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Joshua

Joshua (he/him)

5.0

(43)

Teacher/Educator
Game Designer

3 years on StartPlaying

861 games hosted

Highly rated for: Creativity, Inclusive, Storytelling

About me

(he/him) Salutations! My name is Joshua, and I facilitate cooperative storytelling experiences. I have been GMing for 27 years with nearly 10,000 hours at the table behind the GM screen. Home games, con games, Short games, and long games. Simple, mysterious, Silly, or serious; I've run them. I believe that RPGs should be a safe playground where players can explore identities and ideas while feeling welcome and empowered. I design and facilitate my campaigns to center the player characters, weaving them into the world and building it up around them. My favorite genre is fractured fairy tales and fresh retellings of classic stories.

GM Style

My number one commitment: meaningful player agency. When you play at my table, your decisions matter, and your actions have consequences. I write my NPCs to be interesting, compelling, and fun to spend time with. I design my combats to be tactically interesting and narratively compelling. But above all, I'm always happy to go off-script and improvise. I'd rather craft the story the players are invested in than the outcomes I've prepared for any day. That goes for overall structure too! If you're looking for softer or crunchier combat, different core themes, or something wildly off-the-wall - let's talk about it and make it happen!

Game platforms used
Game Master Reviews (43)

Proficiencies

Players say this GM is great at:

Creativity

Inclusive

Storytelling

Laura avatar

Laura

Played 288 sessions

Joshua's tables are a true delight to be in! He consistently ensures that all players at the table get a time to shine. Brand new players don't need to worry, as there is never an expectation to know everything right away. Questions are encouraged! Josh seamlessly weaves one-off character ideas into the storylines so that his players are able to feel like their characters, and their choices matter in the world. Everyone would find something to love at his table between comedic shenanigans, daring combat, and in character drama that would put telenovelas to shame. Expect well placed puns among fantastic storycraft.

Ben  avatar

Ben

Played 165 sessions

I’ve had the privilege of playing with Josh for a few years and several different games now. He is the kindest and most welcoming GM you can find. Whether it is your first time at a table or you're already a dice goblin you never feel out of place in his games. The care he takes in making your character feel deeply rooted in the story shows that he truly listens to the ideas of his players. His capability for using some of the more outlandish ideas and reflavored mechanics and seamlessly weave them into the story amazes me everytime. The sense of community and friendship Josh fosters around his games will always be my favorite part. From stumbling into a game so long ago to now having a wonderful group of people I get the privilege to play my favorite with every week I’ll never get to thank him fully.

Ben avatar

Ben

Played 154 sessions

Joshua runs a fun game and is fun to riff with as the many NPCs around. His knowledge of 5e is expansive, he voices characters well, and seems to have a lot of fun doing character pairs that help give you an idea of their relationships. Joshua includes safety tools, tells the story well, gives room for players to add additional solutions and leans into them. Joshua is great for our relatively experienced group, but would also do well at acclimating new players. ETA after a few years: I will always be looking forward to games with Joshua. When our campaign ends (which we already extended by 9 levels and plan on continuing through at least 3 more), I'll be looking for another campaign with him. My character, all of our characters, have had personal journeys inside of the larger stories. Joshua did amazing running an existing module for us, and the homebrew campaign and UNIVERSE that we've been running in since has been just as rich as one from a team of developers at WotC. With Joshua, you work together to plant seeds and when he finds the perfect time for them to sprout and work with you to help them grow!

Momma avatar

Momma

Played 153 sessions

Joshua is a genius at setting up an entertaining scenario, and not just directing it, but truly listening to the players as they run with it and adapting on the fly. His NPC's are interesting and brilliantly improvised. The visual aids are helpful. The game invited plenty of between-character banter allowing us to develop personalities in addition to taking actions. I had not played D&D in several years (and had never played on-line) and was a bit apprehensive about it, but I just had a fabulously fun three hours. The other players were all friendly and inspiring and creative (and forgiving of my lack-of technical prowess) and I am looking forward to our next session.

Allen avatar

Allen

Played 144 sessions

Josh allows us to create great cinematic moments - giant falling through hole and landing on our cleric, fun role playing resulting in lots of laughs, etc.

Vee avatar

Vee

Played 142 sessions

Josh is an incredibly imaginative and creative GM! We have so much fun in sessions and although it shows that he had planned out our entire session we often come up with plans that changes everything and he's always so good at adapting on the fly and still making the story more involving and intriguing than I could even imagine!

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