About me

(This GM is not currently taking solicitations to run games) Do you ever think about just how much talking is done when we roleplay? Do you ever think about what you want to say, or what you're trying to say? Do you ever think about all the sensations we invite when we key into the shared imaginative space of these games? Do you ever wonder where you want to go, who and what you want to see? I'm Kiki, a lifelong GM fed on computer games like Knights of the Old Republic and Morrowind, books like Discworld and Earthsea, and the second major wave of anime coming to the US before discovering Dungeons and Dragons in the early aughts. I am someone just as addicted to Genre as I am to Drama, and I was drawn specifically to running games for the same reasons I wielded sticks like lightsabers and drew made up maps and pretend platformer games in my notebooks when i should have been taking notes in school. My professional experience has been as a millwright, machine operator, and naval nuclear machinist mate, which believe it or not has given me a very specific set of skills when it comes to running games. I know how to key in on detail, I know how to focus on specific challenges with precision and without ever forgetting the safety of others, and I always deliver when people put their trust in me. On top of this, engineers and nukes make for very demanding players with very little free time, and my style of GMing is molded to giving players as much of an experience with the time and energy that they can bring to the endeavor. More than anything, my firm belief is that whether players come in to a game with a 20 page backstory, a preset they found on a web search, a min max'd monster they stress tested in a simulated gauntlet, or an original character just a few consonants off from being a familiar figure in a popular media franchise, there is a story inside their mind and hearts and my most important job is to give them what they need for that to unfold in a way that entertains, surprises, and excites.

GM Style

My key strengths are adaptability and critical analysis. I have run games as crunchy and tactical as Lancer and Battletech, games as freeform as Amber Diceless and the quiet year, or as system focused and formalist as Burning Wheel and The Shadow of Yesterday. I love learning new systems and stripping them for parts and I love finding the "sweet spot" for a group on the Gamist/Simulationist/Narrativist triangle. I am a very communicative GM. I do everything I can to give players opportunity to be heard, to be in the spotlight, and to give me their wants and needs so that I can build their games to as exacting a spec as I can. I am a very illustrative GM. My world building is dense and it permeates the game as much or as little as the players want. I make spotify playlists, pinterest boards, I draw maps and I write literature. There is a near 100% chance that I will know about the game world's weather patterns, the deep time of its geological history and at least two of its creation myths, but the player can know as much or as little of that as they wish. I am a very collaborative GM. At the end of the day I believe the job of a GM is to find the story in the desires of the player. When a player character accepts a quest, or buys a specific weapon, or romances a specific npc, or when a player asks a specific question, they are making those desires known. The flipside of this is that collaboration also demands the highest standard of trust and safety. I adhere to and enforce the use of Lines, Veils, The Open Door, and Script Change and I describe the intent and deployment of these tools to players before anything else happens. You put on your PPE. You check your PPE. You keep the signatures in date. That way you can have Fun. On a slightly sillier note, I do have two unique GM abilities that are more party tricks than an application of style, but they describe one of my core strengths. One is that among my gm friends and colleagues, I am sought after for making guilty pleasure game worlds based on beloved media. If you ever wanted to play a game in your own personal version of Homestuck, My Little Pony, Gravity Falls or Howl's Moving Castle, I have run games for all of these, designed to spec but with all the serial numbers filed off. The other is even weirder: I can hear a single song and extrapolate out a mecha/giant robot show that uses it as a theme song. The main theme of these is that I love genre and kitsch, and use the aspects of what people love about what they read, watch, and listen to in my entire process of running games.

Games played

Game platforms used