DVDM
he/him
5.0
(30)
Timezone
Language
About DVDM
My name is Anthony, and I LOVE being a GM. The first actual game that I was a part of was me trying to use the strategy guide for Final Fantasy Origins, the first game as Origins had 1 and 2, and convert it somewhat into a tabletop campiagn with my own spin on it. It actually went surprisingly well. I then did the same thing with Final Fantasy Tactics, which was more focused on placement and tactical combat. That turned out pretty good as well. Then some friends of mine, the ones who played my FF1 campaign, had me be a player for a 4e one shot. It was interesting, but it was odd to be on that side of the game. Then I tried to run a short adventure for 5e, as it was newer, and I haven't looked back since. The sheer enjoyment of being able to come up with things on the fly and react to whatever shenanganery that the players get into is exhilarating. The way I run my campaigns is mostly sandbox. I use a mix of 3rd party content, which I usually change up quite a bit to fit with the world better, and homebrew. There's some official content beyond SRD, but it is a small amount. Each campaign has a starting point at a different area in the world, and you get multiple hooks at the end for you to decide what you want to do and where you want to go. There are multiple adventure paths and sides to take and enemies to take down, but which you find and how you approach them are up to you and your decisions that can have small impacts or campaign spanning and changing consequences, be they good or bad.
At a glance
4 years on StartPlaying
199 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Storytelling, World Builder
Average response time: Under 1 hour
Response rate: 100%
Featured Prompts
I got started GMing...
Not enough space to put iit in here, but super short version was a series of interesting and surprising events, followed by a lot of encouragement from friends and family.
My favorite books are
Shadowhunter books by Cassandra Claire Star Wars Expanded Universe books Other Sci-Fi books that catch my fantasy. I seem to gravitate towards young adult books for supernatural/sci-fi books as they are usually written in an easy pick-up-and-read style.
When I'm not running games I'm...
Prepping, adding content, doing my janitorial job or spending time with my wife and 4 kids.
How DVDM runs games
I give a balance of potential RP and combat pretty evenly as far as encounters. Whether the players keep to that balance or not is up to them. Almost no possible combat encounters are forced combat, and not all social interactions are required to stay friendly if the players want to go a different route. I do try to do voice acting with the different NPCs, but I'm aware that I'm not a profesionally trained voice actor. I still try, and I believe that even what I'm able to provide in that is better than NPCs all sounding the same. As far as combat, some creatures are going to be smarter than others. Some will use hit and run tactics, while others will simply rush headlong towards the nearest player and go bashy bashy. Some combats might need the players to use terrain or objects or other things to swing a combat in their favor. Rule of cool has its place, but only to the extent of "common snese". There's no harm in asking to do random things. Some of the best memories of sessions are when players do off the wall things.
DVDM's ideal table
My tables have a large range. Anywhere from chaotic to serious. Sometimes, players don't always mesh as some want to be more chaotic while others play more serious. However, I don't do evil campaigns. By that, I mean I don't do murderhobo style games. I generally run sandbox-style games and only truly have one linear-style so far. I let anyone jion as long as they go through a session 0 and show actual effort with character creation and do more than "I have an idea, so I need you to just make it happen." I work together with players to work on story arcs for them, even creating classes, races and sub-classes that might work with an idea that they had wanted to try so that they can further feel invested. As far as what type of player fits, as long as you don't have intentions of tanking a campaign or taking over the entire game....or be an obviously evil PC, you can easily find a place at one of my tables.
Featured Prompts
If you're into ___, you're going to love my table
A laid back table where out of the box ideas are accepted and encouraged and the players all can add to the world in their own meaningful ways, some of which will stick around as canon for future groups.
I love it when a player
Takes initiative or asks to do off the wall things. Players who come up with interesting tactics and ways around situations other than "kill it" or "break it".
My table is not the place for...
Evil(murderhobo) PCs. Players who feel that, other than them possibly being a face of the party or something that is revolving around them story-wise, they need to control the sessions and be the main character of the entire campaign with the rest of the PCs being nothing other than support PCs.
DVDM's Preferences
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