Hal Leggett

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How Hal Leggett runs games

I like to give the players lots of lee-way to make choices. - I don't pull punches and the players, win or lose, categorically have really enjoyed my playing style over the years. - One campaign lasted 14 years across four cities, 3 time zones and 17 players who delved into my World... sometimes driving hours to join in our weekly sessions. - They used to describe to me that : I gave them their 5 senses and any intuitive clues their characters might have... then I'd allow the players choose their actions. - One player, recently said to me : "You know, as we played and we had to decide to go down the safe passage and avoid that insane fortress and it's inhabitants... ... a Thought went through my mind, that IF we had wanted to... (as DM) I would have happily allowed them to storm into that fortress, knowing full well we would have been wiped out in seconds. A shudder went through me as I realized that our fates truly were in our own hands... there really were no guardrails... and that we truly were navigating a dangerous world."

Hal Leggett's ideal table

The players understand their surroundings as seen through their characters' eyes. As a DM, I build tempo and watch carefully for cues from my players as to how to direct the game. I love reading the table... knowing when to press the tension and when to let the moment breathe. My DM style is grounded. I let the characters shape their own destinies through their actions. Mine is a world where consequences matter, innovation is rewarded, and sessions are shaped to PULL players into the scene... not just drop them a map. I absolutely LOVE visual aids. They give my players a sense of the scene their characters are actually standing in. In the early years, I would provide sketches and views from different angles showing the atmosphere, the clues, the spatial orientation, the sense of scale... whatever the players needed to "see" the scene more clearly. I used planned sketches designed to give them the details they needed while still leaving room for imagination. But now ??? with AI generation, I can turn those simple sketches into vivid portrayals of a scene, almost as if the players are stepping onto a movie set. They use my scenes as a visual aid... not as a movement template. And using OBS Studio through Discord allows me to present those visual aids with seamless cuts between scenes, or shift instantly to details the players might benefit from seeing more clearly. Truly, a picture really can be worth a thousand words. :)

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