David
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About David
Hello everyone, I'm David, a published TTRPG author and developer. I've been running Dungeons and Dragons since D&DNext, the playtest for 5e. I want to bring my award winning writing to you and make your next campaign one you'll remember for years to come.
At a glance
Less than a year on StartPlaying
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I got started GMing...
I got my first product, the 4e Red Box off ThinkGeek a million years ago. I didn't have anyone who wanted to play so I just read everything. Latter, when the 5e PHB dropped, I had a group who wanted to play, and I made my own monsters with no rules support for that at all!
My favorite books are
The Malazan Book of the Fallen, The Dresden Files, The Mercedes Thompson Series, The Murderbot Diaries
When I'm not running games I'm...
I'm writing them! I am a freelance writer and developer on many games, including 5e or 5e adjacent third party companies. I'm also listening to podcasts, watching movies, and always keeping an eye out for new ideas to fold into a game.
How David runs games
I usually run high concept and political games, with a lot of roleplay where your choices, the ones you make and more often than not the ones you don't, matter. These are serious games, of course, but there is also a place for levity. I usually pace my sessions by the encounter, be that skill challenges, combats, or social interactions.
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I deal with rules issues by...
hearing everyone out, why they want the rule to work they way they want it to or believe that it works that way, and then weight that against what I need the story to do and the story for everyone else. Usually, I'm fine with something if it doesn't break the game too much.
My favorite trope is...
The character who should be evil, used to be evil, or whose power has an evil source but uses it for good instead. Think Hellboy, Raven from the Teen Titans, Ghost Rider, or even Xena.
Rules are...
Suggestions, guidelines, and if they don't fit what I'm trying to do or get in the way of the fun of myself or my players, they are the first thing up on the chopping block.
David's ideal table
I am here to facilitate the fun of everyone, including myself. I love a game where we are in character as much as possible. Now, I myself are no good at doing voices and all that jazz, but if you would like to take on an accent or voice other than your own while roleplaying your characters, I'm down for that 100%, but you don't have to either. I expect players to be attentive, and know what they want to do on their turns when it comes around to them, and know that their actions, or inaction, has consequences on the game.
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I think min/maxing...
Is fine if that's how you approach the game. If you want to be super good at the things your character is good at and terrible at everything else, go for it! Some people are like that in real life and I don't know why the fictional characters we inhabit can't be like that as well.
My perfect party mix is
Something where every role is filled, so that there is something that your character adds to the party, a specialty that you can do that they can't, so you all get a time to shine.
My table is not the place for...
Being a murder hobo. I get it, you want to blow off some steam so why not just stab every character you meet, but my stories are such where there are consequences for such things. Think like Skyrim, if you played that, kill a guard, every guard comes out to take you out. All of them, which isn't fun
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