Shamelessly horked from
I want everyone who reads this to ask me 4 questions. Any 4, no matter how personal, dirty, private, or random. I have to answer them honestly. In turn, you have to post this message in your own journal, and you have to answer the questions that are asked of you.
Who in the gaming industry do you like least?
What’s your favorite junk food?
Do you believe in reincarnation?
Which was your favorite Smurf?
1. Wow…there are so many to choose from. To pick the one that I like the least, though, that would have to be John Phythyon, whom I got into the business with, who forced me out of the company we founded, and then used my game (HKAT) to sell the company to Guardians of Order, and get himself a job, which he then bootstrapped into other salaried jobs with Avalanche and GAMA. Coat-tail riding motherfucker…made even worse by the fact that he was my best friend, but did all of the above when I was in the midst of a nasty divorce and needed friends the most.
2. Pizza. (The real NYC mom-and-pop non-franchise variety)
3. Not sure. I think so.
4. One that was never in the cartoon. Fencer Smurf.
1. If your appearance matched your personality- what would you look like?
2. If you could erase everyone’s memory of you, but not your own, and start over right now- would you?
3. Wings or Tail?
4. Favorite guilty pleasures?
1. Honestly, I think that my appearance does match my personality. I’d never really thought about it before, but it seems a good fit to me.
2. Nope. A big part of my income is based on me being a known quantity– I’ve worked too hard to get where I am, such as it is.
3. Wings, without question.
4. My life is an unending stream of guilty pleasures. Low-budget British SF, pulp fiction of the 30s and 40s, “cheesy” exploitation films of the mid 60s-mid 70s (This would cover Hammer Horror, 70s Kung Fu, Blaxsploitation, Spaghetti Western, Euro-Intrigue, etc.).
1. If you could have any super power (mutation, etc?) what would it be?
2. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to do, but never gotten the chance to?
3. Greatest accomplishment/thing you’re most proud of in your life?
4. Do you know the way to San Jose? (la la la la la..)
1. Flight.
2. Get a novel published. (YET.)
3. I know it’s sappy, but my kids. (You’ve only met the oldest–the younger two live with their Mom in CO.)
4. I’ve been away so long…I may go wrong and lose my way.
sadly, I never knew any more words to that song…
and yay flight! Now, would it be telekinetic, weightlessness, wing-powered, or some other form?
1. Celebrity you’d most like to meet?
2. If you could find an item or place that is currently thought lost or perhaps not even believed to exist, what would you like to find?
3. Most annoying pop star of all time?
4. (Stolen from Inside the Actor Studio which itself stole this question) If god exists what would you like to hear him say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
1. Peter Jackson, I guess. (I don’t give celebs much thought)
2. Excalibur.
3. Rick Dees, for “Disco Duck”
4. “Hey! Did you remember to pick me up some smokes?”
Why is your name hyphenated, and not two names?
Why do you write role-playing games, and what’s your favorite?
WHEN are you two going to get married?
Will you be my daddy?
1. What genre of role play do you prefer playing (as opposed to writing or running)?
2. What do you miss most about living in New York?
3. Was there anything you didn’t get to do while living out there that you wanted to do, but never got around to?
4. Boxers or briefs?
D.
1. It’s hypenated because of a mistake on my birth certificate, which I didn’t discover until I was 15. Instead of writing “Michael” under the “Middle Name” entry, the person who filled it out (some clerk at the hospital, I suppose) just added ” – Michael” out to the side of the “First Name” entry. When I found that out, I thought it was kinda keen….so I started signing my writing (I was on the high school literary mag) “Gareth-Michael” and just kept on going from there.
2. I write RPGs because a friend pushed me into it back in the early 90s. He thought that I was a good GM, with great ideas, and knew that I also like to write, so he pushed and prodded me until I wrote some gaming material, which got published, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
3. Good damn question. I have no idea. It seems like every time we get ready to start nailing down details, something happens that requires our money and attention, and we have to put it off again.
4. Only if I get to spank you. :)
1. I’ve been sitting here mulling this question over for about 10 minutes now, trying to avoid giving the ultimate cop-out response…but it happens to be true, so fuck it: I haven’t yet found a genre that I don’t enjoy playing, so I really have no preference. It’s all good. Plus, I tend to play for reasons of story immersion and experiencing a setting through another’s eyes, so that itch can be scratched in pretty much any genre.
2. I miss so much, that I’d have to say that I miss the “New York-ness” of it all: The 24-hour nature of the city, the unbelievable scale of diversity and interest, the sense that you’re living in “the capital of the world”, the pace, the food, etc.
3. I never got around to actually living in Manhattan, which I desperately wanted to do, eventually. We lived in Queens, which was cheaper, but spent most of our time in Manhattan.
4. Boxers. Briefs are too restricting, and I get enough of that when I’m wearing tights. :)
1. Why pulp?
2. GAMA or GPA?
3. What would the answer be to your oldest daughter asking permission for pierceings and a tatoo, today? And why?
4. Tolkien or Howard?
1. Mostly it’s nostalgia for me….I grew up in the 70s, when the paperback reprint boom was filling shelves with Doc Savage, The Shadow, etc. By the time I reached my teens in the early-to-mid 80s, those paperbacks were all over the place in used bookstores, where I spent a lot of time finding “lost treasures.” Not sure what initially attracted me….it seems like I’ve always been interested, so that’s as good an answer as any, I suppose.
2. Neither. GAMA is fucked beyond belief…the “Danceygate” issue was the end of even trying to give it yet another chance for me. The GPA has never attracted me, because in my opinion, they violate an adage that I was taught early on: “think small, BE small.” They might have changed their name from the “Small Game Publishers Association”, but aside from the name change, they’re still pretty much Amateur Hour, in my experience.
Since making the switch to full-time PDF production, I’ve made more money on a monthly basis than I ever did in print publishing, and neither the GPA nor GAMA really is set up to address the particular needs of the epublishing community, so I’m even less interested than before, if that was possible. Maybe a new organization needs to be started. Hm. Something to think about.
3. I’ve already had to answer this question in real life, actually (she’s 15). I’ve told her that she has to wait until she’s 18, then it’s her call….but I’m not going to sign off on anything other than pierced ears. As for why? I’m not entirely sure about why I have the objection to her piercing anything other than her ears…but in the case of the tats, it’s because I think that making a permanent decision when you’re an adolescent is a big mistake.
4. Wow. That’s a tough one. I love Tolkien for the depth of his creation, but I’m going to have to go with Howard, simply because of his range: the variety leaves Tolkien in the dust. He bounced from swords-and-sorcery, historical fantasy, western, horror, etc.. Plus, his pacing is better (not entirely fair, I know–it’s largely because he was writing in a shorter form). I think, had he not killed himself, an opus on the level of LORD OF THE RINGS wasn’t outside of his ability, and might have occurred. Who knows?
2. I can wholly understand your response. The two times I got to visit New York (read as Manhattan) what I loved was exactly what you describe…the very New Yorkness of the place. It’s the only place I’ve ever been that I felt kept up with me, so to speak.
D.