Your name: Lee 'Spikey' Nethersole
Location: Essex, the UK
Age: 35
Sex: Male

Family: Two parents (separated), 5 siblings (3 sisters, 2 brothers), newish partner of my own with unbelievably high hopes and no kids.

Religion: Practicing and somewhat political Pagan.

Which of your accomplishments are you the most happy with? - I
wrote an article that was printed in a Role-playing Magazine (Valkyrie)
and that is still something that I feel great about because it was something
that I wanted to achieve since I was young. Not self published or published
online (which I do regularly) but actually within my favourite hobby and by a
respectable publication! Simple things really do please simple minds
apparently!

How many languages do you speak? One and a half. English with
smatterings of Romany remembered from my childhood and my family
mixing east end and estuary english with their mother tongue.

Do you have a useless talent that no one else that you know can do? What is it? Smell what you had for dinner on your breath. Seriously, it's a talent, I'm never wrong. I'm deaf as a post, blind as a bat and dumb as a box of hammers, but I can smell knock off perfume at twenty paces and can name the pizza from the next room. Great for testing if the milk in the fridge is healthy, not so great when in a room of farting male role-players who have a tendency to be soap-dodgers. Hmm, maybe not useless, but...

What are three things you can't live without? Nail varnish (black), computer (for the word processor) and nicotene. Lots of nicotene!

If you could have one superpower, which power would you pick? Shape shifting! Most definitely - the ability to alter my outward appearance. The mischief one could get up if you could look however you wanted is beyond measure. And it also helps with the escaping from angry pitchfork wielding villagers after causing said mischief as well. Not to mention what a great storyteller you could be if you could change your face for every character you were pretending to be. I can't do accents and voices so I'd like to be able to get one over on role-players who can by actually shifting my face into character.

What did you want to be when you grew up? I didn't want to grow up! That Peter Pan geezer? I liked his job. If I had to grow up, I wanted to be a Highwayman or a traveling storyteller maybe. Making things up for a living had a lot of appeal back then. Then there was the bit where I wanted to be a vet but it went back to being a Highwayman again pretty soon. Maybe a Pirate if there were no highwayman gigs at the time. Apparently when I was really young I wanted to hunt dinosaurs and I told everyone that my Corduroy trousers were made from real dinosaur skin.

What is your favorite mode of transportation? Armchair! Look, when you rely on a cane to get around there's a lot to be said for a comfortable chair and the internet as a primary mode of viewing the world.

If you could pick any other time period to live in, which would it be, and why? Difficult question. At heart I would want to have lived in the age of King George III maybe, to have been a Court dandy. To have lived at some time when a man could become rich and popular by dint of his wits and some well applied make-up. There is something to be said for London in the 18th century too, much as it probably stank, all that corruption and decadence calls to me. However, given that I'd be dead without modern technology and drugs that's somewhat hypocritical. I kind of like being alive after all.

You've just purchased a small island off the coast of any continent of your choosing, and you are preparing to start your own country there. What does your flag look like? Something irrelevant and slightly offensive. Perhaps an updated Jolly Roger with the Anarchy sign on its forehead and its tongue poking out with a dirty limerick in Latin as the motto.

What is the one thing you want to do before you die? Direct a movie. No, make that write and direct a big budget movie. Preferably sci-fi or fantasy, but horror would do as well. Maybe a TV series as an offshoot to challenge Joss Whedon for his crown. If you're going to be an awfully critical sort who blasts almost everything on forums or in the pub (and I am one of those horrible people who does just that), you probably ought to put your money where your mouth is.

Tell us about your favorite RPG character that you've ever played. I guess my favourite Character would have to be from an online (play by e-mail) game of Vampire: the Masquerade set in modern day London. I play a Toreador called Sir Percy Blakeney who may or may not be the Scarlet Pimpernel, or at the very least had a hand in the creation of the
Character. He is wonderfully verbose and witty and also lets me get a little
munchkin in by the back door as he was made a little older and more
powerful to help the (great) Storyteller out. Being an assistant Storyteller
grants one a little privilege, I guess. Anyway, Percy owns a Goth nightclub
in Camden and does the whole counter culture thing, talks to everyone as
if they were beneath him and gets all the best one liners while letting
everyone else have their 15 minutes. Very much my style. Which is style
over substance or at least apparent style over much hidden substance. Added to that he
has a bunch of hang ups, like mourning a long dead wife and regretting the passing of a more refined age, that make him great to write for. Apparently he is as entertaining for the other players to read as he is to write so he'll be one I take fondly to my grave I think.

What was your first RPG session like? First game I ever played (excluding some attempted games of Traveler that were more about planet to planet dice rolling) was 1st edition Warhammer in a friend's bedroom. I'm sure it must be rose tinted glasses at play here but I remember it going like a dream. Whatever negative aspects there were from the fact that we were all inexperienced and rather young (13), the ability to express my imagination overwhelmed them all. Plot? Story? Challenge? What did we care, we were hyped up on testosterone and we had swords!!!

What was your WORST RPG session like? I am a simple minded sort and enjoy pretty much any game. However, I do remember a game of Torg after a lengthy character creation process, with a lot of discussion as to what Character would fit the game and what was possible only to be then told that the Character we had just created wouldn't be able to use any skills he had or progress in the setting. I spent the rest of the session fighting the urge to be petty and break the game and so didn't really enjoy it at all. Communication between players and GM is the number one skill I feel and this just pointed out why that is true.

Who is your all-time favorite person to game with? Not an easy question to answer. Most probably my friend from school (known affectionately as the Troll) with whom I first played an RPG 24 years ago. There's something to be said for the comfort zone provided by knowing how fellow players think and by understanding what they are looking for from a game. Second choice would be a female friend whose beauty and career as a model break all the stereotypes. Basically its good to have some eye candy at the game who knows that a low cut top is better than a lucky dice roll every time when you have a GM as shallow as me. But to be honest I am gregarious and eager to game with just about anyone who likes the hobby.