Welcome to the blog reader. I hope that you are finding the posts entertaining if not informative. I’m Andy, half of the team known as Disco Stu Never Say Dice. In no particular order I’m: a dad, tabletop gamer, console gamer, amateur musician, community theater tech, aspiring tabletop game designer, and all around nerd. Much like Bugsy, I thought I’d write a bit on why I wanted to start this blog and where I want to go with it.
I had a less creative and less interesting answer than Bugsy if you’d asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I was a kid, I would have told you an Architect. I was likely told I should say this because of my enjoyment of legos. Certainly sketching out plans for a structure, or anything else really, isn’t one of my strong suits. However, I have always enjoyed building things, I still enjoy building with legos now and again, and I’ve passed the love of building down to my kids. It can be little colorful bricks, or something else entirely, but building has been a part of my life for a long time.
The concept of building spans into a number of my other passions and hobbies. Music and theater have often been hobbies or sources of income over the course of my life. Flute, Chorus, Ocarina, Bass Guitar, Piano, Back-Stage Tomfoolery. That isn’t to say that I’m even to the level of armature at any of these things, but they all were/are part of my life at some point. Theater and music are such very collaborative processes. You can build so much out of the collection of a few notes or lyrics. You could end up creating something simple you hum along to during your day, or a complicated show that brings out all sorts of emotions. You create, adjust, experiment and most importantly build.
Gaming is another part of my life where I see building come into play. I’ve been an avid fan of tabletop games for almost as long as I can remember. I’ve always enjoyed a variety of different card and board games. I’m still playing these games with my kids. At some point in my early teens, that focus shifted more towards RPGs. RPGs are a hugely collaborative form of entertainment that can include building on so many levels. Building characters, adventures, towns, small words, all with a small group of friends? Sign me up. When it comes to video games, I see a bit of the opposite. While there are certainly games where you can build that I've enjoyed, these games most often provide a solid framework of rules and limits. I often like to test these limits, forcing the game to glitch and send my character to places that should be unreachable.
My fascination with building and breaking things down has also bled into my media consumption. Watching a movie or a TV show, reading a book, and looking for patterns in plots and character development. When I was a kid, a favorite pastime with my dad was taking movies and TV shows and predicting what comes next. What would the heroes do to save the day? What were the villains really up to? What would be the plot twist this time? What comes next?
I hope that gives you a better background on what brought me to this. Building things brought me here. It could be building stories, characters, music, games or anything really. You’ll see posts from me on stories, games and their paraphernalia, movies, podcasts, books. The blog is just a different foundation for me to build upon. I’m lucky enough to do that with one of my oldest and closest friends. What comes next? I hope you’ll join us and find out.
The concept of building spans into a number of my other passions and hobbies. Music and theater have often been hobbies or sources of income over the course of my life. Flute, Chorus, Ocarina, Bass Guitar, Piano, Back-Stage Tomfoolery. That isn’t to say that I’m even to the level of armature at any of these things, but they all were/are part of my life at some point. Theater and music are such very collaborative processes. You can build so much out of the collection of a few notes or lyrics. You could end up creating something simple you hum along to during your day, or a complicated show that brings out all sorts of emotions. You create, adjust, experiment and most importantly build.
Gaming is another part of my life where I see building come into play. I’ve been an avid fan of tabletop games for almost as long as I can remember. I’ve always enjoyed a variety of different card and board games. I’m still playing these games with my kids. At some point in my early teens, that focus shifted more towards RPGs. RPGs are a hugely collaborative form of entertainment that can include building on so many levels. Building characters, adventures, towns, small words, all with a small group of friends? Sign me up. When it comes to video games, I see a bit of the opposite. While there are certainly games where you can build that I've enjoyed, these games most often provide a solid framework of rules and limits. I often like to test these limits, forcing the game to glitch and send my character to places that should be unreachable.
My fascination with building and breaking things down has also bled into my media consumption. Watching a movie or a TV show, reading a book, and looking for patterns in plots and character development. When I was a kid, a favorite pastime with my dad was taking movies and TV shows and predicting what comes next. What would the heroes do to save the day? What were the villains really up to? What would be the plot twist this time? What comes next?
I hope that gives you a better background on what brought me to this. Building things brought me here. It could be building stories, characters, music, games or anything really. You’ll see posts from me on stories, games and their paraphernalia, movies, podcasts, books. The blog is just a different foundation for me to build upon. I’m lucky enough to do that with one of my oldest and closest friends. What comes next? I hope you’ll join us and find out.