Mandatory Fun Club Spotlight: Jim Crocker

by Michael G. Barford, Keeper of the Eternal Chime

This series of articles will serve as an introduction to the participants of the September 2018 round of Mandatory Fun Club. These Gauntleteers are preparing to start offering fresh events for Gauntlet Hangouts; be on the lookout for their games!

Hello Jim! Welcome to Mandatory Fun Club! My first question for you is: How did you hear about the Gauntlet community?
I went looking for APs of the Star Trek Adventures RPG and found Lowell's run on The Gauntlet, which caused me to look at other stuff they were doing and here I am.

What kind of experience do you have facilitating TTRPGs?
I've been playing and running for 40ish years, 25 of them in game stores where I ran multiple games a week and introduced literally thousands of people to gaming between that and helping start Origins Games on Demand.

What kind of experience do you have playing TTRPGs online?
You're soaking in it!

What made you decide to jump in and start facilitating games for Gauntlet Hangouts?
I love running games, and the Gauntlet has proven to be a Community that shares basically everything I value in gaming. It was the entirely logical next step for me here.

Tell us about the game you're planning to facilitate for MFC! Why did you choose it?
I got to play Velvet Glove with the designer [Sarah Richardson] in an early version and totally loved it. I have a scenario I tested at Camp Nerdly and it went really well. I also noticed there wasn't an online character sheet, so I made one to go with my game so that other folks might want to run it too! PBTA games are great first sessions because of the shared narrative creation, and I'm really comfortable with my ability to facilitate them, so it was an all-around great fit.

What other games would you be interested in facilitating for Gauntlet Hangouts in the future?
I'm part of the shared-author setting The Gaunt Marches, so I'll definitely be running plenty of Dungeon World (I've got my first game ready to go for Gauntlet Con, in fact!) Beyond that I'm hoping to run a few more 'tradindle' type games, maybe Gumsoe and Cortex, possibly Star Trek, in addition to PBTA stuff. There's not nearly enough superhero gaming on the Gauntlet, and I'm hoping to make an impact there in particular.

Is there anything non-gaming-related that you'd like people to know about you?
I'm turning 50 this October, which will mark 29 years as a vegetarian. It's both terrifying and exhilarating to be facing the back half of my life in a hobby opening itself fully to youth culture and new modes of thought about everything from gender to how we play. I love and fear it!

Where can people go to hear more from you?
I tweet at @jimlikesgames, and I sell indie/small press RPGs at dozens of conventions as Jim Likes Games, LLC, and I'm me, Jim Crocker (he/him) on The Gauntlet. Say hello!