Monday, June 16, 2008

Cast and Crew Feature: Nathan Miller Game Master

Nathan Miller Game Master


On the 'Verse' as an RPG setting.
What is it about the Firefly/Serenity setting that makes it so appealing as a roleplaying setting? One word: Freedom. Not only is the quest for freedom a major theme of the show but 'Verse' itself seems be be in a constant struggle between freedom and security. Dozens of planets and hundreds of moons provides a great deal of freedom when deciding where to take the story and every one of those worlds has it own culture and feel. The Verse is a vast frontier full of mystery and danger. Find a ship. Find a crew. Take jobs as they come. Keep flying. What more could you want in a roleplaying setting? Then there are the other features of the setting that make it unique. Cowboys and spaceships, horses and hovercrafts, whisky and fancy women, big shiny cities and backwater cow towns. No elves, no orcs, no aliens, just plain old folk some good some bad some only ok. A very unique setting with endless possibility.

About my own self.
Somehow I just can't get past the fact that the first real article on this blog will be about me. Seems a bit uppity but then again I am putting this thing together and I can always get ahold of myself for an interview right? Anyway my name is Nathan Miller. I was born west of the Mississippi and south of the Mason-Dixon in a hospital in Sedalia Missouri on September 20th of 1974. I grew up Warsaw Missouri a small town of 2,000 in the northern Ozarks. I currently live in Warrensburg Missouri. I've been playing roleplaying games and miniature games since I was 11 years old and I started out as the groups GM. I've always had a strong interest in history, culture, and art. I paint, sculpt, do photography, and enjoy making things in general. I'm married to a beautiful woman who also plays RPGs and miniature games and we have an 11 year old daughter who's started playing games with us as well although she won't be playing in the Serenity setting for a few years. Anyway enough about me.
About the Midnight Rider Campaign
Midnight Rider is set 6 months after the first Unification Day. The fires of the Unification War or The War of Alliance Aggression, depending oh what side you were on, still smolder. Some folks ain't done fightin like the "Dust Devils" and the so called Alliance Militia forming up out on the Border and the Rim. The 7 person crew of the "Puddle Jumper" a UD12 'Chickenhawk' ultra-light transport have found themselves way out on the edge of the Verse looking for work, and hopefully a bigger ship, among the moons and planets of the Rim. The Alliance presence is heavy but unfamiliar with how things work out on the Rim. They plod along trying in vain to establish order on lawless planets. If that weren't enough to make things bad for the folks out on the frontier there have been reports of savage raiders from the edge of space. These "Reavers", as they have come to be called, attack without warning or provocation descending on settlements and ships murdering everyone they can find. There are some who say they are cannibals and that they do other more gruesome things than merely kill the folk they attack. The Alliance of course denies they exist at all but there are too many reports to dismiss them as campfire stories and tall tales. Out on the Rim the dangers are plenty but there's work to be had for them that look hard enough and ain't too picky as to the manner of work. They got a crew. They got a ship. They gotta keep flyin.

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