Nikolae
he/him
5.0
(5)
Timezone
About Nikolae
Hi yall my name is Nikolae, I've been a fan of dnd and fantasy ttrpgs since I was a knee high to a grasshopper. I have about 10 years experience gming, mostly with dnd5e running homebrew campaigns. Lately Daggerheart 🗡️🫀 & Cloud Empress ☁️🪲 have been my main focus both as a gm and player. 🗡️ 🫀s narrative first style, collaborative focused mechanics and easy to homebrew system that highlights cinematic storytelling and creative play fits really well with my preferred style of GMing. I enjoying writing my own homebrew campaign frames but also jump into oneshots as a player whenever I can, usually trying a different class from the player side of the table. ☁️🪲is a rules light setting/system hack for the Mothership RPG engine that leans heavily into narrative flavor and simple mechanics to capture the weird ecological science fantasy aesthetic of it's primary touch stone, the 1984 studio Ghibli animated film "Nausicaä in the Valley of the Wind". It blends elements of pastoral fantasy adventure, post apocalyptic survival and cosmic scifi horror to create a setting thats wholey unique, + it has giant bone-eating psychic cicadas, bug chalk powered magic, airships & cloud cities.
At a glance
Less than a year on StartPlaying
7 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Inclusive, Teacher
Featured Prompts
I became a GM because
I wanted to turn all the characters and lore I had dreamed up but never would get to play as a player into the inspiration behind my own worlds, npcs and adventures
My favorite shows/movies are
Nausicaä in the valley of the wind, Kwaiidan, Throne of Blood, Princess Mononoke, Howls Moving Castle, Labyrinth, Adventure Time, Mystery Quest
When I'm not running games I'm...
Daydreaming about writting, gming or playing in games, mostly daggerheart
How Nikolae runs games
Most of my experience is in running homebrewed campaigns with a focus on creative play, player driven narrative, and weaving the most interesting shared story we can together at the table. My role is a lot more reactionary, interpreting dice rolls, reacting as the world and NPCs according to player actions and introducing the settings, characters and other inter-active points of interest within a scene so that players can decide how or where they wanna drive the story forward and what narrative threads that interest them the most that can be further woven into the story for them to explore. Tho I've mostly GMed 5e, my current interests both as a player and gm fall into smaller indie ttrpgs that focus on unique, simplified mechanics to drive interesting worlds and settings where narrative theme and flavor is the heart of the game. Daggerheart, Cloud Empress, Mörk Borg, Dread, Liminal Horror, Turnip28 just to list a few I really enjoy. The kinda weirdo who would hack a game I like to play it solo.
Featured Prompts
If my games were Movies they'd be directed by...
Hayao Miyazaki, if he wrote his scripts at 3:33 am in a cursed graveyard on magic mushrooms.
Nikolae's ideal table
My ideal table is one that is narrative focused, where the players are invested and engaged in the story were weaving together at the table. Players that drive the story forward through creative rp and actions and center their play style and builds on their pcs inspirations, themes and motivations with an excitement for the story will always have a place at my table.
Featured Prompts
I love it when a player
shares the spotlight in a way that draws in and engages other players to also add to and share in the moment, it really does make a world of difference at the table. Instead of everyone fighting to be the main character, show new players that fun collaborative storytelling is winning in ttrpgs
My table is not the place for...
enacting fantasies of sexual violence, erotic rp, bigotry, racism, facist ideology, homophobia, transphobia, torture, any kind of violence against children. Try to consider that what might be "fun" for one person might be a source of trauma or pain for others. 1 strike rule period
Nikolae's Preferences
Systems
Themes