Hola. Baron Greystone !
"
Grognards Unite ", yes ?
it sounds like we share quite a bit of background influence..
Feel free to check out my profile (and extensive collection!) on BoardGameGeek.com ('White Elk'' is my username),
and I also maintain a token presence on theMiniaturesPage.com (Username: Volstagg Vanir")
All righty then.... { cracks Knuckles }
(EDIT-Insertion
: TL/DR = " Grognard credentials...Verified ! )~~~~~~~~
I was taught to read by my beatnik parentals with the help of a card box full of
Carl Barks' Unca' Scrooge, John Stanley's Little Lulu, and Walt Kelley's Pogo
(with an occasional sneak peek at Jules Feiffer and Chaz Addams).
I cut my adolescent teeth in the worlds of Jack 'King' Kirby, Steve Gerber, Wendy & Richard Pini , and Vaughn Bodē.
Growing up in Wisconsin, just outside Madison ('Baraboo')
I purchased a 'white box' D&D set at the UW @ Madison student Bookstore (for $10 IIRC) in 1974 (or was it '75..?)
How passionate I was ! (...until G. Gycax's infamous soapbox article in Dragon #38 (IIRC), wherein he allowed that 'classic D&D was 'ok', but for the 'junior set' and the enfeebled. Men, Real Men, MANLY Men ! would want to Only playtime new, Improved _ADVANCED_D&D.
I Binned TSR in toto and never looked back.
1976 saw me move to Austin TX,
where a young Law student named Steve Jackson did some 'work for hire' for a flighty publisher,
and thus in 1977 a zip-loc baggie labeled "Metagaming MicroGame #3 MELEE" fell into my hands.
The Die was Cast... Literally.
Add in to the mix Bunnies and Burrows, The Fantasy Trip, Tunnels & Trolls (mostly for the solo adventures), and FGU's Bushido.
In addition, much Time was squandered on AH's Starship Troopers, War of the Ring, and the monstrous Magic Realm.
I was fortunate enough to be introduced to RuneQuest in 1982 (..83?) by Reb Sean Summers, creatrix of Vivamort.
1984 saw me with a short stint in the military, where repeated plays of Illuminati added bonuses to my fragile sanity rolls.
Post Military life saw my own Collegiate Endeavors grounded out by a long stroll through
the Cosmography of Bryan Ansell, Mike Brunton, Simon Forrest, and li'l Rick Priestley,
with an occasional miniature actually painted.
Loved the 'Fluff', but quickly decided I'd better write my own game mechanics.
Enter in this period the writings of Moorcock, Robert Anton Wilson, Alan Moore,
and various and sundry Maedieval Metaphysical Philosophia.
Marriage and Children saw me enter the CCG era, wherein I had the distinct privilege of always picking
the game no one else would play: I still maintain substantial collections (2oK cards or more, each!)
of Chaosium's Mythos, ICE's Middle Earth, White Wolf's Rage, and Last Unicorn's Heresy: Kingdom Come .
The CCG era became the Euro Board Game era, and now Full Circle back to RPG's.
I tend to be either dead silent, or somewhat long-winded,
depending on the current orbital position of Earth's 2nd Moon (3753 Cruithne; 'The WayFarer', Cruidne, son of Cinge ),
or at least...
That's My Story, and I'm Stuck With It !
I AM
~> a Literary/Arts Critic by Proclivity
~~> a Rancoteur Troubador by Praxis
~~~> a Librarian/Archivist by Predisposition,
~~~~> a General Systems Theorist by Practice
~~~~~> a Neuroscience Researcher by Providence
~~~~~~> a Semiologist (ontogenetic and phylogenetic) by Proficiency
~~~~~~~> and a Games Theorist (Finite and Infinte) & Designer by Prodigiality!
" Dr. Thomas Wayne Malala Diener {Msc.D.Phil} has spent the last several decades
building an array of mediocre talents and questionable pastimes into a quasi-useable, low demand skill-set.
In the process, he has developed a series of neurocognitive meta-theories relating to memory, knowledge acquisition,
and the emergence of Consciousness from the organic neural network
which are currently being considered by The Norwegian Nobel Committee .
Dr. Diener variously lists his professional credentials as
~ Vanyrian Skáld
~~ Hengerddian Bard
~~ ~Caledonian Widluios
~~~~and/or Rancoteur Troubador .
He was awarded the title 'Poet Emeritus for Montgomery County' in 2011.
Dr. Diener is a known provocateur and iconoclast, and is currently on the "watch" blacklist of several Disctatorships.
He is considered an autodidactic schmarty-pants,
and therefore fundamentally dangerous to most hierarchical systems and dogmatic authority."
(lifted from the wikipedia entry)(…but
you Doesn't have to calls me "Dr. Diener")