Nick

he/him

5.0

(5)

Timezone

America/new York

Language

English

Identity

Queer

Neurodivergent

About Nick

I am a GM/DM with 10 years experience. I am an enthusiastic worldbuilder and storyteller with theatrical experience that prioritizes narrative and role play at my table(s). I strive to present games that have something for everyone; dynamic combat that requires creativity and strategy, fantastic locations that invite exploration, and NPCs with dimension for memorable social encounters. I believe that good collaborative storytelling requires vulnerability, and vulnerability requires a sense of safety. We are all different people looking for different experiences with TTRPGs and we each have different challenges and triggers. One of my strengths is emotional intelligence and I use this to create spaces where players feel comfortable being imaginative, silly, curious, dramatic, but most of all, heroic. When I run campaigns, I write the storyline using the character backstories as the foundation so that the events of the game offer the players regular opportunities to explore their characters. Whether your backstory is a few bullet points or several pages of events and characters, I strive to weave your ideas into the game in a way that satisfies and surprises.

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

Highly rated for: Inclusive, World Builder, Storytelling

Featured Prompts

I became a GM because

I love telling fantastic stories with cool people. I have been worldbuilding my whole life, but none of what I created was real until I invited people to come play in those worlds.

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

I am either working in the garden, cooking, or as a dad of four, hanging with my family.

How Nick runs games

As a GM, I like to reward daring, heroic, and out-of-the-box play. I do my best to incentivize creative problem-solving while still providing challenge and stakes. I put a great deal of effort and design into creating and presenting engaging NPCs that have motivations and goals. In my experience, this makes the game world feel much bigger than the adventurers and their quest. If the world feels big, then it’s more rewarding when they influence, change, or save the world. I believe that the narrative lows of TTRPGs feed the heroic victories that follow. High stakes, defeats, and tragedy for the CHARACTERS drives the drama that makes the victories so rewarding, but I never want my PLAYERS to experience distress or discomfort at my table. I am particularly good with making new players feel comfortable and not overwhelmed with what can be an overwhelming set of systems and rules. For the newer players, I’ll worry about the rules so that you can just focus on being creative and imaginative.

Featured Prompts

My favorite trope is...

I am a sucker for the end-of-session cliffhanger. There's nothing better than hearing a player say that they "can't wait to find out what happens" at the end of a session.

Rules are...

Rules are a necessary framework to create a shared understanding of how we navigate the storytelling together, but I'm always looking for opportunities to bend them for the sake of grand story moments.

Nick's ideal table

My favorite game experiences are ones where the players come to the table in the spirit of curiosity, creativity, and community. I love it when players take the people, places, and things that I present to them and they use them to tell a fantastic communal story.

Featured Prompts

I love it when a player

I love it when a player takes a big gamble or chooses the crazy, potentially dangerous action. When it could go really bad or swing things back in their favor, and we let the dice decide what happens next. Either way, it's going to be memorable.

My table is not the place for...

No discrimination, PvP, hogging the spotlight, or any other behavior that takes fun away from other players at my table. Let's be cool. Let's be nice. There's enough bad out there in the world. Let's make as much good as we can.