James
he/him
5.0
(3)
Timezone
Language
Identity
About James
I’m James, and I love being a GM (way more than I like being a player). When I was a teenager in the 00’s, I couldn’t even get my closest friends to commit to a game of D&D. It was too nerdy, they’d said, even for them! (it wasn’t) Now that being a nerd is cool, I’m making up for lost time. Over the last 8 years, I’ve run a good hundred sessions of various game systems over different media for my friends. While I have and will run adventures, I prefer games as sandbox. I read more non-fiction than fiction, so my games have a focus that reflects my interests in economics, politics, and generally in verisimilitude; I’m less interested in exploring power fantasies than in exploring labor disputes and peculiar social traditions. That also means I work hard to create worlds and scenarios which do not revolve around the player, in which players are active agents in their own story rather than simply reacting to what I throw at them. I really love new players, especially the ones who don’t even know there’s a ‘box’ that they’ve been thinking outside of. Oh, and I’ll have a Master’s in Education at the end of December, so I believe me when I say I do not mind teaching new players. I recommend at least one in every game.
At a glance
Less than a year on StartPlaying
Highly rated for: Beginner Friendly, Storytelling, Voices
$10 per session
Average response time: Under 1 hour
Response rate: 100%
Featured Prompts
I started running games because...
I was the one willing to make the leap and work out the logistics. When I eventually got to be a player... I realized running games is way more fun for me.
The three words my players would use to describe me are...
Creative, fair, and detailed. -Porphyria, my most frequent player
When I'm not running games I'm...
probably reading a book (probably a history or anthropology text), playing video games, or watching horror movies.
How James runs games
I like to be part of a collaboratively constructed games focused on authentic roleplay and a dynamic, changing world.
Featured Prompts
If my games were Movies they'd be directed by...
Robert Eggers. I have a mind for historical reality and verisimilitude, yet a heart for the romantic and dramatic.
My games focus on...
player agency. In my games, players are the protagonist, and the story develops based on how the world reacts to their actions, not how they react to some villain's actions.
Rules are...
the way a game master can adjudicate the actions and wishes of their players. Rules are impartial, if sometimes incomplete, and allow a game master to figure out how to interface the limitations of a player's character with the vastness of the player's imagination and ingenuity.
James's ideal table
At my tables, veterans tend to work alongside complete newbies to come up with solutions to problems.
Featured Prompts
I love it when a player
thinks outside the box. Veterans of TTRPGs and video game RPGs have so many pre-established expectations for how any scene should play out. But new players are especially good at thinking about solutions that are not deterministic.
I think it's a red flag when players...
start power tripping. I'm very uninterested in people playing out their power fantasies in my games. Perhaps it's a legitimate way to play a collaborative role playing game, but in my experience it is a player trying to take over a game for themselves.
My table is not the place for...
reactionaries.
James's Preferences
Game Mechanics