Taken from Grunt's mom's house
ninja: Thanks for taking your time away from your busy schedule for doing this interview. First question: what brought you to Avlis?
grunt: I pre-ordered NWN and was pretty excited by the idea of the "make your own adventure" style of gaming. After finishing the campaign, I played with a hosted module or three with friends. They started playing FPS stuff while I kept finding more NWN modules and watching the development as it added the expansions. Just when I was getting bored with it, I saw a Bioware Wednesday interview about Avlis. It drew me in and I rolled up a character as soon as possible
ninja: What was your first character?
grunt: Grunt N'Anderthal... who survived for 4.5 years without being pulled up for having a cheesy name! It was an evolved version of a character of a similar name (Neanderthal for the last name) I had played in PnP and other games. I didn't think I'd actually play here for very long, so didn't put a lot of thought into how I'd play him But, Avlis drew me in.
ninja: and look how long he has been around! If you could re-do Grunt, would you change anything?
grunt: His haircut? He had that head model with the top-knot... actually I'd probably have just gone with the non-cheesy name I started using for him; "Owen Alastaire-Alaster". As far as IC stuff, I wouldn't change a thing.
ninja: That's my man. Keep him the same. Why did you decide to join the team?
grunt: Well... I did remort him... no regrets there though! I joined the team for the first time as the webmaster when Manny stepped down a while back. A few years ago now, I think. I did that for a bit, left the team due to time constraints... came back as a builder and DB guy... left the team again... came back as a builder again, joined as what is now a Proclamation Articulator. I finally decided about 6 months ago that I wanted to try my hand at being a DM here. I'd avoided it, because I didn't want to cross that final threshold, and was happy helping out by being the DB guy and doing building and coding.
grunt: But, I thought it might be fun... so I did.
ninja: It seems you have held every role on Avlis, except for being someone who is banned.
What is your favorite plot that you have ran?grunt: I've just gotten Major DM recently, so that's when we can actually run small plots. I've got a few in mind, one is just getting started. Other than that, it's mostly been one-offs with Plethora doing the VnV Open Events and the occasional surprise on unwitting PCs. I remember catching silverfields2 playing alone and having her character help a wounded mircat deliver cubs. That was fun! The closest to a plot thus far, I'd say was the Zombie Pirates vs Undead Neen-Jaa 3 parter with Plethora. It was silly, it involved a couple of crazed necromancers, and of course one had to be a gnome.
ninja: From what I can tell, those VnV one-offs are pretty fun. What would be the biggest "OH SHIT" moment you have had as a DM?
grunt: That time I caught you cybering, maybe. Crafting! I meant crafting. I'd have to say it was when I was trying to move some of the monsters around and was doing the select/click/click location thing... and ended up clicking on a PC and running up to swat them with my avatar. It wasn't Aspen though. He dies on his own a lot.
ninja: I was crafting? What is your favorite NPC to play?
grunt: Most of my NPCs are minor or one-offs. Lately, I've been DMing the Monday Musical Madness in Ferrell (The MMM). For filler between PC acts, I created a Half-Ogre bard named Chuck-Chuck with 3 backup vocalists, "The Romantics"... half-orcs dressed in snazzy suits. Romantic 1,2, and 4. #3 went on a solo career. It's a joke, more or less, but people seemed to like the performance.
ninja: hahaha. that's pretty funny. what do you like about being on the team?
grunt: It gives me a chance to do more around Avlis, and have a different kind of fun with the people that I'm used to playing with. I still get in game as a player often enough, but my weekends are often taken up with at least one night of DMing.
ninja: You are an Avlis Addict. Besides all of the cybering you promote, what was the strangest thing you have seen as a DM?
grunt: A lot of the strange stuff has to stay teamside, I suppose. I've jumped to people in public places and cursed not being able to jump away fast enough. I'll leave it at that! (You were great by the way)
ninja: (That's what your mom said) Who was your mentor, and what did you learn from them?
grunt: (Keep my mom out of it and I'll keep it out of your mom) At first, everyone pitched in a bit... Belasco, Sunscream and Plethora started it all off. From there, I was mentored by Plethora mostly. I learned some tricks with decorating on the fly. You see, most people don't know that a one-off can take a while to set up. Usually we'll take 2 hours between us to work on the areas (Pleth mostly), Monsters (Me), Loot (some of both), Story (both). So, I guess I learned teamwork there as well.
ninja: Imagine that. Teamwork on the team. What is your Avlis goal for 2011?
grunt: I'd like to be able to continue the one-offs, while moving away from announcing them. We get a great turnout for announced events, but I'd like to find more people just playing, rather than waiting to play by appointment. aside from that, I'd like to get a few small plots done, add a few improvements (the portal object annoyed me, so I've added an invisible object instead to make better transitions on the fly in the DM client) and by god I will fix the Inn Code! Oh, I should add something like "have fun, play, catch spool32 going afk and dressing his character in pink dresses" as well
ninja: Spool32 is a pinkie. If there was no Avlis, what game would you be playing?
grunt: The Game. You just lost didn't you... I don't know what I'd be playing. Maybe I'd find another NWN world. If they were all gone, then I'd build my own. Barring that, some sort of RTS game or RPG that had good replay value.
ninja: UGH! I did just lose the game. Damn you!!!! What is something about you that has nothing to do with Avlis that people would be interested to know?
grunt: I work as an Application Developer for a law firm here in Boston, I collect a ton of CDs, I'm a great kisser (you knew that), I like to travel when I can, and meet other Avlis players as well. I've met some pretty cool people from Avlis in my days, from the first meet at Strangg and Daerthe's place that I went to, up to visiting Plethora in Australia, and then bringing her to Boston for 3 weeks and traveling down to meet PJ, Galen, Xaila, and Zandel in NYC. What else... I did a lot of acting as a kid, and I suppose that's where my love of roleplaying games comes from.
ninja: Acting is fun. Well thanks for taking the time out and doing this interview. Any final words to the community?
grunt: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me. You never call or send flowers anymore. As for the community, I've been here closing in on 7 years, and it's been a great ride. It's always great to see new people arriving and old players returning. If you see someone new, help them out and get them settled in. It makes a difference, and the way that I was treated in those first few days when I logged in as a clueless PC. that was what kept me here. Oh, pick up your drops too!
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