With what game did you get started down the path of tabletop RPGs? About how old were you when you started?
The D&D red box I got when I was 10? 11? I didn't get to play an actual game of D&D (or maybe by then it was AD&D) until I was in high school.
What are some of your favorite games?
My generalized answer is "the games where the people I'm playing with have a genuine enthusiasm for the game they're playing." Enthusiasm can be contagious, and people that are a fan of a specific game tend to know the game well and don't mind explaining things like timeline and game play and rules etc.
Specifically, I really love Deadlands: Hell on Earth. I love the system (original not d20), I dig the setting.
I adore Lovecraft anything, and really enjoy Call of Cthulhu, though I've only played the 1920's setting. Good times. My characters seem to always end up maimed in that game.
I'm still a sucker (no pun intended) for the Old World of Darkness Vampire game. (I mean pen & paper, but yeah, I LARPed 20 years ago, for a few years with a really great group of non drama, laid back people. It was SO fun!)
I enjoyed Exalted. I like the world, I think it's fun and fascinating to play in. Plus you roll TONS of dice.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was darned fun the few times I played it. I like "moving at the speed of plot" in a game setting. No rationalizing that your character shouldn't go do something stupid, because of COURSE they should because that's fun and moves the story along.
What is that one game that you have always wanted to play, but never had the chance?
Paranoia.
I've heard about Paranoia from various gaming friends. Both of my regular Las Vegas game groups have mentioned it. It sounds like fun mayhem. I don't know a whole lot about the game itself or the specific game mechanics (death, lots of death, and clones is all I really know about it) but based on my friends' reactions to it when it comes up and the few stories I've heard I want to play it too!
What is the ongoing appeal of tabletop RPGs for you?
Comradery. Using imagination and story telling. Polyhedral dice. Mentally exploring imagined worlds. Being a dork with my friends, and sometimes strangers.
Are you primarily a GM or a Player? Which do you prefer?
I'm a player. I have the luck of knowing a LOT of gamers, and play with several groups in real life.
In my hometown of Vegas, my main group has several people that GM the various games they know and love (or own and are interested in exploring and learning). If I pick up a game I want to run I'm welcome to run it, but I travel a lot so would be unreliable to GM a weekly game.
My Shadowrun group has a designated GM who's been running SR games for 20 years and has encyclopedic knowledge of the game.
In Los Angeles I'm not around long enough to GM anything more than a one-shot and I haven't done that yet.
Your day job requires acting, how does that help you with getting into or creating characters to play?
It helps me RP conversations (specifically with Mr Johnson in Shadowrun!) I'm fairly good at ad-libbing.
But honestly, I'm the kind of gamer that I don't particularly care what I play as long as I get to play (and the character isn't utterly useless in the game.) I like to random roll to generate characters if I can. Backstory and characteristics usually come out of the character creation and the accompanying group of characters.
If you were asked to put together an adaptation of an RPG setting for a movie, what would it be and why?
Oh JEEZ. In the make-believe world where I could make an RPG into a movie and have it done right. How can a person choose JUST ONE?!
I want to see Shadowrun done as an ongoing television series. Each a stand alone episode but with ongoing story arcs and reoccurring characters. Start in the 2050s. Have flash back episodes that explains important timeline events like when the UGE first showed up, the development to the megacorporations etc. After a few seasons of that then the whole show can get rebooted with the second cataclysm and go into the "current" SR timeline in the 2070s.
I also want to see Exalted done as an animates series.