Colton Horn

he/him

5.0

(9)

Timezone

America/new York

Language

English

Identity

Voice Actor

About Colton Horn

If you're looking for a GM who is a fan of their players' characters, prepares professional quality gaming environments, and presents highly satisfying challenges to overcome, then you're in the right place! I love running games for folks of all experience levels, whether they be newcomers who have never touched a d20, or veterans with dozens of characters in storage. Playing with a new group can be nerve-racking, but if you join one of my games, it won't take long to feel like you're part of the team. My background in tech support and customer service has given me strong communication skills, and the nature of my games makes it easy to onboard new members to the party. I'm also very experienced with helping beginners learn rules. Everyone is welcome at my tables, regardless of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and so on. Intolerance towards any of these is entirely unwelcome and grounds for immediate dismissal. (My banner art depicts one of my characters and his mount from a D&D campaign I played in. I commissioned the piece from @v_solnyshko.)

At a glance

3 years on StartPlaying

96 games hosted

Highly rated for: Teacher, Knows the Rules, Voices

Featured Prompts

I got started GMing...

...when a couple of college friends and I wanted to try out D&D. I ran an extremely goofy, extremely not-RAW one-shot. But we desired something more serious and gritty, so we acquired "The Witcher Pen & Paper RPG" and rotated GMing duty in a campaign of that.

My favorite shows/movies are

My top 4 movies on Letterboxd: - LotR trilogy - Everything, Everywhere, All at Once - The Thing - Hot Fuzz Shows, in no particular order: - Community - Better Call Saul - Danger 5 - Castlevania - Anything that Nathan Fielder is involved with!

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

Spending time with my wife watching shows, playing games, going on walks, or reading. Taking my dog, Rigby, to fun places where she can run around and make new friends. Making short films. Working on supplemental TTRPG content.

How Colton Horn runs games

CINEMATIC OVER THEATRICAL Fast-paced narrative scenes, skipping a lot of the fluff, jumping forward in time frequently. Let's just play out the big stuff and get to the action. TACTICAL & CRUNCHY Overcoming interesting challenges as a team, spending a lot of time in combat encounters that matter, not pulling punches or fudging rolls. If you breeze through a fight, great! If you struggle, I won't totally nerf the enemies on the fly. TECHNICALLY-ORIENTED Foundry VTT is my baby. I spend a lot of time and effort to make it as high-quality as possible, and I add some extra bells and whistles because I just think they're neat. If we're spending hours at a time in a voice chat staring at a screen, let's at least make it fun to stare at! I have some session recordings on my YouTube channel! Check them out to see for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/@GMColton

Featured Prompts

I deal with rules issues by...

...seeing if another player or I can find the answer in the rule book, official online sources, etc. If it takes longer than a couple minutes, I make what I believe to be a fair ruling and research the topic after the session.

Rules are...

...important to follow as a structural foundation of RPGs. I believe the designers' intent matters, and the rules (hopefully) provide a level playing field for everyone. I prefer playing games rather than pure improv theater, and games usually require rules!

When it comes to voices

...I don't have any acting training nor formal film/theater experience, but I've been told that I can utilize a variety of different accents and tones to clearly distinguish NPCs from each other. I have a high quality audio setup, including VoiceMod to emphasize major scenes and bosses.

Colton Horn's ideal table

I value the sense of camaraderie that naturally forms after playing in several sessions together, and therefore I prefer players who don't mind some level of misc. chat at the start and end of sessions. Disagreements about anything within the game are fine; I just ask that they stay civil. After all, we're here to have fun and make memories first and foremost! As long as everyone takes the game seriously, but not TOO seriously, we're golden.

Featured Prompts

I love it when a player

...makes a surprising decision in-character and backs it up with a genuine narrative reason. Roleplaying is ultimately about doing things and making decisions as though you ARE your character. It sounds so simple, yet it's hard to master!

I think metagaming...

...is a loaded term. One could argue that telling a player how many hit points you have is a kind of metagaming since HP is not an in-fiction term. In short: just don't metagame in a way that harms the game for others.

I think min/maxing...

...is a natural outcome of player behavior in games that are designed with an emphasis on mechanical character building. Why would you not want your character to be good at stuff if they'd be rewarded for it? (Look up the "Stormwind Fallacy" and Joshua Sawyer's video on powergaming.)