Professional Game Master

Mariashe/her

About me

As a DM I strive to make atmospheric and evocative adventures that reward players who think outside of the box. I work as a freelance illustrator, and as a highly visual person imagery and tone play a big part in my games. I create my own art, maps, and custom player character art for my campaigns. Eight years of acting experience combined with a lifelong passion for fantasy writing makes me quick with improv and eager to dive into absurd, creative directions I didn't expect players to go in. I make it my mission as a DM to reward the player's choices and tailor the game to actions they take instead of pushing them along a preordained path. There are set plot points and long-term objectives to my campaigns, but they are always subject to change based on the players goals and decisions. My worlds are heavily homebrewed, and I love tailoring the adventure to the characters' backstories. I am the perfect choice for a player who loves RP!

GM style

I'm a lore nerd who loves world building, but I love riffing with my players to make things up and add onto the story as things happen in game - I'm great at filling in specific details on the fly, and my campaigns are full of mood. I LOVE rewarding roleplaying. I tend to lean towards a 70-30 role-play and story to combat interaction, with a lot of the RP involving exploration and puzzles/ encounters that aren't necessarily combat-based. I prefer not to run murderhobo campaigns. I love building things into the story that come up during role play, and reward heartfelt role play and out-of-the-box thinking with inspiration. The rule of cool doesn't always hold trump in my games as I do adhere to RAW (Rules as Written) to ground my campaigns, but if the mood is right and it makes sense with the characters' arc, I'm happy to let it prevail. Because of the heavy role-play emphasis on my games, audio and video are both important for my sessions. Please make sure you have a working microphone and camera - I find that leaving your camera off makes PC interaction much more difficult, and I want to make sure that everyone feels they can get a read on their fellow players. I run games exclusively on Roll20 with video, and use Discord for audio. I'm happy to work with both brand new and experienced players alike, though ideally I prefer to run games of one group or the other so there aren't newbies who feel lost as more experienced players plow ahead, or experienced players who feel that the game is dragging as I explain rules and go through simple action with newbies. I work as a freelance illustrator and have a degree in illustration, and for my longer campaigns I usually do custom character art for my PCs.

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