PirateSpice
Master of Wiki-Fu
Name: Sean C. Riley
Aliases: Spice, Spicey, SeanCee, SC
Birthday: September 28, 1977
Position: Wiki Guru
Location: Oregon, 'Murica

I'm Sean, and I've been gaming now for over twenty years (since about 1990). I was a Game Master from my very first venture into the world of RPG's, and I was terrible. Hopefully I've learned a thing or two since then about running interesting games.

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My First Steps Into Role-Playing Games

My original game of choice was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness from Palladium Books. That purchase spawned out of my love of the old TMNT comics from Mirage Studios (black and white, baby…geek cred!). It's not the greatest game in the world, but it will always have a special place in my heart. From there, I moved on to other Palladium products, such as Ninjas & Superspies, Robotech, and Heroes Unlimited. In particular, the multi-genre post-apocalyptic RIFTS seized my imagination.

Soon, other game companies and systems opened up to me. Naturally, I played my fair share of Dungeons & Dragons. But I also ran the gamut from Cyberpunk, to TOON, to Star Wars, to GURPS, and every iteration of Marvel Super Heroes.

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Learning to Tell Stories

It really wasn't until I was introduced to Vampire: The Masquerade that I started to realize that RPG's were more than just wish-fulfillment. They were a medium for telling fantastic stories with real pathos. I toyed with Vampire, really sunk my teeth into Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and dabbled in Mage: The Ascension and Wraith: The Oblivion. But it was the release of Changeling: The Dreaming that truly enchanted me, and lured me away from the grimmer side of the World of Darkness.

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After that, every new gaming world was my oyster. Two settings in particular have stood out above the others, and remain my favorites to this day. First came Deadlands, which surprised even me as I've never been a huge fan of westerns. But this game has so much style and fun built right into it that I found it irresistible.

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Then I was introduced to Legend of the Five Rings. I never imagined I'd be all that interested in role-playing politics and bureaucracy. But here was a game that made it just as interesting as the swordplay and spellcasting. I'd long had a passing interest in feudal Japan and the mythology of that country. But L5R took the flame of that interest and fanned it into an inferno. With this game, I could enjoy my love of mythology and fantasy, but take it a whole new direction, rather than the stale old elves and dwarves of standard European styled fantasy. More a decade later and four editions deep, I still count L5R as one of the greatest role-playing games ever written.

Along my journey through the world of role-playing, I've also found a passion for writing my own material. Not just adventures and stories, but system mechanics as well. I've gone from nearly rewriting entire games to a much gentler approach these days. I want to use the rules I purchased, and prefer to only add to a game, rather than subtract or replace (when it can be helped). Though I still have to restrain myself now and then.

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Back to Basics

My frustration with poorly thought out mechanics, and my later resistance to overburdening a game with rules, even my own, set the stage for my introduction to Savage Worlds. More a game chassis than a game unto itself, Savage Worlds was the first "generic" rules set that I was happy with. Others had tried it, but systems like GURPS tended to be bloated and…well…generic. They lacked flavor of any kind. Savage Worlds aimed for a certain style of game. Their motto and mission statement is "Fast, Furious, Fun," and they mean it. What I liked best about Savage Worlds is how easy it is to prepare for. Most games require hours and hours, if not days, of preparation time for a GM to run a single session. Savage Worlds can be thrown together in minutes, sometimes. It is as complex as you want it to be, and the system is designed well to facilitate action and role-play without ever being an obstacle to either. Their setting material plugs right into the base system seamlessly. Best of all, Savage Worlds became the vehicle for the current version of an old favorite, Deadlands. Since then, I've used it to explore a variety of genres, from high fantasy to super-heroes. My fellow players and I have used it to play in the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and have even developed our own "Savaged" version of Star Wars.

Online Role-Playing

Only recently have I ventured into the world of MUSHing. I've done online RP for several years, in the form of a couple of text-based games, and a handful of MMORPGs — primarily World of Warcraft and Champions Online. Those were fine, and contrary to the belief of many a MUSHer, there is plenty of great RP to be had if you find a good crowd of people. Mine was an RP group called Dramatis Personae, which is where I developed a lot of my ideas about what makes for good RP online. We told some incredible stories in WoW. But in spite of the wonderful times I had there, it's true that we were often stymied by the limitations of a static world and a lack of GM tools.

I had tried MUSHing a few times at the urging of Boo. First it was Cajun Nights, a World of Darkness MU set in New Orleans. It failed to grab me. Next up was Hogwarts Express, which saw the original iteration of my character, Hephaesta. But again, I had a hard time getting into it. The learning curve for a new player getting into MUSHing was (and still is) too high. I gave up. MUSHing just wasn't for me.

But then Boo and another friend of ours started getting into a new MUSH being run by their favorite admin, Faraday. The game was Sweetwater Crossing. They would talk about it all the time, and damn it, I wanted to be with the cool kids. So I bit the bullet and tried again. It was a completely different experience than my previous ventures. Faraday understood how to educate a new player, and the system was simple and easy to understood. The community was open and welcoming, and in relatively little time, I was diving in and loving it. Less than a year later, I found myself playing Boo's new Witchcraft & Wizardry MUSH, and before too long, taking over the wiki, and then becoming her co-admin. After a few years as an admin, I went back to school, and the demands on my time and energy were too great and I stepped down from my admin position.

Playing role-playing games is my hobby of choice. They open up whole worlds to me, and let me step into the lives of fantastic characters with stories and personalities as rich and varied as I want them to be. It's not just a form of escapism, but a chance to flex just about every creative muscle I've got. From writing stories, to drawing character art and maps, to tinkering with the game mechanics, to just sitting back and enjoying the wonderful performances of my fellow gamers, nothing quite fulfills my creative needs like RPG's.

Relationships

Boo

Boo
My lovely wife, and da boss admin 'round these parts.

DangerKitten

DangerKitten
The dangerest of them all.

LoKey

LoKey
Everyone be sure to kick him when you see him. He probably deserves it.

Characters

Adults

Bailey Charlie Corina Cyrene Hephaesta Kimiko Lucian Norman Valda

Students

Felix Max Moira Oberon Rubeus
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