'Scaper of the Month - November 2017

’Scaper of the Month
Jim
Author: The Grim Reaper’s Friend

We’re excited to continue our admin interviews with Jim! I had never personally had many dealings with Jim, but from the posts of his I had seen and the tales from others I had heard, I was excited to learn more about him.


Profile

Who are you really?
Jim. Really.

How old are you?
Fifty.

What is your occupation?
I work for a non-profit credit counseling agency which helps people pay back their credit card, medical, and loan debts. Not quite as fun as my last job when I worked in the product acquisition department at Hasbro.

What’s another board game/RPG you enjoy and why?
I play a lot of other games. Boardgame Geek claims that I own well over a thousand games (though to be fair it also counts individual expansions or promo cards as a game). I don’t have a problem. Nope, no problem at all. One game that I have been playing more than others recently is Clank!. This is a deck-building, press-your-luck dungeon crawler. I enjoy it because it is a lot of fun, and there are different ways to try to win and potentially mess with the opponents.

What other interests do you have besides HeroScape?
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

I enjoy watching movies (SciFi, action, some comedies, and more) and some TV.

I like reading. Books, comics, magazines ... as long as it is a subject that interests me.

I like to cook. I do most of the cooking for my wife and me.

I love board and card games in general, though I do have some themes that I won’t play. I don’t like war games, most train games, or incredibly heavyweight games.


HeroScape

When and how did you get into HeroScape?
My wife Celina and two other friends were all co-owners of a comic book shop after taking it over from the previous owner. Celina was running weekly game demos and I would help her with that. One week, she had scheduled a demo of some game called HeroScape, and it would be demoed by one of the designers, since they lived nearby. I came in and Craig Van Ness was setting up a couple of maps. This was about a week before Christmas, and wave 1 had just been released. Craig taught us how to play and passed out a complimentary booster to each person playing. After the first round of games were finished, I was standing by the map I had played on (and won) against one of the comic store’s other regular customers. Craig had us start another game and then said he’d make it more interesting and the winner would get the master set we were using to play. I don’t remember the specifics, but at the end it came down to my DW9000 against one other guy, and in soon to be typical DW9K fashion, no shields came up against one skull. I did receive the remainder of the wave 1 boosters as consolation prize though. I bought a master set from the store the next day and we had a giant HeroScape map set up on the floor running around the Christmas tree that weekend. It hasn’t stopped since.

Do you have a favorite classic unit?
Perhaps only because he helped a lot with my first win, but Deathwalker 9000 holds a special place in my heart. Sure he has a jaw of the most fragile glass ever, but what would any of us be without our flaws?

What about a favorite custom unit?
There are so many custom units out there, I’d be lying if I said I’ve seen even half of them. I honestly don’t have a lot of time though, so I tend to not go looking at (or even using) custom units much. This is not because I don’t think there are good ones out there, though.

Describe your favorite HeroScape moment.
My wife, her sister, and I went on vacation to San Francisco around eleven or twelve years ago. I created a thread on the then-current website (.net) asking if there was anyone in that area who would want to get together and play. One member, Hex_Enduction_Hour, reached out and invited me over to his house for one of the nights. I drove over to his house where he, his friend, and I think his son had a giant map that he made set up in his garage. We played a couple of really fun games there, then I drove back to our hotel and continued with our regularly scheduled vacation.

Is there anything you would change about the game (unit, rule, mechanic, etc.)?
Anything I had thought about changing the game wouldn’t really be for the better. An occasional house rule or variant would be a better use of those ideas. I think the game is good as it is. There is just the right amount of detail without going overboard. The only real thing I would add if I could would be the unreleased Marvel units and the other cool unreleased things from Hasbro.

What is your favorite aspect of HeroScape?
The creativity it inspires. You can make almost anything for the game, and many people have done just that!


Community

What do you enjoy most about Heroscapers.com?
I really like the way the site hasn’t devolved into a stereotypical Internet forum where people type in TXT language (cuz that is 2 hrd 2 read). People here tend to be respectful to each other even when they disagree, and that makes it a very welcoming place.

Can you tell us how you became an admin?
I knew some of the admins, and at the time I didn’t have a job, so I spent a lot of time online, and I apparently reported a lot of spam posts. Something I mentioned in an offhand comment one day led to me being asked if I would mind being made an admin, and the rest is history.

This might just be me, but I’ve always been interested in the origin of your signature line, “Don’t think of it as being outnumbered; think of it as having a wide shot selection!” Can you tell us where that came from?
That is simply a quote I came across one day, many years ago, on an online bulletin board. Something about it stuck with me, and I liked the positive spin it puts on a potentially hopeless situation ... not to mention it is just funny to me.

Is there any member of Heroscapers.com you’d really like to play against?
I’d like to have a three-way battle with Skyknight and 1Mmirg. This is because they both live in Florida, and I’d have to be down there. I’ve already been to 1Mmirg’s house, so this time it would have to be at Skyknight’s house.


Lie Detector

Three truths and a lie

• I have three TIE Fighters and the Millennium Falcon (from the X-Wing game), as well as two Stormtroopers, and Han Solo frozen in carbonite (from the Star Wars Miniatures game) on my desk at work.
• I have a life-sized Terminator T-800 Endoskeleton skull on my desk at work.
• I have a full size reproduction of Frodo’s sword, Sting, from The Lord of the Rings on my desk at work.
• I have an eight inch tall furry Bumble Snow Monster (same as in my avatar) action figure on my desk at work.

Last Month’s Lie (Grungebob)

• I took 3rd place dancing the samba at a Latin dancing competition in Puerto Rico when I was in my 20s.
• I once killed a king cobra in the jungles of Thailand and ate its bladder during a ritual of virility.
• I helped design the entire Star Wars universe for the never released HeroScape Star Wars edition.
• I’ve driven across the US on a motorcycle twice with less than $100 in my pocket.

Three Fun Favorites

Favorite Movie
Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Favorite Book
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.

Favorite Song
“Princes of the Universe” by Queen. There are many other favorites, but this is the one that came to mind first.


Closing

What message do you have for the ’Scaper community?
Have fun. Every moment you have is a choice. Be sure to choose well. You can choose to be miserable, or you can choose not to. Suffering is optional.

Whom do you pick for the next ’Scaper of the Month?
Returning a favor from years ago, I choose Skyknight to be next.

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