Aaron

he/him

5.0

(8)

Timezone

America/kentucky/louisville

Language

English

Russian

Identity

Neurodivergent

Multi-lingual

No Gen AI

Active Military

About Aaron

My name is Aaron Taylor, and I have been a GM for 7 years now. A good friend of mine got me into the hobby in college; he hosted the game for a few friends of ours, and I fell in love with the hobby. Since then, I have been mostly a forever GM and went directly into the deep end by running a four-year-long traditional fantasy-style homebrewed DnD campaign, taking all of my 7 players from level 1 characters to level 15. I then ran a similarly homebrewed campaign for 2 years with a sci-fantasy twist and some time travel shenanigans. I am currently running two home games, one that has been going on for a year now and is mythic fantasy inspired, and the same group is going through the prewritten adventure Horror on the Orient Express in Call of Cthulhu. I have run a number of one-shots of varying styles and themes, including some of my favorite pre-written one-shots I've run in the Cosmere Roleplaying Game system, as well as a few horror-based one-shots in the DnD system and the Call of Cthulhu system. I typically run games for larger groups of 5-7 players, though I have run games for both smaller and larger groups, ranging from 4 players to upwards of 11 at a time, which is my record. I primarily run home games in person, but have more than enough experience with virtual game spaces to be proficient and have run a few games on such platforms during times of need. I have a more relaxed play style, and I love to encourage player interaction and give players opportunities to shine.

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

Highly rated for: World Builder, Beginner Friendly, Voices

$20 per session

Featured Prompts

My favorite books are

Just about any of the Cosmere books by Brandon Sanderson. His ability to worldbuild is something I reckon I should envy for the rest of my days. He is a brilliant author, and his books are phenomenal. I keep finding myself rereading them over and over again.

People are always surprised when I tell them

People are usually very surprised to learn that I speak Russian. This also bleeds into the fact that I can do a wide variety of accents and dabble a fair amount in voice acting, though I would hazard to call myself anything resembling a professional.

The three words my players would use to describe me are...

I had a lot of fun asking this of my players! The most common word was "Creativity/Creative"; next most common was "Adaptive"; and then lastly, "Thorough". I also got more than a few cheeky responses, including insane and over the top. All in jest, of course!

How Aaron runs games

As a GM, I love to make great stories out of interactions that are possibly mundane or could be considered straightforward. I love to encourage players to think outside the box and come up with solutions I would never consider in a million years. As far as my personal preferences are concerned, I lean much more heavily on roleplay and storytelling over combat. What this means to me is that combat is often story-driven rather than random encounters made to simply waste time. That being said, I do think combat should be interesting, tactical, and challenging when possible, with characters having real possibilities of consequences. Generally, I don't like giving players plot armor, but that goes for the NPCs as well. Just because I think the story could be more interesting if the BBEG lives; if the players defeat them, then the story has simply been written as such. I am also a major fan of puzzles and intellectual games where solving a puzzle isn't reliant on luck of the dice, but can be solved by thinking of the situation and working together with the other characters. I prefer to write my own games and don't like to lean on the work of pre-written adventures when possible. I have run pre-mades before, and although they can be fun, I don't believe they have the same amount of free agency for the players or the GM for that matter as a homebrew world does. As far as my homebrews are concerned, I am most comfortable with traditional fantasy settings, and tend toy stay in my lane.

Featured Prompts

I prep by

Listening to a lot of obscure indie music and getting inspired by the craziest things! I usually take that inspiration and figure out how to use it to create grand, epic stories for my players. Then it's just a matter of writing it out and creating what art is needed!

My games focus on...

They tend to focus mostly on character story arcs and how they can be incorporated into the game's plot and story. I love a narrative-forward game where even combat happens for a story reason and isn't just random.

Rules are...

Rules are often taken with a certain amount of discretion in my experience. The name of the game at the end of the day is to have fun, but the rules are there to make sure everyone gets their fair share. That said, I do enjoy bending the rules slightly for the sake of cool and story purposes.

Aaron's ideal table

I prefer to run a very deep and story-driven game. The players who have had the most fun with my games are those who love getting deep into the characters they have created, discovering the intricacies of the world I've created, and enjoying a dynamic, evolving narrative. Players who are less suited for my table tend to prefer a lot of combat and/or focusing on min-maxing. I like to meet my players where they are in terms of combat, and while I don't tend toward combat, I love it when it is narrative-driven. The general vibe so far has been fairly fun-loving and laughter-having, but my tables tend to be very good at locking in and getting very deep into the story and roleplay of the narrative.

Featured Prompts

If you're into ___, you're going to love my table

Mythic fantasy, deep stories, intricate worldbuilding, large-scale mysteries, world-ending hazards, wibbley wobbley timey whimey stuff, tough and well-thought-out puzzles, large overarching stories, character-driven narratives (the list goes on a bit tbh)

I love it when a player

Gives me a reason not to have anyone roll a die. I am a huge proponent of roleplay-first, dice-second games. If you give an in-character speech that is truly moving, I don't see the sense in having the possibility of a crit failure get in the way of truly fantastic roleplay. I love creativity!

I think metagaming...

Can take the fun out of the game for almost everyone involved. Obviously, some knowledge is either intuitive or known from prior games. I try to add custom monsters/mechanics to keep it interesting, but even with the story, it is often more fun to see where it leads without going around it.