Jared Schooley

he/they

5.0

(6)

Timezone

America/chicago

Language

English

Identity

LGBTQ+

Disabled

Neurodivergent

Game Designer

Parent

About Jared Schooley

I'm a longtime resident of Chicago and its neighboring city, Evanston. My background is in writing, research and advocacy, and I try to bring that special mix of dramatic storytelling, attention to detail and human connection to everything I do. I've been playing tabletop games for over a decade and have found myself most often in the Forever GM role, which is where I'm most comfortable. I started out, as with many, in Dungeons and Dragons, somewhere between 4e and 5e, and have spread my wings to other systems -- Call of Cthulhu and its sister system Delta Green in particular, but I love Swords of the Serpentine, PbtA systems, gonzo games like Unknown Armies, and lots of brief one-shot or GM-less systems too numerous to name. My GM style is player-forward and collaborative, with fun coming first and rules as the lever for appropriate challenge and tension. My true love is horror, and I love bringing that mood to the forefront in my games, whether running investigative horror, urban sandbox, or narrative-first gameplay. I tend to run Theater of the Mind with a shared conspiracy board, and I've developed a silly little collaborative system for tracking player engagement and character interest that focuses on ensuring the story has its hooks in the players and threads aren't forgotten -- my project management skills come home to roost. I genuinely love this hobby, not because I want to drive stories, but because of the looks on players' faces when I surprise or delight. :)

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

Highly rated for: Inclusive, Beginner Friendly, Creativity

$10 per session

Featured Prompts

My favorite books are

China Mieville's Bas-Lag series/Kraken/Embassytown, Ruthanna Emrys' Innsmouth Legacy series, Lost Gods by Brom, Jason Pargin's John Dies at the End series, Philip Fracassi's Behold the Void, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, Kill Six Billion Demons, Monstress, Rat Queens, Dorohedoro, Hellboy

My favorite shows/movies are

The Thing, Incantation, Suspiria (2018), Possession (1981), The VVitch, Hereditary, Evil Dead (2013), Skinamarink, Annihilation, The Void, The Empty Man Severance, The Good Place, The United States of Tara, Watchmen (TV), Lost, The Golden Girls, The Haunting of Hill House, Lovecraft Country

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

parenting a toddler, writing something dark and fantastical, grilling in inappropriate locations, dancing to a truly schizophrenic playlist, doing advocacy work, and conducting research across biomedical and social science disciplines.

How Jared Schooley runs games

I like a good mix in my games, but combat is the least important to me. I value high player agency, investigative games, lots of roleplay, survival (but not so much the crafting bits), the occasional puzzle, and if there is combat, I value grounded, narrative, tactical choices that don't necessarily exist on a traditional map -- the environment is a character for me. Really I'm looking to tell a good story together, so that means rules are secondary to what's interesting and fun storytelling. I love grounding primary world games in their historical and political roots, and my engagement tracker system is built around knives, motivations and critical questions. A 300 page campaign book will never be played as-is in my campaigns, and my current goal is to bolster my skills in sandbox play while keeping players interested and invested. I'm less interested in heroic fantasy and more interested in making characters, and by extension their players, feel uneasy, off-kilter and tactically creative. Anticipate a mix of scares and laughs, lots of silly NPC voices, and unique elements mixed with enough referential material to fill a bathtub.

Featured Prompts

If my games were Movies they'd be directed by...

Guillermo del Toro, with executive producers Ari Aster, Robert Eggers, John Carpenter, and Wes Craven. Director of Photography either Greig Fraser or Chivo Lubezki. Score by Clint Mansell and Colin Stetson.

My favorite trope is...

WHERE'S THE EXIT? WHERE IS IT? IT WAS JUST HERE. I SWEAR WE JUST PASSED THAT DOOR. THIS ROOM LOOKS JUST LIKE THE ROOM I LOST MY VIRGINITY IN. I NEED TO RECORD THIS ON MY ANALOG VIDEOCAMERA. DID YOU HEAR THAT? WHAT WAS THAT? HELLO? OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT?? THAT'S NOT A PERSON!!!!! RUNNNNNNNNNN

Rules are...

more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules, he says in a West Country accent. Approximations of physics/metaphysics to reduce table bickering and levers to increase difficulty and tension. Important where they're important, and also, dialectically, potential obstacles to having fun.

Jared Schooley's ideal table

Funny and irreverent but able to LOCK IN when tension rises. Heavy roleplayers who are willing to make bad decisions for the metaphorical gram. Respectful, unbigoted and, in an ideal world, aggressively leftist. Knowledgeable and willing to ground their characters in the world. Collaborative and cinematic with strong stomachs and a love for the artistry of storytelling. Multicultural and open to learning from one another. Curious, compassionate and emotionally self-aware. Bonus points for being freaky little freaks.

Featured Prompts

I am for a vibe that's...

Dark, atmospheric, psychologically impactful, with just the right amount of humor to keep it from being 100% bleak (More humor than Possum and less humor than Evil Dead II). Everyone at the table with high buy-in, genre awareness and low impulse control.

I love it when a player

surprises me by doing something informed by their character's state of mind, the environment, and what makes a really cool scene. Give me "I juke toward the rotten bridge" over "I shoot again." Give me "I start reading the questionable ritual aloud while the others buy me time" over "I hide."

My table is not the place for...

bigots, players that just want to puppet their blorbo over making connections though collaborative art, or manananggals.