Following on from our announcement on Wednesday, it is with great pleasure that we introduce you to our new Contributor: Joel. You may already recognise the name from both Quotes from the Tabletop and GeekOut South-West – and now he’s here too!
Image may be NSFW.
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Joel is a nerd advocate and activist, protesting that they are the best of people and fighting to get them to social prominence in every small way he can – including creating a site for tabletop gamers to share their stories. He is a multifaceted gamer and abuser of long words – as well as a hater of strawberry-flavoured lollipops (long story).
We first met in Birmingham back in March, when Kim and Phil were attending the Rezzed expo and Tim and his friends were at Kitacon. After a game of Cards Against Humanity we found out that we all got on like a house on fire – and since then we’ve managed to rope Joel into participating in several podcasts and running Keep on them Borderlands for us! Here are his answers to our questions…
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Back in March 2014 at Birmingham – Joel is second to last on the right!
Describe yourself in five words.
“Multi-interest nerd. Uncomfortably enthusiastic.”
What do you do in ‘real life’?
“In real life I work in retail. I don’t work a lot of hours, so I tend to turn my free time into work. I run events for a local board-game retailer and I’m working on a few designs of my own. I also run a small website that I built with a friend.”
What do you do in your spare time?
“When I’m not working on projects I play games, watch films, read and sing. I have a nasty habit of coming up with my best ideas at the least convenient times so I have to keep paper on me at all times. And dice. And cards.”
Where did you grow up and what were you like as a kid?
“I grew up in Shrewsbury where I still live. I don’t have many memories of growing up, but I know that I got into computer gaming at a very early age, although I spent most of my youth wading through Lego and playing Pokémon.”
How did you get into gaming?
“My dad and I used to play Heroes of Might and Magic 3, and I spent more time using the map editor than I did ever playing the actual game, and I still have some of my sketches from before the age of ten because the creature designs are actually pretty good.”
What’s your favourite game and why?
“My favourite game has a nasty tendency to change. Grim Dawn is high on the list, they ran a Kickstarter that I couldn’t afford to give to but I was a huge fan of the teams former title, Titan Quest, so I jumped on the alpha the moment it became available. I still harbour a soft spot for all the games I played when I was younger, but currently I’m obsessed with the Borderlands series and working on a tabletop RPG based on the computer games.”
How did you get into blogging?
“Tim. Tim dragged me into it. He’s weirdly persuasive, and just happened to catch me when I had a few good ideas. I write a lot anyway, but I took the opportunity to get myself read by a wider audience, and GeekOut South-West has certainly done that for me.”
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Joel is currently running a tabletop RPG for the team, based on Borderlands.
Do you think it has changed you in any way?
“Considering I’ve not been at it for that long I think there’s time to see the changes happen, although I do talk a lot more about my blog than I did before I had one. My confidence was already on an upwards trajectory before I joined GeekOut South-West and that’s really helped keep it going.”
Which of your articles are you most proud of?
“The DMing 101 series has been so much fun to write, and I still have so much left to write for that, so much more to discuss, and the campaign that I’ll be building up as part of it is already shaping up amazingly well.”
What has been your favourite moment in your blogging career so far?
“I’ve got to say starting the Borderlands game has been a lot of fun, and the idea of documenting it for a blog is actually a little exciting. It remains to be seen whether it works or not – the first game was certainly a little hit and miss – but if it goes well it could be huge, but it’ll definitely be a lot of fun.”
What are you most looking forward to over the coming year?
“I’ve got a lot of conventions coming up soon. It’ll give me a lot of opportunities to meet new people, maybe get some new ideas together or finally finish a few that are in-progress. I adopted a new attitude last year that made me pursue big projects, and so far it’s working – exhausting but working, so I’m pressing on.”
Describe each member of the 1001-Up.com team… and you don’t have to be nice. Really.
Thanks to Joel for answering our questions and for agreeing to join us – it’s a pleasure to have him! Make sure you check out both Quotes from the Tabletop and GeekOut South-West, and stay turned for his first article here next week.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
