Lauren

she/her

5.0

(8)

Timezone

Europe/london

Language

English

Identity

LGBTQ+

Queer

Women/Femme Identifying

About Lauren

Hi, I'm Lauren, a newly trans woman who loves telling stories! I've been playing and DMing almost every week for 5 years, starting with an OSE westmarches game, and then moving on to two 5E campaigns, one of which is still going, 4 years after starting!

At a glance

Less than a year on StartPlaying

Highly rated for: Storytelling, Inclusive, World Builder

$15 per session

Featured Prompts

My favorite shows/movies are

At the moment it's Project Hail Mary but I also love the How to Train Your Dragon movies, and LotR, as well as anime like Frieren, My Hero Academia, Delicious in Dungeon, Jujutsu Kaisen, and more. I watched Cyberpunk Edgerunners recently, and that broke me. I'm also very opinionated about Spider-Man

My favorite system of all Time is

Savage Worlds! I love its classless character building systsems, how you can use the power system to functionally do anything you like, how "target number 4" makes it clear to the players what they need to do to succeed, and I love how pulpy and swingy combat can be. I really need to run more of it.

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

Mostly video games or movies. I just love good stories, I want to get fully invested in them. I look looking at video games or board games and finding little mechanics or ideas i can slot into TTRPGS, and often I will be inspired to make NPCs based on the characters in media i consume.

How Lauren runs games

I'm a big believer in making your own happy ending, and finding hope despite insurmountable, terrifying odds. My current campaign is set in a post apocalyptic world, where most of the gods are gone, and the material plane is ravaged by the forces of hell, and battles between angelic warriors and terrible monstrous beasts, where the players are hopefully going to put everything back together! I love players who are deeply invested in lore, NPCs, and the stories of themselves and the other players. I love it when my players make music playlists or art or poems or more about their characters, because they are that invested. When I do combats, I like them to be tactical and dangerous, but will always favour roleplay, and creative player solutions. My biggest strengths as a GM are creating long running mysteries, rich in a setting's lore, and having dastardly villains making moves to use that lore for their own goals. I love creating situations for the player characters to feel heroic in, and true evil (or perhaps morally grey characters) for them to vanquish. Consequences are everything in TTRPGs, and I am not shy about giving them out.

Featured Prompts

I prep by

Imagining set pieces and characters to an unhapthy degree, usually in the shower, on the bus, or while cooking food, and then I go and frantically write it all down before i forget. In my Hell War campaign, I have a document of all the factions, and another for lore clues and hints I can drop soon.

My favorite trope is...

Impossible to pick, but I love a good indomitable human spirit moment. I love half-orcs in D&D for this reason. Relentless Endurance is just "I didn't hear no bell", the class feature. I love a character winning in a losing situation. Also a last stand sacrifice to save your friends. It hurts good.

My games focus on...

The journeys and experiences of the player characters. I want to put the PCs in peril and strife, and watch them become braver, stronger people because of it. I find heroism so inspiring, and I love to see it at my table. Also angst. We love angst. I'm definitely a roleplay and lore first kind of GM

Lauren's ideal table

I love tables full of players eager to delve into their characters' journeys. Ready to fall in love with their PC, and the world, and the places where the two meet. But also equally invested in each other, eager to celebrate the highs and lows with their fellow players, and excited for the other characters at the table. I love storytellers, who will enjoy the rules bending and sometimes breaking, not necessarily players who love to stick as hard as possible to the rules.

Featured Prompts

I love it when a player

Makes an in-character decision that fundamentally change the entire expected outcome of the session, the world, and sometimes the story. I've had players go back for prisoners I'd expected to die, I've had warlock pacts form to escape a boss fight, and I love it every time. Embrace the consequences!

I think it's a red flag when players...

Make the joke they are thinking of regardless of the scene and tone currently happening. Undercutting tension or emotion with a cheap laugh is easy, but you're not going to remember the dumb fart joke you made, you'll remember how frightened, shocked, sad, or excited you were.

I think min/maxing...

Is fine, provided it has been done with character decisions. I have a very resilient paladin/barbarian in my current campaign, and a warlock who can do literally so much healing its insane. Both of them made levelling decisions based on their character's story, and the events of the game.