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Your name: Perrin Rynning. Never really had a nickname that
stuck, though my Kenpo Karate instructor gave me a “spirit name” of
“Gumby”, since I was usually the most physically flexible student in
the class.
Location:
San Francisco Bay Area (northeast quadrant)
Age:
Closing in on 41
Sex:
Male
Family:
As of this writing, both my mother and father are alive. I am the
oldest of three children; next was my younger brother, followed by our
sister. I have a girlfriend, but we are not engaged.
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Religion: Raised
non-denominational Protestant Christian. Nowadays I lean toward Taoism
with a side-order of Buddhism and a few dashes of paganism for flavor.
Political
Party/Affiliation: Absent a better-refined (and
polically-viable) alternative, I've voted “Democrat” for most of the
last few years.
Education:
Made it through an Associate of Arts in Japanese.
Hobbies/Activities:
Creative writing, Facebook games, bicycle riding around new and
unfamiliar areas, designing my multi-million-dollar dream house (at
least five very large floors (two of which are underground), and all
kinds of big-boy toys.
Community
Service:
None at this time. Previously, I worked at agencies that provided
in-home support services for the developmentally-disabled or the
physically infirm.
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Just to test the stereotype - Have you ever lived, or are you
currently living, in your parents' basement? Nope. To be
fair, my parents have lived in seven or eight different places in my
lifetime. Of those, only one was a house that actually had a
basement.
What is the most frightening thing you've ever done? Told
my girlfriend-to-be that I thought she was hot, and couldn't let her
get out of my life without telling her that. Physical risks mean next to
nothing to me, while social risks are disproportionately scary for me. |
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Which of your accomplishments are you the most happy with? Getting an Associate of Arts degree.
What is your favorite word?
“Visionaries”, specifically because of the 1980s cartoon as well as the
notion of a group of visionary people working together impresses me far
more than one charismatic leader at the head of an otherwise ordinary
group.
How many languages do you speak?
I should say that I understand a smattering of Japanese, and a slightly
smaller amount of French through formal study in school.
What is your favorite time of year, and why?
The early parts of spring, when the weather is still cool but warming;
I associate the time with new beginnings and change.
What is your most prized physical possession?
A modern-day version of a portable lap-desk, the kind of thing that
anyone from before the 1980s would think of if you said “laptop”.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? My fear of my own passions.
Did you have any embarrassing nicknames as a kid? “Longjohn”, because I apparently grew to my current height of 6'3” before I hit my teens.
What was your favorite toy as a child? A glow-in-the-dark “flying disk”. I used it to fight my nightmares even before I saw “Tron”.
What makes you cry? Any story or song about redemption.
What is your favorite section of the newspaper? “Weird News” from around the world; the stuff that makes you question the sanity of the participants, or the writer.
Do you have a useless talent that no one else that you know can do?
I applaud very loudly. On one occasion, I stopped a standup comedienne
in her tracks and she commented on it. On another (less proud) event, a
co-worker claimed that I gave her a headache; she was sitting at least
eight feet away at the time.
What are three things you can't live without? Atlantis-brand retractable pens with blue ink, at least one blank notebook or journal, and (most of all) my girlfriend.
If you could have one superpower - or be one superhero - which power would you pick, or which hero would you be?
One superpower: the ability to travel to alternate universes, with the
ability to “see where I'm going” before I actually go to the next
alternate universe. One superhero: I wanted to be a Green
Lantern. I didn't want to be Hal Jordan, but Perrin Rynning, Green
Lantern of whichever sector needed a ring-slinger.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
A Scientist. Not any particular type of scientist, but the ultimate
generalist. Sort of like Buckaroo Banzai, though that movie came out
when I was 14 and (mostly) concentrating on other things.
What is your favorite mode of transportation?
Powered watercraft. Preferably a submarine, if possible, though I'd
rather not spend too much time beneath the waves unless I'm working.
Bicycling is also my favorite exercise.
If you could pick any other time period to live in - including the future - which would it be, and why?
As entertaining as it might prove to re-locate back to the 1980s to
really appreciate the “style-over-substance” vibe from that era (not to
mention picking up all of the cool toys and other stuff that I drooled
over as a child), I would rather live in the future, when humanity has
established permanent, self-supporting habitats under the ocean, on the
moon, or on Mars.
What is one thing that you regret that you would go back and change if you could?
Losing track of all the friends I made at all my schools. My family
moved around an awful lot. Specifically, I would have gotten their
mailing addresses and spent most of my allowance money on envelopes,
paper, pens and stamps to keep in touch with them all in that bad old
pre-Facebook stone-age way.
What is the one thing you want to do before you die?
Actively participate in making the role-playing game adaptation of a
series of novels (or a television show) I have created.
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? The island is somewhere
equatorial, specifically to make it more attractive for space-elevator
construction. The flag displays the sea below, the land between and the
stars above, with bridges connecting the life on all of them.
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What would you do to prepare if you knew that you were going to be sent into the universe of your favorite RPG?
If I was going into the world of “Cyberpunk v.3”, I would bone up on
oceanography and marine technology in preparation for joining the Reef.
If I was going into “CyberGeneration”, I would study revolutionary
movements
and subversive activities, with an eye toward helping build
and maintain
networks of “J-Parks” across the continent If I was going
into “Mage: the
Awakening”, I could only study library science and try
to work my way into
a Mysterium-run archiving company, while constantly
praying to Awaken.
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Tell us about your favorite RPG character that you've ever played.
So far, my favorite character was “Crescent Dragon/Shadow Tiger”, a
martial artist in a Champions campaign. Quite a lot of the character
concept was lifted whole-cloth from Rumiko Takahashi's “Ranma
Nibunnoichi”.
The character's civilian
identity “Huang MacDougall” was a Chinese/Scottish martial artist who
made his way to the “Plain of Cursed Springs” for training and managed
to fall into a pond in which a kangaroo had drowned many hundreds of
years ago. However, after a quick jaunt back in time to ancient China
(and after the game-master had seen a few episodes of “Ranma”), Huang's
alternate self underwent a rather radical revision. Aside from helping
invent tea while back in the past, Huang also fell in love with a local
Chinese princess… but could not bring her forward in time. Despondent,
the princess drowned herself in a small pond. The very same pond in
which the kangaroo had drowned in the original timeline, in fact. Now
possessed of a female alternate form, Huang took the “working name” of
Shadow Tiger and somehow acquired a suit of “fighting togs” that
changed color and cut when hit with cold water (to match the
character's *cough* altered proportions), though the campaign ended
before the gamemaster could toss in a few references to the fact that
when she drowned, the princess had been pregnant.
What are your favorite RPGs? White
Wolf's World of Darkness, both old and new. Specifically, both versions
of “Mage”, and “Promethean”, West End Games' TORG, R.Talsorian Games'
Cyberpunk and Cybergeneration, and Champions
What was your first RPG session like? I
tried to dungeon-master a blue-box D&D game once. I had no idea
what I was doing, and the one player I had was equally clueless. I
stayed involved in the hobby but didn't actually play again for several
more years.
What was your WORST RPG session like?
I think the most embarrassing session was when I tried to run a
first-edition “Top Secret” game with a player who was much older than
me but who had very little interest in the game or the genre… and I
still had very little idea of what I was doing. It couldn't have lasted
more than five minutes before, by mutual agreement, we decided to do
something else.
Who is your all-time favorite person to game with?
My friend Jason Sinclair. He has been a much more dedicated gamer than
myself for many years, and has many skills as both a player and a game
master. My girlfriend, Lee Ann D'Amato, is a world-class improv-actress
would likely be a phenomenal player if I could find a system and
setting to her liking.
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