Joel

he/him

5.0

(3)

Timezone

Australia/sydney

About Joel

Hi! And welcome to my horror / sci-fi RPG death cult :) I’m a musician turned social worker turned researcher turned lawyer, but all throughout that time I’ve been playing role-playing games (as a GM and player) on and off again. I now fear I may be turning into a GM again, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. While I do love me some DnD, nothing scratches the itch like some high stakes, high concept, high cortisol, horror/sci-fi role-playing (like Alien RPG, Call of Cthulhu, Mothership etc). We’re all going through a tonne of existential dread right now, so why not stare back at the abyss and channel all that trauma into a fun game night of collaborative story-telling. Come, join me. Succumb :)

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

4 games hosted

Highly rated for: Storytelling, Sets the Mood, Creativity

Featured Prompts

I became a GM because

People are always surprised when I tell them

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

doin' stuff.

How Joel runs games

I usually stick to relatively basic, rules-lite, role-playing game systems. Just enough to get the experience going and for things to be balanced and fair between the players. Then I’ll add more depending on player preference. I want to explore concepts and tell stories more than getting caught up in complicated combat tables and statistics. You're still going to need to use your wits and cunning to survive though. Every session is designed to be survivable and every victory will be well-earned. The idea isn’t merely to put you through horrific scenarios for the outer gods’ amusement, but to be a vehicle for you to explore the philosophical concepts brought up by these situations; and to feel the rush and intensity of these genres, where the resources are low and the stakes are high. You feel like way more of a hero if you’re the sole survivor of a doomed mission for once and went through a lot of stuff to get there. I usually stick to these systems pretty rigidly to give the vibe that I’m an impartial arbiter of a cold, uncaring, deterministic universe. It’s also because I want players to succeed or fail because of their choices and dice roles, rather than any of my arbitrary whims. You’re in control of your own narrative, for better or worse. Having said that though, I’m also a massive hypocrite and realise rules were made to be broken for the sanctity of player fun. So we can home-brew our own stuff so you get the most out of your experience.