Murder Mountain and experienced financial hardship from being unable to shake the bad press. My character had bought the place once it had closed and used the old deathmatch arena as a base.
It was a kitschy old amusement park that touched on some Scooby Doo vibes, mentioned being the site where a bunch of kids disappeared on a Dungeons and Dragons ride in the 80s, etc... It was fun spinning out the weird history behind one of the story elements in that game.

Another involved weaving Austin Powers references into another game where I played a thinly-veiled version of Dr. Evil. I managed to sneak in a bit of Mystery Science Theater 3000 into the mix as well...

I enjoy dropping off-hand references to pop culture (as if they were real events, places, people or things) into games like Easter Eggs. Sometimes they're really obscure but I enjoy it and I hope anyone else that notices gets a kick out of it too.

Which reminds me of my standard question:

What's your favorite character someone else played in a game you were in?

Alana's on that list but the top spot goes to the_puppeteer's character in a WoD/CoD game called Geist: the Sin Eaters. Here's a quote describing his character, Max Thibideaux.

That does sound like a fun concept!

Yeah. I thought it was really fitting for the setting of Geist since the principle characters are tasked to care for the Underworld and its denizens. Max had unwittingly caused a great deal of harm to the ghosts of New Orleans running his sham tours and was brought back to make amends to them. Cool character concept and executed (pun intended) very well.
Geist is a really interesting WoD/CoD setting that doesn't see a lot of play, overshadowed by Vampire, Mage and Werewolf.

Have you ever used the WoD/Storyteller core rules to run non-White Wolf settings (like a generic rpg ruleset on which to plug /adapt your own skin, a la BRP, Cypher or Savage Words)?

It strikes me as a rich and flexible generic system at its core, that could lend itself to that, but I've never tried.

I like the WoD system concepts, but am not very interested in VtM, Werewolf, Mummy, Mage etc. as settings.