Sara

she/they

5.0

(26)

Timezone

Africa/harare

Language

English

Identity

Disabled

Women/Femme Identifying

About Sara

Hi, I'm Sara from Cape Town, South Africa and I'd love to play some RPGs with you. I began my TTRPG adventure by running the AGE system for some friends at the start of 2020, and then adding D&D 5e, Blades in The Dark, Numenera and Pathfinder to my wheelhouse, with most of my games now being run in D&D 5e. Running games in a variety of systems has given me a larger number of tools to draw from when playing. I love learning new techniques and adding them to my GM-style if they make the game better for my players. Growing up in a country with 11 official languages and all of the many cultures those represent, living with chronic illness, and having a background in education (10-13 year olds) has given me an appreciation for providing accessibility options and embracing diversity at my table.

At a glance

3 years on StartPlaying

422 games hosted

Highly rated for: Creativity, Knows the Rules, Teacher

Featured Prompts

My favorite books are

I love fantasy, and Brandon Sanderson is the king of fantasy writing. His magic systems are just so interesting. Off the top of my head, my favourite of his is Yumi and The Nightmare Painter. I'm also currently obsessed with Rachel Aaron's world-building in her Eli Monpress series.

My favorite system of all Time is

Blades in the Dark. It gets everyone straight into the action and keeps the focus on the narrative at all times. It allows for pure improvisation on the part of the GM and players, with the players being encouraged to add their input when deciding on consequences for failures and partial failures.

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

Prepping for my next game. Outside of TTRPGs I spend my time reading, playing board games, doing my darnedest to 100% my favourite games, and snuggling my cat and dog.

How Sara runs games

I love the collaborative nature of role-playing games, and so I embrace improvisation and saying yes to my players whenever possible. I encourage you to reflavour your character's abilities to suit your backstory and describe your actions in combat, or how a nat 1 or 20 for your character would resolve. I enjoy tying characters to the story we are playing out. My favourite sessions have a mix of stress sweating and laughing. I enjoy teaching new players, and have run games for second language English speakers. The roleplay arm of the game can be as important as you like it as I am happy to move between first and third person interactions. When it comes to combat I am happy to run it as tactically as suits the table, and have used the various optional rules to satisfy those that lean more towards war-gaming. There are tables that want to overcome deadly encounters, and there are those that want to feel like heroes, I am happy to provide you with either experience. I run a free session 0 before the start of any campaign where we all discuss our expectations, build characters and set up boundaries. I run my encounters through TaleSpire, and I have the Master Tier subscription on DnD Beyond, which will provide you with some of the Wizards of the Coast materials for character creation. My table is anti-racist, anti-sexist and LGBTQA+ friendly.

Featured Prompts

I prep by

I start by reading and highlighting the module, then looking see if things need changing based on the players/characters. I have a document for each session outlining goals, scenes, things to remember, time/dates, etc. Once I setup my music & maps in Foundry we're ready to go.

Rules are...

...meant to help everyone manage their expectations. If players know how an action will be ruled on they are more comfortable making decisions. That being said, if you want to do something really cool that isn't in the rules, let's negotiate.

Sara's ideal table

Featured Prompts

I am for a vibe that's...

...friendly and relaxed, but engaged. People should co-operate to achieve the party goals, but should also be free to make "bad" decisions if it feels right. Everyone should feel included with no one dominating the actions or conversation.

I love it when a player

Engages with the other players & the world. Asking questions of their party members, sharing the spotlight, letting a player who is having a moment take the lead. I love it when the PCs change and react to their experiences, and I enjoy hearing players' thoughts on how the character thinks & feels.

I think it's a red flag when players...

...have a character set in stone with a full backstory before knowing what campaign/setting/style they'll be playing in or the style of players they'll be playing with.