Ask Me Anything: cowleyc

At the table, I usually go without props! I like a more theater-of-the-mind approach to situations. That being said, I love the Dragonbane standees and would love to run a small live game sometime using them.

As a player, I always buy a miniature to represent my character. It gives me something visual to focus on to help stay in character.

What part of your job looks easy to other people but it actually difficult to do?

What would you rather find in your attic: 1000 roaches or 1 human?

1: I think people underestimate how difficult color coordination can be in visual media! Especially when you're putting so much visual data either right next to or on top of each other. So much of my job is spent playing around with color and shapes, after the rest of the data has been found and put on the map. Maps are art! And we are not artists!

2: Considering I'm in the process of a move, and the new house doesn't have anything more than a tiny crawlspace, I'd much rather find roaches. They don't bother me too much! But a stinky human stinking up the place and blocking airflow? Rude!!!

1. Favourite moment from a game on GP?
2. From an in-person game?
3. What's a game you'd like to play but haven't yet had the chance to?
4. What are some key differences you've learned about running/playing in games via PbP versus in-person?

1. There was once a short-lived Ranger Hellrider named Varrak "Finehair" in one of Adam's games. He was a skirmisher, a thinker amongst the other knights. Well, the party had found themselves in Hell (Avernus) and needed to get past a guard tower. To go around would to be spotted; to go in would be death. So, Varrak proposed a different solution. Use the various hell-rides they had acquired. They used a warmachine as a ramp for their few bikes and jumped to the top of the tower in order to surprise attack from above! Granted, it resulted in a TPK, but it was EPIC!

2. That's a much harder question! I'll go with the time my group in a Dresden FATE game was exploring Alaska to track down missing magical kids, and they ended up in a cave filled with punk ghouls along the coast of Anchorage.... and getting to describe the "Eat the Rich" poster slapped up on one wall. Or in that same game when the party's witch managed to tap into the heart of a volcano by interrupting a ritual. I took her into the next room and described how she felt the power, the vastness, the intensity of the volcano inside her mortal shell. It was intense!

3. I'd love to play one of the super-crunchy systems like Hackmaster or Rolemaster. I've run a short PbP game of Against the Darkmaster, and learned a lot about using aides to help things along. But man would I like to really dive in some day! I find this ironic in myself, as I keep moving towards lighter and lighter systems.

4. You know, I don't know that I see too many differences between playing live vs PbP! Lots of "Same Same but Different." As a live player, I like to posture myself and speak in accents (not well, mind you); this translates to more descriptions in PbP since you can't see me hunching over my keyboard with one eye shut. In both formats, driving the momentum is crucial; in a live game, this might be in the way I talk and urge the party along, while in PbP having a discord to keep poking players seems to help. In the end, my loosey-goosey totally inconsistent manner of GMing seems to work well in both formats.

Okay, skiing questions, though I myself have only skied Western US (Utah) twice, so likely your favorite mountain is one I’ve never been to.

• What was (or maybe still is) your favorite mountain and why?
• What was the most insane thing you’ve ever done on skis?
• Did you marry a skier, and if not, did you convert your spouse to a skier?

1. I grew up snowboarding Mt. Hood and currently ski around Mt. Adams, but going out to Banff maybe ten years ago was amazing. I don't remember the name of the mountain, but we had to take a carriage up for about half an hour... only to board down a massively open slope with so few people around. "Top of the World," I think it was called!

2. I only started skiing this last season, so I don't have too many stories. Even on a snowboard, I'm more of a chill flow-er. But last year, day one on skis, I had just finished my lesson for the day and my partner wanted to see what I had learned. We took an easy trail that we had done in the past, but didn't realize it was closed due to early conditions. She took me down sheets of ice and rocks, with not even walking as an option.

3. I married a skier, and she was the one who convinced me to convert! I found I love skiing even more than boarding! And I was able to progress much faster.

Let's talk strange encounters while on a hike, or around a campfire...
Any interesting sightings ?
Any rumours of cryptids or ghosts - any legends you heard from locals?

When I was a kid, I was at a boy scout camp and heard a commotion outside my tent. Peeked out to see a glowing green humanoid run past, too fast for me to pick out any details! Turns out it was another kid who broke a glow stick...


Or the time my dad woke up my friend and myself while camping in Alaska in August to say there were lights dancing in the sky! Turns out it was an little aurora show out of season.

I did see wolves stalking a coworker on a work trip once out to a remote beach in SE Alaska. He had gone in search of those glass balls, the Japanese fishing floats. Tons of wolves out, all hungry due to the weird season we'd been having. We could see him in our binoculars, but couldn't reach him via radio. Eventually he crossed a stream that the wolf wasn't interested in.

Plenty of bears, including a baby bear that was crashing around behind me while on a trail toilet.

Nothing too weird! And not many rumors that I've heard. I know they're out there, but I like my hiking for the grounded reality of it.

Amazing stuff. The glowing green kid is priceless! (it feels straight out of Scooby Doo!)

And he would have gotten away with it, too, if not for those meddling kids!