Darva Shriver

TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF

I'm Darva Shriver. I'm a librarian by trade, specializing in children's literature. Originally from Poughkeepsie, New York, I've spent most of my life in and around Naples, Florida, though a move out west to California or Arizona is in the works. I'm an avid role player and reader, and sometimes enjoy watching history or fantasy genre movies with my pet ferrets, Bilbo and Samwise.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO GAMING?

I actually came into the hobby fairly late. While still attending college in 2004, I  was at a local Harry Potter release party, though I don't remember now if it was one of the books or one of the films, where I met some guys and gals that had a D&D game going. After kind of badgering them to let me come check it out, I soon joined the game, an old school Basic D&D campaign set in the Greyhawk campaign world. That whole group doesn't get together much anymore, but I've been hooked ever since, and taken to getting some of my D&D fix through my blog.

WHAT IS IT YOU FIND SO APPEALING ABOUT GAMING?

I most enjoy the social aspect of getting together with good friends and spending a few hours having fun, but I also really enjoy the immersion into a fantasy world. I've been a huge fan of fairy tales and fantasy stories since I was a little girl, and the chance now to play out stories of my own with friends is cool to pass up on. In a similar way, I really like introducing some of the kids I work with to role playing, encouraging them to exercise their imaginations and create stories of their own based on whatever stories, movies or shows they enjoy.

SHARE A FAVOURITE GAMING MOMENT WITH US

My absolute best memory comes from playing through the classic adventure Keep on the Borderlands, for Basic D&D. Our DM can be pretty tough and strict at times, and for a number of sessions, we'd had trouble with the owl bear and minotaur encounters in the Caves of Chaos. Close to 20 dead PCs by the end of it all! When we finally defeated them, it was my poor first level thief left as the only PC still standing and with a last valiant roll of the d20, I managed to hit and finally kill that pain in the butt. The tension and smack talking that built up to it and the payback of finally being the one player out of six who was able to bring down a challenge that had vexed us for weeks is something I'll never forget. It's even better now when we happen to visit the keep as higher level PCs, or as a different party of younger PCs altogether and get to hear the local bard and minstrel types sing praises of our old exploits.

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY PLAYING?

Between my impending move, and the recent loss of one of our fellow players to cancer, actual play is scarce right now, but it's given me time to work on material to catch up on posting on my blog.

CAN YOU TELL US WHAT YOUR FAVOURITE GAMES ARE?

Hands down, my game of choice is Basic D&D, Frank Mentzer's BECMI (Basic, Expert, Companion, Masters, Immortals) edition. I pick and choose options and add-ins from tons of other games, with old school Runequest and Arduin being favorites. I'm also a big supporter of the OSR “clone” games, notably Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

WHAT WAS THE LAST GAME YOU PLAYED?

Until very recently, I was running a low level Basic D&D campaign set in the Mystara campaign world.

WHICH PRODUCTS HAVE YOU HAD YOUR WORK PUBLISHED IN?

Nothing beyond my blog, and the forums at Dragonsfoot.org, ThePiazza.org.uk and Canonfire.com

ARE YOU WORKING ON ANY GAMING-RELATED PROJECTS AT THE MOMENT?

Just my blog, Stocking the Dungeon. My current ongoing project is an adaptation of characters, locales, magic and monsters from the old D&D Animated Series cartoon show to the Basic D&D game.

DO YOU HAVE ANY WEBPAGES OR SOCIAL NETWORK ACCOUNTS WHERE FANS CAN FIND YOU?

My blog, Stocking the Dungeon, is at http://stockingthedungeon.blogspot.com . I'm also active on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/dungeonstocking) and Google + (+darva.shriver)

Scott Malthouse

Scott Malthouse is a well-know internet blogger who talks mostly about Tunnels and Trolls. He has recently released his own gaming system as well.

TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF

Well, I'm 24 years old and I live in Leeds, UK. I did a degree in journalism and currently work in digital marketing. I'm a big comic book nerd and I really love pulp heroes like The Shadow and The Spider. Bruce Campbell is my god.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO GAMING?

Really my interest in tabletop games began with the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. My step-dad bought a stack of them second-hand at a university book shop. Most of the pages were yellowed and you could see where previous readers had made notes, but nevertheless they sparked my imagination something fierce. After that, really it was Warhammer 40K which eventually led to me playing D&D 3rd edition when it was first released. It was a whole new experience for me and I knew I wanted more of it.

WHAT IS IT YOU FIND SO APPEALING ABOUT GAMING?

I'm usually the DM, so for me it's the ability to craft worlds with their own inhabitants, history and politics. But it's also great to spend quality time with my friends, essentially making up stories and telling jokes. It's something about the level of interactivity that not even MMORPGs can emulate. I like MMOs, but give me a good old tabletop game over World of Warcraft any day.

SHARE A FAVOURITE GAMING MOMENT WITH US

This moment is alwas brought up in our home games and it's something the players will never live down. In a D&D 4e session, there was a tree in a temple atrium with a dagger stuck in it. The atrium was filling with demented clerics who were proving a match for the players. They were toying with the idea of removing the dagger in case it was magical and could help against the clerics. However, one of the players realised that if the dagger was removed, the one removing it would be diseased and brought to the brink of death. Things were looking bad, yet for some reason the fighter, who was protecting the party's cleric, decided to run to the other side of the room and remove the dagger. Everyone was baffled and everything went to hell pretty fast. The encounter ended with all but one, I believe, unconscious on the ground. To this day we don't know what came over the fighter, but he gets ridiculed for his stupididy all the time.

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY PLAYING?

Right now I'm wrapping up a two-and-a-half year D&D 4e campaign. In a week or so we'll be picking a new game and I know we've got quite a few lined up, such as Tunnels & Trolls, Call of Cthulhu and Space 1889.

CAN YOU TELL US WHAT YOUR FAVOURITE GAMES ARE?

My favourite game as a GM is definitely Call of Cthulhu. I love creating tension and seeing how an investigation plays out. Something about it really strikes a chord with me. Plus I love Lovecraft. As a player, I adore Tunnels & Trolls for its excellent system and humour. I also love Swords and Wizardry for an OD&D fix. Three Sixteen is cracking if we feel like all-out action.

WHAT WAS THE LAST GAME YOU PLAYED?

That would be D&D 4e last week.

WHICH PRODUCTS HAVE YOU HAD YOUR WORK PUBLISHED IN?

Periodical-wise, I've written adventures for Elder Tunnels by Peryton Publishing a few times. For the lastest issue, which was released early May, I wrote an article on my Tunnels & Trolls campaign setting called Peakvale, which is sort of a living setting that all my new published T&T material is set in. It's like King Arthur crossed with Doctor Who and the Daily Mail. It's weird.

Aside from that, I've published an RPG system called Unbelievably Simple Role-playing (USR), which is a free generic system. Last year I also joined forces with Peryton Publishing and released a T&T adventure called It Came from Beyond the Stars!. I also released a solo T&T adventure called Depths of the Devilmancer.

ARE YOU WORKING ON ANY GAMING-RELATED PROJECTS AT THE MOMENT?

So many! The trouble is, once I have an idea I really want to go ahead with it. Off the back of the USR system I released early this year, I'm working on a bunch of games: Derring-Do! will be a pulp hero game, DemonLord is a series of solo adventures for USR, Dwellers is more of a sci-fi time travel game and I'm also toying with the idea of a space opera game called USR Galactic. Aside from USR, I'm working on the next Peakvale GM adventure and a T&T megasolo. I doubt most of these will see the light of day this year, but I hope to have at least the first DemonLord book out and Derring-Do released by the end of the year. The Peakvale adventure, however, will be submitted to the publisher this month.

DO YOU HAVE ANY WEBPAGES OR SOCIAL NETWORK ACCOUNTS WHERE FANS CAN FIND YOU?

Sure, my blog is www.trollishdelver.blogspot.com and you can find me on twitter @scottmalt and Google Plus https://plus.google.com/112651739533171362407/posts

Stuart Lloyd

Stuart Lloyd is a well-known blogger who mainly talks about Tunnels and Trolls and gamebooks. His blog, Lloyd of Gamebooks, is probably the best-known blog on the internet related to interactive fiction.

TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF

My name is Stuart Lloyd.  By day I teach Science and by night I obsess about gamebooks.  I also enjoy spending time with my wonderful wife, listening to podcasts on all subjects, playing with cats and trying to park my car in less than 10 minutes.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO GAMING?

The first game I played was chess which I played at primary school.  I got my first gamebook – Talisman of Death from a school jumble sale when I was 7 and that was the beginning of my gamebook journey.  After that, I bought lots and lots of fighting Fantasy gamebooks and a few Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks before expanding into Lone Wolf in my teens.  As a teenager, I played chess, Heroquest and Magic the Gathering with my friends whilst looking wistfully on at the expensive Warhammer miniatures.  

WHAT IS IT YOU FIND SO APPEALING ABOUT GAMING?

I enjoy the scenarios that it sets up and then applying myself to finding a solution (or at the very least, a more interesting situation).  I see games as an intellectual challenge and get great pleasure by coming up with some creative or far-fetched strategy.  I find making creative solutions more satisfying than winning.  Even if my idea blows up in my face, I am still pleased with my idea and take its failure as a learning experience which I can analyse later – providing another fun intellectual challenge.

SHARE A FAVOURITE GAMING MOMENT WITH US

It’s 2004 and everyone who plays Magic the Gathering is playing Ravager Affinity decks with four Skulclamps.  Except me.  I’m using the affinity mechanic to cast a lot of cheap and free spells, draw cards off Vedalken Archmage and then finish off my opponents with Brain Freeze, which no one remembered at that point because it was a blue card from the Onslaught block (the Onlsaught block had blue cards?  Yes it did – you probably used them as proxies).  I lost a lot but when I won, I won big (making one opponent put 72 cards from his library into his graveyard for example) prompting reactions such as ‘That’s impressive.’ And ‘I hate random decks.’

More recently, I was playing Last Night on Earth with my friends.  One of the characters was on death’s door and surrounded by zombies.  He managed to kill two zombies with his bare hands then ignite a fuel canister in the square next to him, taking out three more zombies and he survived the explosion.  I was the zombie player, but I didn’t mind losing to that.

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY PLAYING?

I’m currently reading the Avenger! gamebook series with the aim of reviewing the first book.  However, it was so epic that I got the other five books.  

CAN YOU TELL US WHAT YOUR FAVOURITE GAMES ARE?

Card games:  Magic the Gathering.  It’s the daddy.

RPGS:  Tunnels and Trolls.  Simple yet flexible, humourous and has a friendly fanbase.  

Boardgames:  As a child of the 80s, my favourite boardgame has to be Heroquest.  And what’s better, it has tons of fan material.  

Computer games:  Civilisation IV.  Although I can never get through the game without turning on cheat mode, giving all the players tons of military units (usually pre firearms units) and having a huge war.

MMORPGS:  Battlemaster.  It’s a low fantasy very social RPG where you can take part in all aspects of running a country.

Gamebooks:  Heart of Ice by Dave Morris.  A post apocalyptic character driven scenario with no one best ending.  You can get it for free!

WHAT WAS THE LAST GAME YOU PLAYED?

I played Last Night on Earth as the humans.  My wife was the zombies.  I won that one, though by not doing anything special – I just shot a lot of zombies.

WHICH PRODUCTS HAVE YOU HAD YOUR WORK PUBLISHED IN?

Most of my works are free and on Scribd and Ffproject.  I have had articles and an Advanced Fighting Fantasy scenario published in Fighting Fantazine and I have entered four gamebooks to the Windhammer competition.  I have also published some solos for Tunnels and Trolls on RPGNow.

ARE YOU WORKING ON ANY GAMING-RELATED PROJECTS AT THE MOMENT?

I am writing gamebook sections for the android app Pirates and Traders which is a great game.  I have also written a Windhammer entry for this year.  I plan on producing some more Tunnels and Trolls solos and I may have some other irons in the fire but I can’t talk about them right now.

DO YOU HAVE ANY WEBPAGES OR SOCIAL NETWORK ACCOUNTS WHERE FANS CAN FIND YOU?

My main blog, Lloyd of Gamebooks can be found at http://virtualfantasies.blogspot.co.uk/.  I contribute to a gamebook review blog to be found at http://lonetigerreviews.blogspot.co.uk/.

My Twitter account can be found at https://twitter.com/#!/slloyd14 and my RPGNow store is at

http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=3777 where you can buy my Tunnels and Trolls solos.

LLOYD OF GAMEBOOKS IS PROBABLY THE BEST-KNOWN GAMEBOOKS BLOG ON THE INTERNET. WHAT IS IT YOU LIKE ABOUT GAMEBOOKS?

I love gamebooks because they are stories where you can be the hero and perform your own mighty deeds.  I can go on my own hero's journey.  I can also get the thrill of rolling the dice to see if I live or die and I also have a great puzzle to crack.  They are also more convenient to obtain and play than computer games or RPGs - you can play one at any time or place.  From a technical point of view, they also have a huge versatility in terms of their game system and inclusion of riddles and other puzzles.  They can also be educational or demonstrate to a GM how an RPG system works.  Digital media is maximising their potential even more.  You can buy most paper gamebooks or digital gamebooks for less than £5 and start playing them in less than 5 minutes.  Nothing else can provide so much to so many for so little.