1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?
I ran a MUCK (multi-user character kingdom -- similar to a MUD) throughout my teens called Larswood MUCK and spent many long Summers writing room descriptions and generally coming of age there.
Last night, I GM'ed my Burning Wheel campaign.
3. When was the last time you played?
Erol Otus' Island Town 2 game at NTRPGCon 2012.
4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.
A B/X hexcrawl based on Oregon Trail, with its own little subsystem involving fording rivers, blazing trails and the consequences of losing supplies.
5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?
Try to write down notes any names, details and clues that I anticipate coming up in the next bit of play-- these items are hard for me to improvise without hesitating -- and keeping up the illusion of world consistency even when winging it is something I strive for. I love it when my players feel like they can go anywhere, talk to anyone, and do anything they could imagine their characters doing in the world of my game.
6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?
Guacamole, when I get a break from talking.
7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?
No, I usually am energized and physically high after a game session. It can be mentally taxing and frustrating if my improvisational tools and game prep aren't all in place, or if I can see table "fun" dwindling and don't have a clean method with which to advance the game to the next "fun" point.
8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?
Last night, our ship's captain and sorcerer Valencio Monterosa, attempted to summon a spirit of the swamp to guide the vessel through the dark swamp of a jungle island. Failing his test, since this was Burning Wheel consequences are usually dire -- and in this case, the spirit he unleashed flew ahead and massacred everyone in an entire village.
9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?
Nah. I'm very explicit about the tone of whatever game it is going in, and everyone plays along nicely. I weave a lot of bizarre, silly and monstrous into my games but verisimilitude is still very important to me. Some games I begin with "this game is like a Saturday morning cartoon, most everyone you meet will be a caricature of their role." And some games are "this game is about Tolkien's Middle-earth and we're going to use proper elvish and talk about heroism and bravery and friendship a lot."
10. What do you do with goblins?
In my current game they are The Bananamen -- lanky, pus-filled fruit people with gaping maws and spears that only communicate to each other by slurping in numerical combinations.
11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?
I design synthesizer electronics for a living, so I always imagine strange monsters as moving around while emitting synthey bleeps, bloops and blurps. Kind of like as monstrous manifestations of the sounds I love.
12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?
When I was 14, I was GM'ing MERP for my little brothers. I got real pissed and sent Smaug's cousin to eat them. In MERP it's all percentile dice and critical hit tables. My little brother fires an arrow at Smaug's cousin and rolls 100 not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES IN A ROW. Red dragon dead in one shot, he immediately goes up something like 5 levels all at once.
13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?
Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. I got it in the mail yesterday. The artwork is worth the price of the book alone, I'm really enjoying it. Maybe I'll incorporate it or parts of it into my own D&D game.
14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?
Erol Otus, duh! I like surreal, wacky, and dark. I like evocative black and white line art and interior illustrations best, but I think the best illustrated and designed books are Geoffrey McKinney's books published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Carcosa and Isle of the Unknown. Those are the most beautiful books in my game collection.
15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?
Yep, definitely. Survival stories are a genre favorite of mine, and I love playing into the whole we're trapped in a cave and gonna die aspect of dungeons.
16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)
I have run James Raggi's Tower of the Stargazer three times now and it's such a blast.
17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?
After dark with moody lighting in a large room with a big table and no interruptions.
18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?
Oldschool D&D, Burning Wheel, and Rolemaster are all things I love that are extremely different games.
19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?
Wow, hmm. Some non-fantasy or RPG-related things: synthesizers and electronic circuits, memories of travel and strange places, remembering things I would've thought cool when I was a kid, being a dad, experiments in musical performance art and stage antics, my love for my friends, love for cartography.
20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?
Someone who dedicates the attention to stay immersed and would keep playing forever, if they could. Someone who tells me when they didn't have fun and why. Someone who is proactive and expands upon the world I've set up for them.
21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?
I'll have to stew on that one for a while.
22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?
Some version of D&D that satisfies all my little quirks and preferences (workin' on it.) A rules-lite gonzo cyberpunk game that I could referee easily because I know shit about electronics, maybe.
23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?
Sure, my right hand man and assembly tech with LZX, Jonah Lange, isn't a gamer - but I talk to him a lot about my games and everything else. He's got great taste and always listens and has great advice on how to terrify the shit out of my players.
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