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Published: March 14, 2020, 1:11 a.m.

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Show notes, Night City Secrets BONUS Episode 1

Interview with the REFEREE

Cover Art for the podcast from \\u201cCyberpunk madness,\\u201d by the artist Eddie Del Rio.\\xa0\\xa0

Intro and closing music is from Amoebacrew, called simply "Cyberpunk royalty free music.\\u201d\\xa0 It is available on Youtube:

Background ambient music is from RoyaltyFreeSounds, called \\u201cSoundscape Ambient, Cyberpunk Music. Royalty Free.\\u201d

It is on Youtube:

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TRANSCRIPT

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So hello, welcome back to Night City Secrets.\\xa0 Today I\\u2019m going to interview our illustrious Referee.\\xa0 How would you like me to refer to you.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 God might be a little pretentious, let\\u2019s just go with \\u201cReferee.\\u201d

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 [laughing] All right Mister Referee.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Sir.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Sir, that\\u2026 that\\u2019s always good.\\xa0 So how long have you been playing Cyberpunk 2020?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Ah, so I\\u2019ve been playing Cyberpunk 2020 since probably around 1989 or 1990.\\xa0 Now, that\\u2019s not consecutive, I mean, there\\u2019s been a lot of off and on years, but, again, 89-90 timeframe when we were *really* heavy into role-playing.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I\\u2019m sorry, I should probably give a little bit of context, too.\\xa0 I\\u2019m 46 years old. So, eh, I was, 18, 19? I was young, right, and we were really heavy into role-playing at the time.\\xa0 We logged hundreds of hours playing Cyberpunk 2020.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So you were in High School, I guess, basically, when you started doing this?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yeah.\\xa0 Yeah, high school or right out of it.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 What is it that you think attracted you all to table-top role-playing?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 You know, we were always kind of the fringe crowd.\\xa0 We weren\\u2019t the jocks, we weren\\u2019t preppies, we weren\\u2019t stoners, we were always kind of a fringe crowd.\\xa0 We got along with everybody, but we didn\\u2019t really belong to any specific genre of friend-group. Uhm, we were all very creative, very imaginative, we liked reading, we liked theatre, we liked music, we liked anything creative.\\xa0 Uhm, Jamie is still an aspiring writer. You\\u2019re a writer, right? I mean it\\u2019s just the type of people we hung out with.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And back then, video games were\\u2026 they were starting, I mean, we had them.\\xa0 We had computer games, but they were still pretty new and still pretty remedial.\\xa0 And so, if you wanted an opportunity to explore \\u201cstrange new worls and seek our new life and new civilization,\\u201d your opportunity was role-playing games.\\xa0 So that\\u2019s what hooked us.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And you guys grew up in a pretty small town, right?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yeah, good point, Glenwood Springs, Colorado.\\xa0 Uh, population at the time I think was about 7 or 8,000.\\xa0 Very small, my entire school, my entire high school was around 400 people.\\xa0 About 100 per class. So yeah, it was small. Didn\\u2019t have a lot to do. Your opportunities were: a lot of drinking, a lot of drugs, a lot of getting in trouble, and role-playing.\\xa0 [laughing]

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So did your parents, did everyone know you were doing this role-playing stuff?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 No, I don\\u2019t know that they did.\\xa0 You know, I can\\u2019t say it was anything I kept from them, I just, you know, my parents never really took an active interest in what I was doing when I wasn\\u2019t at the house.\\xa0 So I never came to them said, like, \\u201cHe dad, I\\u2019m playing D&D, and Cyberpunk,\\u201d it was just\\u2026 I was out of the house and he never really asked.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well, I guess the reason I ask is because, around that time frame, it was maybe a little bit earlier than your time, but there was the whole\\u2026 I\\u2019ve heard people call it the \\u201cSatanic Panic.\\u201d

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yeah, the D&D scare.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And so parents were hearing these bad stories and they were not wanting their kids to get involved.\\xa0 That\\u2019s what happened to me.\\xa0

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 OK, and that makes sense.\\xa0 And you know what, funnily enough, now that you mention that, I can\\u2026 I\\u2019m not sure that I can actually recall, but I do know that I was probably fairly adamant about not telling my mom what I did.\\xa0 My mom is very religious and I probably omitted that from her. But my dad just never asked, so\\u2026

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yeah I, I wanted to play role-playing games, but I didn\\u2019t know anyone that really did, and my parents frowned on that activity, they didn\\u2019t really want me doing it anyway.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 We would have been really good friends in high school, dude.\\xa0 [laughing]

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I was in an even smaller high school than you.\\xa0\\xa0

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 No kidding?\\xa0 Oh, that\\u2019s right, you were up in Steamboat, weren\\u2019t you?

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Uh-huh, yeah.\\xa0 You want to guess my graduating class?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 OK, if mine was 100 in Glenwood, I\\u2019m gonna guess yours was probably what\\u2026. 30?

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 14.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh good god!\\xa0 [laughing]\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And we started the year at 20.\\xa0 We finished at 14.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Wow, that\\u2019s a pretty high drop out rate\\u2026

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes, well, it wasn\\u2019t drop out so much as kicked out.\\xa0 Yeah, I was at boarding school, so\\u2026Anyway, enough about me.\\xa0 So are there other role-playing games that you played? What else did you dabble in?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So I think, probably most people - at least in that age - started with D&D.\\xa0 Somebody said, \\u201cWhat the hell is this game, Dungeons & Dragons?\\u201d And so we sat down and played that for a couple years.\\xa0 And then, actually, I think it did evolve into the next game being Cyberpunk. After Cyberpunk, we also played a game called GURPS, a Steve Jackson game: \\u201cGeneric Universal Role-Playing System.\\u201d\\xa0 93 or 94, probably 94, is when Vampire: The Masquerade first dropped, and, funny enough that was actually the game system we logged the most time with in total. Whereas we played maybe 100s of hours with Cyberpunk, I would guess 1000s of hours with Vampire.\\xa0 It is also the one we played the longest. So where we did a couple years of Cyberpunk, I would say a decade of Vampire.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 What else?\\xa0 Trying to think, uh\\u2026 Teenagers from Outer Space, Cyber Generation - which is kind of another iteration of Cyberpunk, I think those are probably the big ones.\\xa0 And probably a couple other systems I can\\u2019t even remember.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 But yeah, a lot of games, a lot of different type of games.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So you got introduced to this at a pretty young age, and stuck with it for quite a long time, off and on.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yeah yeah yeah, the first D&D game I want to say was something like 15 or 16.\\xa0 And probably the longest gap in my adulthood was maybe 8 or 9 years of not doing any gaming.\\xa0 And I don\\u2019t know why, it was just kind of one those things where adulthood, life, took us away from it for awhile, but then we realized, we\\u2019re like, you know what, we enjoy this, we love it so much, it is such a large part of who we are, and, here we are again.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well what is it for you, if you can elaborate, that makes it so fulfilling for you?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh absolutely, so, I mean\\u2026 you\\u2019re the neuroscientist here, right?\\xa0 you could talk about the chemical and the biological reactions that are going on, but at a base, right, there\\u2019s a fulfillment in playing these games, right?\\xa0 Video games, and don\\u2019t get me wrong, I love video games. I do. I love sitting down, I love playing a video game. But to me, the video game\\u2019s almost\\u2026you know, barring certain unique circumstances\\u2026 it\\u2019s almost kind of a mind numbing, or mindless pursuit, right?\\xa0 You\\u2019re following a script, you\\u2019re playing the game, you\\u2019re learning the system, you\\u2019re learning the movements, and then you just let your brain go and you go with it, right?\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 With table-top games, role-playing games, RPGs, you\\u2019re creating a story, and even if you\\u2019re not creating a story, you\\u2019re immersing yourself in somebody else\\u2019s story, and you\\u2019re playing a major role in that, right?\\xa0 So, it involves a lot more imagination, it\\u2019s a lot more creativity, it\\u2019s a lot more action versus reaction. Or interaction, you know? It\\u2019s just, it\\u2019s stimulating on such a mental and visceral, emotional level for me.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So the way you are describing, it sounds like it is cathartic for you, in a way.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes, absolutely.\\xa0 Not just cathartic, it is therapeutic, it is meditative for me in a lot of ways.\\xa0 You know, my sleep has suffered, I\\u2019m not gonna lie. My sleep has suffered a lot since we started doing this, because I will sometimes lay in bad for hours just thinking through the different scenarios and the plot lines and the different character hooks, and the different ways that things could play out, depending on what the characters do, or what the NPCs do in reaction to the characters.\\xa0 It is very cathartic for me.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So you\\u2019ve been playing a long time, when did you really start getting into being a Dungeon Master or being a Referee, at that level?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That is a good question.\\xa0 I don\\u2019t\\u2026 Actually, I do know, ok, I take that back.\\xa0 I do know. I would say that I probably never really ran my own game up until Vampire.\\xa0 Somebody else introduced me to the game of D&D. Somebody else introduced me to the game of Cyberpunk, or GURPS, or\\u2026 whatever the other systems were, and so I was always just a player.\\xa0 The first time I ever referee\\u2019d, or game mastered, or was the storyteller, was Vampire: The Masquerade. And that was because I was kind of the one who found the game.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I was like, wow, vampires! This is fantastic.\\xa0 I always had a kind of fascination with the dark, the arcane, the occult, vampire mythos, and I saw this game on a bookshelf one time and I was super-intrigued by it.\\xa0 So I was the first one to find it, no one else introduced me to the game, so I had to fill that role of storyteller. So when I had the opportunity of sharing my interests and my game, if you will, with a group of friends and a group of players I really enjoyed it.\\xa0 It was just a completely different facet of the role-playing that I enjoyed.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Now how big was the circle of friends that would participate?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Good question.\\xa0 so the D&D, when we first started, I shit you not it was something like 10 people.\\xa0 It was totally absurd. You experience right now is with the five of us, you can tell how chaotic it can become at times.\\xa0 Imagine doubling that, right? But again, that\\u2019s what I was call a different style of game. We weren\\u2019t necessarily immersing ourselves in the flavor, we were just hanging out as friends.\\xa0 Very little seriousness, very little actual plot, very little momentum or progression on story.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Then the groups started getting smaller.\\xa0 So D&D was probably 10. We played a game called Rifts, which is kind of a futuristic, science-fiction slash magic game.\\xa0 Also a very fun game, and I forgot to mention that one earlier. But we spent a couple years playing that one as well, and that group was anywhere from six to eight people.\\xa0 And then Cyberpunk slimmed up to four to six, and over the years\\u2026 I hate to say this, but some people grow up and they become adults. And along with their lives they don\\u2019t have the same interest with it.\\xa0 But the core gaming group got smaller and smaller and smaller.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I think when we started doing or really deep, intense, long term games, it was probably a group of four, maybe five maximum.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So pretty tight-knit, I imagine.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes, very tight-knit, exactly.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And at what point did this evolve into video games?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So that would have been probably\\u2026 Maybe a decade ago.\\xa0 Actually, I think it might have been even longer, probably 15 years ago now that I think about it.\\xa0 I have to measure everything by my marriage, and by my anniversary.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 My wife still laughs to this day that when I told her, \\u201cHey, I\\u2019m gonna go hang out with my buddies,\\u201d she thought I was actually leaving the house.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 She didn\\u2019t realize I was taking my beer into my office, putting my headphones on, and logging on to the computer.\\xa0 She said it blew her away. And she remembers that as one of the first conversations we had as a married couple. So year, 15 years ago.\\xa0 We celebrated our 15th anniversary recently, and probably 15 years ago is when my online video game playing fascination started.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So you were doing the video games, I guess that was after you were out of your parents\\u2019 house?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So the video games, ok, so, again, 46, it might have been as early as 29.\\xa0 Our group of friends had a little bit of a falling out. I think all groups of friends do at some point, right?\\xa0 People get bent over something, you get frustrated, you just go in different directions in life, so there was a period of time where we fell out.\\xa0 We weren\\u2019t living together anymore, we all started to move on with our lives, we had respective girlfriends or boyfriends or spouses or kids and life, and the tight-knit gaming group we had was no longer available.\\xa0 And so, I\\u2019m like\\u2026 what the hell do I do?\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And that was well before we had the opportunity for anything like Roll20, or any other kind of online RPG system, and we didn\\u2019t have meetups at that time, we didn\\u2019t have Facebook, there wasn\\u2019t anything to bring people together with common interests, so, I was like well, I got a computer, I like video games, and that\\u2019s where I really started focusing on those types of video games.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Like, what kind of games pulled you in to start, and what kind of platforms were you playing on?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So I actually like everything.\\xa0 First-person shooters were probably the big ones.\\xa0 I did a lot of Battlefield, Duke Nuke\\u2019em when it first came out, Halo, all the kind of standard, well known first person shooters.\\xa0 Beyond that? I dunno, I think my interested back then were pretty narrow.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Pretty narrow in what way?\\xa0 The games you sought out to play?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yeah, I mean, I didn\\u2019t recognize the breadth and depth of the types of games out there.\\xa0 I never went really really deep into video games. When I started, I played Battlefield: Vietnam, like I said, those first person shooters.\\xa0 And then, when I found a group of friends to play with, we almost immediately went into World of Warcraft. So my whole online gaming experience was really those 4 or 5 first person shooters and then almost a decade or more of World of Warcraft.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Did you guys collectively decide to get into World of Warcraft?\\xa0 Did you find that it reinvigorated or filled a kind of need for community and playing with other people?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So, sadly, I can barely remember what I did last week, much less what happened 15 years ago.\\xa0 I believe it was probably the latter. I do know that when I first started playing World of Warcraft, it was more reminiscent of everything I love about role-playing games.\\xa0 It was the character creation, the character story, the character advancement, it was the opportunity to play with a group of people. To do quests together, to progress and level together.\\xa0 So it kind of hit all the major checkboxes for an RPG, without the imaginative aspect of creating the world yourself. I think that was the one key piece that was truly missing.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That\\u2019s a great answer.\\xa0 That\\u2019s a great segue into what I wanted to discuss, was, the difference between table-top RPG and online MMORPGS like World of Warcraft.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 OK, and that\\u2019s it, right?\\xa0 I mean that is truly it. So, if you\\u2019re playing a MMORPG, or an online RPG game, you\\u2019re participating in someone else\\u2019s imagination.\\xa0 You\\u2019re subscribing to their creative license, their creative intellect, their story. And there\\u2019s nothing wrong with that, there\\u2019s brilliant, genius intellects out there creating these online games.\\xa0 But at the end of the day, it is still a scripted story. It can only be so iterative, it can only be so reactive, and I don\\u2019t want to say imaginative \\u2014 there\\u2019s a lot of imagination that can go into it.\\xa0 But it is still a scripted story.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And your reactions to that are also limited.\\xa0 With a table top game, there\\u2019s no limits. I mean it is totally pure imagination.\\xa0 You can make things up on the fly, you can react to situations as they come at you, both as a storyteller and as a player.\\xa0 I mean you can truly do anything, and I think that\\u2019s part of the fun of it, right?

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I wanna say, it\\u2019s not a competition, but it is definitely mental gymnastics with the storytellers and the players, as the players try to figure out where the story is going and how to react to it, and the storyteller of the referee is conversely going, \\u201cWhat the hell are they doing?\\u201d and trying to react to that to keep the story going.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 It is just a wonderfully, dynamically, evolving creation, that you can\\u2019t get from a MMORPG.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Right, I think of it as, there\\u2019s a lot more negotiation that happens between the players and the referee, right?\\xa0\\xa0

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That\\u2019s a good way of looking at it.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 It\\u2019s kind of like, for me, you know, I like movies.\\xa0 But I don\\u2019t like movies as much as I like reading. And it\\u2019s the same thing for me, if I\\u2019m reading, there\\u2019s a kind of primacy given to my imaginative engagement with the product.\\xa0 But if I\\u2019m watching a movie, I\\u2019m kind of on the rails. I\\u2019m visually seeing what they want me to see. I find this kind of engagement with the narrative and with the storytelling aspect to be really really fascinating.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I agree.\\xa0 That\\u2019s what calls me to it, is that aspect of it.\\xa0 It truly calls to me, that part of, the dynamic nature of story creation.\\xa0 It is truly, sky\\u2019s the limit.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 There is a, I\\u2019m going to give a quick plug here, there is a great book \\u2026 you remember watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, yes?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And the holodeck, and what it provided on the show.\\xa0 There was an episode where Data was - you know, he\\u2019s always exploring what it is to be human and what it means to be human - and he was fascinated with the Sherlock Holmes stories.\\xa0 And I think it was Geordi La Forge asked the holodeck to come up with a challenging story for Data. And the computer combined different stories about Sherlock Holmes. And Data figured it out right away, right.\\xa0 And then he said, \\u201cNo no no, it has to be something unique. You can\\u2019t just takes bits and pieces of the different stories and mash them together, because Data knows all of the stories and he\\u2019ll figure it out. It needs to be something that will challenge his intellect,m challenge his imagination.\\u201d\\xa0 And they ended up creating a independently thinking creature. The holodeck created intelligent life, basically, and it became a morality story in the episode, where Captain Piccard had to figure out\\u2026. do I shut this guy off? Do I turn him off? Or do I allow him to live?

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Anyway\\u2026. what I wanted to get at with that line of thinking was there\\u2019s a book called \\u201cHamlet on the Holodeck,\\u201d I\\u2019m forgetting the author.\\xa0 I\\u2019ll add it into the show notes later. It was written sometime around the time of Myst. Do you remember the Myst video game? It would have been around, late 1990s, early 2000s.\\xa0 But the author wrote about narrative space in video game and story telling. It\\u2019s a really great book, it\\u2019s very prescient for its time.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 But let\\u2019s get to our little clique, because I met you through World of Warcraft.\\xa0 I was brought into that, you guys had a groups of friends and a guild, and I was just playing by myself at the time.\\xa0 And I met one of the people in our group and he brought me in and introduced me to you guys and\\u2026 so we met virtually for the first time.\\xa0 So do you remember, how long have we been playing together?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 15 years.\\xa0 Yeah. I\\u2019m trying to think exactly\\u2026. because you came in on Battlefield: Vietnam, right?\\xa0 Or were you, did you start with WoW?

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 No I started with WoW.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Okay, so again, I measure everything by the anniversary, so, if it\\u2019s not 15 years, it\\u2019s probably 13 or 14.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That sounds about right to me.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I know it was shortly after I got married.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I\\u2019m sure I could\\u2026 I could place it at the time, I think it was WoW\\u2019s first expansion,\\xa0 Because that\\u2019s when they introduced blood elves to the Horde and paladins.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That\\u2019s right, and that\\u2019s what you were playing.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 A blood elf paladin.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yep.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And I remember you guys having no idea - you had always played a Horde guild, so you had no idea about the mechanics of a paladin.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Exactly!\\xa0 We\\u2019re like\\u2026 What is this?\\xa0 Holy crap, you can tank AND you can heal?\\xa0 That\\u2019s invincible! And, yes it was.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So we played WoW together for a long time.\\xa0 And I used to refer to it as my poker night.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes, my wife used to refer to it as date night.\\xa0 \\u201cGonna go hang out with your girlfriends?\\u201d

INT \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And we played that together for a long time, you know, I think the peak was like we were doing the raids in Karazhan, and we would have like 10 people on at a time, maybe at our peak.\\xa0 And then we kind of drifted away from that, right? So talk us through that, your perspective on how that kind of evolved into getting us back to Cyberpunk, because you were the one who recommended that game to us.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So, like you said, we played WoW for a long time.\\xa0 I know I ended up taking a break for a long time, I just realized how all-consuming it had become for me.\\xa0 And I don\\u2019t mean in a good, healthy, creative way. I mean almost in an alcoholism, narcotic addiction-type way.\\xa0 I was spending way, way too much time on World of Warcraft, and I needed to take a break.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And so after a couple years of break, I recognized that I still need this social, creative outlet in my life.\\xa0 And I, don\\u2019t remember, I think you might have still been playing, I think Adrian might have been dabbling, and same thing with Jamie, just dabbling.\\xa0 But I was looking to get back into a game, we\\u2019d played WoW for awhile, and we enjoyed it, don\\u2019t get me wrong, I know I had a blast with it where we did another year maybe two years of WoW with the current expansion, leveling up the characters.\\xa0 But there was something that was still missing for me in WoW. And I don\\u2019t want to speak for you, but I think you kinda had the same experience in that it was just the same thing over and over again. It was the grind, it was the similar stories, it was watered down plot lines, and it was not holding my attention.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So after about a year of that, maybe two, we ended up trying some other games.\\xa0 We did Guild Wars 2 for, honestly I think it was another year. I spent a lot of time on Guild Wars, too - I know some of the other guys in the troupe were not as excited about it and probably didn\\u2019t take to it as quickly or as well as I did.\\xa0 But I probably spent several hundred hours on Guild Wars 2, and really enjoyed the game, but, after a period of time, we kinda burnt on that. I would almost say that the biggest gap, for me, was it was not ever really about the game. It was about the time that I got to spend with you guys.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 When were were playing WoW the first time around, when we were leveling characters together, running dungeons together, it wasn\\u2019t about the end game content.\\xa0 It was about how stupid and how silly and how much fun we could have. We would laugh and laugh and laugh and do crazy silly stuff. You know, training hundreds of mobs and try to kill the characters off, putting each other on follow and trying to jump people off cliffs.\\xa0 Just the stupid shit that came out of our mouths and the dumb stuff we did and just the absolute fun of the experience.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And that stopped for some reason.\\xa0 I couldn\\u2019t even remark on when it happened.\\xa0 We just stopped having fun with WoW and so we tried Guild Wars 2, and we never ever got to that same level of fun or engagement with Guild Wars.\\xa0 And then it was just a matter of trying to find a game that would work for us, you know. We bounced around on Diablo 3, we were looking at one called\\u2026 I don\\u2019t even remember what it was!\\xa0 Some other MMO and I personally was kind oa at my wit\\u2019s end, probably everyone in the Group was. Like, What game do we do? We\\u2019re done.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And then. I don\\u2019t know what inspired me, I just know I was looking for something that would inspire me.\\xa0 Something that we could do together, that would help facilitate that interaction - truly interacting with each other, talking, laughing, having fun, being creative, and I\\u2019m like, well, shit\\u2026 So the best years of my childhood, the best years of my young life, were spend in a group with my buddies role-playing.\\xa0 Why can\\u2019t we have that now?

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And that was kind of the line of thinking.\\xa0 You know, we have a lot of fun with online gaming, but honestly, I think we can have more fun sitting down playing a role-playing game, a table top game, creating the story together, creating characters together, progressing the storyline together, and laughing our asses off.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Now, back then, there wasn\\u2019t a platform.\\xa0 You mentioned this before, like, a Roll20, to enable this gameplay to happen remotely and in an online setting.\\xa0 And I wasn\\u2019t even familiar with it until you mentioned it. You know, I think there was one time when we all got together, and even\\xa0 the wives and kids were involved and we were doing a D&D session. And I think that was the first time I becamse aware, I think Jamie mentioned something about these online platforms that were available to help us look up information quickly, do the dice rolls, but I didn\\u2019t know about roll20.net until you mentioned it to us as a way to play Cyberpunk.\\xa0 So how did you discover it, and what has it meant for us and how we play now?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh it\\u2019s fantastic.\\xa0 I think part of the reason I went such a long time without role-playing was simply because we didn\\u2019t have an online platform.\\xa0 I mean, life takes us all indifferent directions. And instead of all living together and being able to play every night from 5pm to midnight, we had to schedule around it.\\xa0 How about Sunday, Monday, Tuesday? Now you have to count in travel time, you have to count in dinner, all this other stuff in a very adult-schedule breakdown way.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So I\\u2019d been looking for some kind of online system.\\xa0 I remember finding some early systems that were really immature, didn\\u2019t like it, looking a few years later there were some apps you could try, but not very evolved and not very user-friendly.\\xa0 And maybe a year ago, I looked again and found Roll20. But I didn\\u2019t have much time to try it out. I didn\\u2019t know anyone who might try. Jamie is always interested, you know, but it you just can\\u2019t do much when it is only two people.\\xa0 You need a little more diversity in that community to make the game really pop and make it fun. And at the time we just didn\\u2019t think there was anyone else who would be interested.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So we had awareness of this platform but never really had the opportunity to try it.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Now about three months ago, I had a buddy of mine move back from California.\\xa0 I\\u2019ve known this guy for some 20 years. And he\\u2019s been in California for 17 of those 20 years.\\xa0 And he moved back to Colorado, and was kind of the same way, missing that online gaming group, missing that community, decided that he wanted to run a Vampire game.\\xa0 And again, here we are all adults, with lives and children, and adult stuff. And we were like, let\\u2019s do this. He tasked me with being a Co-GM in his game and made me in charge of figuring out how it works, learning the intricacies and nuances, and I just absolutely fell in love with it.\\xa0 Because you can create character sheets for all your games, make your rolls directly from your character sheets, you can make maps on the fly, you can make them in advance, it\\u2019s truly infinite opportunity. It\\u2019s everything that hex maps and sitting down in front of people is\\u2026 online.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I\\u2019ve been really happy with it.\\xa0 It feels really engaging and useful.\\xa0 I\\u2019ve enjoyed it quite a lot. So, getting more directly into Cyberpunk the game.\\xa0 so you guys played this a long time ago. This is the one you recommended to us, we jumped into it, we started making our characters, and you now had the task of building this environment, creating this narrative, making the gameworld.\\xa0 So walk me through some of your thoughts in weaving this tapestry. I mean most of used just random rolls, we used the fast NPC creator system to come up with a character, and then we rolled whatever our backstories were. So building this world, choosing to put us in Night City versus in Seattle or New York City or somewhere else\\u2026 walk me through your though process when you were doing this.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So, I dunno why I picked this game over any other.\\xa0 I think it is the perfect blend of cinematic, realistic, complicated, and simple.\\xa0 It\\u2019s like a perfect balance. I\\u2019ve played a lot of games and I know what systems are good for what.\\xa0 And this is a really good system for one, new players, and two, just for a general mix of role-playing and combat.\\xa0 Secondly, I think the storyline itself is great, right. We\\u2019re all creative types. We all really enjoy maybe a fantasy genre, and I think had we gone with a fantasy genre we would have enjoyed that just as much, but there\\u2019s something about the kind of a dystopic future, the blend of raucous, lawlessness, technology, careless abandon, and societal breakdown that is just a fun world to play in.\\xa0 So that\\u2019s probably why I picked the Cyberpunk game.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well I have to imagine that the announcement of Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red was in our minds either consciously or subconsciously.\\xa0 I\\u2019d never heard of Cyberpunk until BT had posted something in our group chat about how excited he was that the Cyberpunk video game was coming out.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That is true.\\xa0 Now that you mention it, it probably did have something to do with it.\\xa0 I am super-excited for that game. I think it brought back such beautiful memories of the fun times we had playing that game.\\xa0 So it was probably in the back of my mind, too.

INT\\xa0 \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Subconsciously or metaconscisouly in some way, yeah.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Metaconsciously, yeah.

INT \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So this game world.\\xa0 I mean, there\\u2019s a lot of flexibility in building the game world or Cyberpunk.\\xa0 What kinds of things did you, what sources of inspiration did you have in coming up with the world we were going to play in?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 First of all, Night City is the quintessential Cyberpunk city in all the original source material.\\xa0 So you\\u2019re going to find more material on Night City versus Seattle, or Denver, or\\u2026 we could have picked any city.\\xa0 But there\\u2019s the most content on Night City, and it is also what I remember most is\\u2026 the great thing about Night City is that it is not something anyone is familiar with.\\xa0 So people don\\u2019;t have preconceived notions about what Night city is, or where it is, or how it looks like, and you can create it as you want. That was one of the things.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 The other thing was in terms of game style of play style, I just kinda defaulted back to what I enjoyed as a player.\\xa0 I really, really liked Cyberpunk 2020, I liked the Night City, I liked some of the stories and color and the flavor of the world as I remember it 20 years ago.\\xa0 So it is a comfortable setting for me. It is an easy setting to fall back into and pick up.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Now describe a little bit the characters, the cast we have in this, and how you started to look and them and how you started to craft a story for them.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Now that was probably where I have had the most fun.\\xa0 I mean truly most of my fun. You took to it quickly. I just dropped the source material and said, here\\u2019s what we\\u2019re going to work with.\\xa0 And before I could blink, you had your character figured out. And again, I gotta say I was so unprepared for the direction you went. Corp probably would have been that last character concept I would have picked for you, or for anyone for that matter.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 It would not have been the one I chose, either, but like I mentioned to you, I just went completely random with it.\\xa0 And I said, ok, I\\u2019m going to take whatever the dice roll, and now I\\u2019m going to have fun trying to build a story around this character and flesh it out, right?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I love it.\\xa0 And that\\u2019s what I love about Cyberpunk.\\xa0 That is is exactly. The game system is designed around randomly creating this ridiculously fun and flavorful character.\\xa0 They have dice rolls for everything. They have dice rolls for your style, for how you look,. what your ethnicity is, what your language is, what your family is, who your friends are, everything.\\xa0 It is all random, and it\\u2019s all super involved. And so the fact that you did that and had fun with it is exactly what I did with the world.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So we have your character, Antigone the Corporate, the corporate middle manager, slightly maybe senior director, who is trying to take her autonomous independent sovereign state corporation primetime in the Night City area.\\xa0 I mean, that\\u2019s just a random dice rolls that we got that, right? We\\u2019ve got your giant Greek/Polynesian family, with your four sisters your two brothers, your parents, and everything that came out of that, just with random dice rolls.\\xa0 And once you get those broad strokes then the ability to craft the story beyond that is endless.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So what about some of the other characters?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So, Jamie knew what he wanted to play.\\xa0 He knows what\\u2019s going to be a good fit, what does he wanna do?\\xa0 What\\u2019s going to be of benefit to the group. So he is like, ok, fantastic, I\\u2019m playing a Netrunner, the futuristic cowboy hacker, straight out of Neuromanver and Johnny Mnemonic, and Ghost in the Machine, the cowboy Netrunner.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And Brian?\\xa0 Fixer, the streetdealer, he knows everybody: the social street dealer, info-broker, weapons dealer, drug dealer, someone who knows everybody.\\xa0 Brian loves this type of character. So he knew exactly what he wanted to play.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Adrian, a little more difficult.\\xa0 Like he didn\\u2019t really\\u2026I think he\\u2019s into it now but I don\\u2019t think he really took to the idea at first.\\xa0 And he wasn\\u2019t really excited about spending a lot of time or investing a lot of time into looking into the rules or whatever, and he decided he wanted to play a Solo.\\xa0 Like, Han Solo.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And this is a dark future, you can be anything you wanna be.\\xa0 That\\u2019s a great fit right there, so he\\u2019s Han Solo, the dazzling, charming, charismatic pilot smuggler with a blaster, right?\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Now, the characters themselves started out, as do all characters, single dimension.\\xa0 There\\u2019s no really depth to them until you start fleshing out that lifepath. And once your start, when you roll what happens to you on a yearly basis, and in one year hey I had this job, I made this money, all right well\\u2026 who was the job against?\\xa0 How did you make that money? Next year, you made an enemy. What did you do to make that enemy? Oh, I made a friend. Well, how did you make a friend? I mean, you start fleshing out these details and\\u2026 these characters are young, right? These are supposed to be up and coming edge runners, the up and comers in their field.\\xa0 So they\\u2019re, 20 -25. But you start your lifepath at 16, so you have 5,7,8 years of events that you are filling in backstory for. And a lot can happen in those years.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So, what I did intend to do, I intended to create a story and just you guys evolve that story.\\xa0 But as I started looking at your lifepaths - and you all seemed to be really into it - I started really\\u2026 you know, if you made an enemy, how did you make it?\\xa0 And I started kinda mapping this out. This is an idea I stole from Vampire 5th edition, which just recently came out, is the idea of a relationship map.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 We don\\u2019t exist in a vacuum.\\xa0 Every person we touch or who touches us has some sort of significance to us.\\xa0 And, not only that, it is a small world, and things are very interconnected. So as you start mapping out this relationship map and you start seeing, all right, so Surany make an enemy at age 17 and huh, you roll a couple details of that enemy and you realize that this really fit\\u2019s well with Hako\\u2019s friend that he made at 18 for something similar. So you start to see these relationships map out and this net get woven.\\xa0 And that presents some of those amazing plotlines and storylines in and of itself. That makes my job very simple.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 This is really my first foray into real roleplaying with a group, but I gotta say that, from my experience, I think you\\u2019re doing a fantastic job interwaeving all of the stories that we have.\\xa0 Creating these\\u2026 you know, in writing, we talk about Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. When you\\u2019re making a character, it has to have a goal, a motivation, and a conflict. To be compelling in some way.\\xa0 And I feel like you\\u2019re doing a really good job of interweaving those randomly rolled backstories we have to create those relationships.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well thank you, I gotta say, that\\u2019s been the most fun for me.\\xa0 Looking and that and going, OK, how can I take that factor from Antigone\\u2019s life and interrelate it with Surany, or Hako, or Han.\\xa0 I can\\u2019t wait\\u2026. we have content that we\\u2019re probably not going to get to for another 6 months. But when some of these connections come out, it is going to be absolutely hysterical.\\xa0 A ton of fun.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So our group - it is probably not a unique problem - we play once a week.\\xa0 We have a set time that we generally do it. but life happens. And every now and then someone has to be at work, or there\\u2019s a family emergency, right?\\xa0 And you came up with this really interesting system that we ended up calling, or you ended up calling it, the Extended Rolls Tasks. Can you describe what that is and why you came up with it and what it does for us?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yeah, actually, it was more\\u2026 [laughing] You\\u2019re gonna laugh.\\xa0 It was more, I think, to satisfy your enthusiasm for this game.\\xa0 Like I said, I would never have picked a Corp for you but, you rolled it, you took it, you embraced it, and I wanted an opportunity of letting you explore what it really meant to be that Corp.\\xa0 So, instead of being a single edge-runner character out there with your own myopic and selfish motivation, your character was part of something bigger. A corporation. Not only is it a corporation, it\\u2019s a family corporation.\\xa0 This is what your family does. Your very very deep motivation for this corporation and what the corporation is trying to accomplish in the world. I kept thinking like, how do we do this? There\\u2019s going to be the game, and in the game, you\\u2019ve gotta have a good mix of plot line, a good mix of character interaction, there\\u2019s gotta be a good mix of social aspect.\\xa0 Because characters have to be able to do what they\\u2019re good at in game. So like if I throw your character in a situation where all we do is combat, you\\u2019re gonna die, first. But even if you don\\u2019t die, you\\u2019re not gonna have much fun because you\\u2019re not very good at it.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 We gotta have a good blend of social aspect AND combat AND net-running to keep the characters engaged.\\xa0 But, the aspect of being able to play with your company and your character\\u2019s resources, and also be able to further your corporations reach into Night City and to achieve the goals of the company was not something we\\u2019re going to be able to play out in character.\\xa0 One, because it would take too long, two, because it would be boring as shit, and I needed to figure out some way of doing it.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Here\\u2019s what the team does, and in the down time \\u2014 mind you we haven\\u2019t actually had an opportunity to have any down time yet \\u2014 but in the between sessions where you guys are not actively blowing shit up or getting blown up, what are you doing to further extend or expand PPC\\u2019s goals?\\xa0 So it was really an opportunoity one, give you a budget that is indicative of your company and your personal resources - you\\u2019re pull within the company - then take your skillset and the skillset of the team to further expand PPC\\u2019s resources or PPC\\u2019s overall marketshare\\u2026 it\\u2019s an opportunity to fuck with your competitors, it\\u2019s an opportunity to play the game at kind of another level than simply sitting down and rolling dice.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Now, what I thought was interesting was that when we were rolling our characters, three of us rolled Pacific Islanders.\\xa0 And thats part of why I\\u2026 you know, you and I kind of negotiated this Paupau Collective concept, and I was taking inspiration from the Neal Stephenson Snow Crash novel which has this concept of \\u201cThe Raft\\u201d that is kinda of floating around the Pacific islands.\\xa0 And I kind of modified that to think that, well, if we\\u2019ve got all these Pacific Islanders, maybe there\\u2019s this\\u2026 after the drug wars, after everything had happened in the Cyberpunk 2020 universe, I can see a very similar type of thing happening. But it\\u2019s not core to the Cyberpunk 2020 manuals.\\xa0 So you worked with me to help create this environment to allow it to occur, right?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 It is always fun to create your own\\u2026 but it is far more fun when people collaborate with you.\\xa0 I could have easily just said Hey, here\\u2019s what we\\u2019re gonna do. But the fact that you were so engaged, intrigued, and had created such a beautiful and intriguing backstory \\u2014 it made it easy.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I\\u2019m loving it.\\xa0 It is so engaging for me.\\xa0 Are there other sources of inspiration for you?\\xa0 You mentioned Gibson, and you mentioned Johnny Mnemonic.\\xa0 Are there other sources of inspiration for you when you\\u2019re trying to create this world?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yeah, so most recently\\u2026 I loved the Cyberpunk genre, I loved science fiction so I read Heinlen and Orson Scott Card, but most recently Richard K. Morgan\\u2019s Altered Carbon.\\xa0 I heard about the series and I heard it is a book series as well, so, I read the series first and then watched the television show. And thoroughly enjoyed both of them. And that also kind of reinvigorated my interest in the Cyberpunk genre, and I am also taking a lot of inspiration from that series.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So we\\u2019ve covered most of this already in the comments you\\u2019ve made, but, just to put it to a more specific question, if anybody is interested in migrated or getting their friends involved in moving from video games to table top role-playing games, any kinds of tips or any kinds of advice you might give to people?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yeah.\\xa0 So, honestly, I don\\u2019t think the system matters.\\xa0 Actually, scratch that. go back and edit out what I just said.\\xa0 The second it came out of my mouth I knew it was wrong\\u2026 the system DOES matter.\\xa0 But only insomuch as it supports the genre and what you are trying to do and who you are as a person.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I think the most important thing is to find a genre that you are interested in, truly, because that will inspire the most creativity, you\\u2019re gonna have the most fun with it, you\\u2019re gonna have the best stories, because it is going to be of interest to you.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 You know, I really, really like Vampire, and that\\u2019s kind of where I spent\\u2026 I cut my teeth on storytelling and that\\u2019s where I spent the most time.\\xa0 I thought about doing that, but I didn\\u2019t think you guys would enjoy it as much. So I went with my next favorite choice, which was Cyberpunk. And I was comfortable enough with it, I love the genre enough that I was comfortable getting into it.

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Beyond that, the next thing is what kind of a system do you want?\\xa0 Are you looking for something with a lot of complexity, a lot of rules, a lot of depth and flexibility, or are you just looking for some kind of generic framework?\\xa0 And there\\u2019s no right or wrong answer, but that is what is going to really drive it. A good example is the Vampire game. It has a super deep rich mythos with a lot of content, backstory, flavor, color, but it is a very light rules system.\\xa0 That\\u2019s not the focus. For Vampire, the focus is the story. Whereas on the Cyberpunk side, again, very very rich world, lot of culture, flavor, variability, and a lopt of content. But it is a far more rules-intensive system that allows you to perhaps satisfy that more linear rules-mechanics need.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Now something interesting I\\u2019ve seen on roll20.net, for instance, is there\\u2019s almost like a brokerage.\\xa0 There\\u2019s a way that you can kind of broadcast that you are looking for a game, or that you\\u2019re wanting to host it.\\xa0 So people can advertise that they want to join. Thinking about our group of friends, we met \\u2014 I met Adrian in person, but I met the rest of you guys online.\\xa0 And it turned out that we were all local, and we all met each other in person. But for \\u2014 I\\u2019ve seen some posts when I was browsing around roll20, there\\u2019s some younger people who are out on roll20 who are searching for friends.\\xa0 And they are advertising that they want to find other people that are interested in what they are doing, and interested in joining a game with them. So a little bit different way that when you and I experienced. Do you have thoughts about how younger players, for instance, might be seeking out communities of interest?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 You know, it was so long ago, I\\u2019m trying to remember where I was at that age.\\xa0 It was a completely different world 20 years ago when I was that age. I already had the group.\\xa0 We had a community and it was something we already enjoyed doing. so I don\\u2019t think I can put myself in that same frame of mind.\\xa0 But what I do recognize is how much role playing and that online commhnity fills or could fill such a nice in peoples\\u2019 lives. It is all those things, it fills all the boxes and it is all those things that perhaps fringe type people like ourselves need.\\xa0 I\\u2019m not, I come across as gregarious, but it is still hard to me to make new friends. I\\u2019m good at keeping the friends I have, but making new friends and getting out there and meeting new people is socially a very difficult thing for me. I really like that creative aspect, the imaginative aspect of role playing.\\xa0 Akll those things I don\\u2019t get in my day to day life. If I didn\\u2019t have this kind of a friend group or social base, I think I would be very attracted to the idea of online gaming and RPGs just by virtue of what I think it could fulfill.\\xa0

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I don\\u2019t think I was even aware there is a community of younger people out there looking, but it makes sense, and I think it\\u2019s brilliant, and I think it\\u2019s a wonderful and beautiful thing that some of the younger generation are looking for this kind of interaction, this kind of social community.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 The resources available to them are so much different than the ones that we had, right?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I was thinking about that too, like, holy crap man, what would it look like if 20 years ago we were trying to do this stuff?

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Right, you might prioritize remote friends over somebody that\\u2019s local.\\xa0 And I don\\u2019t think there\\u2019s anything that\\u2019s wrong with that. I think the enabling of that possibility is quite extraordinary.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I agree.\\xa0 I mean, we came in kind of on that first crest of that wave, so to speak, and again, I\\u2019ve known Jamie and Brian most of my life.\\xa0 But I\\u2019ve still known you and Adrian for years. And there\\u2019s nothing to make me believe it will not go on for another 20-30 years of friendship.\\xa0 And to think about that, that just came from an online gaming community. The right people finding the right interests at the right time, and those friendships are just as deep and \\u2026 maybe even more deep, and more powerful than some of the friendships we make in person, in physical space.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So it is possible, it is believable, you absolutely can connect with people.\\xa0\\xa0

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 This is where we insert the \\u201cI love you man\\u2019s.\\u201d

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So let\\u2019s wrap this up and get a little more personal.\\xa0 If you\\u2019re not gaming, what other kind of stuff do you do?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Uh\\u2026 think about gaming.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well I know you do that at work\\u2026

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I have such a hard time with that question!\\xa0 My interests include animals and\\u2026 veterinarianism\\u2026. I, seriously, I couldn\\u2019t think of anything\\u2026 if I\\u2019m not gaming right now, my interests include thinking about the gaming.\\xa0 Planning it out, researching, yeah, that\\u2019s kind of where I\\u2019m at right now. I\\u2019m in an interesting phase right now where I used to really enjoy going to breweries. And brewing, and I love, or loved, \\u2026 love alcohol.\\xa0 But I\\u2019m not drinking right now. It was time to take kind of a break, and it was almost like\\u2026 a lot of what I would do in my spare time is no longer what I\\u2019m doing in my spare time. So, I\\u2019m looking for other interests.\\xa0 But again, I\\u2019m not feeling any loss by any stretch of the imagination, but I\\u2019ve taken such an awesome interest in running this game, in addition to running the cyberpunk game, I\\u2019m also running a Vampire game with my buddies, and as we talked about before, sometimes life takes us in different directions and we have to be able to\\u2026 as a group, maybe try that Vampire game out with us.\\xa0 I\\u2019m hoping we do anyway. There\\u2019s a lot of different gaming opportunities that are consuming my time. So that\\u2019s what I do when I\\u2019m not gaming. I\\u2019m thinking about gaming.

\\xa0INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well, you do a lot of cooking, too, yes?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I do, I do.\\xa0 I suppose to be fair, barbequeing we do a lot of that, and pizza making. \\xa0 We\\u2019ll have to have another pizza party soon.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Right, that house you moved into recently has that pizza oven in the back.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh yeah, we have a blast with that.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And you guys came up with that gluten-free crust that just tastes delicious.

REF \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes, thank you, good stuff.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And you definiteley do brewing.\\xa0 And you have\\u2026 video game devices, you have an X-box, is that right?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yeah, I notice that I\\u2019m not playing that as much.\\xa0 I\\u2019m enjoying the intellectual and the creative processes of the RPGs right now.\\xa0 But I do, I have an X-box and in fact I just finished a couple weeks back, Red Dead Redemption 2.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

INT \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh yeah, I bought that at an end of the year sale for cheap, but haven\\u2019t done it yet.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 If you haven\\u2019t played it yet, play it.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That was one I thought we could actually play together, because there is an online multiplayer version of that.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well if our characters die and we need a another game.\\xa0 As soon as we stopped doing the WoW and the Guild Wars, I haven\\u2019t been playing on my laptop any more.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So here\\u2019s an interesting story for you.\\xa0 When I was in grad school, for this degree I was doing computer science.\\xa0 So Microsoft used to come every year, you know, to recruit people for new hires. They came one year showing off their new Visual Studio development platform, their IDE.\\xa0 And they had a raffle, and I won the raffle, which was for a Sega Dreamcast. It was game-changing at the time. So I heard a story, I don\\u2019t know, this might be apocryphal, but they had a football game, an American football game that was so good that EA came and bought it out and basically buried the tech because they wanted to procuce their own NFL Madden franchise program.\\xa0 So I\\u2019m not sure that\\u2019s entirely true, but that\\u2019s what I heard. It was a very very good game. But I won that at the raffle, and that must have been year, 2000 or so. And it had a sticker on it that said powered by Windows ME. Do you remember Windows Millennium?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 I do.\\xa0 We all try to forget that one, don\\u2019t we?

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And I was like\\u2026 I know this device is not actually running on Windows.\\xa0 This is a completely different operating system. But it was interesting to see that at that time there was a strategic interest at Microsoft of getting into games, and they were initially going to try to work with this partnership program, and they were gonna try to work with Sega and it was shortly, not too long after that they came out with the X-Box.\\xa0 Which if you remember, it was originally on the IBM PowerPC chip. The only chips that were running PowerPC were the Apple\\u2019s back then. So there were some famous pictures back then of Microsoft loading docks, they were bringing in hundred\\u2026 maybe dozens\\u2026. of Apple PowerMacs because they needed that chipset to develop games to run on the X-Box.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 That was the start of the actually corporate wars, right?

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So this question is an homage to one of my favorite podcasters named Sam Harris, he runs a podcast called Making Sense, and it is focused a lot on meditation and neuroscience, political philosophy and current politics, economics, anyway, he always asks this question.\\xa0 \\u201cIf we could bring back the Tyrannosaurus Rex, should we do it?\\u201d

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yes.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Unequivocally, yes?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Unequivocally yes.

INT \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 You\\u2019re not worried about any of the consequences?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Oh no I\\u2019m terrified of the consequences, but I\\u2019m not saying we shouldn\\u2019t do it.\\xa0 There\\u2019s that fine line between can you do something and should you do something. But I\\u2019m of the mind that if you can do something then you should do something.\\xa0 I feel that sometimes not taking the risk and not trying things out is a recipe for stagnancy.\\xa0\\xa0

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 So, same answer for things like the wooly mammoth or the blue-footed boobie?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Yeah.\\xa0 I think I would.\\xa0 I don\\u2019t know that it is the right answer, but it is my answer.\\xa0 This is kind of our family motto: \\u201cLet\\u2019s see what happens.\\u201d Sometimes you have to take risks and do crazy things.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Any final thoughts?

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Thank you?\\xa0 That\\u2019s my final thought.\\xa0 I don\\u2019t know if I remember it, but when you initially proposed the idea of recording our gaming session, I was a little nervous.\\xa0 Kind of a knee-jerk reaction. But then I started actually listening to it\\u2026 and it took me awhile. You put out the first one and it was like two weeks before I even thought about listening to it.\\xa0 And my wife said, \\u201cHe\\u2019s putting actually time and effort into this, you owe it to him to at least listen.\\u201d And I was like, all right\\u2026

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 And from the get go, I was hooked.\\xa0 I\\u2019m like, I sound stupid, I hate the sound of my voice on recording.\\xa0 But even that wasn\\u2019t enough to deter me. You do a great job of wrapping the whole thing in a very digestible, presentable bow, making it intriguing and exciting, even though I know it\\u2019s going to happen, I\\u2019m still sitting on the edge of my seat going, \\u201cWhat\\u2019s going to happen!?\\u201d\\xa0 I appreciate the time and energy, I appreciate the output, I appreciate you sitting and asking these questions.

INT\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Well thank you so much for answering these questions, and I really hope someone has fun with this, because we\\u2019re having a blast.

REF\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 Shit\\u2019s just gonna get bigger and badder and funner and hold onto your shorts.

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