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Sam - Jolly Squid Studios

he/him

Timezone

America/new York

About Sam - Jolly Squid Studios

Hey everybody! My name is Sam, I've been a DM since I was 9 and plan to do it forever. I've DMed for players new and old, and I love a good variety at the table. I've had a love-hate relationship with 5e over the years as the edition I grew up on but I have now settled into a comfortable spot atop a dragon's hoard worth of house rules. Featuring but not limited to: - A metric ton of feats and talents - 60 approved playable classes (courtesy of GMBinder darlings LaserLlama, KibblesTasty, and more) - A variant of death saves in which you accumulate wounds as you fight, but can keep fighting, leading to cinematic, dramatic, and action-packed combats. - Momentum, basically you get baby inspiration if you take a quick turn in combat, so we can cut through the slog and get to the action - An all-new monster book by conflux creatures that brings tactics and badassery back to D&D - Super awesome custom weapon creation that allows you to trip, disarm, charge, terrify, guard-break, and explode your enemies like never before My favorite things to do in D&D are: - Go to new worlds and weird genre mashups that nobody has ever been to before (and let player backstories be the first seeds of the worldbuilding) - Figure out how to make a crazy character concept work within the rules (It's easier with 60 classes) - Design a bonkers boss fight - Do big reveals in the last session - Do a different voice for every NPC you meet - Set up the dominoes in character creation, then sit back and watch the story unfold Thanks for stopping by! Hope we get to sit down and roll dice sometime!

At a glance

1 year on StartPlaying

Featured Prompts

I got started GMing...

By making up games and choose your own adventures for my little brothers, my dad heard us playing and decided to buy me the brand new 5e Lost Mines of Phandelver starter set.

My favorite shows/movies are

I don’t watch a lot of tv, but there have been a few incredible shows that have really changed the way I DM and the way I think about stories. Arcane, Severance, and Andor are the kind of character driven and well written stories that I aspire to replicate and recreate at my table.

How Sam - Jolly Squid Studios runs games

I do it for the personal, cinematic, and artful moments of drama and story. But I can also get behind some crunchy boss fights, crazy action sequences, or goofy NPC voices.

Sam - Jolly Squid Studios's ideal table

I think every single person on the planet has the spark of an incredible storyteller within them, but so many cultures see imagination as childish, and so many of us lose sight of that fundamentally human act of creativity. My perfect table is one in which a few players are more confidently creative, and can push the story forward while encouraging other players to step out of their shell. My perfect table is one in which players get to tell an incredible story together, and a few people find that creative spark they had come to believe they didn’t have anymore.

Sam - Jolly Squid Studios's Preferences

Systems

Dungeons & Dragons 5e
Shadow of the Demon Lord
Kids on Bikes
Homebrew Game
Honey Heist
Indie TTRPG
The Black Hack
Mothership
Star Wars 5e
ICRPG Index Card RPG
LUMEN
Spire: The City Must Fall RPG
Heart: The City Beneath RPG
Corvid Court
Dread
Fabula Ultima
Free Kriegsspiel Revolution
Mausritter
Into the Odd
Lasers & Feelings
Shadow of the Weird Wizard
DURF
Interdimensional Shenanigans
FIST
Cairn
EZD6
Nimble
Freeform Universal RPG

Themes

Game style

Roleplay Heavy

Rule of Cool (RoC)

Sandbox / Open World

Social

Sam - Jolly Squid Studios's games