Centerfolds

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Something that I'd really like to see (on this site or on individuals' sites) is a kind of "gamer profile" that would shed light on a person's style, turn-ons and turn-offs (hence the slightly humorous subject of this post).  This is inspired by Peter Seckler's profile over at his site, The Mole.

So, what kinds of fields would such a beast have?  What questions would you ask someone when talking about their likes/dislikes and preferred styles?  Obviously, favorite/least favorite games would be on there...

Any ideas?

_________________
jared a. sorensen / http://www.memento-mori.com
indie game design from beyond the grave

[ This Message was edited by: Jared A. Sorensen on 2001-05-08 20:28 ]

[Paul Czege]

At one point I had mocked up little icons I thought people could use in their signatures on G.O. They looked kind of like this:

gNs

Gns

gnS

[Ron Edwards]

Paul's suggestion traps me between laughing appreciatively and shuddering in horror at the potential miscommunications.

More seriously, it seems as if the Profile box might contain such a thing. I'm not sure that "Interests" has ever been used seriously in user profiles - there's something yearbooky about it; it strikes me as the kind of thing that a corporation requires its employees to fill in to create the illusion of a happy community. Maybe it could be renamed?

Or maybe the whole idea is flawed .... much as I like the idea of learning more about one another's role-playing preferences, I also like the idea of developing that understanding through open, ongoing dialogue. I have two reasons for that:
1) it permits a person to change and develop their point of view; typing in a profile at the outset has a tendency of concretizing one's self-definition.
2) it's much harder to dissemble one's point of view in multi-directional dialogues than in a collected paragraph.

Well, this post turned out to say exactly the opposite of what I planned when I began it.

Best
Ron

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Well, maybe not fuzzy self-categorizatin...but I think that even a list of favorite RPGs would be great -- if only to see what people like and/or are currently playing.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Asking "what are your favorite RPGs" always ends up seeming like empty information to me. If I were to institute something like this, I'd want to ask:

* Last three games you played?
* Favorite three games you've actually played?
* Three games you've always wanted to play but haven't?

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Clinton,

That sounds great -- can we add this to our user profile thingies?

[Ron Edwards]

Let's see how it looks:

* Last three games you played?
Hero Wars, Soap, Orkworld
 
* Favorite three games you've actually played?
Sorcerer, The Whispering Vault, Ghost Light

* Three games you've always wanted to play but haven't?
Over the Edge, Prince Valiant, Theatrix

Hmm! Not a bad profile, I think. 'Course, that "last three games" would cycle pretty frequently, but that's OK.

Best,
Ron

[Blake Hutchins]

Gad. I'm in a drought here.

Last three games played:
Mage, DnD, Amber

Favorite three games I've actually played:
Everway, Castle Falkenstein, Wraith

Three I'd like to play but haven't (this list needs to be six, not three):
Story Engine, Sorcerer, Hero Wars

Not too bad. My local crowd is mostly WW, DnD, or GURPS players. I'm the black sheep and getting farther from the flock every day.

[ This Message was edited by: Blake Hutchins on 2001-05-09 19:38 ]

[Paul Czege]

Paul's suggestion traps me between laughing appreciatively and shuddering in horror...

Well...when I realized the idea was mostly motivated by how apoplectic Nick was getting about heavy G/N/S discussions, I scrapped it. I daydream a lot about plunging a pitchfork into people's tender spots and then shrieking maniacally, but I don't often act on it.

And I actually think that self-reporting of G/N/S bias isn't all that useful.

However, I think Clinton's three profile items are perfect, although I'd reword them slightly. For me they'd be:

* Last three RPG's you've played/GM'd?
Theatrix, Everway, and if you count a combat system test, D&D3e, otherwise Vampire
 
* Favorite three RPG's you've actually played/GM'd?
Theatrix, Everway, and geez, 1st ed. AD&D

* Three RPG's you've always wanted to play/GM but haven't?
Prince Valiant, Extreme Vengeance, Sorcerer

Paul

[George Pletz]

Well here's my answers. The only caveat I would add is that with the favorite three field, it is games that I would play again without reservation, not that they were "perfect"
gaming experiences.

last three RPGs played - Deadlands, UA, D&D 3rd ed.

favorite three RPGs played - Feng Shui, OTE, UA

three rpgs you would like to play but haven't had the chance (yet) -  Octane, Sorcerer, Story Engine ( I could go on for a very long time on this one.)

George

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'm going to code this up for the profiles--this weekend, hopefully--but until then, my answers would be:

Last three games played/GM'ed:
Fudge, Sorcerer, 7th Sea

Favorite three games played/GM'ed:
Sorcerer, Story Engine, D&D3E

Three games I've read and wished I could play:
Dying Earth, Feng Shui, Schism

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Last games played
Unknown Armies, Pantheon, Underworld

Favorite games played/ran
Unknown Armies, D&D 3rd edition, Efls

Read and wanna play dese games
The Dying Earth, The Whispering Vault, Sorcerer

[Zak Arntson]

* Last three games you played?
  Hmm, couple homebrews with a 7 & 10 year old.
  Pokemon Adventure game (with same kids).
  Homebrew with buncha friends.

* Favorite three games you've actually played?
  Paranoia, AD&D (Planescape), Call of Cthulhu

* Three games you've always wanted to play but haven't?
  Kult (I know NOTHING about this game, but I've always wanted to try it out), Feng Shui (Big Trouble in Little China the RPG!!), D&D3E (curious & nostalgia)

* Nostalgia Games
  Palladium system (some of my first intros to RPing were a TERRIBLE mish-mash of Rifts and Robotech)
  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (I know it's Palladium, but it is so cool it deserves its own mention.  I recently bought a bunch of old TMNT stuff for way cheap, all I need now is Mutants in the Yucatan)
  Basic D&D (Played this LOTS.  And raise your hand if you played the solo adventure with the rust monster!)

[Mytholder]

Ah, why not.

Last three games played
Call of Cthulhu, Vampire (larp), Nobilis

Favourite three
The usual answers - Unknown Armies, Blue Planet, and Nobilis.

Three I most wanna play, but haven't
Er. Dunno. I want to *read* Dying Earth and Godlike but I don't know if I want to play them. I'd like to play Inspectres quite a bit, actually.

[hardcoremoose]

Okay,

Last Three Played:
Inspectres(NightWatch), D&D3E, Vampire

Three (Current) Faves I've Actually Played:
Inspectres, Coc, Whispering Vault

The Three I'd Most Like To Play:
Elfs, Castle Falkenstein, Unknown Armies