Extremely weird dream last night.

Weird dream last night:  The world had suffered a major apocalypse, and the oceans have heaved flooding 95% of the world.  I was living in a underwater complex, and was doing some routine work outside of the base.  Obviously in the water.  At some point during the course of human history we gained the ability to slightly breath underwater.  Combined with new tech we are able to spend vast amounts of time under water.  Whatever the case I'm out there doing my thing, and manage to basically fall asleep.  When I wake up I'm at the bottom of the ocean, and that's when panic sets in.  You know about breathing underwater panic right? Yah that's what happened.  ieyeye.

Totally gameable however!

Ladies & Gentleman Mr. Dyson Logos

1.  How did you get your start roleplaying? What system did you use? 

My cousin's friends played D&D in the basement of their home back in the late 70's. It was old school down there, with a sand table from the old war gaming days and everything. 

At 9 years old in 1979, my cousin and I both roll up D&D characters and sit down to play for the first time. The group has a map to an old tomb and are excited to be the first ones to loot it. But some goblins also have managed to acquire a copy in the previous session and we are racing them to the site. 

When we arrive it is obvious that they have beat us there. So we rush into the tomb and in the second antechamber we run into a small squad of goblins setting up camp and stowing supplies while their leaders are up ahead figuring out the traps and tricks of the place.

We don't surprise them, but we do win initiative the first round. My cousin and I rush into the fight (playing twin elven brothers). My cousin misses his attack, but I get a solid blow in, killing a goblin. However, as I was trying to disentangle my sword from the scrawny marauder, another goblin rushed up and hit me for 2 damage.

That was the end of my character. First character, first session, first round of combat.

I was hooked for life.

The game itself was mostly classic OD&D with a binder of house rules. This was before the 1e DMG had come out, so they weren't using the options from the 1e PHB yet, although a few of the players had the PHB already. I played with that group for two years - I didn't run my own first game until 1981 after buying the Moldvay / Cook B/X rules sets.

2.  Tell me about the Dyson Logos Blog? How did it start?

It started something like six years ago when I decided to go through my collection of RPGs and make at least one character for each game (aiming to make one starting and one experienced character for each game - or roughly 500 characters). At the time it was called "A Character For Every Game" and the URL of the site still reflects this (rpgcharacters.wordpress.com).

Somewhere along the way it became a general RPG blog, and from there it became an old school DIY blog with a focus on fantasy RPG maps. It evolves and changes as time goes by. It's basically a non-social version of my google+ stream with two new maps a week these days.

The name changed in 2011 or 2012, I'm not sure exactly when. I was still putting out Dyson's Dodecahedron (my 12-page mini zine) at the time and decided to change the name of the blog to match since I had stopped posting characters to the blog.

3.  When did you start drawing maps? And how long did it take you to get your trademark style?

I started drawing maps sometime early in 81 just before getting the 1981 Moldvay / Cook B/X sets. I remember that spring in grade school drawing a multi-level mega dungeon with twisting slides down from pit traps between the levels, and that summer drawing a castle map based on the map elements from Keep on the Borderlands but that was six pages of graph paper in size and I insisted on mapping each level... so about 36 pages in total.

My trademark style is a lot more recent. I experimented with crosshatching earlier, but I didn't really figure it out until late 2008 when I saw someone else's hatching and map designs and decided to try my hand at it again. 

His maps using a “square cross-hatch pattern” (three horizontal lines, three vertical, three horizontal, and so on). They totally threw me into a time warp, flashing back to the maps from old Chaosium products and other magazines from the 70’s and 80’s before we started using digital and coloured maps. It’s not the same retro look as the classic blue maps from the old TSR adventures, but I was never a fan of those maps to begin with. These remind me at some level of the maps from Elric! And Stormbringer and other fantasy games - but it is specifically the whole Elric vibe that tickles the cockles of my heart because that’s the kind of fantasy games I love to run instead of classic high fantasy.

4.  What was the first adventure you published? 

May 26th, 2009 - The Tomb of Dûrahn Oakenshield

Embarrassingly I hadn't read Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit since 1980, so I THOUGHT I had come up with the Oakenshield name on my own as something that sounded good and dwarven.

I drew up a map and wrote up a nice little adventure for the 2009 One Page Dungeon Contest and got an honourable mention as the "Best Introductory One Shot".

You can download it here: https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/adventure-the-tomb-of-daruhn-oakenshield/

Later, in August of that year, I released the first adventure PDF that wasn't for a contest - Goblin Gully. This adventure remains one of my all-time favourites and I consider it an important piece of reading for anyone getting into one of my campaigns who hasn't actually played through it. Mainly because it is a level 1 adventure with a 10HD Black Pudding as the "boss monster". 

https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/friday-map-goblin-gully-a-deadly-one-page-dungeon/

5.  How’s the Patreon going? If I remember correctly you were on their main page for awhile. 

The Patreon Campaign has been pretty steady, if in a little bit of a decline lately. 

The reality is that the Patreon Campaign changed EVERYTHING for me. It paid my rent through all of 2014, and has covered all my bills through 2015 so far. My patrons are the most generous and awesome people ever - they are giving me the opportunity to keep working on my maps and skills while being able to survive in a hostile capitalist environment.

Without the support of my patrons, my skills would not have grown the way they have in the last two years. I owe them all a huge debt of gratitude and love because they are the people who make the current iteration of the Dodecahedron blog possible. Without them I'd be slaving away at a desk somewhere NOT drawing maps, and that would be a sad thing indeed.

I'm a Patreon success story - in 2014 I was one of the 100 top earners on Patreon and one of my maps is hanging on the wall of the new Patreon HQ. For a long time the Patreon front page was static, and the day they started changing up the mix of stuff on the front page I was up there, but not for long.

The campaign itself has sat at around the same level of support for about six months now - and has been slowly declining month-by-month for the past few months and is currently at the lowest level it's been in the last six months. Which is to say it is still incredibly healthy and pays my bills.

6.  What is your favourite OSR clone? 

I'm a purist. What most people call retro-clones I call retro-games because they don't clone. In fact, the only two games that I really feel count as retro-clones are OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord. Every other game includes too many house rules or changes from the core game (S&W's single save, for instance). True, there are some oddities even with Labyrinth Lord (clerics casting spells at level 1), but it's as close as we've come to a clone of B/X D&D so far - which is still my game of choice.

Now if we are talking my favourite retro-game, then I am a little more torn. I really love Dungeon Crawl Classics but I think of it as a modern game with a few old-schoolisms in the mix. Labyrinth Lord combined with the AdvancedEdition Companion brings us close to how I use to run AD&D1e back in the 80's (because I really didn't like a lot of the more complex rules from AD&D like segments, 1 minute combat rounds, weapon vs armour type tables, etc), which makes me happy.

So yeah, it keeps coming back to Labyrinth Lord. Although Lamentationsof the Flame Princess has the most kick-ass selection of additional weird materials out for it.

7.  What are you currently playing? 

I'm running a D&D5e campaign that is currently going through the classic "Dwellers of the Forbidden City" module (the conversion has been dirt-simple, I just replace the monster stats from the module with the same or similar monsters from the 5e Monster Manual). I would name the next module in line for this campaign, but I figure at least one or two of my gamers will read this article.

I'm a player and DM in a rotating DM game of Dungeon Crawl Classics. We take turns as DM running an official DCC module and then when the adventure is over we swap out the job to the next DM who has to figure out a storyline that removes his or her characters from the group and brings back the characters of the last DM. We've got characters in that game spread between levels 1 and 3 now.

I've got a game of Labyrinth Lord going to playtest the Dyson MegaDelve. We'll see how that goes.

I'm a player in a classic 1975 Empire of the Petal Throne campaign being run by James Maliszewski which has been going for 20 sessions so far and has been a lot of fun - my first experience with the Tekumel setting.

And finally I'm playing in a Star Wars: Edge of Empire campaign that's only had a few sessions but has been a lot of fun to play and to learn the system.

I also had the opportunity recently to play in one of Zak Smith's MarvelSuperhero games which was a lot of fun.

8.  I’m a big fan of the two “RPG a Day’s”/ 48 hour, that you did, tell me about the contest and the process? 

Ah, the 24 hour RPG Contest. 

I first discovered the 24 hour RPG Contest through a game called AssassinX - 24 pages of murder and mayhem where you play assassins and hit men. The writing was jarringly rough, the layout aggressive, and half the game was tables for rolling what kind of mission the PCs get given.

1km1kt.net runs an annual 24 hour RPG Contest now (since the original seems to have died off) and more recently RPGGeek also runs one. The goal is to design, write, and produce a full RPG in 24 hours - throw in 6 hours for sleep and it is a pretty tight deadline. It was originally based on the 24 hour comics which had the goal of producing a 24 page comic in 24 hours, but most of the RPG contests drop the 24 page target.

In 2009 I wrote Geodesic Gnomes. That year the contest at 1km1kt had a limited selection of game concepts / titles to work from, and that particular title triggered memories of the high tech low life living in the dome superstructures over the city in Johnny Mnemonic. I used a very simple system (2d8, roll under your stat + skill), and then wrapped it in some of my best writing from years of playing and running Cyberpunk RPGs. It has some faults (a death spiral mechanic where taking damage results in being less able to fight, which means you will likely take more damage), but it works. Heck, it works well enough that Mark Chance of SPES Magna games released a commercial adventure for it that he ran at conventions (Metro Gnomes).

Geodesic Gnomes didn't win. It lost out to a game by Matt Jackson.

I ended up skipping a few more contests before trying my hand again in 2013, with A Flask Full of Gasoline. The rules that year required that the game be formatted in PocketMod format, and that it not use numbers. I pounded out a game inspired by that moment in The Crow where T-bird and his crew are shouting "Burn it up! Burn it up!" while washing down bullets with shots of vodka.

In the end, it turned into three pocket mods (one for the players, one for the GM, and one with an adventure) that I had a LOT of fun doing the layout and design on as well as the writing. It uses bullets, booze and matchsticks as resolution mechanics. It is pretty tongue-in-cheek and violent.

A Flask Full of Gasoline didn't win. It lost out to a game by Fred Bednarski.

The process of the 24 hour contest is a bit rough. For me it involves a one-hour brainstorm to start with and if nothing REALLY jumps out at me in that brainstorm, I drop the whole thing. If something clicks though, I take a few notes on paper about the mechanics and theme, fire up PhotoShop and InDesign and start working on layout and graphical elements right away - then start writing.

There is no time for editing - trust your guts and write to fit the space you've given yourself. It is a hell of a grind trying to get the whole thing together under deadline, which is why I start with the layout instead of finishing with it as you would with a normal published project. You don't eat properly, you don't sleep properly, and you probably ingest too much caffeine (and ephedrine). I would seriously consider finding a source of speed before launching on another 24 hour RPG contest entry.

But of course, I am planning to get involved in another 24 hour contest in the next week or so. Maybe I'll finish this interview first, maybe I'll do the contest first. We'll find out and try to keep you in the loop (and you can have some of my speed too).

9.  What is your favourite published module other than yours? 

A Thousand Dead Babies by Zzarchov Kowolski.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/110659/A-Thousand-Dead-Babies

It has knocked my own Goblin Gully off my list of important 1st level adventures for a new group. It is twisted and fun and twisted. And it's investigative without ever getting boring as there are SO many leads in such a small setting that there's no way a party won't want to follow at least three of them at any one time.

I'm not going to spoil it with an in depth review, but if you haven't read it yet, you NEED to. This is gold.

10.  If you could campaign in any world which would it be? 

Something like Transhuman Space, otherwise Cyberpunk 2020. I don't read fantasy books, I am a science fiction junky. When I discovered Transhuman Space I read every rulebook and sourcebook cover to cover, skipping only the game rules stuff (because it's GURPS, so the rules don't matter to me). I was 100% enthralled and in love. 

I like near future science fiction, I love cyberpunk but the genre feels pretty dated most of the time (I would love to play a SHORT Cyberpunk campaign, but an extended campaign these days would probably wear me down and the CP2020 system really needs some modernization).

11.  What are the plans for the future of Dyson Logos? 

I've got too many irons in the fire at once these days, and some projects are thus doomed to never be finished. With how much I suck at following through on things, I think I've figured out how to make this all work for me. 

I'm currently writing up a campaign setting that I ran back in University called Snail Lords of the Salt Flats. In order to avoid being in charge of illustrating, laying out and producing the final game, I've arranged for Paolo Greco of the Lost Pages to take care of all that stuff and for him to publish it.

If that works, I'm seriously considering a series of similar projects - taking material from my older games and hammering it together and passing it on to other publishers to bring to market for me. "Dyson's Basement Files" or something like that. A series of unrelated projects and books published by various different publishers, but all in the same product line.

While I think that the old Dyson's Dodecahedron zine is dead, I have a few adventures that are half-finished that need to be completed - Dyson'sMegaDelve, a revised and expanded version of Challenge of the Frog Idol, and The Cursed Dwarves of Shibole. 

I'm also working on a series of maps to go with Zak Smith's Red andPleasant Land that we're hoping to collaborate on turning into a booklet that could be a companion to that lovely book. And I got tagged recently by Marc Miller of Traveller fame to work on a series of maps for that classic setting.

And of course, 2 maps a week on the blog for the foreseeable future.

12.  When you get a chance to play a character, what type of PC's do you like to play? 

In my youth I was a fighting wizard. Figure out how to make a wizard with a sword, and that was what I wanted. Elves from classic D&D, Melnibonean noble sorcerers, psychic warriors...

Now... now it really depends. I'm usually found playing someone with a fairly high Charisma-type stat - either a rogue-type (in any game) or a cleric-type (if appropriate). In the Empire of the Petal Throne game I'm a wanna-be barbarian warrior (ex-military with a death wish) who isn't too bright. In the Star Wars game I'm running a hovering gun-droid. And in DCC I've got a halfling gentleman and an axe-mage (who runs around basically naked with a black leather hood over his head).

13.  What are you most excited about in the RPG scene currently?

DIY awesomeness. 

I've got a huge pile of zines that keeps growing. I spend $50 a month on books from Lulu because the DIY RPG scene just doesn't stop publishing awesome stuff.

The entry point to have the tools and technology to self-publish is at the lowest point it has ever been. If you have the imagination to put something together, then it can go to print at almost no cost to you.

EDITORS NOTE:  SOMEONE NEEDS TO COME UP WITH A T-SHIRT "DIY awesomeness. '

14.  Donuts or Pizza?

Yes. Although lately the pizza doesn't have tomato sauce anymore - I've had to switch to lower-acid pesto-based pizza... and it has been a DELICIOUS transition for me.

15.  Your such a community minded guy, what draws you to this awesome OSR crowd?

I'll be honest, the OSR turned me off initially. The list of "zen moments of OSR gaming" reminds me every time of some of the worst games I've ever played, and seeing them touted as the keys to the scene turned me off almost as much as grognards actually engaging in edition wars in real life at the gaming store.

It's the DIY thing that has me here, combined with it being a place where I'm not the only person who loves B/X D&D in the crowd. It's the cheering on you get when you put something cool out there, instead of the nit-picking. 

It's also the whole community vibe. I am very community-oriented. I release as much as I can for free while still being able to feed myself and put a bit of gas in the truck. When I have a game on my shelf that I know I won't be using, I give it away to someone who will use it. And people know this - so when I go looking for something, the community opens up and sends me stuff. It's like a giant lending library in that way.

As with any community, I would be happier with a little less drama, but that's something you can't seem to manage anywhere. 

16.  Since you've stopped doing Characters for the blog, have considered doing some new ones? Now with the release of Fifth Edition.  How about an Alice character? 

Yeah, I've even got a few half-completed characters in the drafts folder of my blog, but I never get around to finishing them. 

At some point I would like to make a couple of Alice characters using the Lamentations of the Flame Princess system it was designed for - one level 1, because that's what I do, and one at level 9 to see how it stacks up against the Lamentations version of the thief class. 

Other games I should be posting characters for:

Empire of the Petal Throne

D&D5e

Cyberpunk 2020 (and maybe make a month of Cyberpunk on the blog - characters for all the major Cyber RPGs, maps to go with them, etc... that's an idea I should really get behind)

Into the Odd

A Flask Full of Gasoline

James Bond

etc... 

So many games on my shelves...

17. Senators or Leafs?

I don't really follow basketball. :)

Also, Habs.

World building in my head

I tend to find it easier to world build with a map in place.  So lunch time mapping!  I've had a few ideas kicking around, obviously this may not be concrete at this point, but its giving me a bit more fuel.  Besides I enjoy creating hex maps.

There comes a time when everybody needs to shake things up.

I'm sorta done with Medieval fantasy.   Don't get me wrong, I love it.  However I've been thinking about a lot of other types of campaigns, and I kinda want to throw myself and my players a twist.

Ancient Greek
Oriental Adventures
Dark Sun
Al Quadim

are all things that are currently crossing my mind.  What would be interesting is to try and do a mash up of all of them possibly.  To run Dark Sun, or Al Quadim, I would fall into the Forgotten Realms trap, (atleast as far as the gods are concerned, and there's just too damn many of them imho).   The setting is gigantic.

However here is one thing I've been pondering:

A desert city, near a coast line.  Very Arabian nights (or Assasins Creed circa 4).  Yuanit, Githzeri, Naga's and all other hosts of baddies wander the desert and the surronding lands.  The city is ruled by a Bronze or Gold dragon.  Maybe there's a Black dragon as well, who has a host of Lizardmen in a swamp on the other side of the desert (I dunno riffing here).  But there's elements of Ancient Egypt as well, long dead mummies, pyramids (aliens? hahaa).  Not far from the coastal city is an island filled with Oriental Archetypes.  Why play a thief when you can play a Ninja, am I right?

So its basically Dark Sun, Al Quadim and Oriental Adventures.

But wait, I haven't gotten to Ancient Greece yet.  Gods play a real part in the world.  The monsters of myth are very real.  Yes I'm looking at you Cyclops, Minotaur, Hyrda, Chiimera, etc.  There are 2 warring nations.  Both believe they are the rightful accoltyes to the gods.  There's a mad king, and on the other side an Emperyan (child of the gods) who runs the other side.  The PC's are caught in the middle.  The setting isn't completely historical, but there is a little less magic.  There are of course magic users, a ancient sect, where there are only ever 4 magic users.

Maybe there were dwarves & elves and tieflings long ago.  But no more.  Now Humans, Centaurs, Satyr's walk shoulder to shoulder.

You can see my dilemma.

hired goons

I forgot to mention that during our little pick up game of basic, the players hired some goons/meat.  There names were, Joaquin and Phoenix.  They managed to kill a few kobolds.

 Joaquin

Phoenix

D&D Night!

Rather entertaining evening last night.  Was hoping to finish up the starter set, but we got a bit derailed.  The PC's went off to Wyvern Tor to take care of the Orcs there, and see if they couldn't get a bit of information out of them.  Having just had a good long sleep they were up and ready to go.  They got a bit lost looking for the crag, and had to have a over night nap.  Being the players they are they wanted a "long rest".  But being the slightly evil DM that I am, I had a bunch of Hobgoblins ambush them while they were sleeping.

The next morning the PC's found Wyvern Tor, destroyed the Orcs, and are now on there way back to town.  The Orcs were down a long hill, throwing spears at the PC's.  For most of the battle the PC's had advantage on rolls tossing crap down at the orcs.

After we wrapped 5e for the evening, I grabbed my copy of Basic from 81, and the "endless tunnels of enlandin".  Everyone rolled 3D6 in order, and decided what kind of character they would be after the fact.  I managed to get a thief, a cleric and fighter.  The fighter however went off to bed, so the other two hired a few goons to give them a hand.  Once inside the tunnels, they managed to take out a few kobolds, then had a discussion with a family of kobolds about what was going on within the dungeon.  At that point we started talking about something else, the convo swayed and I think we basically pooped ourselves out.

It was interesting to go from 5e to Basic.  I think it was also a bit interesting for the players as well.

At some point I'd like to run em thru a bit more of that.  Actually I really dug Enlandin.  It be a fun on going campaign actually.  Nice little 5 level mega dungeon, which I've discussed before in this blog.

As far as the starter set is concerned, I think I am going to have to write some off the rails stuff very soon.  2 of the players have read the starter set adventure, and to a degree it is sort of going as planned.  Even though the adventure is a sandbox.  It seems they are picking the right paths, to get to the end goal.

That said, there's some internal strife with a paladin and a warlock, shortly after leaving the rebrand's base, the PC's were covered in 8 feet of slime, which encircled them.  Out of nowhere a Marilith appeared.  She wheeled and dealed with the warlock, and suggested that if he didn't do what he was told he'd be destroyed.  The quest as such is to find 6 pieces of an ebony map.

Interviews

I am thoroughly enjoying doing these interviews.  I am thinking that I will try and do these once a week for a bit.  So far it sounds like everyone has been enjoying them!  I have a list of a few suspects that I am going to start hitting up.   As well if you'd (yes you reading this) would also like an interview throw me a quick email at shanepatrickward AT gmail DOT com.

It's friday! let's have a good weekend eh.  I'm running the starter set on Saturday, hopefully we will get close to finishing it off.  I am still wracking my brain on the Patron for the warlock in the party.  So far I got green goo.

Here's a great tune by a not long lived Winnipeg band.  

Interview with Tim Shorts from Gothridge Manor

And now its Tim Shorts turn for an interview.

1.  How did you get your start roleplaying? What system did you use? 

In the winter of '79 we were off of school for a couple of days, my neighbor/good friend, Dwayne, called me to come on over to play a game.  I ran through the three feet of snow to see what he had.  He had B2 Keep on the Borderlands.  He told me it was a game where you kill monsters and collect treasure.  "Great, where's the board?" I asked.  This game sounded cool.  "There is no board."  So he and I hashed out as much as we could of the game.  And since we had no dice or any real rules to go by we made up our own system on the spot.  Since the Yahtzee and Monopoly only had 6-sided dice to steal.  Armed with 6-siders we developed a simple rule system.  A 1 is a kill.  A 6 is a wound.  Two wounds and you are dead.  We played for hours.  Tweaking it along the way, allowing 'followers' as we called them then, to take on some of the monsters and allow us to get farther into the caves.  We had a blast.

2.  Tell me about the Gothridge Manor Blog.  

Gothridge Manor is strictly about fun.  What I find fun in gaming and what's going on with me and other folks.  You won't find any edition war talk, no political bullshit or social warrior causes.  My blog is my hammock in the backyard, the place I go to to relax, sip some ice tea and talk about something I really enjoy.

3.  You publish an awesome zine called the "Manor".  It’s available in print and electronically.  What kind of stuff can a new reader look forward to? 

The Manor is a mish-mash of whatever is going on in my head and what some of my on-line friends send me.  The majority of what I write is system neutral.  You'll find your standard fare of random tables, adventures, new monsters and magic items.  In my first issue, in the introduction I set the tone of the zine.  I had six points, but the last point I made I think is the most relevant.  "I do this for fun, not to change minds or challenge gaming philosophies.  I roll dice, laugh and try to make my funny voices sound convincing."

4.  What was the first adventure you published? 

I published Knowledge Illuminates in February of 2011 I believe.  In PDF format on RPGNow.  It was an adventure I created years before as a start-up for a GURPS campaign.  I had my good friend Rob Conley redo the maps for me, to give it a more professional feel.  And switching the stats from GURPS to Swords & Wizardry was easy.  A few years later I had asked Dylan Hartwell do the art for a print version of Knowledge Illuminates.

5.  You are doing a patreon with micro adventures, how is that going? 

Micro-adventures is going exceptionally well.  I love coming up with these small settings or situations that can be throw into a game.  I've gotten a lot of great feedback from folks who've used them.  What I also like about doing the micro-adventures is it forces me to keep going.  To push beyond my comfort zone and try different things.  Recently I did a sci-fi one and I have a three part adventure that deals with the fey realm.  I probably wouldn't have ever written them if it hadn't been for Patreon.  

6.  What is your favourite OSR clone? 

Swords & Wizardry Complete is my favorite.  But you can't go wrong with any of them.  Castles &Crusades is what brought me back to d20 and since then I think I have tried them all.  But if I was going to run a game today S&W Complete would me the one I use.

7.  What are you currently playing? 

I've been playing a lot of different systems lately.  I just finished an Exoterrorist game and now we are two weeks into a Pit & Perils adventure.  This past weekend I ran a DragonAge game and the same group is going to give the generic version of the AGE system a try, Fantasy Age.  And once in a blue moon when I play with the b-team we were playing S&W Complete, but tried Far and Away Land last time we got together.  So a lot.

8.  Starter adventures is awesome.  Where did you get the idea? 

Starter Adventures was an idea that came to me after a night of gaming with my wife, she got her own blog The HappyWhisk.  Many of the 1st level adventures were toward beginning characters, not beginning players.  I thought having one-on-one adventures, that would help someone learn which dice are which and how the basic mechanics work in simple, short situations would be a great way to learn.  And being its one-on-one there is no pressure, so the player and GM can take their time to explain things or ask questions.  

9.  You seem to be a big fan of Mythboard, I haven't quite wrapped my head around it yet, what is it? 

Mythoard is a subscription based service that seems permeate our culture these days.  There are so many out there these days.  But Mythoard targets RPGs.  So each month Mythoardships a box of random RPG products to your mailbox.  I love getting fun stuff in the mail.  I even had the privilege of being Mythoard's first exclusive, The Stone Fields of Azoroth.  What I like about Mythoard is getting the products I'd never heard of before.  I get to sample products I probably wouldn't have known about otherwise.  And that's what makes it so cool.

10.  What is your favourite published module other than yours? 

Oh boy.  This is tough because I like so many adventures for so many reasons.  Zzarchov and Simon Forester put out great adventures.  One of my favorite Pathfinder adventure path is Kingmaker.  I honestly can't say I have a favorite.  But the adventure I most prefer are the smaller ones, like your Abandon Mines.  Short, but fun adventures that can have prolonged effects on the larger campaign.  

11.  If you could campaign in any world which would it be? 

I've been reading a ton of Dragon Age lately.  I enjoy the video games and really like what I've read so as of now, probably a Dragon Age would be my choice.

12.  What are the plans for the future of GM Games? 

Completing one or two Manor before the end of the year.  I need to finish a couple of bigger projects, doing a Manor compilation of the first five issues and some longer adventures.  Plus, I'm hoping to recruit a few other writers for some other projects.

13.  When you get a chance to play a character, what type of PC's do you like to play? 

I prefer to play PCs that are alive, but with my penchant for rolling 1s that is rarely the case. I like to play good guys who in the end do the right thing, but has no problem busting knee caps along the way.  And I do like to play a...not so nice guy, but I guess I play them too well so the group has banned me from playing the not so nice guys.