NOTE: the opinions expressed in interviews are those of the guests, not necessarily those of shadomain.com
Today we hear from Paul, a British expat living in the colonies (specifically, the US), generally in a state of merry confusion. He’s been role-playing long enough to watch Stranger Things with nostalgia and he spends more time than he can justify reading about interesting nonsense on the internet (this week: volcano snails look exactly the way you expect volcano snails to look, there’s a Shadow warship in the JPL artists impression of Epsilon Eridani and the first modern corporation committed genocide to artificially inflate the price of nutmeg). Let’s hear from Paul!
Do you prefer playing TTRPGs online or in person, and why?
Generally, in person because I always have in the past, but the Covid pandemic changed more or less everything and gaming was one of them. I am slowly coming around to the convenience of a headset and desktop PC while playing games, but I definitely miss piles of books, rolling the dice and chatting about random nonsense between initiative turns.
What is your favorite type of music, or favorite group/artist?
My tastes are extremely eclectic, but this week I’ve been listening to Ingebretsen’s ‘The Musical Journey‘, the new Electric Mayhem album and Ogdens Nut Gone Flake.
If you created a TTRPG about anything, what would it be like?
Low-tech but reasonably accurate low-fantasy rocketpunk with just enough fudge to be fun. I bloody loved Space 1889, Spelljammer and Buck Rogers XXVC and drawing on the historical romance of the first, the huge zany cosmos of the second and the wonderfully grounded pulp science of the third would be a blast. Plus, I like spin-gravity, hollowed-out asteroid O’Neill’s, computers with big chonky buttons and weird races.
If you gave a eulogy for a party you know who was TPK’d, what would you say?
Actually… I don’t think I’ve ever been in a proper TPK. We’ve had some close run things, and we’ve had some really hard-core DM’s, but as a rule someone almost always managed to make it out. Huh, I don’t think I ever realised that before.
Have you ever felt like an outsider in the TTRPG space? Describe if you can.
I’m a straight, cis English-speaking bearded male who isn’t so much white as ‘the whitest’ (to the point where I can burn on an overcast day, through a shirt, in *England*) and I grew up as a science fiction and fantasy nerd, so I’m about as ‘inside’ as it gets in the TTRPG space.
Anything else you’d like us to know?:
Apropos to the last question, through gaming I’ve met folks from many corners of the world and many walks of life, make friends and get to know them and how they respond to new situations. I’ve gotten to do my best to live in the heads of people and creatures of different races, genders and species. I’ve had the chance to drink, in the woods around a fire at night while laughing at a story involving gunpowder and a medieval football and I’ve gotten to run through a wall (it was a rubbish wall) while wearing banded mail. It made me friends and gave me ways to make new ones in strange places. Gaming, most especially TTRPG gaming opened up the world to me in ways little else could, and it’ll always hold a special place in my life.
Thanks Paul! If you’d like to be interviewed at Shadomain, fill out this simple form and we’ll publish your answers on an upcoming Wednesday: https://shadomain.com/interview/
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