Steven (malpanda)

he/him

5.0

(1)

Timezone

America/new York

Language

English

Identity

Neurodivergent

Published Writer

About Steven (malpanda)

I was born in Bangor, Maine a few months before Stephen King’s first novel came out. My mother was a teacher and encouraged my dreams of being a writer. I’ve been an avid comic book fan since 1979. The first rpg I ever owned or learned was the original Marvel Superheroes game, followed by Gurps and Toon. I didn’t have anyone to play them with, but I made lots of characters. In college, I joined a table gaming club, met many lifelong friends, and began playing lots of roleplaying games. The first rpg I played properly was Champions. I’ve been running games since 1994. After college, I wrote an article for Pyramid magazine that got accepted…shortly after Pyramid stopped publishing on paper. You can still find it outside the paywall if you go to the Steve Jackson Games website. I’ve also been published in the webzine Fudge Factor, several literary journals and a lovecraftian superhero story in the anthology _Cthulhu Unbound_ (volume one). Around 2019, I began to experiment with VTTs as an alternative to the hours of driving it took to get five or six friends in one place each week to game. ...Then Covid happened. I have recently been running a weekly Vampire the Dark Ages campaign that is now over 180 sessions long. I'm always looking for ways to further improve my games, whether through personal experiences, written sources, videos, or podcasts. I’m always coming up with new ideas and usually saving them up for an opportune time, like today.

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

2 games hosted

Featured Prompts

I became a GM because

I love creating, but art is lonely work. Story Games are one of the rare experiences where you can get instant reactions, real time collaboration, and test those ideas against random chance. Just knowing there's going to be players waiting to discover what I've made for them motivates me.

My favorite system of all Time is

Gurps is my go-to for realism or when skills and disadvantages matter most, HERO System for detailed powers, Fate for tropes and vibes and story beats, Toon for silliness, and for grimdark settings where life is cheap-- also Toon. Like cream in my coffee. why die once when you can die over and over?

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

working my job (manual labor at retail store, but it gives me time to think), petting the cat that has claimed me, texting news of my day to the girlfriend that has claimed me (9 years now and counting), reading (books, comics, websites that answer today's curiosity), writing today's inspiration

How Steven (malpanda) runs games

My game-mastering style is gentle, patient, flexible, eclectic, and creative. I prefer stories to emerge from improvisation and collaboration rather than rigid narratives. Player Character death is rare but adversity can take many forms. I believe when deaths do come, they should arrive not by GM fiat, nor by the dice, but as a consequence of player choices. My speciality genres are humor and superheroes, but I am conversant in many other genres and systems.

Featured Prompts

I once ran a session...

of Vampire the Masquerade that was all Malkavians. They were summoned by the madness network to stop the Word Eater from devouring certain important concepts. I don’t recall how they stopped him, maybe that has been munched since then, but it was the perfect balance of kooky and spooky.

My favorite trope is...

the Platonic Cave. I find myself repeatedly making matrix pastiches to process my neurodivergent frustration at a culture with arbitrary rules, that values opinions over facts, slanted to the benefit of leaders at the expense of the led. The first step is realizing things don’t have to be this way.

Rules are...

Rules are works of art like architecture or theatre directions. Rules are tools to shape the experience of a game. Good rules pull you in. Average rules get out of your way. Bad rules pull you out. Rules are useless if you don't follow them but the letter of the law is nothing without the spirit.

Steven (malpanda)'s ideal table

For one thing, it is a Round Table (in the Arthurian sense). I may be the head writer of the story, but I’m not the only writer (in the authorial sense). My players tend to be friendly, cooperative, laid-back, creative. They’re not afraid to look silly. They enjoy interacting with each other in-character. They enjoy making plans together to deal with large challenges. They know I’ll let them try unorthodox strategies. They feel safe communicating when they have a problem.

Featured Prompts

I love it when a player

finds a new and unexpected way to solve their character's problem. Maybe you can bribe that monster to let you pass with some pocky. Maybe you can stop a war brewing by selling both sides on a joint infrastructure project. Sure, give it a try.

My table is not the place for...

machismo, toxic behavior, meanness towards others at the table or real world groups who've done nothing to you. I can be civil with people of all political types if they can keep their right wing hot takes to themselves. This table is neutral ground. We're here to have fun, not renegotiate welfare