D2T

Yet Another Update: Before anything else, I want to thank Neal and all of our group for welcoming me in, even though I'm not American and english is not my native language. Thank you Neal for always taking caring of me and any barriers I'd might have had and thank all of the wednesday group for helping me learn. Our first (and hopefully not last) campaign lastet almost four years and I couldn't have wished for a more perfect GM. Neal brought our campaign to an end that satisfied not only our characters but their sisters and brothers, that respected our hopes, dreams and also our fears. I've died thrice during our campaign and had each and every of my characters deahts felt impactful and yet was picked up on during the final act and was honored in all their weired and special ways. I could not have asked for a better Game Master. Neal truely delivered on personal influence on the story, on the fantasy of slipping into a diffrent person and encouraged each and every one of us to fuse together in this family we call our wednesday group. We laughed, we cried, one of us got arrested once and we all agreed we ain't letting Neal go. I truely wish I could give him more than 5 Stars as he has not only become our Game Master but our friend. It was an awesome 4 years Neal and we all hope for another 40 more! UPDATE: After more than 3 years of playing with Neal, I can not recommend him highly enough. I honestly have to say that out of the hundreds of sessions we had I can barely recall a handful of sessions that were anything less than great. We experience hilarious comedy, heartwrenching drama or challenging and believably dangerous situations each session. Neal manages to change the situations in a believable way while avoiding monotony. If I could, I would rate him 6/5 stars. Personal aside: As a non-native english speaker, I appreciate Neals effort to make sure I understand every situation and feel immersed. A Little more detail on the long-term aspects of his campaign: Neal maintains meticulous backstory for the world we inhabit and weaves the stories of our characters into it in believable and gripping ways. He promotes character interaction and banter in our group and is a major reason why we've formed such a long lasting group of players. Obviously, Neal uses veils and spotlights expertly to allow us to live out our fantasies while Maintaining a safe atmosphere for everyone. I have to admit to stepping over the line at least once and felt stirnly but very politely being reminded of how the game should be a welcoming space for everyone. Never did we have a situation where a player had to call out a situation as uncomfortable (out of game). I can't say if it is by his skill or just by pure luck that he has procurred such an awesome group of players but the social aspect of the group (even between sessions) is something that adds a lot to the experience. We've only added two new long term players to our campaign so far (although we had hilarious stories with short term stays) but they are quite literally perfects fits. I wouldn't change a thing about how Neal runs out session. I can honestly not praise Neal high enough. He is doing an awesome job running our campaign! He adepts to each and every one of us and even makes guest apperances feel like they've been planned from the very beginning. He breathes life into all npcs and manages to give even goons some belivable character. He manages a great mix of intense action scenes, funny transitions and meaningful character development. "Neal is friend" as our favorite NPC would say!

Great adventure! He allowed our group to establish group dynamics even in a short one-shot. NPCs don't just info-dump on you and will even tell you to bugger off if you ask too many questions or questions not worth their time. He gave all characters a personality and showed us that our actions would have consequences even though it was a one-shot. Also used some house rules to make the story match our actions and not wall us because we did something stupid. The finally was a clutch fight, challanging and fair (although he did have an enemy flee early on otherwise we would probably have died). Even nameless enemies had a personality and acted accordingly.

George did a great job introducing us to the magical world of Midgard. We were able to solve most encounters with only some murder... Whoops, guess those murders were more on our part than forced by George. He also worked some hidden information into the story and made us share this info in character to continue the story. His discriptions of the world were vivid but don't let yourself get fooled by his cover art ;) All in all, we had great fun!

River guided us along a clutch adventure with many highs and many many wrong decisions on our part. He balanced the RAW with what the party needed very nicely. We finished the one-shot with our barbarian on 1 hp and the others on less than 10 in an epic multiturn finale in which all our skills needed. Our Monk, a first time player, was able to finish off the final boss with a heroic leap of faith and a perfectly placed attack: a nat20 to end our struggle with a BANG. I also enjoyed Rivers use of music and sound pieces for one of the NPCs (not like his RP was bad or anything) and the gorgeous maps and handouts.

Gretta did a great job of extending the world to match our quite unusual requests seemlessly. She let us decide how we would takle the scenario and eventhough she didn't know where we were going with our plans never tried to railroad us. We had a fun and open environment where silly details were welcomed and accepted. NPCs would acknowledge a frivolous hat with a wink rather than an Insight Check against your Deception. She tailored the rewards we reaped to our PCs and even found a way to tie up lose ends we left all over town in a satisfying ending. I can whole heartedly recommend Gretta for fun games with silly hijinks.