Luciano Sterious-Cortese

he/they

Timezone

America/indiana/indianapolis

Language

English

Identity

LGBTQ+

Queer

Disabled

Neurodivergent

About Luciano Sterious-Cortese

Hi, I'm Luciano, but everyone calls me Luci. I like to make games that push the boundaries of what a system can provide and the stories it can tell. Kids with Brooms in a ghibli-style apocalypse? Yup!! Thirsty Sword Lesbians but with psychological horror? Yup!! Monster of the Week but with Matrix-style reality shenanigans? Yup!!! (Do my campaigns almost always have an element of eldritch horror? Yup. Have I been lovingly made fun of it by basically all my players? ...Yup.) I make games with storylines and plots that can often get pretty off the rails, but at the center of each lies a world with a bleeding heart that, while flawed, deserves to be saved, and is often filled with equally flawed but compassionate NPCs who are the heroes of their own stories. And my biggest goal as a GM is to integrate your character into this world and among these people, and to make the story work for you. I don't do TTRPG worlds where the players feel otherworldly and like they're above the world, like the world is so delicate that it and all its people will collapse if the players' aren't there. Your character is a hero, but they are a part of the world, and I aim to make you feel that way, often revolving my writing around catering to the storylines and interests of each player character. So if you're ready to get real attached to NPCs, if you're ready for me to make it my goal to make you get emotional, and if you're ready to go through the craziest hells and come out the other side in order to literally sucker punch an interpretation of the Christian God-- uh, hit me up?

At a glance

2 years on StartPlaying

Featured Prompts

My favorite system of all Time is

Monster of the Week! This is where I really found my voice as a GM, because it's extremely easy to learn but also extremely versatile to write. This is pretty cool, because I love both teaching new players and going buckwild with plot, and MOTW makes it easy to do both.

People are always surprised when I tell them

any esoteric fun fact. I know a lot about a lot, thanks to being a Prime Autismo with an intense hyperfixation on history and stories. I can tell you about the history of werewolves, I know way too much about bugs and sharks, and please don't get me started on the King in Yellow.

How Luciano Sterious-Cortese runs games

--Roleplay heavy --good at incorporating player's wants within reason --always encouraging characters to go through arcs --will create NPCs that play off your characters well --will create homebrew rewards for character growth and completing character arcs --always creating house rules to benefit unique characters, such as options for asexuals in Thirsty Sword Lesbians. --really like doing character voices even though i am NOT a professional voice actor My biggest rule is the Rule of Cool-- If it sounds hilarious or badass enough, I'll let you get away with it. A player once really wanted to become the adopted child of an eldritch deity and I let them.

Featured Prompts

My games focus on...

HOPEPUNK. At the core of every game I run is the idea that being a good person is the most badass thing you can do. In addition, almost every game I run concerns extreme social turmoil and the treatment of outcasts. It depends on the exact game how close to real world issues it is, though.

Luciano Sterious-Cortese's ideal table

I need people willing to 'yes and' and suspend their disbelief, who will add onto lore rather than question it. Bring a big imagination and a love for crazy ideas. People who support each other and build off each other's mayhem is the kind of table I prefer. I don't want players who ask me or others to justify rolls, I want players who will hear a fellow player go 'for our school music performance we should summon the ghost of Freddie Mercury!' and go 'ABSO FUCKIN LUTELY!' (a real thing that happened btw)

Featured Prompts

I love it when a player

proposes something absolutely batshit insane based on the world's rules already established. To be clear- I don't mean ideas with no basis, like a mech in a high fantasy game. I mean that if I establish that this world is in our world's future and necromancy exists, please summon a real world celeb.

My table is not the place for...

Rules-lawyering. I believe fully that the rules serve to help tell a story, not to hinder or slow it. I do not want players who try to tell me or others how to play. I'm happy to be reminded of what is in the rules, but I do not want you, the player, to ever ask me or others to justify a roll.