Andrew

he/him

5.0

(8)

Timezone

America/los Angeles

Language

English

About Andrew

Howdy. I've been gaming since I was ten. My primary interests are TSR D&D, the Oldschool Revival, and Classic Adventure Gaming. After Covid I started running public open-table games at my LGS for three years and played with over 50 different people. I started running volunteer games at small conventions near me and in October 25 took up stewardship of a small oldschool gaming convention.

At a glance

4 years on StartPlaying

1 games hosted

Highly rated for: Creativity, Teacher, Knows the Rules

Average response time: 2 hours

Response rate: 100%

Featured Prompts

My favorite books are

The early loves that probably most influenced me are. Xanth, Redwall, Hitchhiker's Guide, and The Hobbit. as an adult I've been working my way through the Appendix N authors. My favorites, in order are Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E Howard, and Burroughs.

My favorite shows/movies are

Top 10 Movies: The Dark Crystal Labyrinth Heavy Metal Time Bandits Strawberry Mansion Dave Made A Maze Brazil Better off Dead Pacific Rim Tombstone

When I'm not running games I'm...

Playing in them. Either OSE or AD&D. I also collect and paint miniatures. Mainly old lead or new hand-sculpted ones in the style of 80s figs. Some day I'll get around to actually playing some Warhammer 3e with them. I don't PC game like I used to. I'll play the occasional run of some roguelike.

How Andrew runs games

I focus heavily on exploration and random generation; using dice as they were intended, as oracles. I sit like a wizened scribe, hunched over grid-paper, concocting simultaneously repulsive and magnetic underground environments dripping with instant death and glittering with the ancient coins that are going to pay the wages of your militia for the month. I run push-your-luck dungeon crawls in a persistent world for many groups at once. so you'll be playing alongside (against?) the players at my local LGS. Combat is fast and careless players often lose their character before the ink dries on their last will and testament. Sometimes bad luck leads to a no-win situation through no fault of your own. But if you can take that in stride, you'll get to exult in the feeling that comes from

Featured Prompts

I prep by

daydreaming in the car, doodling scraps of maps on grid paper, or adding ideas to my notes app. Then I put it all together and roll on random tables to add connective tissue. Then I file the adventure site away until player's wander toward it. Most of my prep never gets used at all.

My games focus on...

Players exploring the world and leaving their lasting mark on it for other players to see later on down the road. Usually by working together to get the most XP possible without their favorite character croaking and spending the treasure on their own ideas.

Rules are...

incredibly important. In a game with so few rules relative to its complexity, the rules are there to keep the players from feeling the referee is ever putting their finger on the scale when it comes to challenging players.

Andrew's ideal table

My table is usually large with many people rotating through. It's low commitment and very much relies on self-starting and engaged players. Since progression is not guaranteed and character death is likely for the careless, the party is usually galvanized against me and sometimes acts more like a thinktank to outsmart the scenario.

Featured Prompts

I love it when a player

Thinks about the world in dynamic ways. I've had players add dye to water sources underground to try and find the outlet. leave notes inside dungeons to fake out player parties following in their footsteps.

I think metagaming...

Is a myth. I'm of the opinion that it's silly for people to pretend that they don't know something and not act on it to the detriment of the party. it's a pet peeve of mine when the party is split, and players take time to repeat what I just finished describing in-character so "everybody knows"