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Christian (Parallax) Cassara

Christian (Parallax) Cassara (he/him)

5.0

(4)

Artist
Game Designer

3 years on StartPlaying

Highly rated for: Storytelling, Creativity, Sets the Mood

About me

Hey friends, I've been playing TTRPGs for almost 20 years now. I started in high school with Dungeons and Dragons 3.5e , and quickly moved on to DMing my own homebrew campaigns. I have over 10 years of experience DMing at a "serious" level, and usually place my one-shots and campaigns in my homebrew setting (Tales From the Nine Realms) I've slowly been building for almost a decade. Tales From the Nine Realms is usually filtered through the high fantasy setting of Dungeons and Dragons, but with little twists and modifications that set it apart from a traditional fantasy world. It's a world that has a gritty high-fantasy setting most players are familiar with, but also room for your own creativity and imagination as a player to fill in the gaps. I draw my own maps and custom artwork for my setting, as well as letters, handouts and other content for players. I have a wiki full of lore and setting information, but none of it is required reading. My games tend to feature roleplay, but I also enjoy getting into gritty tactical combat, as long as there's a reason for it. I like to make every encounter mean something, and not be a video-game-like grind. I have a background in game design so I do enjoy puzzles and elaborate custom dungeons I have designed. At the end of the day I try to facilitate games that have a healthy mixture of the three pillars: Role-Playing, Exploration and Combat. While I don't strive for a perfect balance of all three each session, I do try to read the room and my player's ambitions, and strive to be flexible and adapt my DM-style to the player's wants and needs. At the end of the day I want everyone to have fun and want to come back for more. I typically use the following safety tools in my games: - Session 0 (where I go over all of these) - X cards - Lines and Veils - Breaks -Open Door - Aftercare I'm open to including others at the request of players.

GM Style

I try to fill my games with a healthy mixture of interesting combat, satisfying roleplay and open-world exploration, I try to be vigilant against railroading and because I have so many custom modules designed for my homebrew settings I feel comfortable giving player's a certain amount of freedom in determining their goals and quests. I have a background in writing and graduated with a B.S English Literature degree, but I've also been an artist my whole life and have enjoyed drawing maps and homebrew content. I use photoshop to make hand-tailored content and digital art for my players to immerse them in the world.

Game platforms used
Game Master Reviews (4)

Proficiencies

Players say this GM is great at:

Storytelling

Creativity

Sets the Mood

Richard avatar

Richard

He was very friendly and I had a lot of fun playing in his group. We had I believe two people in our group who were new to TTRPGs and he was very patient and helpful with them. Not a serous rules lawyer, let us be creative and have fun within reason. The adventure we played was a dungeon crawl without much RP. There was some though and I feel like he did a good job with it and was also good at describing everything and setting the scene.

nug avatar

nug

This was my first DnD game so initially I was nervous but Parallax did a great job at creating a relaxed no pressure environment where we could all ask questions and have boundaries which was really appreciated! The game was so fun and had an immersive world and characters with backgrounds and stories. Parallax was great about letting us have the freedom to come up with innovative solutions to anything while still keeping everything within bounds. I would love to do another game with him as the GM and would absolutely recommend him to anyone.

Chance avatar

Chance

Parallax is an AWESOME Dungeon Master! Our One-shot ended up being a three-part mini-series because we were having so much fun, and the "Rule of Cool Within Limits" was absolutely in-effect. So long as the plan seemed feasible, Parallax found a way to make it work within the system. Their descriptions of interactions, combat and our surroundings were vividly detailed and exciting, and everything was accompanied by Roll20 maps, handouts, music, etc. 11/10 Would absolutely play with them again!!

Noel avatar

Noel

The GM was really friendly, it was my first time playing, they took time to walk me through everything. Overall I had a lot of fun playing.

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