Denzel

he/him

5.0

(6)

Timezone

America/new York

Language

English

Identity

Hispanic/Latinx

About Denzel

Heyo! I’m Denzel, and I’ve been playing D&D 5e for the past 5 years, with the last 3 spent behind the screen as a DM. I currently run a weekly Sunday game from 7:30 to midnight, though sometimes we go well beyond that when the table is really locked in. I run my games through Roll20 and have spent years building folders full of custom stat blocks, encounters, and scenarios from the ground up. Most of my groups have ranged from 5–6 players, so I put a lot of effort into giving everyone their moment to shine while helping newer players get comfortable with the system and stay engaged alongside the rest of the group. I’m very familiar with what makes a game fun from both the player and DM side, and one of the biggest things for me is making sure choices and rolls matter. Passing a check should mean something, but failing one should matter too. It should not just end with, “Well, that didn’t work. Next.” Sometimes failure opens the door to a different approach, a riskier decision, or an unexpected consequence. Whether the players succeed or fail, it spurs forth the next door of decisions to make.

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

Highly rated for: World Builder, Visual Aid, Storytelling

Featured Prompts

I got started GMing...

... after, in my first long-term game, my party was TPK'd after a classic d100 "the bridge collapses, you die" happaned to us. Bet you can guess what adventure this is from, lol.

How Denzel runs games

I run a homebrew world that borrows inspirations from various Dark/High-Fantasy & Grimdark Media that sits in post-apocalyptic stage where the players, in the vast sea of the world and the monolithic factions and evils that have taken place, can influence the edge the worlds falls off of no matter how “small” they may be in comparison to it all. I love creating NPC’s that are more than just a face/name/quest and have depth to them can be peered into and molded by words & choices. I’m always making strategic combats with unique traits and encounters that rewards those that work as a team and use the environment/abilities at their disposal to their potential. Gone is “swinging da sword” aimlessly when sometimes that isn’t enough… Exploration in both lore and location is always something I believe should be rewarded… and so it is! The more you know, the more you can do! Knowledge is power, and knowledge feeds into everything by allowing more to be acted upon. The system I’ve run and partook in is only D&D 5E — but I’ve fully embraced D&D 2024/OneDnd/Whatever-They-Call-It as well as it becomes published into my game, too. The standard rules are flexed on occasion for enjoyments sake, but I like using them as the “standard” when needed so there’s a level of structure to build upon and not just ALL homebrew with my additions already there… such as new forms of spellcasting, new races (to be and see), and other systems and personal rules made to make the game more impactful and decisions meaning.

Featured Prompts

My games focus on...

... player input and drive, as its largely a sandbox that is open to their choices and whim to find the various potential plot hooks to take on (large and small) to add up to the greater plot.

Denzel's ideal table

My table is a stage to allow situations beyond "This Good / That Bad" to play out and shape a broken world by the players actions. Those with an open mind and willing & wanting to tackle the shades of grey before them will enjoy themselves the most. The vibe is rooted mostly by how the players choose to angle themselves towards world; be it a hopeful aura with hero's who will heal the land, or a more gleeful vibe of but yet another band of bandits squeezing more coin from the world.