Jon

he/him

5.0

(7)

Timezone

America/kentucky/louisville

Language

English

Identity

Neurodivergent

Teacher/Educator

About Jon

I am a mid-40s family guy who works in the insurance industry for a living, but has had a supreme love for gaming my entire life. From the mid-eighties, starting with the days I spent listening from the top of the basement steps while my brother and his friends adventured throughout Greyhawk, Faerun, and Krynn, I was enamored with TTRPGs. I would sneak his copies of the Forgotten Realms novels after he'd finished reading them and pour over them at night, thinking I was doing something so dangerous. Now, I love shepherding groups through a story that we tell together, weaving in intrigue and looping back to long-forgotten NPC interactions that shaped the story. I have been a GM for sessions at local, regional, and national conventions including Origins Game Fair and Gen-Con. I also am one of the leaders, or Guild Keepers, of a GM guild for a well-respected publisher's Discord server. I may work in the business world now, but my background is in music and performing. I have a degree in music performance, theatre experience, and ran a DJ business for many years. Reading a group and leaning in to the energy of the room is my forte (pun intended). I love to play around the world of Faerun, sure...but I also love exploring anywhere and everywhere with a table (virtual or not) of enthusiastic players, or nervous beginners. Everyone has a place at my games as long as they have a pencil, paper, and an imagination.

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

Highly rated for: Creativity, Inclusive, Teacher

Featured Prompts

I became a GM because

I love collaboration, I love storytelling, and I love weaving a tale together with all of the players at my tables. I very much enjoy being a player character, too, but my experience as a teacher, trainer, and professional problem solver have put me in the perfect position to be a game master.

People are always surprised when I tell them

I have a college degree in Music Performance with a concentration in tuba & voice; before my business career, I was a high school band director for six years!

The three words my players would use to describe me are...

supportive, creative, and animated.

How Jon runs games

I plan sessions using a flexible structure which allows for player/party agency and collective storytelling. I actively roleplay with parties who drive that dynamic while making sure all players are equally involved in the action. I create encounters which range from fun comedy banter to high-stakes, party-endangering combat, and everything in between. I prepare in a way which allows for the encounters to happen organically in response to plot hooks and the various responses to the prompts. More than anything, my style is to make sure the players at my tables are having fun. That fun may be haggling with a kobold traveling salesman who only accepts trinkets as payment, or it may be hunting a monster who has the ability to wipe out a party if the right precautions are taken in combination with the correct tactics.

Featured Prompts

I once ran a session...

where the combination of effects each of three players experienced as a result of ingesting Magic Mushrooms (see Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) resulted in the amassing of nearly 100 chickens, and eventually a full-fledged chicken-raising side hustle which provides them with a nice passive income.

Rules are...

What sets TTRPGs apart from improv groups. By establishing a structure around which our story is told, we allow for fair, exciting, and unpredictable story development, as well as enjoyable, balanced gameplay. It is important to me that everyone at my tables is having fun, and rules facilitate that.

When it comes to voices

I think I do "okay", but I most of them end up sounding like a man born in Mexico was raised in Germany by Russian parents. I try to focus more on quirks and speech patterns than actual accents.

Jon's ideal table

My ideal table is one filled with people who want to play TTRPGs. It doesn't matter to me if they only want combat, love romantic role playing, or are adament they only want to play Mork Borg, as long as they come with a passion for game play and a willingness to communicate what they expect out of a session, I know we'll have a fantastic time. My tables are inclusive, balanced, focused on fun, and have a story driven by the players and GM together. Communication is open and engaging with the pace set by the players. The expectations are clear from the very beginning, and I go out of my way to make sure players have a character they are excited to play. While I make sure I understand the rules of the game we're playing, and try to follow them as fairly and consistently as possible, the "Rule of Cool" can supersede almost any other rule if it is true to the character and story.

Featured Prompts

I love it when a player

passes up an opportunity to strike the death blow or save the day so they can support another player in doing so.

I think min/maxing...

isn't as much fun as people hope it will be. When someone creates a character they think is "OP", but within the rules, it just sets you up to be twice as frustrated when your character isn't as strong against monsters as you think it will be. That being said, if it makes you happy, min/max away!