Eric "Low Key"

he/him

5.0

(6)

Timezone

America/new York

Language

English

Identity

Black

Teacher/Educator

About Eric "Low Key"

My name is Eric Johnson, and I have been playing RPGs for about 40+ years, so nearly the beginning, and 95% of that has been as Game Master. I live in New York City, and I find gaming to be a wonderful and delightful way for people to get together as a community and cooperate for the sole purpose of having a great time. This is my only bottom line. I tend towards campaigns that feel more like Game of Thrones, or a Michael Moorcock epic, or the grit of a Bernard Cornwall historical fiction. There is a whimsical aspect that appears, but after many decades of gaming I find it must come naturally. I have run games for people from ages 12 to 80 but mostly run games for adults. My ideological preferences will show up in my games; authoritarians, the sexist, uptight, and bigoted will be villains. But I don't like pure black and white battles and prefer nuance. For that same reason I love myth and lore. The past few years I have found Mesopotamian myths particularly fascinating. I have definite strong views on the various Abrahamic religions which creeps into my games as well, see the 'Life of Brian', 'Good Omens', and Elaine Pagels work on the Gnostic Gospels, and you will get my perspective. My humor can be dark at times, but I am not. I want to make sure you’re comfortable in game and leave with a smile. I want to tell a story with you and the others who play, so let’s see what we make...

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

Highly rated for: World Builder, Storytelling, Voices

Featured Prompts

I became a GM because

I love multitudes of NPCs, clues, locations galore, elaborate plot line with twists and turns. We may start off in a political intrigue, and then find our way into cosmic horror. Less by design, and more of where the winds take us.

My favorite books are

Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander" series (all of them) Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Wizard of Earth Sea" John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" series Paul Kriwacezek's "Babylon" David Graeber and David Wengrow "The Dawn of Everything" Michael Moorcock "Elric"

My favorite system of all Time is

Generic Universal Role Playing System balances function, simplicity and depth the best. It is also very flexible as I have been able to adopt it to any world that I have wanted to run games in.

How Eric "Low Key" runs games

I pride myself on creating complex plots with many NPCs, with morally ambiguous villains who feel genuine. Even my most nefarious antagonists have their motivations, even if they are objectively evil. I portray characters across the full spectrum of beliefs, creating a rich, believable world where your choices truly matter. My campaigns will shift through different genres. My fantasy campaign went from political intrigue, to horror, to classic dungeon crawling, wilderness survival, and outright pitched battles. A Traveller game started as a guerilla insurgency, ambushing trucks and stealing guns, but developed into space battles and confronting a super - AI. I seek people to be creative in their solutions; you are not always presented with ‘balanced’ confrontations. Arguing over rules is very dull! I never let too many rules get in the way of a good time, but I do love maps, minis, and keeping things on scale. People are most comfortable when they know the rules being followed and are not ambushed. I like house rules and to kibitz with systems, but I will let you know in advance, as I will not treat a game system as sacred. I like things balanced between good models and simplicity in execution. I am an organized DM; stats of my NPC are at easy reach so there are no long pauses to calculate. I urge my players to do the same. Keeping the game moving is all of our responsibility. In short, I like games with 2 to 4 inspired players! It is for me a qualitative experience

Featured Prompts

I prep by

Writing dozens of pages, finding tons of images, and ignoring half of them while we play out the story together.

My games focus on...

Society and its struggles

When it comes to voices

They come to me out of the blue.

Eric "Low Key"'s ideal table

People that like to role play, are not afraid to get in character and exaggerate themselves. Out of character they should be easy going with each other, have a sense of humor, as well as a sense of irony about the world. We all need to have empathy but not uptight. Have a capacity for harsh story lines, and don't mind some occasional savage levels of violence.