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Biographies
Here's the listing of the folks in Living Room Games. If you really want to know more information about them, some of the members have gladly contributed biographies to satisfy the curious browser.
LRG Members List
President / Earthdawn Line Developer
Mike Williams
Vice President / Art Director
Randy Manuel NavarroChief Financial Officer / World Tournament Line Developer
Joe Chan
General Members
Damon Earley
Scott Ferguson
Aaron F. Johnson
Ryan Kelley
Sean Kelley
Dwayne Koonce
Gary McBride
Austin Mills
Chris Palomares
Patrick Quarles
Kent Raymond
Bert Sanders
Marco Soto
Shirly Soto
Associate Members
Chris Barney
Joseph Chang
Scott Greisch
Henry Kahng
Toby Leonard
Mark Mandolia
Jason Middleton
Brian Spencer
T.R. Williams
Chris Barney, the Silvain one
one of the remote members of the group, chris (the silvain one) haunts from afar. from kobe, japan, to be more exact. a mathematician (set theorist) by obsession, all other hobbies are by choice. at the moment, he spins techno (happy hardcore, drum 'n' bass, and ambient) and figure skates. he's been known to read manga from time to time though he claims that his real desire is japanese poetry and other literature. this is where that whole writing thing comes into play. he also sings a mean karaoke. i would watch out if i were you.
Joe Chan
Some people have to work at climbing the corporate ladder. For Joe, it seems more like he's just riding up the escalator. While he started as simply a writer, as timed passed more and more responsibilities were handed to him. First the title of marketing director was bestowed upon him. Later, he was appointed as vice-president and secretary. At long last, he has reached the summit -- He is now Emperor Chan, the Son of Heaven, Bearer of the Golden Seal... err, that is, he is now the president of Living Room Games. As it was told to him in a short message declaring his bloodless victory, "Some people strive for greatness and some people have it thrust upon them..." How true this is.
Today, Emperor Chan sits upon his gilded throne, surrounded by his thousand concubines, firmly, yet gently ruling over his loyal subjects in Living Room Games. With but a single word, he sends forth armies to conquer other game nations. All who behold his magnificence genuflect before him, proclaiming his ageless power over ten thousand years. Women swoon and faint and men curse their imperfections in his presence. His likeness adorns great statues of jade and rivers of gold flow from his treasuries. And when he finally awakens, maybe he'll actually get some of his work finished.
In reality, Joe probably works more than he should. With his full-paying job and a couple of part-time projects including Living Room Games, free time has become a precious commodity. He yearns for a vacation more than anything else. Perhaps the day that he achieves his goal of becoming independantly wealthy, he can finally settle down and do what he wants to do most... err, he'll figure out what that is when he has a moment to do so.
Damon Earley
Recently released from the Shakespearian Project (at the signed petition of over 9000 of his fellow workers), this 14 year gamer was given writing projects for LRGames to make the other sections look better.
Raised in the Peruvian jungles, he lead an undistinguished life (if you don't count that Valdez incident). He likes long walks off of short piers, plot threads that finish, and the characters he likes to make it past Chapter 2. He does not like combat systems that require plastic gloves.
Scott Ferguson
Scott Ferguson has a B.S. in Genetics from Texas A&M University. When not playing with computer languages/OSs/hardware/applications/games, he splits his free time between multiplayer gaming, sports, catching up on movies (and promptly misquoting them), and playing the part of "physics wanna-be" by attempting to come up with unified field theories, sans sufficient advanced math to grok manifold theory. (Though d-branes still look *really* cool on the conceptual level ... ). He enjoys debating (nearly omnivorous on topic) and remains strangely convinced that he can find the time to learn Aikido and Judo.
Personal Quote: "Yes, but that's beside the point ..."
Aaron F. Johnson
Aaron Johnson was born to thoroughly normal, upper middle-class parents somewhere in Texas during the Nixon Era. He was raised in a loving, supportive household in Dallas, and educated well by his parents and his teachers. Naturally, he went insane. The first sign of his insanity was his decision that role-playing games, comics, and cartoons were not only cool, but possessed merit in and of themselves. This shaky state of neurosis rapidly degenerated throughout high school, and by the time he had reached college, had manifested a powerfully dangerous psychopathy that resulted in his majoring in and graduating with a Baccalaureate degree in English. Having made an unsuccessful go at graduate school in desperate attempt to push through from this reality into the next, Aaron now resides in Dallas, listens to the voices in his head, and recently has managed to actually get paid for his degree by getting a job as a proofreader. His hobbies include listening to blues, reading, writing, gaming, and an almost unknown sport called "thinking" (a vigorous avocation; it has a small but fiercely loyal following). Occasionally, some of the voices take over, and can be found roaming the Internet as Ebony the Black Dragon, and Beethoven the Blues-Lovin' B'ar. When he can get everyone in his head to work together and let him think, he serves as one of Living Room Games' chief editors.
Gary McBride
Born in Harlingen only a stone's throw away from the Mexican border, Gary McBride is a life long Texan. Currently he sucks money from the system by working in the computer industry, but occasionally day dreams about being a professional writer. When not writing, working, role-playing or engaging in any number of disastrous personal relationships, Gary remains an avid reader particularly of science fiction. Other hobbies include camping, spontaneous road tripping, listening to too loud music, gourmet cooking, advanced chili design, model building and cross-continental travel.
Christopher Palomares
Christopher E. Palomares is originally from a planet populated by ducks. His planet was a peace-loving planet until it was invaded by a vicious overlord who decided to plunder it for it's rich resources and technology. Chris took it upon himself to fight back, while the rest of his peace-loving race were cruelly slaughtered for barbecue. He stole aboard the enemy mother ship and took from them their most powerful giant robot, destroying all plans and specs on the machine in the process. Unfortunately, he lost his left arm in the fight.
Chris hit the invaders, and hit them hard, then disappeared out into space. Exploring the galaxy, Chris had his arm replaced by a formidable weapon, and became an outlaw, wanted both by the galactic authority, and the Guild, a notorious, intergalactic mafia. Along, with his armored partner, he had many adventures, until the day came that he grew tired of life of adventure, longing, once more, for an ordinary life. Arriving on the planet earth, he had his face changed and started up his own innovative business selling the best anime and the most mouthwatering barbecue in the world, all at Bob's Anime Barn.
Mike "Woodchuck" Williams
Born the son of a Texas Oil Man and an Exotic Woman from Far Away Lands, this world traveler has been a player and game-master of Role Playing Games for twenty years. In addition to his personal games, he has written one-shot modules and tournaments for conventions all over the Southwest and penned numerous campaigns for on-line role play. He is a Texan, a Unix Administrator by day, a videophile who is amassing a collection of American and Hong Kong movies, an otaku in retirement who once scoured the earth in search of anime but now is satisfied with what is commercially released in the States, an amateur historian, a harried convention officer, an armchair physicist, a Taoist Catholic, a shade-tree philosopher, a curmudgeon at large, a semi-active MU*er, and the Vocal Opposition. A proponent of the needlessly long sentence, he has never met a comma or a clause that he didn't like. Recently, he has been reminiscing about the old days, when he used to have free time. That is to say, before he was a writer. This is just a bio. Who I am is not what I do, but what I do is a part of who I am. Catch me at a con, join me for a beer or two, and decide who I am for yourself.
Raised in a log tract-home in northern Illinois, Aaron has been gaming since his earliest years, and is noted to once have remarked that snow-days were annoying because they interrupted his lunch time Star Frontiers(tm) game. Moving to Texas during the crash of the '80s he stocked up on gaming equipment from millionaire-oil-men-turned-book-retailers and began his seasonal treks across the state for various classes, conventions, and parties. In the late '90s, watching book-retailers-turned-CCG-millionaires, he began thinking "Hey, I could do that." Finally released from Chapter 11 hearings, minus all his alpha rare and uncommon cards, Aaron was unanimously condemned to serve as CFO for the small publishing group of Ninja Scientists known as Living Room Games. He's occasionally heard to mumble something about writing and editing credits on various projects, but we mostly ignore him and throw him back into the cellar with his abacus and ink well.
When not writing lame biographies of himself, Aaron enjoys various martial combat sports, camping, gaming (duh), and academic research. He has a Master's degree from the University of North Texas and worked in the mid and late 90's as an investigator for the State of Texas. After "promotion" and almost two years in a specialized sexual abuse unit working incest and family assault cases he took a position with the local family district courts doing forensic evaluations. He has served on the clinical staff of a Children's Advocacy Center, and regularly volunteers his time working with abused and neglected children in state care. He thinks that if you get the idea that you should do more than playing at saving the world then you might be on the right track.
Marco "Socrates" Soto
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row. I woo women with my sensuous and godlike poem recitations. I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I can divide by zero. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru. Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, was scouted by the Mets, and am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays after work, I repair electrical appliances free of charge. I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I do not perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and I have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400, bowl 300. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Animals trust me. I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations with the CIA. I sleep once a week, and when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me. I bounce, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid on time. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but (alas!) forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet. I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis (although not recently). Oh, and I write for a small role-playing game company.