Tom

he/him

5.0

(8)

Timezone

Utc

Language

English

Identity

Published Writer

Artist

Educator

Game Designer

No Gen AI

About Tom

I've been running and designing tabletop games since I was a teenager, so over twenty years ago! I'm now an artist, filmmaker and game designer, and my published games include Dead Minutes, a one-shot game about the dead trying to restructure hell, and Gackling Moon, a fantasy gazetteer made with OSR blogger Patrick Stuart/False Machine. I'm experienced with many different games systems and my entry point into the scene was through the OSR, although these days I tend to have a preference for fiction-first systems like PBTA, Dungeon World and Blades in the Dark. My GM style is quite influenced by Actual Play podcast Friends at the Table, and I really enjoy getting my players involved in critical world creation and making interesting dramatic choices for their characters. I can happily spend hours doing worldbuilding on my own, but I've found that it's much more enjoyable to do it together. I have a background in theatrical improv, teaching, and large group simulation exercises, and I'm happy wrangling a collection of players of any size. I really enjoy working out what an individual player gets excited about in a game, and figuring out ways to work more of that into a story, tailoring it to the group's interests. At a more meta-level, I'm also involved in academic Games Studies, and spend a lot of time thinking about games formats - so participating in regular sessions of any type of game, with any type of player, is always rewarding to me!

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

Highly rated for: Beginner Friendly, Inclusive, Creativity

$10 per session

Featured Prompts

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

digging an elaborate series of tunnels under my house

How Tom runs games

In one of my games you can expect a healthy amount of player authorship over the world and what it contains, fast paced stories with memorable and unique characters and creatures, tricky moral decisions, unexpected consequences, and horror, humour, politics and intrigue. Maps are always left with blank spaces and failure is always interesting and moves the story forward. I enjoy playing with genre tropes and twisting them, putting together capers and ridiculous schemes, and being a fan of the players but not pulling punches with their antagonists. In terms of fiction I'm inspired by writers like Ursula K LeGuin, M John Harrison, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Terry Pratchett, Lawrence Miles, Charlie Jane Anders and many others. My RPG running ideas draw on people in the space like Patrick Stuart, Scrap Princess, Arnold Kemp, Austin Walker, and the Ranged Touch gang.

Tom's ideal table

I think a good table has a mix of play styles interacting in emergent ways - from the competetive to the narrative player. A lot of my playing experience has been with casual or first time players, and I'm very comfortable onboarding new players and meeting them where they are. Conversely, if you've got creative ideas, a mean head for systems and an appetite for building a long and involved storyline, this is the place to come!