The Man Named Mike

My name is Michael Curtis and I’m one of the heads that make up Three-Headed Monster Games. I spend most of my day-lit hours toiling over old maps, aged letters, and arcane manuscripts in my profession as an archivist. Once the sun goes down, I find myself doing same thing as a writer, designer, and gamer. I’m better known on the web as Amityville Mike, the owner and sole proprietor of the blog, The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope, from which I explore my return to the hobby of role-playing after a long sabbatical. In addition to blogging about this hobby of ours, I’m a semi-regular contributor to the fanzines, Fight On! and Knockspell, served as one of the judges of the One Page Dungeon Contest, work on my own homebrewed megadungeon, and now help chart the course of Three-Headed Monster Games. My first professional role-playing game book, The Dungeon Alphabet, will be published in September 2009 by Goodman Games.

I’m one of gaming’s prodigal sons, having left the hobby during my college years when the distractions and responsibilities of real life became too complex to easily allow time for role-playing. The hobby and the industry that supports it were undergoing a change during that time as well, and I had grown uninterested in what was being produced. I might still be wandering out there in the wilderness had it not been for my discovery of the gaming movement now commonly referred to as the Old School Renaissance. Once I saw what was going on with the OSR, I realized that I had found my tribe again and jumped back into the hobby with an enthusiasm I hadn’t felt in many years.

After my return, I had the pleasure of getting to know David Bowman and Michael Shorten. Our early collaborations on the One Page Dungeon idea proved that we worked well together, and it wasn’t long before we were bouncing ideas off of one another when working on other projects. It was from this successful collaboration that the idea for Three-Headed Monster Games was formed. Our work was vastly improved by being able to reach out to others for assistance, guidance, and creative criticism. We were certain that other beginning writers, designers, and artists could benefit from a similar network of collaborators. Three-Headed Monster Games was created to serve as a banner under which a network could form.

We’re just starting along on our journey, but we’ve already got some good things coming in the near future. It is our hope that others will join us on our trip and help the Three-Headed Monster Games network of “gamers helping gamers” grow. As the old adage says, “Two heads are better than one,” and Three-Headed Monster Games plans to go one step better to help other starting game writers, designers, and artists create quality work for the benefit of Old School gamers everywhere. Won’t you join us?