| |
|
Name:
Patrick Pricken, a.k.a. Berandor
Location: Germany,
near Dusseldorf
Age: 28
Sex: (refraining
from obvious joke) male
Family:
I’ve still got an extended family. My father is married for the third
time, I’ve got a half-brother and a stepsister, three uncles, three
cousins, one aunt. One of my grandfathers is still alive, and both of
my grandmothers. One of them is 91 years old, and still going strong.
Recently, she has started to read the Lord of the Rings, and she likes
it. Sadly, my mothers boyfriend died a short time ago.
|
|
|
Religion: I consider myself a spiritual person and
someone with strong morals. I don’t particularly like organized
religion, but I can understand what people are looking for and finding
there.
Political
party/affiliation: I am a fairly left-leaning liberal,
and I am very interested in politics. I use my blog to comment
regularly on political developments.
Just to
test the stereotype - Have you ever lived, or are you currently living,
in your parents' basement? Yes, I have. For a very short
time, I lived in a depressing and dark hole beneath my father’s house.
It was a good way to get me out into my own flat, and I don’t really
want to go back. Ugh.
What is
your favorite way to spend a weekend? I use the Saturday
morning to buy groceries and clean the apartment. In the afternoon, our
group meets to have a D&D session; we usually game from 3 pm to
11 pm. When I come home, I start to write an entry for the Story Hour.
Sunday morning, I continue writing. Around noon, I sit down with the
book I’m currently reading. In the afternoon, I meet with friends and
we play board games (from 3 pm to 8 pm). Afterwards, I head to a pub
and have a beer or go to the movies. Unfortunately, I often have to
spread these activities out over several weekends.
What is
the most frightening thing you've ever done? I’m easily
frightened, so I can’t tell you a good story here. Probably watching
“Arachnophobia” alone, at night, and maybe descending a bell tower via
the stairs (I’m afraid of heights).
Which of
your accomplishments are you the most happy with? Having
published two short stories in real, non-vanity press books. Having
gone back to university and actually being succesful this (third) time
around. Giving the First man’s speech at a friend’s wedding, and giving
the graduation day speech in my school.
What was
your first word? Supercallifragilisticexpialodocus.
What is
your favorite word? I can’t even decide on my ten
favorite words; I love language, and I love words.
How many
languages do you speak? 2 really good, and 2 really bad.
German, English, French and Japanese. I’m not telling which is which,
but
I will tell you I would really like to learn and speak Chinese,
Arabian,
Spanish, or all three.
|
|
|
What is
your favorite time of year, and why? Winter, if it’s
cold and
dry. Autumn, if it’s wet and windy. Summer, if it’s not too hot or
humid.
Spring, if it’s sunny and warm.
What is
your most prized physical possession? My laptop. I
love it. After sitting on my desk for about a year, I really started to
get
into writing outdoors. I’ve also got a small notebook (the archaic
kind)
which I use to make notes of all kinds and could be considered an
extension for my laptop, together with my old and trusty fountain pen.
|
|
|
If you
could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I’d be more spontaneous. I always have to be talked into doing things
ad hoc. When I give in, I usually have a very good time, but next time
I hesitate again.
Did you
have any embarassing nicknames as a kid? Patzi, which
was what my grandma called me. A friend of mine heard it, and next day
in school everybody called me that. Later on, I was in my superhero
phase, and the whole class called me “Superprick” (remember that
“prick” is not a German word), which became somewhat embarassing as we
participated in a school exchange program with a school in Portland.
Last, my playing basketball and my emphasis on technique and not
physical presence despite my lumbering self led to me being called “Pat
the Cat”.
What makes
you cry? Movies and books. Poignant scenes have to carry
a certain pathos for me; William Wallace’s death in “Braveheart”, Storm
Brightblade’s last stand in the Dragonlance series – that’s my kind of
stuff. On the other hand, documentaries often turn my stomach but keep
my tears in check; crying would be too cheap then.
What are
three things you can't live without? 1. Books. I simply
have to read, and every day at that. Books show you different
countries, different worlds, and different people. 2. Writing material.
Whether a typewriter, a PC, or some sheets of paper and a pen; just as
I need to read, I also need to write to survive. 3. People. Whether
people I like, or those I dislike. What’s the point of living if you
can’t talk to someone else? I need people to write books for me, I need
people to play RPGs with me, I need people to talk politics with me, to
use as heroes or antagonists in my stories, to discuss movies…
Tell us
about your favorite RPG character that you've ever played.
This might get longish. As with kisses, the first character is someone
you never forget, and I took my nome de guerre from him. But I’ll tell
you about my recent favorite character instead.
It was a wizard, an
elvish wizard at that. His name was Aravilar Dämmerglanz (Glimmerdusk).
He was a fairly dark and borderline psychopathic character. It was a
character for D&D 3.0. His greatest exploit was the liberation
of Daggerdale in the Forgotten Realms. First, as the rebel army was
readying themselves for the attack, he held an emotional speech with
the grand theme “hate is good”, rolling a 19 on his diplomacy check and
getting a score of 35. I had written the speech beforehand, and
afterwards a small cadre of dwarves swore fealty to me (sort of).
However, that was one of
the few times I had good luck with the dice. As the rebels were
fighting in the streets, our group snuck into the castle to confront
the overlord. We came to a small room. The side walls had three holes
each in them, just large enough for the arrows that poked through. In
the room were two hungry, but otherwise normal dogs on a short leash.
Aravilar drank a potion of “Protectiom from Arrows”, and I described
emphatically how he stepped into the room, arms spread outwards,
awaiting the arrows to fly at him and fail to harm him. However, there
were no archers manning the bows. The dogs, on the other hand,
attacked, both hitting with their bite attacks – one even critically.
They nearly dropped my wizard in the first round.
Later, the group’s
ranger decided to adopt the dogs and keep them close to me. He claimed
he’d grown fond of them, and my character spent quite some time
planning their demise (both the dogs’ and the ranger’s). The group went
to Ravenloft, and as they became more and more “typically good”, I
simply retired the character, which I regret to this day, especially
after he was saved from certain death by the noble sacrifice of his
undead hand.
|
|
What are your favorite RPGs? My favorite systems are the
Trinity version
of the storyteller system from White Wolf (though I hear the new WoD is
an
improvement), and Trinity itself as a setting. Also, the Tri-Stat
system from
Guardians of Order (the new version as seen in A Game of Thrones), and
a
distant number three is D&D. I like games set today, followed
by sci-fi and
medieval fantasy games. I tend to prefer low-magic settings where magic
may be scarce, but nevertheless powerful. I currently play D&D;
I DM the
Shackled City Adventure Path, set in the Forgotten Realms. |
|
|
What was
your first RPG session like? We played D&D at a
friend’s house. I played a cleric of the god of good luck (Tymora) in
the Realms. It was a dungeon crawl, and we had a lot of fun. I nearly
fell from a bridge but used Tymora’s gift to reroll and make it. I was
hooked.
What was
your WORST RPG session like? What made it so bad? Let me
begin with the second question. What made it bad? It was a disharmonic
group, and an abysmal DM that is responsible for almost all of my top
20 worst sessions. There was the one when we played for seven hours
only to get 0 xp, or the one battle where me and a friend were so bored
we actually rolled dice to see who would get consecutive 1,2,3,4,5,6
first, and then I had my cleric walk right into the center of a 50,000
undead strong army and kill the head honcho cleric. But the worst
session included spots of quicksand measuring 10x10x10 miles (totally
square), plants where you had to make three separate skill checks (in
AD&D) at a –6 penalty or take damage from their thorns, and
flying monsters that could be killed by shoving them off a balcony and
see them dropping to their deaths. My character was petrified, and when
an actual deity appeared to make him whole again, I simply stood up and
left.
Who is
your all-time favorite person to game with? That’s a
very, very tough question. My favorite DM would be Matthias Schoessler,
even though we’ve since had a falling out, I still think him to be the
best DM I gamed with, from a purely professional perspective (personal
perspective differs). Favorite players would be a tie between three of
them. Michael Mertens for always coming up with something for his
character to do, thereby really driving the story and the adventure.
Oliver Mauermann for playing a character, and trying to play that
character as true as possible. And finally, Nils Hoffmann for always
trusting the DM, and for being ready to go where the adventure takes
him, as well as having an open mind and a casual attitude regarding the
rules.
Do you
have anything gaming-related to plug? I have a German
Story Hour at DnD-Gate.de. It’s a fairly epical story, and I try to
make it as novelly as I can. Here’s the current link (it’s the fifth
chapter): http://forum.dnd-gate.de/viewtopic.php?t=9789
|
|
| |
|
|
- Main
- FAQs
-
Blog -
Forum -
Wiki - Features
- Projects
- Resources
- Support
- Contact
-
|
