Contact Information

• Name: Steven Rokiski
• Email: rokiski@yahoo .com
• AIM: SteevinMan
• IRC: SteevR on afternet, Ducky on hypermutt

Who Am I?

Obviously, I'm a gamer; not so obviously, I was brought up on games. My family played games at get-togethers when I was a child.

One side split into groups, the women playing dice games (Yahtzee, 10,000, and many variations); the men played poker. As the only granchild present, as soon as I could understand the rules of each game I was allowed to play (boredom was the other option).

The more interesting side of my family had a collection of absolutely fabulous classics- Sid Sackson games like Aquire and Bazaar, many Avalon Hill classics, and a few standbys like Monopoly. The family-oriented games I learned as a small child (Bazaar was my favorite at age 6), and the others as I got older (my father followed through on the promise of teaching me how to play proper AH wargames as soon as I could do long division).

Thusly, its not so suprising that I picked up the D&D and Magic: The Gathering bugs once exposed to them by my peers. I also had a love of computers, and was lucky enough to have access to them at a young age; my first programming language was Pascal on an original 128K Macintosh, at age 11. As it happened, that interesting side of my family were mostly computing or engineering professionals, and I never went without fresh study materials for long.

Hence, I make my living doing freelance IT work, mostly programming custom applications for small business. My primary hobby is gaming, computer and tabletop. Reading is the close second (mostly reference material, but some SF and Fantasy literature sneaks it's way in as well). I have idle interests in the physical sciences and engineering, and when I'm taking classes at WSU, I'm declared as a Physics major.

Why Am I "Here"?

I'm always interested in trying new games. That, however, is incidental; I'm interested in meeting people who are interested in games from a pedagogical (is that even a word?) standing (history, as well as the science behind them, and the art or craft of their design, serious critique). I've come across precious few, even though many people I meet are quite interested in playing them.

Whats more, I have it in my head to design new games. It would be nice to scrape together a playtest group. I've got a couple of semi-playtested, fleshed out tabletop designs I've been kicking around for years, and at some point I'll be interested in testing some computer prototypes; when there is news on the latter, it will show up here first.

Where Might You Have Seen Me Before?

I've been a regular at the WSU Gaming Society meetings for the past 18 months.

I participated in WRP Gameday 2. I played in the BRP system game during the first session, and got a late start on GMimg the Star Wars game second session.

I play Wizkid's Pirates!: Constructable Strategy Game during the weekly tournaments at Agents of Comics (Friday, 6:00PM). This is a somewhat new addiction (the game is deeper than it looks or deserves to be!).

In the 1993-1997 timeframe, I was an active tournament Magic: The Gathering player in Wichita, and I participated in most of the DC sanctioned events that I could get to.

You might have seen my name about the internet, mostly attached to some FPS mods or tiny contributions to various F/OSS game engines.

What Are My Current Addictions?

Tabletop

Pirates!: Constructable Strategy Game, a Wizkids game (played Fridays, 6PM at Agents of Comics).

RPG

Exalted, a White Wolf game. This has been my first consistant weekly game in a long time, and I've been enjoying it (note to self: get GM and other players to register on this site!).

Digital

Gran Turismo 4 (most comprehensive and accurate sports car sim ever made)

Neverwinter Nights + Expansions + User Content (most comprehensive port of AD&D 3.5 rules and Forgotten Realms game setting to the digital realm, and it has excellent multiplayer, with and without a DM. Persistant world servers+mods exist, and playing these sates my need for MMORPGs.)

IL2 Sturmovik + Expansions (most comprehensive WW2 combat flight sim ever made... notice a pattern?)

Counterstrike: Source (least comprehensive, unrealistic FPS counter-terrorism game widely played. I play this mostly because its easy to find online opponents at my skill level)

Battle Grounds 2 (a Revolutionary War mod for Half Life 2)

Freeware and F/OSS

Gunroar, Tumiki Fighters, MuCade, and others by Kenta Cho (if you like a good shmup, these will entertain you for hours...)

to top