Opal

she/her

Timezone

America/new York

Language

English

Identity

LGBTQ+

Queer

Neurodivergent

Women/Femme Identifying

Game Designer

No Gen AI

About Opal

Hi, I'm Opal, a queer game-maker and storyteller. I've had a passion for shaping worlds and telling stories since I was a child, when my friends and I would play pretend on the playground, on the bus, and in our backyards. When I discovered my first TTRPG (D&D 3.5) and introduced my friends to it, we were all hooked. You mean we can keep playing pretend as adults? AND we get to roll all kinds of fun dice, too? It was an instant addiction for us all, and I haven't been able to stop running games since. In the 13 years since, my passion for the hobby has only grown, and so has the Tabletop scene! I've played in numerous game systems, from Blades in the Dark and Scum & Villainy to Dungeon World and Monster of the Week to good old D&D 5e, and I've run several full scale campaigns in both Pathfinder 1e and D&D 5e. I love roleplaying games because of the connections with others, the stories we tell, and the constant surprises that line the path to the former two. At the table, our outside lives fade into the background as we forge new, meaningful connections with our tablemates and enjoy moments too perfect to have ever been scripted that will live on forever in our minds. I hope to tell some memorable stories with y'all, and maybe even inspire the next generation of artists and storytellers to keep up the tradition!

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

$25 per session

Featured Prompts

I started running games because...

making art and telling stories is my favorite way of exercising my creativity. Connecting with other people over shared storytelling experiences has always been my jam, and TTRPGs just give me systems to adjudicate rules instead of it all being in our heads.

My favorite shows/movies are

always horror in some form. I just love the themes that are explored in horror, and I find that they are some of the most continuously inventive.

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

cooking delicious food, tutoring in math and science, or getting inspiration from books, movies, and video games.

How Opal runs games

My games are an exciting blend of challenging, crunchy combat encounters, interactions with interesting and authentically rendered villains and NPCs, and worlds that feel vast, ancient, and wondrous. I enjoy running games in dice based TTRPGs largely because of the randomness that the dice introduce. I'm rooting for the players every step of the way, but I believe that fudging dice corrodes the very point of using them in the first place. It is for this reason that I roll anything the PCs would see happening publicly and announce DCs/ACs/etc. as players are making their rolls; this leads to everyone making more informed decisions and results in some awesome moments of teamwork and coordination that otherwise wouldn't really happen. Besides, the players often have abilities to manipulate the dice; why should I step in on their fun? I love watching my players spend all their carefully acquired resources absolutely dismantling my carefully crafted encounters. But combat and dice are only one facet of these games, and while they are often the moments of greatest tension, they don't have the same weight unless the players are attached to each others' characters, the setting, and NPCs. For this reason, I love to create memorable characters, factions, and locations for my players and their characters to bond with, as those interactions are incredibly fun and each bond adds context and stakes for the danger faced by the PCs.

Opal's ideal table

My ideal table knows the system well and loves the tactical sides of games, while still deeply enjoying roleplaying and exploring the worlds that I create. I also really enjoy running games for optimizers, because I love seeing D&D 5e pushed to its limits.