March
2003

My name is Nathan E. Banks, but on the internet I'm always Paganini. This was my Mom's idea, because I'm a professional violinist, but I liked it, so I stuck with it. I was born in 1980, so I'm 23 at the time of this writing (who knows how old I'll be before I do another update). I like to eat, read (science fiction and fantasy mainly), play Go (I use KGS), practice Tai Chi, watch movies (science-fiction, fantasy, and anything with Kung Fu in it), play computer games (Total Annihilation, Unreal Tournament, Halflife, are you starting to see a pattern?), and play and design wargames, RPGs, and games in general (duh). I also love listening to and performing classical music, but that's my job, along with private teaching, so it doesn't go in the list of interests. You can see some pictures of me with my violin here. But this is supposed to be a gaming biography, not a professional resume.

I've always been interested in RPGs. There was a time when I didn't really know what they were . . . my only contact with them was vague stories about something called D&D, adds in the back of comic books, and some Endless Quest books that were a gift from an Aunt. But even then I was always trying to make one. I'd seen some of the components at a friend's house, and I knew what they involved - on the surface - from playing PC games like Lands of Lore and the Legend of Zelda. (I.e., running around a fantasy world, killing monsters, stats, equipment, gold, and so on.) When I was about eight a friend gave me the Star Trek III Starship Combat Simulator from FASA. It included a very strange form of RPG that I did my best to understand, but never quite could. Somewhere between here and there I discovered Joe Dever's Magnamund books and went through them.

I got my first computer around '95 or '96. No home internet access, but the local library installed computers, and I could also surf at a friend's house. I ran many searches for variations on "Free Net RPGs." I found "Eric's Compendium of Free RPGs on the Net" and brought the results home on floppies. I still have all my old printouts, including FUDGE, FUZION, PlainLaibel, SORD, Dark Fantasy, Game Engine Manual, Mortal Konquest, and lots of one-page games. I got ahold of the Juno email service, and joined the SORD mailing list. About this same time I found out that a friend of mine had the Hero Quest board game (I'd wanted it for a while, but couldn't afford it). I studiously copied down all the rules, made lists of the cards, monster stats, etc. My brother and I took turns creating adventures for each other. We played on graph paper. At this time I ran my first PBeM over Juno. It lasted all of two turns! In 1997 I got my hands on the 1998 issue (go figure) of The Games Annual, which had a nice section on internet resources, leading to my first contact with places like BoneGames, Cheapass, Crunchy Frog, and RPG.net.

In late 1998 (I was 18) I enroled in a distance learning program at NJIT (New Jersey Institute of Technology), which required an internet connection. Hitherto unimagined sources of information were now within my grasp. I discovered Usenet. I lived on the Tolkien newsgroups for more than a year, staying up til 1:00 AM to make sure I read every post. I helped create TEUNC (The Tolkien Eccentric Unusual Nutcases). Naturally when I wanted feedback on my first actually completed RPG design I looked for some usenet groups (rec.games.design, and rec.games.frp.misc, I think were the two I posted to). I got a few comments back, but the most influential one directed me to the RPG-Create mailing list, at that time living on OneList. My first post (number 95) there asked for comments about my design . . . and sparked off a flame war! A prototype of the future . . .

Aidan Marisola-Sullivan deserves a special mention. Not only is he responsible for directing me to RPG-Create, he also introduced me to ICQ, and actually helped me playtest my first game over it. He also sent me screen shots of HalfLife!

For a long time my futile design efforts were aimed at designing the One True Game. I spent much thought and effort designing, discussing, and sometimes flaming, in this context. Then, during a heated discussion about the original rec.games.design Threefold Model, Ravenscrye Daegmorgan directed me to the Forge. It radicaly changed my thinking, and continues to do so to this day.