James (DM_Shroud)

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How James (DM_Shroud) runs games

My Style Manifesto is thus, (Adopted from the Professional Game Master Society) 1. Be courteous, and respectful, with a well-organized presentation for my gaming clients. 2. I will not cancel game events without prior notification to my Game clients. 3. I will not make complicated financial arrangements with my clients. Return policies can be complicated– just keep it simple. 4. I will be courageous, and write the best scenarios I can. I will use technology wisely wherever it improves the specific game at hand. 5. Each of my games is like a tree. I will do the work required to make it grow, and prune whatever is dead to keep the game lively. 6. I will endeavor to be entertaining. I will use voice, as well as improvisational description, and literary motifs to craft a better performance. 7. With everything above in mind, I will have fun in my role as a Professional Gamemaster. * * * * I am an Actor/Role-player as a player and DM. I served in the US Navy, and aided in the design or editing of World War 2, and Vietnam-era wargames, so I am well versed in Tactics and Strategy at all levels. I love to do maps of all scales- from taverns to entire continents and fantasy and sf worlds, solar systems and star sectors using the best cartography software available. I like to prepare handouts, bios, backstory histories, character pictures, and lore handouts to support the game campaigns that I run. I generally run games in a gritty/realistic style, including critical hits, disabling injuries, encumbrance, and weather effects of cold, heat, snow, etc. thirst, and starvation. Combat happens, but it is usually very deadly, and should only be engaged in by choice, to support the job at hand, not just for combat-as-drama. It is too easy to lose characters that way. GM Preferences: Combat Frequency Casual: Story-based combat encounters, with logical side encounters, and minimal random encounters. Combat Style Advanced: Encounters exploit mechanics, strategy, and movement. Failure to overcome these challenges results in losses or death for your character. Story and Significance Story-Driven: Encounters relate to detailed plots and conflicts. Key details of the encounter could mean the difference between life and death. Story Type Intrigue: I design Encounters around shifting political loyalties and uncertain motives. Enemies in encounters may not show their true faces or may not be obvious. AND Adventurer: I design Encounters around mysteries and strange events. Untangling these stories will provide much-needed information, as the campaign progresses. Treasure Importance Casual: Loot is uncommon. Magic or high-tech items are sparse to rarely found, but powerful. Surviving as an adventurer is a dangerous life, sometimes forced on you by circumstance. Game Pace Easy Going: The game is always moving forward with overlapping events, adventures, or quests, but I still space events out. There may be time for training and research, but you never know what might come up next week. If an opportunity comes up, you might not want to turn it down, as it may be a while before the next knock on the door comes. Combat encounters can happen but infrequently (perhaps 30% of a scenario). Mass battles are rare. I don't want to take up story time with mass battle game mechanics, often, I'll rule this by Fiat, common sense, or have key scenes that involve the player characters that determine the direction of any large battle. Advancement Easy Going: Leveling is slow, to keep survival edgy, without a lot of hit points gained, for setting reasons. Players can expect to level several times in a year of the game depending on the events of the game- the typical character will level during an average of every 4 to 6 adventures, based on milestones, for a level-based system like 5th Ed. D&D. Game Play Tone Serious: We play the game and only the game. No dick jokes. Limited puns. Limited out-of-character comments. We are all adults here. Metagaming Tone Easy Going: Everyone tries to remember not to use real-world knowledge or decide actions based on what page the Monster Manual is open to currently. The party comes together semi-organically with an overriding theme.

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James (DM_Shroud)'s ideal table

My ideal table welcomes players who crave immersive atmosphere, ethical ambiguity, and emotional depth. If you enjoy Space opera, gritty survival, tech-noir stories, broken dystopias, and questions that cut deeper than a monowire blade, you’ll feel right at home. I love to run Space opera games, (Traveller, Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune), as well as Dark Future dystopias: Bladerunner, and Cyberpunk Red, as well as other Cyberpunk Games. Expect cinematic pacing, gritty detail, and theater of the mind over crunchy tactics. We use Roll20 with immersive soundscapes to pull you into the alien worlds, shipboard life, or dark Tech-noir near future of rain-slick streets and neon-lit seedy back alleys. My table isn’t about min-maxing—it’s about moments that haunt you. Perfect for players who thrive on character, consequences, and the atmosphere of uncertainty, holding your breath for the next combat, but for now, enjoyinging the quiet, mundane conversations with your team at times between action sequences.

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