Keenan Bothma
he/him
5.0
(23)
Timezone
Language
About Keenan Bothma
I'm ready to roll some dice, so let's get a party together and make a collaborative story! I'm Keenan Bothma, I've been DMing for the past 10 years and I absolutely love game design, creative writing and nerds doing nerd stuff. It all started as a teen, hopelessly obsessed with D&D, begging friends to play with me. Of course, no one else would take up the mantle of DMing, so I gave it a try and discovered a lifelong hobby along the way.
At a glance
Less than a year on StartPlaying
5 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Teacher, Rule of Cool
Average response time: 20 hours
Response rate: 100%
Featured Prompts
I got started GMing...
When I was a teenager and looking for my next obsession. I found the High Rollers campaign on youtube and was hooked. Gave DMing a try and found a lifelong hobby.
When I'm not running games I'm...
Playing video games, catching up on series or movies, listening to an audio book, teaching english or working on my next TTRPG session.
How Keenan Bothma runs games
First and foremost, I love teaching newer players who are still learning the game or learning how to play TTRPGS as a whole. New players are always welcome at my table and I highly encourage you to give it a try so that you too can enjoy the beauty of this weird mashup of games, storytelling and social interactivity that only this hobby can provide. Starting from the very beginning of our journey, I like to have all of my players together during session 0 with little to no prior character creation. That way, we can all create our party together while discussing the campaign frame, rough plot, dos and don'ts, player boundaries, highlights you'd like to see, and player character backstories. When it comes to gameplay, I like to mix the three main pillars into the gameplay equally, whenever possible at least. The three main pillars being: Combat I love tactical, meaty, grid-based combat with custom maps that I create in Inkarnate. I have been praised for my battlemaps and combat scenes and it's easily my favorite part of any session. Combat is a core pillar of TTRPGS for a reason. Everyone loves to kill monsters! Exploration When it comes to world-building, I like to create sandbox regions for my players to interact with at their own pace while littering it with points of interest and random encounters to keep it spicy. Whether its a campaign module or a custom campaign, I like to give my players as much freedom as I can while weaving story beats into the narrative to keep it fresh and engaging. Roleplay I love bringing character backstories into the light and having playful banter within the party. You'll come across strange and exciting NPCs and some truly terrible voices even though I am genuinely trying my best to not sound like gollum.
Featured Prompts
If my games were Movies they'd be directed by...
Sam Raimi or Quentin Tarantino. I love stories that are a little bit campy and over the top, but grounded enough to have some real deep dialogues punctuated by nail biting combat.
Rules are...
Important for verisimilitude and satisfying combat, however the rule of cool will always prevail. I love when my players say "Do you think I could..." and follow it up with a ridiculous idea that could absolutely work outside of the rules as written.
Keenan Bothma's ideal table
My ideal table is 3 to 5 players who are willing to dive into our shared world head first and take it seriously enough that we can appreciate the emotional beats and combat crunchiness, but also just enjoy TTRPGS for the games they are. Have fun, be silly at times, I love a good joke, but give other players the spotlight when its their time to be real as their character. Immersion is goal that all of us have to commit to.
Featured Prompts
If you're into ___, you're going to love my table
The dark atmosphere of Berserk / The silliness of Discworld / The horrors of Lovecraft / the pulp fantasy of Conan the Barbarian / The campiness of Evil Dead
I love it when a player
Creates an unlikely hero as their character. It's just one of my favorite tropes of all time.
Keenan Bothma's Preferences
Systems