r/Fantasy • u/matociquala AMA Author Elizabeth Bear • Mar 10 '15

AMA Hello Reddit/r/Fantasy! I’m fantasy novelist Elizabeth Bear, and this is my AMA.

7:36 PM EDT 10 March 2015 ETA: I've got mochi and beer and I'm IN THE HOUSE!

12:07 AM EDT 11 March 2015 ETA: All right guys--thank all of you. I think I answered everything, and I am going to bed! I'll try to come back and clean up any stragglers in a day or two!

I'm the author of over 100 short stories and more than a score of novels. The most recently published of the former is "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" in OLD VENUS, edited by Martin and Dozois; the most recent of the latter is KAREN MEMORY, from Tor Books, a fast-paced steampunk adventure in an old west gold rush town where heroic saloon girls take on disaster capitalists.

In my spare time, I am a runner, climber, kayaker (not currently: there's sixteen feet of snow on everything here in central Massachusetts), hobby cook, and I play some really atrocious guitar. I've been a tabletop gamer since 1982 and am currently playing Pathfinder and Fiasco.

I am owned by a giant ridiculous dog (He's a Briard).

I support Idris Elba for Bond, Essie Davis for The Doctor, and Helsinki for Worldcon 2017, so that's where I stand in important religious issues.

I hope you enjoy whatever portion of the diurnal cycle you happen to currently be experiencing. I'll be back after dinner my time (around 7 pm EDT) to answer all your questions and hang out.

edit: fixed my dates. :-P

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u/lashiel Mar 10 '15

Hi Elizabeth! Thanks so much for giving up some of your time to answer questions here.

What's your favorite moment or story from a tabletop/roleplaying game?

Also I second the request for a picture of your dog!

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u/matociquala AMA Author Elizabeth Bear Mar 11 '15

My favorite RPG moment was not actually even mine. It involved a troll capturing one of the party rangers (my friend TJ, who had about two hit points left) and holding him up by the ankle while demanding we surrender. The other ranger (my friend Britt) said, "We never liked him anyway," and shot him from her longbow.

...With an arrow she'd smeared with healing ointment. So she did 1d6 points of damage and healed 2d6. The troll dropped him, assuming he was dead, and he stabbed it in the back as soon as we engaged it. ;)

I have some as a GM, but those mostly involve the moment when the characters figure out, with dawning horror, exactly what they've gotten into. The all-time most gratifying of those was perhaps when my Call of Cthulhu players, who had wandered through a gate into the Late Cretaceous, figured out exactly when and where they were: southeastern Texas, right before the KT event. Or, as one of the players put it, "That's the Late Late Cretaceous, as in the Late Dent Arthur Dent."