Scaper of the Month - November 2019
Posted November 3rd, 2019 at 09:48 AM by HS Codex
’Scaper of the Month
Dysole
Author: quozl
Unfortunately, Warlord Alpha was not available to be interviewed as the previous ’Scaper of the Month, scorpiusx, hoped. However, we have a ’scaper that has been part of many groups on Heroscapers and is a Heroscapers admin: the ubiquitous Dysole!
PROFILE
Who are you really?
Samantha Robison. I also go by Sam. I have greeted at least one human by saying "I am the most normal human you will meet". While I was doing this, a friend of mine was shaking her head at my lies. I live out on the West Coast in Eugene, Oregon and I’ve been here since 2007.
How old are you?
The first sphenic number and the number of edges on a d20. Next year, I will be the sum of the first two primes raised to themselves. I got a math degree if that isn’t obvious by now.
What is your occupation?
I do accounting and reception for a company that does long term payment plans for medical bills. There’s an outside chance that may have changed by the time this gets published, but most likely not.
What are other games you enjoy and why?
Just about every game that exists I enjoy, but I do tend to prefer games that don’t eat up hours at a time (unless the game is just an excuse to hang out with people). I could probably list a bunch of board games, but Sentient is a game that was made for me. Math, robots, card drafting ... I also just recently discovered Evolution which is a lot of fun too.
What other interests do you have?
I will read just about anything. I’ve actually been on a writing and drawing kick of late between getting some recent inspiration for future stories I do intend to publish somewhere and #inktober where I’ve been drawing all sorts of bizarre things as I am wont to do (I’m currently sharing them on Twitter and Instagram under the username dysole3 if you’re curious). I am also currently involved in 3 D&D groups, because I make excellent decisions. Thankfully, they only meet about once a month which makes it more manageable especially since I’m playing wildly different characters.
HEROSCAPE
When and how did you get into Heroscape?
I was at college in 2007 and a friend of mine (Vermilyion on the boards, but he’s rarely on) came up to me and told me that I was going to love this game. So we played. This was the game I learned to hate Ivor since the map had giant pillars on it with hidden glyphs on them and he landed Airborne Elite and they found Ivor atop one of these giant pillars of doom. But the game obviously hooked me despite getting shredded by 12-range Airborne. I don’t remember exactly what I was playing, but I remember Brunak and Ne-Gok-Sa.
CoN, C3V, and C3G: what got you started?
CoN: I saw this social deduction game and was curious and decided why not. This was back in 2008. I haven’t missed a round since. I don’t have a problem, I swear.
C3V was next. I liked the custom stuff and decided to get involved playtesting it. Not too long into that process, they decided to bring me in to help with playtesting until my life got too hectic and I stepped down.
C3G was because myself, dok, weebaer, and Soundwarp kept running broken combos that the designers hadn’t intended and the C3G people were happy to take our advice on how to fix the units so they were still fun to play and didn’t break the game.
Favorite unit (official/custom):
Sudema cemented her place in my heart after she murdered awesomeunleashed and dok’s figures back to back in a “Chaos in the Catacombs” battle and then I brought her to an unusual format in Oregon, where she and Runa ended up killing a lot, including 3 Drakes without ever wounding them.
As far as customs, Executioner will always have a special place in my heart since she is my SoV unit, but if we’re talking units I had no part in building, I’m gonna go with Zettian Deathwings.
What? I like fun, goofy, flashy effects that may or may not involve exploding your opponents.
Describe your favorite HeroScape moment:
This is hard, but I’m going to make kevindola very happy and bring up when I won the OHS Take 2 tournament with a zombie army and a divider army and a bunch of annoying to kill heroes.
There was also a conversation with Craig Van Ness that isn’t technically Heroscape, but which I will always treasure. I tend to bring weird things to GenCon Main Event and one year I brought Blastatrons with no Gladiatrons. I was having Craig sign the card of the "unusual unit" I made Day 2 with for a couple years in a row now and he was an awesome sport about it. When I mentioned what I was doing, he said that Blastatrons were actually good. I then told him they were run sans Glads, and the look of shock on his face was absolutely priceless to me.
Is there anything you would change about the game (unit, rule, mechanic, etc.)?
I’d give 7K Disengage. I think that’s about it apart from a more clearly defined rule set (but I don’t want it to get to the mammoth size that the MtG ruleset is).
What is your favorite aspect of HeroScape?
I just love how many opportunities it gives me to play weird things. I am a tinkerer of strange combinations by nature, and ’Scape scratches that itch in a way no other game really has.
COMMUNITY
Favorite experience as part of CoN, C3V, and C3G:
CoN has many, so I’ll just go with recent history where I played a Krav Maga Agent with a brain tumor, led my team to victory, and then killed off the character at the end, and made myself cry (others might’ve cried too).
C3V has been a larger overall experience with harder to pinpoint good moments, but I’ll go with being involved with a unit currently in production, because I absolutely love the unit and it leaves me with so much fun every time I play it and it plants so many great ideas in my head. I “wood” say more, but there could still be some changes before they’re finished ... but I think I’ve given enough clues that anyone should be able to figure out what I’m talking about if they know where to look.
C3G is similar to C3V and nothing jumps out at me, but it will probably be when I finally figure out a unit that I want to design as they’ve been wanting me to for ages and there’s a couple possibilities that are rattling around in my brain space.
Other groups: what got you started?
I have also been involved in the Codex, USR, HoF, and OHS with OHS being the only one I didn’t really need to step down from due to life stuff. All were because I volunteered out of interest except OHS, where dok and MegaSilver approached me to help out with the C3G events and then eventually I became spreadsheet girl for all the OHS events.
Can you tell us the story behind your title?
I am currently #2 on the all time CoN scoreboards, which is calculated by dividing the total number of points you get from each game divided by total games. (3 for a win, 1 for a loss, 2 for storytelling, plus points for placing in Best RP and Most Fun which award 3, 2, 1 in order). Ranior technically has a higher score, but he’s also played in less than half the games I have (24 to 59). As for the Puppetmaster bit, when LordRaidor had to step down due to life getting busy, a very nearly unanimous coalition decided I’d be the best person to pick up the CoN duties and I accepted.
Can you tell us how you’ve gotten to where you are now in the community?
I feel like a combination of being in the right place at the right time, consistent engagement, and being a pretty easygoing person have caused it, so people trust me with varying levels of responsibility.
What do you enjoy most about Heroscapers.com?
The people: it’s always the people. I have not engaged with any other forum community nearly as much as I have here. I like to tell people that this site is still going long after the game was cancelled and that’s entirely due to the people on it.
Is there any member of Heroscapers.com you’d really like to play against?
I’ve managed to hit almost my entire wishlist between GenCon and Online ’Scape and I’ve even beaten a few of them (even if it only took me 9,432,811 games to beat the 4th law of Thermodynamics: dok beats Dysole). Among my unplayed list, it’s basically people that don’t play any more like killercactus who we never got our viper vs viper duel. I think everyone who plays still I’ve played in some form or fashion.
LIE DETECTOR
Three Truths And A Lie
- Granny Smith apples are the only apples I can eat whole. Every other apple I have to slice first or I just won’t finish it after only about 2 or 3 bites.
- I was shot in the leg with an arrow and was fine, apart from some soreness and limping the next few days. They did call like 20 paramedics because someone told them I was bleeding in the parking lot but when they arrived, all they see is me with my leg elevated and applying pressure while making Skyrim jokes.
- I have not purchased any of the stuffed animals I own: an octopus I won in a raffle in the 3rd grade, a shark I won at a carnival when I was 12, an owl I received as a Christmas present a few years ago, and a flamingo a friend gifted me after I changed my gender on my driver’s license.
- I once received the exact same “Sam I Am” T-shirt from two different relatives for Christmas. And then last year for Christmas, in an interesting twist, my girlfriend at the time and I gave each other the exact same T-shirt as a present.
Last month’s lie:
- I have won multiple restaurant challenges, wherein you have to eat a very large quantity of food in a small time frame in order to get a free meal and/or a souvenir T-shirt. On one occasion I ate four and a half pounds of fish and chips in 41 minutes, and on another I ate over four pounds of pre-broth-soaked pho in fifty minutes (which probably swelled up to about six pounds or more).
- I was once asked out on a date by a Walt Disney World employee who was currently on duty while I was vacationing—a request that I ended up accepting. We shared a kiss after a couple of hours of sitting on a bench and talking about our lives in Downtown Disney late at night, and remain in contact as friends to this day.
- When I was about eleven years old, I managed to slash the cornea of my right eye after having a sword fight in my yard with the neighbor using a couple of wooden sticks. I had trouble opening either eye for a prolonged period of time due to the twitching pain, and had to wear an eye patch for a week or two as a result.
- I once won a karaoke competition on a cruise to Catalina Island with my aforementioned best friend. I sang “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys, and was awarded a bottle of wine along with a ceremonial lei. My voice actually cracked during the performance, but the judge said that my interpretive dance moves had “great, entertaining stage presence.”
scorpiusx: I did actually sing karaoke on a cruise to Catalina Island, but I sang "Every Time We Touch" by Cascada, and I certainly was nowhere close to winning.
FIVE FUN FAVORITES
Favorite Movie Genre and Movie:
I pretty much stick exclusively to sci-fi/fantasy/spec fic. Don’t have much of a favorite movie so my default is Princess Bride. I also really liked Arrival for a more serious movie side of things.
Favorite TV Show Genre and TV Show:
Sci-fi/fantasy are the mains, but comedy shows up a fair bit outside of that, and I have seen a lot of kids shows despite my age, but I’ll also watch a show entirely because there’s a single storyline I really care about (looking at you Glee and the Brittana storyline although I really only watched the storyline bits and anything else that I needed for context).
Favorite TV show is much easier than movie with Doctor Who the far and away winner, although Librarians is also really enjoyable and there is a character on that show (Cassandra) who is a fairly good representation of me in mannerisms, speech patterns, and general wardrobe. If I’m feeling comedy, I’ll probably turn to Community, Brooklyn 99, or The Good Place. Kids’ shows are both Avatar series, Adventure Time, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Steven Universe, and Gravity Falls.
Favorite Anime Genre and Anime:
Sci-fi/fantasy. Again. All time favorite is Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood as it is one of the best stories I have ever observed, period. After that it gets a bit tougher, but Deadman Wonderland was the only one I actually went out and found the manga for and read it because I had to know how it ended. Soul Eater was also a lot of fun and, as it’s basically around Halloween, it’s actually the perfect time for it.
Favorite Book Genre and Book:
Again sci-fi/fantasy ... do you sense a theme? Go-to’s are the two books that made me love the genre as a child. The Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle and Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey. Anything by Terry Pratchett though is also an absolute treasure and I’ve also started reading a series by Ilona Andrews that I’m quite enjoying.
Favorite Song Genre and Song:
I listen to anything and everything. My music playlists are a weird mix of all over the place ranging from alt rock to symphonic metal to show tunes to Disney to Glee to the occasional country song to folk music to people on YouTube who’ve made rap battles. Go-to’s here are probably Team Starkid stuff (they’re amazing—seriously check them out if you like muscials at all) and “Weird Al” stuff.
CLOSING
What message do you have for the ’Scaper community?
Y’all keep being kind to each other. Seriously, this community was incredibly helpful to me when I was in a very bad place and most people didn’t even realize how much they helped me. You never know how much you’ll impact someone even across a screen.
Whom do you pick for the next ’Scaper of the Month?
Let’s go with another person who spans multiple projects including CoN, All Your Pie.
~Dysole, supremely grateful for this site
Comments 7
Total Comments 7
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Great interview.
What are your D&D characters? What are your favorite Weird Al songs? Mine are Nature Trail to Hell(In 3D) and Twister. "Milton Bradley's got a def one." |
Posted November 3rd, 2019 at 10:12 AM by Tornado
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Great interview!
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Posted November 3rd, 2019 at 11:51 AM by flameslayer93
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RepliesA Bard who acts like a complete jerk but she's actually a giant cinnamon roll in the inside; A Bardlock who hates her fiend patron and is stuck in a bad situation there, but acts like a complete ditz around everyone to keep people at an arm's length; and a wild magic sorcerer who can often act like a toddler with magic and is absolutely terrible at keeping secrets as the entire party and multiple strangers know the mysterious book of deep dark secrets she carries around.
Weird Al is tough but I'm gonna go with Don't Download This Song and Word Crimes |
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Posted November 3rd, 2019 at 11:54 AM by Dysole
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Gonna shamelessly plug Cowboy Bebop for you to watch (as your favorites intersect with mine a lot, and it's my second favorite anime behind FMA: Brotherhood). Good interview.
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Posted November 3rd, 2019 at 03:11 PM by Heroscaper Guy
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Cowboy Bebop is great and the first anime I ever watched. I like it but not as much as others.
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Posted November 3rd, 2019 at 03:15 PM by Dysole
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Fun interview! Going with #4 as the lie.
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Posted November 3rd, 2019 at 09:28 PM by IAmBatman
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Quote:
(but I don’t want it to get to the mammoth size that the MtG ruleset is)
Good interview  ~TAF |
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Posted November 4th, 2019 at 12:19 AM by TheAverageFan
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