Thursday, January 24, 2008

Meet Mike Roop



Mike grew up around Cleveland, Ohio, the youngest of 5 kids. In 1996 he met his wife-to-be, Dee online; they married and relocated to southern Missouri. Mike and Dee have 3 children (Samantha and twins—Pat and Perry) from her previous marriage, and now have 4 grandchildren. They have 2 children together, Aaron and Gavin. Mike and his family are active members of their local church.

Growing up, his parents encouraged and fostered creativity; he took to drawing and painting, singing and acting, reading and writing. Mike's imagination drew him into not only writing and creating characters in print by prose and visually by illustration, but expanded when he discovered Role-Playing Games. RPGs, a widely misunderstood hobby, managed to combine numerous elements of creativity and boundless imagination.

From 1993 to 1996, Mike was heavily involved in the Gaming Industry by way of involvement with his FLGS - Friendly Local Gaming Shop. He worked with a Veteran Gamer named Frank Koch who Mike still reveres as a mentor. They worked at, and organized, conventions, as well as ran Frank's store, Renegade Gaming Supply, which briefly co-opted space with a new Comic Book store, one of Mike's other loves. But, as all good things must come to an end, Mike's partnership with Frank sadly dissolved when Mike relocated over 800 miles away to southern Missouri.

In 2004 Mike met an online kindred spirit in the way of Brent Wisdom, a young pastor in California who also shared a love of RPGs. Brent had already created an RPG called Spiritual Warfare, a medieval fantasy game, which also had a Wild-West supplement for bringing the concept into the six-shooter era. Mike aided Brent with some editing and proofreading and then created a Modern Era supplement called Last Days. During 2005, Mike fell on some hard times - he lost his job and his internet connection - so Brent had to finish up and release the supplement on his own in 2006.

One of Mike's sisters back in Ohio introduced him to Shoutlife.com, a Christian social networking site. Almost immediately, Mike met Frank Creed and the two hit it off. Mike signed up to develop a Role Playing Game based on Frank's mythos cultivated in Flashpoint: Book One of The Underground.

Mike recently finished creating the Flashpoint RPG, based on Frank Creed's novel of the same name. He aspires to continue creating content for the game in the way of supplements based on the expected sequels, as well as create games for other Lost-Genre books as they become available. He also desires to complete a series of children's adventure books that he has been developing for his kids and grandkids.

1 comment:

Frank Creed said...

I'm amazed at the combined experiences that the Spiritual soujourns through which the TWCP authors have lived. Strength in diversity, and humble backgrounds.

Faith,
f