About me

I am Kyle, the GameBastard, the main GM for the BastardQuest actual play podcast. We've got over 100 episodes, and have played 25+ different games. If you want to listen to me run a game, you can find us on the YouTube link on this page, Spotify, or wherever fine podcasts are distributed freely. I’ve played RPGs regularly for 30 years. Mostly, I've been the GM. I have tens of thousands of hours running games of all types. I started with D&D, of course, but have also played Rifts, Heroes Unlimited, Shadowrun, Star Wars (multiple versions), Fading Suns, Burning Wheel, Vampire, Werewolf, Dune, A Good Society, Alien, Achtung! Cthulhu, Marvel (FASERIP, Heroic, Multiverse), and way too many more. I've also been running games online since 2008 and understand this format well. I'm also definitely a human person. I went to college, got a job in marketing, married my wife, performed improv, had kids, started consulting, etc. But, mainly, yeah, I'm a gamer.

GM Style

As a GM, I see my role as the Inventor of Challenge. What the heck does that mean? First, I mean that I am not a novelist. I am not inventing a grandiose plot tapestry through which the players’ choices are narrated. I do create non-player characters, factions, locations, lore, and more with which the player characters can interact. However, what happens is very much up to those player characters. Second, the drama only happens when characters in any medium face challenges. This is the story of our player characters, right? Ergo, they must face tough challenges for this to be at all interesting. Any roleplaying game without a challenge, though they might wildly vary in type, for the players to face would be a boring one. Third, I do not craft solutions. Solutions are up to the players, and their characters. I specifically do not even try to speculate about what the players are going to do about a given problem. I’ve done that in the past, and I’m always wrong. These days I just assume the players will figure it out or not. When they do, I adapt, improvise, and get them heading to the next challenge that their characters will no doubt, somehow, overcome. Or fail. Fail? Yes, I believe in a consequential table. The dice fall where they may. The NPCs react according to their nature and resources. If the players miscalculate, if the (dice) gods abandon them, then failure can follow, and beloved PCs might die. It sucks, so why do it? Why not fudge the dice to success? I’ve run and played in games where failure was possible, and where it wasn’t. And, for my money, the ones where it was always an option were far more interesting and compelling than the ones in which it felt like we could do no wrong.

Games played

Game platforms used

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