I'm Peter V. Dell'Orto.
I've been playing RPGs since I was about 9 years old. Right around then I saw my uncle's RPG books, read The Hobbit
and the The Lord of the Rings
*, and got a copy of the Erol Otus cover Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set. Shortly after I learned to play from a couple of AD&D players who then further warped my understanding of the rules. Whatever.Short version is, I've been gaming since towards the end of 1981, and haven't stopped for more than a few years here or there. If that long.
I've played a bunch of different systems, but I always seem to come back to fantasy gaming in any of them. I can only take so much realistic gunplay and sci-fi blasters and super powers before I say, what the hell, let's kill owlbears and steal their treasure.
My influences over the years have been mostly:
B/X D&D (I played it mixed with AD&D for a while)
AD&D (I played it for years, mostly post-Unearthed Arcana)
Rolemaster (the blue box edition, played a campaign or two)
GURPS
and assorted non-fantasy games, like Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Gangbusters, Boot Hill, Top Secret, Car Wars, Ogre, Elfquest (no, seriously, we played it for a while), and assorted wargames.
. . . and a lot of video games. Rogue, Ultima, Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Diablo and Diablo II, Planescape: Torment, Fallout, Jade Empire, and a few other big RPG games really got to me.
I'm also a GURPS author. It comes from decades of playing GURPS, really, and a great interest and dedication to writing for it. I am also a personal trainer, which is why I'm also blogging about that. Oh yeah and I do MMA, training up at Advanced Fighting Systems in Mahwah, NJ.
My email is p_dellorto at yahoo
* I know from a friend this is a common geek claim, to have read them very young. Well, I did. I won't make any great claims about understanding them all. I thought they were mostly boring, I skipped the poems and songs, and The Two Towers dragged so much I don't remember it except as "The book were Frodo and Sam walk around starving and meet Ents." This may have colored my opinion of them in the long run - 9 is a bit young to get Tolkein . . . it was clearly above my level. Nonetheless I did get through them and I liked the battles a lot (although not as much as the Battle of Three Armies in The Hobbit).
My Author Credits
Here is a list of the books I've written or co-written.
GURPS Martial Arts (co-authored with Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch)
(This book is also available in Korean)
GURPS Martial Arts: Gladiators (co-author with Volker Bach)
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 12: Ninja (sole author, although Sean Punch contributed some awesome ideas)
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen (co-authored with Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch)
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1 (co-authored with Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch)
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 3: Born of Myth & Magic
I also co-wrote an article with Sean Punch for Pyramid #3/03:
Our article, Deathball, is available free. So check it out if you like post-apocalyptic death sports. And who doesn't?
GURPS Low Tech (co-author with Bill Stoddard, Matt Riggsby, and Dan Howard)
GURPS Low Tech Companion 2: Weapons and Warriors (co-author with Bill Stoddard and Dan Howard)
I wrote two articles for Pyramid #3/50: one on Power-Ups for Assassins and another on evil snowmen.
I co-wrote a big collection of martial power-ups for Dungeon Fantasy for Pyramid #3/61
I wrote Horde Ninja for Dungeon Fantasy for Pyramid #3/70
And I co-wrote Dire and Terrible Monsters for Pyramid #3/76
I have also playtested a number of GURPS books - too many for me to count - and I have written a lot of articles for Pyramid magazine - although mostly in its earlier, 3rd edition GURPS days.
Douglas Cole and I co-wrote an article called "Grappling Old School" for The Manor #8
Finally I'm part of the Building a Better GM PDF, with an article entitled "Table Rules."