Ethan

any/all

5.0

(5)

Timezone

America/los Angeles

Language

English

Identity

LGBTQ+

Queer

Published Writer

About Ethan

I am a professional game master with over seven years of experience running over three hundred sessions. My goal is to make TTRPGs available to everyone with campaigns specifically tailored to each group. I put the players first and will craft the setting and stories that you want to play in. Any world. Any genre. Any characters. I can make them come to life.

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

2 games hosted

Highly rated for: Creativity, World Builder, Storytelling

Average response time: Under 1 hour

Response rate: 50%

Featured Prompts

I got started GMing...

When my friends on the high school ultimate frisbee team convinced me to join their Lost Mines of Phandelver campaign as a player. I loved it so much that after a couple sessions, I started gming the same campaign for my other friends.

My favorite shows/movies are

Fullmetal Alchemist, Daredevil, Community, and Gravity Falls for tv shows. Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Princess Bride, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and The Suicide Squad (2021) for movies.

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

Cooking. My favorite meals to make are Stir Fry, Chicken Katsu, and Crunchwraps. I got into cooking in college to save money and now love it.

How Ethan runs games

I'm a highly versatile dungeon master who specializes in tailoring campaigns to the taste of the group. My campaigns have rich worlds to explore in whichever manner you prefer. I can do immersive role play, dungeon crawls, interactive puzzles, or any way that you like to play.

Featured Prompts

I deal with rules issues by...

finding the solution that is most fun for players and best for maintaining the health of the game. Rule of Cool works as long as there's clear communication about where the line is drawn. The rogue doing a sick wall run on a nat 20 is great as long as they don't expect it to work at will

My favorite trope is...

found family between people who have always been told they're unlovable by the rest of the world. Guardians of the Galaxy, One Piece, and The Mighty Nein are all great examples.

My games focus on...

The player characters' relationship with each other and the world around them. Plots are driven by the players' goals and the stakes are personal to your characters. I always incorporate backstories into the campaign.

Ethan's ideal table

My ideal table prioritizes cooperation between players that are just as interested in the other players' characters as they are their own. The stories and role play are serious conversations just as often as they're the two kobolds in a trench coat swindling a nobleman. My games almost always have elements of heroic fantasy but it's normally mixed with epic fantasy, intrigue, and/or swashbuckling. I want more than anything for the players to have fun at the table in a campaign that they want to be playing.

Featured Prompts

I love it when a player

makes bold and creative choices. I love when the druid gives away the powerful artifact to save their home or when the wizard asks if they can try to ready a ray of frost to make the enemy slip on the stairs. Decisive, unexpected actions almost always make the game more interesting.

I think metagaming...

is okay with restraint. I don't mind the party discussing combat tactics over the table when their characters wouldn't be able to hear each other, but I do mind if a player says, "this monster is CR7 with 105 hp with weakness to fire and it's ability doesn't work if you look away from it..."

My perfect party mix is

a group of diverse characters who both complement and contrast each other. Having overlapping classes is okay as long as the characters are significantly different in aims and behavior. I like when each party member has a distinct role but its not required