Josh

he/him

5.0

(5)

Timezone

America/los Angeles

Language

English

Identity

Teacher/Educator

About Josh

Hi! I'm Dex, and I've been running a game in a homebrew world for the past five years. I've run two tables through the campaign, start to finish, and both tables came back for a second campaign (currently ongoing) in that world. I started playing D&D... gee, I don't even know how long ago it was. Maybe 2016? A friend of mine and I were sitting at a bar and had one of those barstool epiphanies "We should totally get into D&D!" We did, he acted as DM, and we all had a lot of fun, but my buddy got burnt out and asked me to run a one-shot. Everyone really enjoyed it, and the world kinda spiraled from there. (The tragedy of the forever DM is likely familiar to everyone on this site.) In my personal life - I'm married, poly, and have three kids. My oldest is trans, so if you can't say that trans rights are human rights with your whole chest, you and I won't mesh well because all identities are valid and welcome at my table. I have a needy cat who will likely spend time in frame. I teach HS English, so you can expect my games to end at a reasonable hour so that I can be in bed early enough to wake up before the crack of dawn.

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

Highly rated for: Storytelling, Creativity, Rule of Cool

Featured Prompts

I got started GMing...

I wanted to be a writer, but could never get any of my books published. I got the opportunity to run a paid game for high school kids and found that it scratched the same creative itch as writing, so I turned my attention to running games and fell in love.

My favorite shows/movies are

Shows: Psych, The Good Place, Parks and Rec Movies: The Last Jedi, The Fifth Element, The Princess Bride

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

I'm big into karaoke and swing dancing. I'm a casual gamer. I love to sit down with a pretentious cocktail and yap.

How Josh runs games

I'm a big fan of sandbox gameplay. My philosophy boils down to: I know what's happening in this world at all times. It's up to the player to choose which things they're interested enough to engage with, and the rest of the world will keep happening around them. Sometimes choosing not to engage can create just as interesting of a story! (Of equal importance - failure can be just as, if not more, interesting to a story than success!) I have one character who is clearly the villain, and a bunch of other characters who you might label villains or heroes based on your perception of the story. I'm also a huge proponent of using D&D as mild therapy. (I met a teen therapist once who ran D&D for group therapy sessions and I picked her brain for HOURS.) Using your character as a way to work out things in your past makes for the best and most engaging stories (plus it can help you feel better about yourself!) We'll be a good fit if you like: *Exploration *Being a lore goblin *Roleplay, roleplay, roleplay *Creating a unique character with a deep backstory for me to traumatize - er, I mean, explore *Lots of freedom/ways to play out an encounter *One clearly bad villain and lots of morally gray "heroes" We probably won't be a good fit if you like: *Dungeon crawling *Linear stories/characters *Frequent combat *Not taking notes *Making meme characters *Murder hobo-ing *Power gaming

Featured Prompts

I once ran a session...

For FORTY players! (It was a school activity and I wasn't allowed to turn anyone away.) It was an absolute nightmare. I got very good at focusing on individual characters for stories and then implemented the rules of Fight Club at that table.

I prep by

I like to make a flow chart. I think of every way my players could possibly react to a planned encounter, and then plan out what will happen for each reaction. I'll make 5-8 pathways and think I got them all. Then I like to panic as my players choose pathway 9 and I have to improv my way out of it.

Rules are...

Important for fairness and equity. I'm very much RaW except for agreed upon and static table rules. Rule of Cool only applies to flavor. You want a pink flame blade instead of a green one because it fits your aesthetic? Cool. You want to cast it as a bonus action? No way.

Josh's ideal table

I'm an English teacher. And I'm an English teacher because I love stories. I love players who are there to get invested in stories. And not just their own, but the stories of the other players and the world around them as well. I live for the moments that players start conversations in character about each others' stories. When they ask questions of NPCs because they're curious, not because they need to find the next floating question mark. And above all, I love players who are patient enough to let the story unfold. A player who starts a fight because they're bored is always going to get on my bad side. Combat should always be a function of the story, not the other way around. I like to use The Lord of the Rings as a guide (Tolkien invented the genre, after all.) There are epic battle scenes, but also much smaller and shorter fights, and he never shies away from all the walking and talking because that's what builds up those dramatic moments.

Featured Prompts

If you're into ___, you're going to love my table

Lore and exploration. I have what I consider to be a pretty fully-fleshed out world. Neither of the tables that played this campaign interacted with more than 50% of it. When you find and shape the story, you're going to be more invested! And I love that.

I think min/maxing...

Is incredibly boring. A compelling character has strengths and weaknesses, sure. But "I used Reddit to figure out how to do 100 damage in two attacks at level five" has never been the core of a compelling character. If min/maxing is a vital part of your game, my table probably isn't a great fit.

My perfect party mix is

I know it's a cliche, but I'm a sucker for the group of misfits who become a family. And there are enough movies/stories about it to become cliche for a reason - it's just FUN. And isn't fun what we're here for?