The 12 Days of Blogs-mas: 9+1=10!

In continuing with talking about players and their characters that have stuck with me over the years I'm going to now go on about a person who not only was a great player, had fun characters but was also a wonderful human being and made my life one hundred times better just for knowing him.

How very 90's looking...

I got to meet Aaron Malsberger way back in 1995 at a dingy little local gaming store called Wizards Cove. Just mentioning that place gives me the heeby-jeebies. At least I can say that some of the folk I met there were worth knowing, Aaron is definitely on the top of my list.


Well I started hanging out with Aaron playing Magic: The Gathering and we did this for years with a few other of the gang we hung around with. Over time Aaron and I would hang out together and play cards sometimes into 3 or 4am at his kitchen table at his house. There he would tell me all about his dad's (Mike from the Runelord's game) home brew D&D world and all the intricate stories that their characters dealt with. He would also go on about his friend, Bruce, and the Champions game he ran. Champions is a superhero rpg and Bruce is also the same from the Runelords group.


Eventually I got the privilege of being invited to play in Bruce's game and Aaron spent two nights helping me craft my hero, Mr. Majestic. For those who are not familiar with the OLD Champions rules its full of alot of fractions/decimals and a shit load of overly complicated math. Bottom line when it came to creating my hero Aaron and I looked like two monkeys fucking a football just trying to swing the numbers to get the most out of what we could. The character was playable....eventually. My role playing made up for my lack of knowledge in the rules.


I didn't care about how bad my character was or how I didn't understand the rules. I was having a ball hanging out with my friends and I met some new ones that I still game with almost 18 years later. During that trying period of learning Champions Aaron was always there with words of encouragement, a smile and REALLY HORRIBLE PUNS. You just have no clue how bad these were. Fozzy Bear wouldn't use this crap. And I see where he gets it from too.....Mike.

Even though he'd disagree...this *IS* the biggest snake he's held with his hands.

Over time I was eventually invited to join Mike's 'Alexandria' crew for his home brew D&D game. We were going into the 3.0 rules at the time and this was one of the first times I was really put under the task master style of his grognard father. It was awesome. Lute (Jim), Marcus (Bruce), Mohammed (Me) and Agrun (Aaron) had many great adventures in the deserts around Alexandria. Agrun, Aaron's half-orc fighter, stood out to me as an example of what a truly moral hero was like. Agrun had a sense of justice and hearty moral compass too boot. And it was something that came to Aaron easily as he had the same. I can also recall how Aaron would drop his voice to a lower growl that the half-orc had but managed to keep it friendly too.


I also got to see how Aaron (being the party tank) would take his time, sometimes too much time, to think out his maneuvers and strategies before engaging an enemy. It was awesome to watch how his thought process worked as he took into consideration the whole party's strengths, weaknesses, our surroundings and came up with a plan that usually by round three of combat we had the win or at least an overwhelming advantage. Don't get me wrong, we all contributed to the plans, but Aaron was playing his character (a tactically thinking fighter) with such gusto.....we were really ROLE playing those days.

Aaron giving us the bird(s).

When Mike's 'Alexandria' chronicle took a break I stepped up behind the screen and ran a Forgotten Realms game for them of my own design. Yes...Jorian was in this one...but so was Aaron and another one of his most memorable characters to me. Aaron was playing a water genasi monk named Aldym. A water genasi is a planes-touched character (one could say has the blood line descending from an elemental creature). Aaron took this and ran with it. He played Aldym like he was the element of water. Calm and serene as a mountain lake and a roaring tsunami when combat arose. He brought a very zen mentality to the table with his monk which again was not difficult for him as he was one of the most zen and spiritual people I've ever known. Aldym was played with a world view and outlook of an outsider and it was done with such care and ease that I'm kinda jealous that he was able to pull that off role playing and I can't. 


Aaron was just full of all sorts of surprises whether gaming or just spending time with the guy. I love how I found out he was lactose intolerant.....that bastard and how he gassed out my car. Roll the windows down all you want it was like Satan was talking to you. Brimstone and hellfire. So that said he wasn't perfect, he had his flaws like all of us, but Aaron always looked for the good in everyone and that was something I tried to emulate in my own life to this very day. Just from knowing him I am a better human being.

L-R: Me, Aaron & my brother Scott at my wedding day.

Sadly Aaron passed away just a short few years ago after a very hard fought and valiant fight against brain tumors. The mark on my life that he left is monumental. Not just how he was as a player or the characters he created, those are just icing on a very large cake, who he was as a human being. Even today I miss him to no end and, I will admit, this was one of the most difficult things I ever had to write. I remember all the good times, some bad ones but every EVERY moment was worth it. I'm a better person for knowing him, the world was blessed to have him it it and we are all at loss for him not being here anymore.

I'll carry my memories of Aaron for the rest of my life. I could never forget him. I also want to thank Aaron for being my friend and to introducing me to a great group of guys whom to this very day I am friends with and game with. I want to thank Aaron's wife, Tara, for sending those pics to me awhile back. Its nice seeing his smiling face whenever I want to. I want to thank all of you for reading this.

Lastly, Merry Christmas Aaron. I love ya man.

The 12 Days of Blogs-mas: Day 9 (take two)

*This says 'take two' in the header as Blogger crapped out on me and didn't save my entire post as a draft and I have to start all over again*


The great Sabu-Tablesmasher asked me to talk about a player and their character that left an impression on me over the course of my gaming 'career'. There have been many interesting people and characters I've played with over the years. Some good and some bad but either way memorable. Today I'll target one person and his characters. I'll do a write up on a second one tomorrow. I think its pretty special that there are two people I want to talk about here.

For my first pick I'm going to tell you about a player and his characters I had in my 3.0 Forgotten Realms game I ran back in the day. Let me introduce you to Dave Girardot. Dave is a heck of a nice guy, has a good sense of humor (albeit a weird one), likes to watch foreign films. Dave was one of the first people to introduce me to Stephen Chow before he became known in the states. I can still remember watching 'God of Cookery' (and Charles threw his computer out the window at the mention of that movie). Dave is happily married with a bunch of good kids. Dave also played Jorian (a fighter/duelist prestige class) and Heironomous (a hodgepodge that I'll explain later). Dave also drove me up a friggin' wall with both of these characters.

Jorian was a ladies man, the suave roguish hero. To me Jorian was Dave abusing the shit out of his charisma score to get what ever he wanted either treasure or virtue trying to gain whatever advantage possible for Jorian whenever he could. Jorian had a 'code of conduct', so we were told, but if it did exist it was all a bullshit smoke screen to ensure Jorian came out smelling like a bed of roses. Sweet but with a hint of crap underneath.

It drove me nuts most games having Dave try to manipulate the (new to all of us) 3.0 rules almost constantly. And it would usually begin with Dave saying 'Now Phil, I know the rules says I can't do this but just hear me out a second....'.

Mental rape ensues, aneurysm occurs, blood shoots out my ears, nose and eyes.

The damnedest thing of it all was that Dave could actually present a decent argument for what he (Jorian) wanted to do. Sometimes it was better than what the rules presented and the game wasn't broken for it. If it kept things fun I'd allow it. Other times I wanted to throw all my books at his head as my response.

It got better with Jorian (read: drove me more nuts) when Jorian got an ally in the party the halfling rogue Apinta Beir (yes his name was A Pint of Beer). After that it was almost a no holds barred adventure in depravity some games. I've never had a game with more drinking, in game gambling, larceny, whoring and general civil misconduct in it ever. Ever. The kicker of it all was they both were playing charismatic characters and could usually talk their way out of anything.

Jorian wasn't a virtuous character. He wasn't a suave roguish hero. He was a gambler and a letch. I remember one game Dave wanted to come up with some kind of in-game brewed potion that prevented him from getting a woman pregnant so Jorian wouldn't become a daddy in all his dalliances. Also in response to all of his whoring I had to consult the Book of Erotic Fantasy to see if there was any interesting social diseases to give Jorian if he forgot to drink his 'Potion of Cure Disease' after his trysts. No such luck there.

Now Heironomous was a problem of a different kind. He was an 'experimental' character Dave wanted to work on. I had a feeling he was trying to min-max out his character by taking as many levels in the various player classes as possible. I'm not talking about regular multi-classing (example a Fighter 3 / Ranger 2) that yields a playable character. This was unplayable. 1 level of Barbarian, Fighter, Cleric, 2 Wizard levels. I made sure Dave justified all those choices and he could. Remember he could present a case quite well. Eventually Heironomous took the Alienist prestige class and became some kind of pseudo-natural cross breed and shortly he just disappeared into the background. Eventually he just got stopped being used and Jorian was back.

The craziest part of all that bitching is that I miss playing with Dave and would do so if given the chance again. As I said Dave is a great guy, someone I liked being around. He's also a bit of a weenie when it comes to RPG's and characters you can abuse the rules create with the rules. Dave also ran a Wheel of Time RPG game that I played in and it was great fun. It was just two of us and Dave and it was a real treat. Unfortunately real life just got in the way and he and his family moved away and I lost his contact info. Eventually Matt found him and we're going to try to get together after the new years. It'll be nice seeing him again.

Tomorrow I'll talk about another person whom I played with and ran games for that left a huge impact on my life. So what did you think Larry? Like this so far? No head-butts for me for being good right???