Mateus Matuca

he/him

5.0

(12)

Timezone

America/sao Paulo

Language

English

Portuguese

Spanish

Identity

Game Designer

No Gen AI

About Mateus Matuca

Heroes wanted, survival not guaranteed, laughs likely. Fight as AIs in a bloodsport for human audiences. Embark on a suicide mission to the heart of a tyrannical empire. Brave hordes of zombies to save an unborn child. Investigate the carnage in the swamp. The world is mine to build, but its secrets are yours to decide. Don’t be surprised if I ask you what you see under the bed. Never played before? Perfect. Tell me what you do, and I’ll tell you what to roll. In games like Fate and Daggerheart, failure only adds a twist. Roleplaying found me at eleven. It had everything I loved: games and people. Then I devoured every book and magazine I could find. At twelve, I ran my first adventures for friends and family. Two years later, I kept a campaign going for a year—where we saved the world from impending doom, of course. Growing up in Brazil in the late 90s, I could barely find RPG material. So I crafted my own monsters, adventures and systems. I never stopped. Pick an adventure. Your seat is waiting. System-wise, I am experienced in FATE, Daggerheart and Powered by the Apocalypse games. I am a supporter of systems that serve and elevate the storytelling. I discovered TTRPGs when I was 11 years old, because it is the mixture of two things I love: gaming and social interaction. After that, I absolutely devoured every book and magazine I could find about it. Soon, at 12, I began GM-ing for friends and family. At 14 I GM-ed a year-long campaign (in which we saved the world from impending doom, obviously) and since then TTRPGs have been a constant in my life. Growing up, it was hard to find RPG-related material in the late 90s and early 2000s in Brazil, so I got used to home-brewing monsters, adventures, rules and even systems. To this day I prefer (and quite enjoy) writing my own adventures. I believe TTRPGs are one of the best ways of having fun playing games while connecting with other people, and this is what I want to provide to my players.

At a glance

1 year on StartPlaying

1 games hosted

Highly rated for: Beginner Friendly, Storytelling, Knows the Rules

$15 per session

Average response time: 1 hour

Response rate: 100%

Featured Prompts

I started running games because...

building and getting immersed in stories together is the thing I have the most fun doing in life

My favorite shows/movies are

everything made from Ghibli studios, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Frieren, Dungeon Meshi

When I'm not running games I'm...

talking with friends about life, the universe and everything

How Mateus Matuca runs games

Play with me if you like a GM that focuses on building a collaborative and immersive narrative, crafting a living world and developing character stories. For me, TTRPGs are games about storybuilding, so I strive to make everything in my table elevate that, from the writing of the adventure, to the music I use, from the themes I suggest to the table, to the system I choose to run. I believe that player choices should help build the story and fiction, and that exploring their consequences is the most interesting part of the game. I like exploring themes of heroism, self-sacrifice, morality, the meaning of violence and how people react when faced with hardship. My favorite sessions are the ones in which the players (and myself) finish talking about what we played and how it makes us think about real life events and issues. In terms of tools, I deeply enjoy using music and crafting rich descriptions of characters and environment to immerse players and set the tone. I like using simple visual aids (like maps and tokens) when running combat, but prefer using theater of the mind for all else because I believe imagination is more interesting than any map I can craft. I do not use generative AI to generate assets or adventures. Combat-wise, I tend to favor high-stakes conflicts, in which violence (A) is not the only interesting and fun option and (B) has real consequences and weight to it. System-wise, I have been enjoying running narrative-focused games, especially Daggerheart and FATE.

Featured Prompts

I deal with rules issues by...

ruling in favor of the players and the narrative. Later I check the rules and discuss with the table

I prep by

brainstorming themes I would like to explore and making "toys" for the players to explore

Rules are...

a tool to support the story

Mateus Matuca's ideal table

Getting you immersed in the story is my goal. Players that are interested in collaboratively build a story that makes sense and is fun are a great fit. It does not matter if you cannot do voices; it does not matter if you have a hard time with the rules; I want you to play like you were living in the world we are building.