Sergey Sakharov
he/him
5.0
(30)
Timezone
Language
Identity
About Sergey Sakharov
Greetings from Central Asia! I’m a full-time professional Game Master based in Almaty, Kazakhstan, with over 800 sessions hosted on StartPlaying and over a decade of experience running roleplaying games. I specialise in long-form, character-driven campaigns, particularly dark fantasy, science fiction, horror, and faction-heavy adventures. My games combine the structure and depth of published campaigns with the freedom of a home game. I reshape adventures around the characters, their relationships, and the consequences of their decisions rather than forcing the group through a fixed script. I bring more than a decade of professional experience as an interpreter and international tour guide into my games, too.
At a glance
5 years on StartPlaying
869 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Storytelling, Knows the Rules
$30 per session
Top Game Master
One of StartPlaying's top-rated GMs, a player favorite and highly recommended.
Featured Prompts
My favorite books are
Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, Dune, The Witcher, and quite a few Russian classics.
My favorite system of all Time is
Blades in the Dark!
The three words my players would use to describe me are...
attentive, patient and horribly inventive when it comes to sticking knives into character backs!
How Sergey Sakharov runs games
I’m here to fill your characters’ lives with adventure. I run gritty, grounded games where simple greed drives people to great (and terrible) things. Combat matters, but so do negotiations, personal relationships, investigation and travelling. I put adventurers exactly where they belong: knee-deep in monster guts, neck-deep in trouble, and staring down a choice between bad and worse. I run my stories on TV-show logic. Cliffhangers, betrayals, and gut-wrenching twists are the name of the game. There’s nothing I love more than taking a classic module, flipping it on its head, and watching the characters scramble. After all, you’re the Big Damn Heroes. Who else is gonna save the day?
Featured Prompts
I deal with rules issues by...
making a ruling on the spot and looking it up later.
I prep by
making sure my games are quite visual - handouts, journals, scene images, helpful text, portraits. In short, I prep by making sure my players have something to look at all the time!
My games focus on...
survival, social hierarchies, often mundane or even slice-of-life scenes - being grounded in the world makes the fantastical all that much more impressive when it comes up.
Sergey Sakharov's ideal table
My best tables are made up of reliable, collaborative players who care about both their own characters and the rest of the group. You do not need to be an actor or a rules expert, but you should be willing to make decisions, communicate openly, and give other players room in the spotlight. I welcome experienced players and newcomers alike. Character optimisation is perfectly acceptable, but builds exist inside the fiction: powerful choices attract powerful consequences. I also do love players with driven, passionate characters, who relentlessly pursue their agendas no matter the personal cost. After all, aren't all great stories written about that kind of people?
Featured Prompts
I love it when a player
has clear goals and objectives for their character!
I think min/maxing...
is a choice you make, and then you deal with the consequences.
Sergey Sakharov's Preferences
Systems