Danielle Hood, Teller of Stories

she/her

5.0

(9)

Timezone

America/new York

Language

English

Identity

Artist

Teacher/Educator

About Danielle Hood, Teller of Stories

Do you love a good heist? Or maybe you hate Shakespeare? Being a storyteller by trade and a ready sponge for new tales, D&D offers me a perfect platform to exercise these skills. I use rules-lite, creativity-driven D&D 5e with core, third party, and custom content to immerse my players in fantastic stories. My favorite is “A Matter of Leverage,” my cinema-length-episode heist series. I’m glad to bring most campaigns or fandoms to life. Why Shakespeare? For students or adults looking to better understand a specific author, literature, or historic event, I can run one-shots or short campaigns built to make learning them easy, interactive, and fun.

At a glance

1 year on StartPlaying

1 games hosted

Highly rated for: Creativity, Knows the Rules, Teacher

Featured Prompts

I became a GM because

I'm always coming up with new ideas for worlds, story points, neat items, and characters. Being a player is fun, but GMing allows me to use more of my ideas, and I love storytelling!

My favorite books are

Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson universe The Dresden Files Agatha Christie mysteries

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

I work in education, peripherally, and volunteer at my church. Free time is spent absorbing stories others have to share in any medium. My whole, extended family is big on playing board/card games, so we'll get together just to have Scrabble or Phase 10 tournaments.

How Danielle Hood, Teller of Stories runs games

I like both roleplay and combat, and will apply them in the best way for the story and players. I prefer to avoid explicit language or excessively gory scenes. I try to add a little personal flavor to established elements, and like to let my players express themselves. Want to play a plasmoid in Waterdeep? I'll figure out a way that makes sense. I appreciate creativity, and believe the rules are more like guidelines.

Featured Prompts

I prep by

Memorization. If I'm running a module made by someone else, I read over it a bunch, out loud, ahead of time to get the main points down. If I made it up, like my Mystery, Inc. adventure, I recite it out loud a bunch. And if I'm running in-person, I'm usually hand drawing maps while I memorize.

My games focus on...

Adventure. Pull the heist. Find the lost city. Retrieve the magical object. Save the captive. Break the curse. Anything that allows my players to exercise their imagination. Will there be combat? Yes, but it's not an XP grind. My games will always Milestone level-up, and incorporate puzzles and RP.

Rules are...

More like guidelines. Certain ones give the necessary base structure, but others are there to help with storytelling for people who are less confident in their imagination muscles. If rules-as-written get in the way of a good story moment, I am going to bend or ignore them.

Danielle Hood, Teller of Stories's ideal table

My table is a friendly place. Everybody should feel comfortable once we get to know each other. I welcome veteran players and newbies, especially veteran players who don't mind newbies learning as we play. My most fun tables have been when teens new to the game played alongside adults, some of whom haven't played since 1985! Or when parents introduced their children to the game. Anyone who loves imagination, but can keep it clean. That's also big; I top out at a PG-13 kinda level, max.

Featured Prompts

I am for a vibe that's...

Chill. I do this first and foremost for fun, and I want it to be the same for you. Whether our story is more like Scooby Doo or Curse of Strahd, this is supposed to be a game, a break from reality. Even if it's immersive (and I try), method actors may want a different table.

I think min/maxing...

Has it's place. Do it to lean into the roleplay, like making a combat-specialized character with dump INT/WIS because, "he comes from a warrior culture and never learned to read." Don't do it just because you want certain gameplay elements to be easier.

My table is not the place for...

Vulgarity, excessive gore, and foul language. We're G-PG 13 depending on the game, and I'll be clear about expectations in each. And no real-world politics unless the module is a real-world history teaching tool.