James
he/him
Timezone
Language
Identity
About James
I love creating stories and worlds with players! I have building the world of Mesila for seven years now, I have even thought down to the types of metal and vegetables! I build the world with an around my players, they end up filling in the histories and lore. Take a look at the travel brochure here (made before the war): https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LrcUtZYQWArTSKiVGa3 My campaigns feature a lot of home brew, including a whole list of new races. Feel free to take a look here and use them in your own games if you would like! https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LlRxzAUE8qWb5drj-bh
At a glance
3 years on StartPlaying
How James runs games
I try to balance the three pillars as well as I can. I feel like exploration isn't very well done in 5E so I made a deck of cards that the players draw from each day they travel determining events. This helps keep the road feeling unpredictable! I try to give the feeling of discovery by having each place have its own unique cultures and items. A character lost their arm recently, so I made a list of 5 prosthetic arms inspired by 5 different cultures in the world, each with special effects as well as drawbacks (for example the Runic Puppeteer arm connects the limbs together with strings connected to each joint. It grants the Rune Carver Apprentice Feat, but if you take slashing damage it cuts the strings and the arm falls slack and useless until you repair it during the next rest), the players are currently deciding which arm this character should get, and therefore which city they should be aiming to go to. They also plan to have it crafted out of a metal they bought while visiting a mining town in the desert, Pale Ysilite, which adds special properties when used to craft things. In terms of combat I love interesting scenarios, I want each combat encounter to feel like something the players have never experienced before. The most recent one was against a horde of zombies in an abandoned part of a city made from connected hot-air balloons. The zombies all only had 1hp, a low chance to hit and didn't do much damage, but if they hit you they had a small chance to infect you which had potentially permanent consequences. They were also being hunted by a giant flying zombie creature that they were not strong enough in the slightest to fight head-on, so they had to focus on fight quiet while fighting through the hoards, while also racing the clock to get the key and get back to their ship before a third faction they knew were coming arrived. The tension for that whole session was immense, and my players love it. I love great roleplay, I really try to encourage it by always getting as into character as I can. We have had some really amazing scenes between party members this campaign so far. I love political twists and turns, in the example with the zombies, one of the players did get infected and to stop the spread of the disease they had the choice to either betray their allies and side with a morally questionable character, or have their arm chopped off. They role played out the whole decision and the chop, and it was really really moving.