Austin
he/him
4.9
(8)
Timezone
Language
Identity
About Austin
Hail and Well Met, Traveller! Your search is over, for you have found your gamemaster. I am Austin, a life-long player and gamemaster with over 20 years of creating immersive RPG experiences. If you’re like me, then you know how important it is to find the right table. So please let me tell you about myself. Our adventures together will be played out in expansive, highly detailed settings. A brilliant, shining tapestry of towns and villages, dark forests and imposing mountain ranges, sinister ruins and chilling dungeons. These places will be populated with unique and complex non-player characters who provide meaningful and memorable interactions for you – be it the simple barkeep and his family to an imperious, manipulative dragon. All the while, I will craft situations that are meant to engage you from start to finish in the form of strategy-focused combat encounters; perilous, high stakes social situations; and complex puzzles that blend character abilities and player acuity. Every adventure is designed to ensure that your experience is fun and rewarding. I am a long-time hobbyist who has spent most of his life playing RPGs. What started with a love of the Robotech RPG from Palladium quickly developed into an obsession with all things Role-playing. I've run games in Rifts, Robotech, World of Darkness, Dungeons and Dragons, and Pathfinder, and I love every minute of it. My games are LGBQT+, POC, and Neurodivergent welcoming. Though I live in Switzerland, I am a native English speaker from the United States. I look forward to gaming with you soon!
At a glance
Less than a year on StartPlaying
Highly rated for: World Builder, Creativity, Knows the Rules
Featured Prompts
My favorite books are
The King Killer Chronicles, the Lord of the Rings, and The First Law trilogy
People are always surprised when I tell them
that I ran two different vampire the masquerade LARP chronicles off and on for about 10 years!
When I'm not running games I'm...
I love writing fiction, world building for personal projects, teaching children how to draw, and reading! I am a stay at home dad with two kids aged 4 and 6.
How Austin runs games
I am a gamemaster who loves to create situations that the players can really dive into and unravel all the way to its conclusion. My stories start small and build up to tremendous crescendos that will leave you astounded. But this would not be possible without a firm ground having been laid, first. Which is why I focus so much on building the setting up. If it’s World of Darkness, the city is painted in with intricate political webs so that the players can start plucking strings. If it’s Dungeons and Dragons, then I start with a small town and build out a region map in hexographer and start keying those hexes! Without that foundation, it is really difficult to feel the verisimilitude necessary for a truly immersive RPG session. I want my players to feel the stakes of every decision, to make every choice matter. So I work with my players on their backgrounds and making sure they fit into the story that we want to build together. I provide background elements that really anchor the character to the setting and the party so that they have a springboard into the stories to come. When in downtime or quiet moments, I like to prompt the players to chat in character so that the characters have their moment to come alive in the context of the adventure and to build up a long-term rapport with the rest of the group. Location-based adventures get the same kind of treatment. I ask myself what the history of a place is as opposed to its current situation. How have the current inhabitants changed it, made it their own? So that when the player characters arrive, they can experience the history of the place through vivid, detailed description without having to sit through massive lore-dumps. For situational stories, it all comes down to the NPCs involved. Who they are, what their goals and motivations are, and where do they fit into the overall setting and story. The NPCs should live and breathe these things clearly and evocatively, further drawing the players into caring about these characters – be they antagonists or allies. I hope this tells you a bit about my style as a game master. Sit down with me for a game and we'll have blast together.
Featured Prompts
I deal with rules issues by...
taking a minute to quickly check the rules. If a solution isn't immediately available, I prefer to make a call in the moment and address the issue more completely after the game is done.
Austin's ideal table
My table is one where everyone is welcome and encouraged to have their moment to shine. I like to go in 'turns' to let everyone describe what they are doing in a moment, so that no one feels left out.
Featured Prompts
I love it when a player
I love it when a player asks questions about the scene and tries to fully immerse themselves in it! Instead of "I search the room," I love to hear things like, "I peel back the tapestry to look behind for secret doors."
I think metagaming...
I think metagaming certainly has it's place for ease of communication. I have no issue with party members knowing each other's hitpoints, or discussing who the best person to play the guide in a wilderness scenario is based on their wisdom modifier.
I think min/maxing...
I think min/maxing can be okay if it is done with an eye to the character's story. If the roleplay choices are there to back up the sheet, then fine. But on the other hand, don't be surprised if the scenarios become tougher to match the power level of the party.
Austin's Preferences
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