game master profile header image

Cost Per Player

$50.00
Bryan E Rye

Bryan E Rye

5.0

(7)

Less than a year on StartPlaying

18 games hosted

Highly rated for: Storytelling, Knows the Rules, World Builder

About me

When I was 5, I would sneak my older brother's AD&D Dungeoneer's Survival Guide away and pore over the pictures of places strange, dark, and deep. The first game I ran was a duet session where my friend rolled up a 7th level character and I sent Baaz Draconians after him (we both loved Dragonlance). The first long-running AD&D campaign we finished ended after the party saved the world from the villain only to have one of their own betray them and destroy it anyway on his way to godhood. I've been game-mastering for over 30 years: AD&D, 3e D&D, Pathfinder, Star Wars Saga Edition. My friends and I have hold a lot of stories together – not a few of them have been epics. I love to go to a world, settle down, and stay awhile with fellow travelers.

GM Style

My campaigns are defined by sustained play that goes beyond a single main arc. When players fall in love with a world and its people, they should be able to explore and know them fully through playing in the Grand Campaign tradition, setting down roots and running multiple characters across decades of in-game time. Between the play styles of open sandboxes and linear railroads, I run living, lore-rich settings where history is in motion and players impact the world through meaningful choices. My NPCs are memorable and have motives of their own, and they don't just go to sleep while the PCs are out adventuring. There are real stakes including character and party death. Challenges arise organically, by circumstance, not by calculator, and combat is as tactical as the opposition makes it. For combat, I use a mix of theater of the mind and overhead camera with minis. I'm a proponent of consistent and reliable refereeing, the importance of time and resource management to deepen immersion, and characters as heroes who build communities (even if they're scruffy-looking nerf herders like Han Solo).

Social
What's StartPlaying?

Tabletop Roleplaying Games Run by Game Masters

  • Find a game to join solo or search for a professional game master for you and your friends/coworkers/family.

  • Book your session and wait for the Game Master to approve you.

  • If you don't have a blast with your first game, your next game is on us.