An over a year long campaign of Band of Blades was one of the prime experiences of 2023. Joe is very welcoming, friendly and understanding GM, when it comes to rules (which might get finicky sometimes, as far as Forged in the Dark games goes) — he's extremely helpful and patient. I really enjoyed his ideas in world building, there's been quite a few things that differed from the book, unique scenarios originally written by him, and i think it fit nicely in the campaign and was extremely fun for the whole group. One more thing i must commend is his timing: games were perfect length, pre-mission prep never seemed to be the problem for pacing of the game, and if scenario was too big for one session, a climatic moment always had an interesting twist or well-deserved downtime followed by "to be continued" that felt more than appropriate. Scenes never dragged for too long and Joe never hesitated to move story forward when it's needed.

Joe is an incredible GM who excels at making fascinating worlds and making them feel very much alive around his players, watching the stones his players throw in the pond and adding in the ripples that make a world feel lived in. I think his best feature is rewarding player initiative and creativity. In our most recent Band of Blades campaign I spent many sessions as the spymaster weakening an enemy Broken's command staff and antagonizing them to lure them into a trap and Joe worked with me when the ideas seemed plausible, even though I'm pretty sure you're not *REALLY* supposed to be able to perma-kill Broken. Every session is super fun and I'm always looking forward to the next.