Mark
he/him
Timezone
Language
Identity
About Mark
I got the red box basic set for Christmas in 1981 and I've been gaming ever since. I'm comfortable running any edition except 4th, and also the Fantasy Flight Star Wars, Genesys, and L5R games.
At a glance
Less than a year on StartPlaying
Featured Prompts
I got started GMing...
in 1982. I was 12. I'd fill sheets of graph paper with random rooms & hallways and fill them with monsters in a way that followed no pattern or logic whatsoever. Maybe a room has an orc guarding a chest, maybe it has three white dragons. I got better, I promise.
My favorite shows/movies are
Big Trouble in Little China Buckaroo Banzai Firefly/Serenity Any/all 80's sword & sorcerer movies All things Shaw Brothers and every single Godzilla movie
My favorite system of all Time is
Genesys. What makes me put this system above all others is the narrative dice and how success and failure become non-exclusionary. Advantagous failures and succesful crises can create some very exciting moments.
How Mark runs games
I like games where heroes risk their lives to achieve their goals. Combats are hard, characters can die (though not too often), and the reason you killed those bandits didn't have anything to do with how much xp they were worth. I like games where choices matter and actions have consequences. I also like games that have to pause a few times to let everyone catch their breath from laughing too hard. Just because the stakes are high doesn't mean it has to be serious. I'm also a strong believer in the Rule of Cool. The dice should never stop something amazing from happening. The door opens into a ten foot by ten foot room. You see an orc guarding a chest. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO????
Featured Prompts
My favorite trope is...
Ambiguous allies/enemies. They're helping us, but is that really a good thing? We must stop them, but are they really wrong?
Mark's ideal table
My main goal as GM is making sure everybody has fun. I don't believe there's any wrong way to have fun. But everyone has their own idea of what is or isn't fun. Whatever that Venn diagram looks like, a big part of my job is keeping the game in the center of it. I tend toward a mix of combat and non-combat where players are encouraged to think past the basic tropes. I also lean toward the irreverant side of the scale. I/ pretty hard to offend, and I don't have many taboo topics. Characters have personalities, combat isn't automatic, and the motive is more than just gaining xp.
Featured Prompts
I think it's a red flag when players...
have fun at the expense of other players' fun. A common example is working against the story. Sure, chaotic can mean disruptive and untrustworthy, but it can also mean unpredictable or impulsive. An impulsive character can be fun for everyone. A disruptive character can suck the joy from the room.
Mark's Preferences
Systems