Bio

I get annoyed reading blogs without knowing anything about the author, so I am starting this one with a little Bio on the off chance that someone might read it. Hey, it could happen. I’m Thom (yes, spelled with the ‘h’ and pronounced without it) and I go by the screen name Erland (or Erland Nimz). I’ve been a gamer for 26 years; I’m overweight, bald with a goatee, never kissed a girl and still live in my parent’s basement. No, not really, well, not the last two anyway.

I game weekly (Sunday nights) in a three week rotating game schedule. I play in two games and am the G.M. of the third. I’m a RPG gamer who sometimes dabbles in MMO’s when I have the time. I don't play board games, card games or mini’s, they really aren't my style. From old school red box (although my first one was brown) Dungeons and Dragons to yellow box Marvel Comic’s Superheroes (Karma for RED!) I’ve played a lot of systems and styles. I would best describe myself as a recovering Min/Max Hack/Slash gamer. Not that there is anything wrong with playing that way, but as I have gotten older the setting and story have slowly taken on more importance for me. These days it’s more fun to tell the tale of how I cut the demon’s head off with my +5 Vorpal Sword of Badassness than it is to actually do the cutting.

So that’s me and this is my blog. Why a blog? I’m glad you asked. In my gaming group, one of our weekly games is coming to a scheduled ending and a new game will be replacing it. We decided this before Gen Con 2011 (great time btw) so I have been thinking and getting excited about the new game. I also had an epiphany. I don’t really like my character in the game that’s ending. I like the system and the setting. The G.M. has a great story and plot and the character is actually a cool concept. He’s just not… ‘that guy’.

You know the guy I’m talking about. That character you sit around with your friends and tell stories about. That character from the legendary campaign that loved playing in. That character that you thought about at work or school instead of work or school.

That guy. The Han Solo of characters, the John McClain of characters.

My character in the other campaign I play in (Erick Wujcik Phage Press, Amber, Diceless System) isn't ‘that guy’ either, but he has the potential to be. One of the characters in the campaign I am running (Margaret Weis Productions, Serenity, Cortex System) is ‘that guy’. In fact, that campaign has ‘that guy’ and a couple of potential ‘that guys’!

I want to be playing ‘that guy’; I want all of my character’s to be ‘that guy’.

Being me and having the time to really think about the new campaign, I decided to put in the extra time and effort to think about, research and chronicle the new character. So, a blog. And as I am starting one; I decided not to limit it to an online journal about the new character, but instead to make it a complete role-playing blog. I am looking at it as a chance to expand my hobby by writing about it.