A Little About Me

I started playing Dungeons and Dragons at the ripe age of approx 9-10yrs old, let us just say it stuck with me.

Even throughout the "Dungeons and Dragons Panic" of the early '80s, RPGs were not to be removed from my life.

When D&D was raged against, I acquired Traveller, Star Frontiers and James Bond, my friend owned Indiana Jones.  We played every chance we had.

Games based off of the Spyhunter video game, James Bond movies (obviously), Star Trek, Star Wars, GI Joe (complete with large miniatures!), Transformers, Robotech, G-Force, the possibilities were literally endless!

All of that before I even turned 13.

From 13 to 15 I did a bit of gaming, less than I should have.  The interest in music and girls was simply irresistible.

At sixteen, I was in a new school.  Some of the first people I talked to were gamers, I was in a D&D game within a matter of days.

I spent a lot of time reading books and pouring through gaming tomes.  By the time I was 17, and in another school halfway across the country, I was confidently writing my own adventures and looking for gamers.  They were easy to find.

A weekly group, in addition to another weekly group, soon morphed into a session every 2-3 days.  Mostly AD&D 2nd edition, interspersed with RoleMaster, Quest of the Ancients and Talislanta 2nd edition.

Another move, this time for college.

From 1992 until around 1994 there was a game almost every single night, sometimes twice in a day.  We did some RPG roulette, changing systems from one day to the next, Star Wars, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, AD&D 2nd edition, Interstellar Elite Combat, Rifts, Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Street Fighter, Talislanta 3rd edition and SLA Industries, not to mention the many homebrewed uses of those systems, Vampire Middle Ages (yes, before Vampire: The Dark Ages was released, people were already playing it, lol), Highlander, a game loosely based off of Red Dwarf.

1993-1994 brought some serious changes to my so-called gaming life: Magic: The Gathering was released.

At the time, we were WotC fanatics.  Talislanta and SLA Industries were constantly talked about, Magic was always at the drop of a hat.  We had a phone number for WotC and Zocchi next to the phone, and we used them often.

Three calls I remember well:

WotC: called to suggest a list of equipment for the SLA Industries RPG, was told that there would be a supplement soon with that request...and received a letter with photocopies of the Karma equipment list

WotC: playing M:tG my opponent gets a glazed look in his eye, I do not remember the exact cards, but I believe it was Basalt Monolith, Icy Manipulator and Time Vault, he says, "Just go with me here...take 3000 points of damage..." yeah, we called on that one, lol.  (It was a legal move, until one of the cards was banned in tournament play shortly thereafter)

Zocchi: called to place an order and heard 'Dracula' on the other end...it was Lou himself!  Mad props when the owner answers the phone in the warehouse...in his 'vampire' voice!

At one point, I received a letter from Grenadier miniatures stating I would be allowed to use their miniatures in photographs for published works.

Everything was awesome!

Then everything changed...

WotC discontinued all their RPGs.

I immediately sold my Magic collection and went to Vegas, then Arizona/New Mexico for a short time.  I returned to the area of gaming heaven, and promptly joined the military after a few months.

I ended up in Oklahoma, gamed a little, then came back again.  The gaming scene was different, most of the gamers I knew before had moved on.  I heard about this thing called a LARP, so I went, for the express purpose of conscripting people into tabletop RPGs.

That was 1996, I lured them in with SLA Industries, and I still run it.  There was a short time, after my first child was born, that gaming was just not happening.

And MMORPGs were taking over my friends.

Since that time I have had the absolute pleasure playtesting, editing and writing for some very cool games:

Playtesting
WEG d6 Adventure/Space/Fantasy
Shooting Iron Games - Midnight Realms

Demonstrations/Tournament
AEG - Doomtown
AEG - Warlord
AEG - 7th Sea

Editing
Morrigan Press
- Codex Magicus (also Writing and Game Design)
- The Northern Reaches
- People and Places: Djaffa

Writing Examples (not a complete list, as I have a lot of stuff on paper)
SLA Industries (all fan material, unpublished/unsolicited)
- The 812 Succubus Stormer varient
- The Skin Trade
- Upgrading the Manchine - listed as Manchine Update
- Packmaster Training Package
- Sniper Training Package
- Research and Development Technician
- Psychological Operations Training Package
- When Duty Calls - Listed as Package Overview
- Demolitions Package
- Ebb Science Package
- Additional Firearms
- A few BPNs (credited as KLForbes)
- SLA Operative Cheatsheet - I would provide a copy to every player