Ask Me Anything: Legendary_Sidekick

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Legendary_Sidekick

bowlofspinach

Jun 14, 2024 5:43 am
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: Legendary Sidekick
Joined: February twenty-somethingeth, 2024 (though I created the account in summer 2023)
Age: 51
From: Massachusetts, USA, though I lived in Hong Kong for a few years
Professional: ESL Teacher (English as a Second Language)
RPG Interests: I wasn’t into D&D growing up. Gauntlet was in the arcade, then a few years later, Secret of Mana was on Super NES, then LARPing… that’s the evolution of my co-op RPG-ish fix. Someone introduced Play-by-Post to me in 2012, and the hobby’s had ups and downs. But mostly ups because I still do it. Systems don’t matter to me. I never played D&D.
Non RPG Interests: Drawing, skiing, and it’s summer so time to see if I’m too old for flips off the diving board, dance—no, not ME! I mean watching. My daughters perform. They do music too, whereas I only appear talented at karaoke parties. But that’s because I choose my songs wisely. I have a martial arts history (probably why I like playing monks), and used to really be into bloody action movies. Now I stick to stuff my wife likes to watch. And running… I should add that to this list and then actually do it.
Other: Married, three daughters, and we recently further increased the female-to-male ratio with our pet rabbit.


Ask Me Anything.
There are no further AMAs lined up after this one, so if you are interested, please apply to do an AMA next in this thread.
Legendary_Sidekick
Jun 14, 2024 6:15 am
Hello! Its good to meet another ESL teacher! I teach in South Korea. What was the best and worst things about living in Hong Kong? What's your favorite ttrpg? Which one do you want to try but haven't had the opportunity yet?
Jun 14, 2024 7:43 am
Oh, oh, I knew what I was going to ask the moment I've seen that you're doing this! :D Do you have a favourite art trick? Something you do for your drawings a lot? Whether it's a brush, or a filter, or a specific hue, or even layer arrangement. Maybe a favourite lighting style? Background texture?

Do you go to arcades nowadays? Any cool machines you like? :D (Oh, do you have pinball ones where you live? I've always been intrigued by them.) What is your favourite arcade machine of all times?

Did your martial arts knowledge and LARPing hobby ever intersect?
Jun 14, 2024 10:35 am
nezzeraj says:
Hello! Its good to meet another ESL teacher! I teach in South Korea. What was the best and worst things about living in Hong Kong? What's your favorite ttrpg? Which one do you want to try but haven't had the opportunity yet?
Cool! My colleague, who shares a classroom with me, had taught in South Korea for 20 years!

Hong Kong… the best thing is that I could eat some of the best cuisines Southeast Asia has to offer and be thin!—seriously, I made it my goal to gain ten pounds for my wedding. Walking everywhere in extremely hot weather helped, but I also I believe the food/diet there is overall healthier.

The worst, at the time I lived there: cities are crowded and noisy. My wife (who is from HK) and I decided to move to the US after our first daughter was born. We wanted her to have a yard to play in.

My favorite place in HK, Lamma Island, encompasses all of the above. (EDIT- I mean good food, long walk, and you’re away from the noise and the crowds.) You eat seafood caught that morning, then you take an 80-or-so minute walk and have tofu dessert on the beach side.
https://i.imgur.com/DBKU0QF.jpeg
There are Taoist temples and seafood restaurants off-camera, to the right of the docks for fishing boats. It takes about 40-60 minutes to walk to the pagoda.

Favorite TTRPG? I think Masks is it. It is a heavily-guided rules-lite system (my opinion), but in a good way. I feel like the moves elicit player creativity as opposed to limiting character ability. No character is really limited, since basic moves are the main functions and abilities just add flavor. Who’s better at what is almost a perception vs. reality thing (but of course a +3 label does actually make you the best at moves using that label). Thirsty Sword Lesbians is virtually tied. The nature witch’s magic move is a lot of fun, or at least my interpretation was.

I can’t think of a TTRPG that I *want* to play. Maybe the original Apocalypse World? But the PbtA games I liked all have this premise that you *don’t* kill, which might actually be part of what attracts me to Masks, TSL and even Action Movie World where you do kill, but it’s only a movie and the actors are unharmed.
Last edited June 14, 2024 10:45 am
Jun 14, 2024 1:57 pm
If you've been teaching for a while, how is it different today than when you started?

Sock, sock, shoe shoe, OR sock, shoe, sock, shoe?
Jun 14, 2024 2:22 pm
What kind of music do you listen to when you have the time?
Jun 14, 2024 2:32 pm
Who is your favorite X-Man, and why is it Colossus? :D
Jun 14, 2024 4:19 pm
FlyingSucculent says:
Oh, oh, I knew what I was going to ask the moment I've seen that you're doing this! :D Do you have a favourite art trick? Something you do for your drawings a lot? Whether it's a brush, or a filter, or a specific hue, or even layer arrangement. Maybe a favourite lighting style? Background texture?

Do you go to arcades nowadays? Any cool machines you like? :D (Oh, do you have pinball ones where you live? I've always been intrigued by them.) What is your favourite arcade machine of all times?

Did your martial arts knowledge and LARPing hobby ever intersect?
I’m gonna get back to you on the drawing question, hopefully with fresh images.

Arcades: last time I was at an arcade, it was January 22, 2005. It was also the first time I called my wife on the phone. So Vanguard was probably the game I enjoyed most that night. The explosions when you shoot spaceship are satisfyingly loud. I beat the game in one life. I played Dragon’s Lair and still sucked at it. Then I said goodbye to my friend and on my hour-long drive home, I heard my wife’s voice for the first time. (We were supposed to meet for lunch while I was on a business trip to Hong Kong.) Not a bad last trip to the arcade.

Arcade machines I’ve played since then:
• Maui, HI, October 21, 2006: Gauntlet Legends at the hotel laundromat. Co-op with my wife.
• New York, NY, Summer of 201X: a Pink Panther game at Chuck E. Cheese. Helped my then-pre-schooler win 100 tickets.
• Concord, MA, early-2024: Rampage at a Mexican restaurant. With my wife. Not technically co-op, but I didn’t eat her when she turned human.

Martial Arts + LARP: I fought light contact, so the concept of "tagging" my opponent without hurting him was normal. Advantage: me… except against casters. I took Iaido and played a samurai master when I NPC’d and someone made me a boffer katana. I had to really work to be a convincing master. I pulled it off, but was always worried I’d get my butt kicked by random monsters since there is no advantage at all to having a short boffer weapon and no shield.

As a player, I did nutty things like jumping into lakes and eating with my bare hands. I played a barbarian, and there was no finesse to that.
crazybirdman says:
If you've been teaching for a while, how is it different today than when you started?

Sock, sock, shoe shoe, OR sock, shoe, sock, shoe?
Everyone has a Chromebook. Mixed feelings on that, but given all my low-income students, I like supplying them with tech for presentations (which is what they did the past two days for finals). The tech now makes it easy for students to add images from their phone to Google Slides, so instead of an internet photo of Guatemala, it was my student drinking a Coke with a Mayan ruin in the background!

I still do a lot on paper though. And when we read Of Mice and Men, Joy Luck Club, etc., it’s a paperback. There’s something magical about a book in your hand to me.

Sock, sock, get interrupted, shoe shoe OR sock, get interrupted, swear under my breath and ask the walls "where’s my other sock?", sock, shoe, shoe OR give up the search for the missing sock, flip flop, flip flop.
Windyridge says:
What kind of music do you listen to when you have the time?
I try to find out what’s new. Some bands I like and didn’t know existed until the past year or two include Dry Cleaning, The Orielles, La Luz, Bodega, and my latest discovery is Sweeping Promises. They’re a Boston-based couple. I think they went to Harvard.

I also enjoy video game music, so if I don’t want ads (because I’m too cheap to pay Spotify), I listen to a live stream called Radio Cutman.
Dmbrainiac says:
Who is your favorite X-Man, and why is it Colossus? :D
In the X-Men 6-player arcade machine, it is Colossus. I don’t honestly have a reason. He dies just as quickly as everyone else, despite his armored body. But that special move just hits everyone nearby, so I do like that.

Oh… @FlyingSucculent, my favorite machine is Gauntlet. The game is dated (so is X-Men), but just seeing a huge machine built for 4 was cool in 1985. The artwork on the side was cool. They really had generic names. Questor?! Really?! But at the time, OOOH I WANNA BE MERLIN! I WANNA BE THOR! OR THYRA, THE GIRL THOR!

(Honestly it was just Thor or Thyra for me. I didn’t wanna be a bearded old guy or an elf with a dorky name.)
Jun 14, 2024 5:46 pm
If a Genie appeared in front of you what would your three wishes be? (Normal Wishes that are not allowed rules stand.)
Jun 14, 2024 7:19 pm
Smiley says:
If a Genie appeared in front of you what would your three wishes be? (Normal Wishes that are not allowed rules stand.)
1. - become a character of my own creation, complete with all of the chosen character’s features and abilities.

2. - grant this power to my wife, but a character of her design with features and abilities of her choice.

3. - whatever features and/or abilities my wife and I have from our altered selves are retroactively hereditary to our daughters, if they choose to accept them.
Jun 14, 2024 8:41 pm
Was Hong Kong your first choice of location to be an ESL teacher?
Jun 14, 2024 11:09 pm
If you could sing a karaoke duet with anyone, living or passed, who would it be and what would you sing together?
Jun 14, 2024 11:31 pm
What other play by post mediums have you tried and what prompted you to try us?
Jun 15, 2024 4:14 am
Tickettbror says:
Was Hong Kong your first choice of location to be an ESL teacher?
Sort of. I was unemployed when I moved there, and while looking for work I volunteered at my wife’s friend’s school for the autistic. I liked it, and ended up working for a learning center.

It’s hard to explain how things work there. I worked at three kindergartens and also got a lot of gigs, like after school programs, reading to kids at bookstores and the Central Library—audiences of like 200+ people, but just reading stories and making puppets talk and learning the hard way that sometimes kids cry onstage and parents complain when that happens.

And I was actually hired for birthday parties. "Should we get a clown?" "Nah, let’s get an English teacher. That’ll liven up the party." I also landed an all-expense-paid gig in Kunming, China. I think the center paid more for the trip than they paid me.

But anyway, teachers at the kindergarten suggested I take a post-grad course at the University of Hong Kong. So I did that, got my educator license and worked at a secondary school for a year.



Short answer: I just fell into the teaching career.

(Maybe I shoulda led with that.)
quilltid says:
If you could sing a karaoke duet with anyone, living or passed, who would it be and what would you sing together?
The song would be Spoiler Alert by They Might Be Giants.


Who would I sing it with? Anybody willing and able to do Flansburgh’s part! (The red-background-hand.)

Oh… and he needs to be alive. I ain’t karaokeing with no zombie.
Jun 15, 2024 8:56 am
Your top three oriental street food delicacies?

(so we can try them, if available locally!
We have a lot of choice in London, but I never know what to try - recommendations welcome! )
Jun 15, 2024 4:49 pm
Qralloq says:
What other play by post mediums have you tried and what prompted you to try us?
The site where I got into PbP was a site for fantasy writers, or people who wanted to be. So most of the PbPs didn’t use a system.

I played on a GM’s own site. After his games ended, he joined one of my summer one-shots on Discord.

I also still have an active game (4.5 years now) on the forum of a TTRPG publisher. I won’t join new games on that site though. I prefer the set-up here, and since GP isn’t the site of a particular system, I find there’s more variety. I love the abundance of Rules-Lite: Tiny D6, Lasers and Feelings, Kids on Bikes..!

I ALSO LOVE THE FONT CHOICES, the ability to embed video, and I just learned how to code die rolls. That is a very nice feature. A player (FlyingSucculent) also showed me how roll tables work!

More importantly, in one of the first games I joined, the GM mentioned safety in our Session Zero. Even before I joined, I saw a lot of GMs took the PbtA note to the MC, "be a fan of the players’ characters," and extended that to players: "be a fan of each other’s characters." It was this line that attracted me the most.

What prompted me? I won’t tell the story, but let’s just say I wanted a safer place to game and leave it at that.
Dr_B says:
Your top three oriental street food delicacies?

(so we can try them, if available locally!
We have a lot of choice in London, but I never know what to try - recommendations welcome! )
Okay… gonna limit my suggestions to Hong Kong cuisine.

1. BBQ Pork Rice (cha siu fahn) - this was the first dish I learned to order in Cantonese (after I caused a teenage waitress to visibly panic when I ordered in English). My wife made it earlier this week, and last night, we had BBQ pork fried rice from the leftovers!
https://i.imgur.com/TdBXB2P.jpeg

2. Dim Sum - I actually had Dim Sum at 11:00 this morning! It’s like a brunch—there are carts full of rice rolls, steamed buns, dumplings, etc.
https://i.imgur.com/PLZwjBA.jpeg

3. Sweet Soups - I had a tofu dessert (dau fu fa; lit.trans.: "tofu flower") at the dim sum place. We do red bean soup at home occasionally. At a restaurant, if we can find it: snow fungus with pear. My wife is gathering ingredients now to make sweet potato soup with rice dumplings!
https://i.imgur.com/wgYzI8N.jpeg
Jun 15, 2024 5:12 pm
Oh… street food!!! I’ll get back to you later. I somehow missed the word street until just now.
Jun 15, 2024 7:26 pm
Well, these are great tips too, thanks!
Jun 15, 2024 7:55 pm
No problem!

Here is HK street food.

Last time we were there (2019), we had my wife’s favorite: bubble waffles.
https://i.imgur.com/xejpgqV.jpeg

I used to get egg tarts as the Tseun Wan station in the way to work when I taught kindergarten.
https://i.imgur.com/1gASkoB.jpeg

And the tofu dessert "dau fu fa" I had today is a street food, though the best was sold on the beach of Lamma Island.
https://i.imgur.com/ye0TpNY.jpeg
Jun 16, 2024 9:37 am
What's the inspiration behind your username, is there an interesting story or was it an on the spot deal?
Jun 16, 2024 12:22 pm
Tickettbror says:
What's the inspiration behind your username, is there an interesting story or was it an on the spot deal?
No story, really. I like co-op games, so my goal is to excel at being a teammate.
Jun 16, 2024 2:32 pm
Do you teach ESL online or in person?
And if online, do you operate privately or through a school or marketplace?
Jun 16, 2024 6:53 pm
Knifesedgegames says:
Do you teach ESL online or in person?
And if online, do you operate privately or through a school or marketplace?
In-person, at the local high school. My students are from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Uruguay, Honduras, Brazil, Venezuela, Portugal, Ghana, Pakistan, Vietnam and Korea.

EDIT: and Columbia.

I’m kicking myself for not including Columbia because the student who’s from there gave an awesome presentation for his final.
Last edited June 17, 2024 1:03 am
Jun 17, 2024 2:04 am
Have you asked any of your students about role playing games available in their home countries?
Jun 17, 2024 2:45 am
Your evolution into tabletop gaming is interesting. What about table RPGs keeps you coming back for more? Was there any game that you played that you really enjoyed? What kind of story would you like most to try and play?

Secret of Mana is a fantastic game. I've played it from start to finish many times. I was even listening to some songs from the soundtrack just the other day. Gauntlet is great fun as well. What a black hole for quarters that thing was. "Insert .25 for extra health..."
Jun 17, 2024 11:54 am
Qralloq says:
Have you asked any of your students about role playing games available in their home countries?
I have not.

Probably the closest I’ve come to showing this side of myself is using an online die roller (with polyhedral dice) to randomly choose the next student to give their presentation. They get a kick out of that—though they all volunteered during finals last Thursday.
Phil_Ozzy_Fer says:
What about table RPGs keeps you coming back for more? Was there any game that you played that you really enjoyed? What kind of story would you like most to try and play?
An RPG is an unpredictable story, and I’m in it. Not me exactly, but my mind viewing the world through my character’s eyes.

In my first Pathfinder game (a homebrew, not an AP), my Druid was in Neverland. She befriended a fairy and used Wish magic to become one. The GM weaved descriptions so well, I visualized everything vividly, like dreaming while wide awake. So in the fairy form, the world had suddenly become enormous! It could be horrifying at times—like seeing the decapitated head of a villager I failed to save. But it was fun while the campaign lasted (which was about 5 years).

A campy Charlie’s Angels type superheroine game that takes place before my time, before cell phones, with a bit of a Get Smart flavor and something like those flashback scenes in Watchmen—the glory days of the past superheroes before the morbid reveals. Colorful like Adam West Batman, corny, nonviolent-ish (non-lethal).

Oh—and question for you, @Phil_Ozzy_Fer, have you played Trials of Mana? Not the remake. The 1995 game translated to English. My brother got it on Switch (2020, I think, or 2021), and we played it whenever he was over. It took us a year or two to finish!
Last edited June 17, 2024 11:59 am
Jun 17, 2024 2:56 pm
@FlyingSucculent

A trick I read in a Modern Cartooning book ten years ago: 3 sections for a woman’s torso, a bowl for the hips.
https://i.imgur.com/WdJUo5H.jpeg

That said, if I think a pose is boring, I dress it up anyway, then try new poses before I commit.
https://i.imgur.com/jAGhN6P.jpeg

Third time was a charm! (Second pose not shown. Trust me. It sucked.)
https://i.imgur.com/cPthvpM.jpeg

I try to organize layers. I find stupid mistakes as I color.
https://i.imgur.com/60A1Wy4.jpeg

I have a separate layer for skin and clothing. I will shade each on a different layer, and I’m probably going to use Flat Brush, Jagged Brush and Oriental Brush for shading. These are Procreate defaults.
https://i.imgur.com/91O2PeG.jpeg

I’ll post more later, but I gotta pick up my daughters and be the lifeguard at their last-day-of-school pool party.

Hopefully I’ll finish soon. This is Grace, my Fabula Ultima bard who actually hits people with an oversized lute called a Baroque Theorbo. I used a reference to draw it kinda right.
Last edited June 17, 2024 2:57 pm
Jun 17, 2024 5:22 pm
[ +- ] The Finished Product
@FlyingSucculent, not sure if I adequately answered your question, but here’s what I came up with in the parking lot just before my girls got out of school.
Jun 18, 2024 4:04 pm
Legendary_Sidekick says:


Oh—and question for you, @Phil_Ozzy_Fer, have you played Trials of Mana? Not the remake. The 1995 game translated to English. My brother got it on Switch (2020, I think, or 2021), and we played it whenever he was over. It took us a year or two to finish!
I think the game you're looking to play sounds fun. Maybe with something like Savage Worlds? There are other people on this site that will be able to help you, I believe.

I have not played Trials of Mana, however(!), I did recently purchase Collection of Mana for the Switch which contains the 16-bit version of Trials.... Depending on my adult schedule, I will get to it! Hopefully it won't take me two years, but at least if it does then I'll know I got good value in quality gaming.

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