André

any/all

5.0

(8)

Timezone

America/sao Paulo

Language

English

French

Italian

Portuguese

Spanish

Identity

LGBTQ+

Hispanic/Latinx

Teacher/Educator

Multi-lingual

About André

Hi, my name is André, I’m 36 and I’ve been a DM for over 20 years. Fifteen years ago I started doing professional DM work locally on the side while also being a teacher, being hired by a local publisher from my country to DM on events to showcase their games. One of my biggest accomplishments on this front was a partnership with the Culture Department of our city to have a permanent weekly Game Point open to the public where we ran multiple games. Deciding to make Pro DMing a ‘full time job’, taking to professionally DMing online was a natural next step, and I've been doing so for the past five years, managing to gather quite a good community of players organically through the forums and groups I was a part of, as well as word of mouth. I've discovered Start Playing Games somewhat recently, and joined a couple games, talked to a couple of DMs and decided to start taking my Pro DM games here, so here I am.

At a glance

3 years on StartPlaying

Highly rated for: Storytelling, Inclusive, World Builder

Featured Prompts

I became a GM because

Because I was the one person in my friend group that enjoyed storytelling, even if by then I did not have the vocabulary to describe that. I continued GMing because I love storytelling, narrative theory, literature and everything around it.

My 3 systems I'd bring to a desert island would be

Fabula Ultima - I've come to adopt its Session 0 to all games I run, it's very good; Changeling: The Dreaming - I absolutely adore the delicate way it talks about escapism and fantasy; Castle Falkenstein - My first RPG love and the system that got me into DMing.

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

Reading, watching movies or series, playing something or studying. I love to learn new things, specially about narrative theory, literature or languages. I also love to discover and learn new RPG systems - which also means I have more RPG systems than I could ever be able to DM...

How André runs games

I'm a very descriptive DM that likes to make the game as immersive as possible to my players. I love to provide a rich experience so the journey of the game can be the best possible. I always do some tweaks to the previously stablished structure of the campaign to try to make it more personal for the players and more in-tune with what they expect and the characters they decide to play, so it's never just "an adventure the characters take place in", but THEIR adventure. I like to focus heavily on Role playing moments and exploration, thou I understand we all like to punch some bad guys from time to time, so I try to keep that in mind and keep a good flow of combat.

Featured Prompts

I deal with rules issues by...

trying to find a solution that is interesting and fun for the players. If a rule has multiple interpretations or is unclear, I will always try to find the alternative that is most beneficial to the players and the story (as long as it makes sense and doesn't break the game).

My games focus on...

roleplaying, character development, characters backstories and how they connect to the storyline. I like games that feel relevant for the players, because they feel relevant for their characters.

Rules are...

A good guideline to the storytelling and the flow of the narrative. They are the basis upon which the story is built, but they should not be used as a weapon against the players to stop them from doing cool things with their characters.

André's ideal table

My tables tend to focus on roleplaying with combat here and there because we all love to punch bad guys sometimes. I really try to always focus on the characters backstories and bring them to the fore - I want a game to be about the characters, and not simply be a story in which they are present. No world-ending event will ever connect more to people than that they feel personally tied to through their character's connections.

Featured Prompts

I love it when a player

supplies me with a rich backstory. I love to explore the themes, the connections, the NPCs. Big or small, multiple pages or a couple topics, give me a character backstory and I will try my best to make sure it's explored.

I think metagaming...

can have a place, specially when used to strategize or make sure everybody is ok with what's happening, to make sure the game flows well. Metagaming should never, however, be the engine the game runs by.

I think min/maxing...

Can be fun when done responsibly. "I do anything and everything alone because I'm a god" characters tend to take the fun out of the game for everyone involved, but "I do this one thing ridiculously well" characters are usually a lot of fun and great additions to a game.