GrumpyCat

Branden is a very positive and friendly DM who is always laughing and cheerful during the game, which makes leaving this review difficult. However as we all pay to play a fun experience its important to me to leave accurate reviews: * Personality 5/5 - Fun, understanding, and was quick to handle negative player interactions. * Rules: 3/5 - DM knows a decent chunk of basic rules but misses a lot of important ones like understanding how surprise rounds work and flatfooted. * Roleplay 4/5 - Was very into the characters and did very interesting voices, but this section is hurt by prep section below* * Prep 1/5 - Unfortunately the lack of prep was very obvious. As a group of players and DMs who have played for many years in paid games and APs, it was very evident that there just wasnt enough memorization and understanding of the AP/world. Things such as maps not being ready/poor quality, walls hastily done, having to look up every room and interaction to understand what was going on in the campaign, not having the right number of enemies. In a paid game a DM must KNOW the story they are selling inside and out. * Pacing 1/5 - This was likely due to prep as well, but we got very little done in 3h sessions because there was a lot of looking up basic things or plot points. TL;DR - I think they can become a great DM but they are not yet up to the point of making DMing a job without serious overhaul on how much they prep for paid DMing.

Playing in a 3.5 game with Antigoni and its clear she loves the ruleset dearly. She advertised our campaign as heavy roleplay and heavy it is! As a normally rules/dice roll type player it has been quite a shift, but her world building and story telling makes a very fun experience. Recommend for players who really want to get lost in the lore/roleplay.

TL;DR Soul makes DMing look effortless. His games are what a nat 20 looks like. I met soul nearly 3 years ago (wow time flies) when our game together fell apart because our DM was kinda sucky (my opinion). All of us were really bummed. That was until, despite wanting to be a player himself, Soul took over as DM for all of us. I am so fricken glad that DM sucked, cause I would never have gotten to play in Soul's game otherwise. What makes a good DM? I mean a whole lot, but if I had to list it out for soul it would be: * Amazing knowledge of RPGs/PF1e rules * The willingness to listen to his players and feedback * The dedication to thoroughly read and prep for a campaign and understand how our actions will affect the storyline * Caring first and foremost that the players are having fun * Knowing how to curtail problematic behavior * Friendly/easy to talk to If I sound like im overstating, I 100% assure I am not talking this up enough. DMing is an art, and Soul is an artist. Which he hates because he just wants to play as a player (too bad, so sad, going to chain him to DMing for at least a decade). Very few people I would gush about them being a good DM, and even fewer I would say I consider a friend.

I appreciate when people leave honest reviews, so I am modifying my review so others have a good idea of their purchase and ive been informed most of my issues have been resolved. I have played with Ciaran for a long long time now, and have had a good amount of fun. The Good: * Pushes the game along to keep the pace * Above average roleplay and does voices * Above average prep, truly understand the game they are running * Takes great care to get detailed maps/music The Neutral: * Good field control of the npcs, but still lacks knowledge of the creatures which sometimes bogs down fights. * Deep dives into the lore of APs, but gets so interested they overshare with the party leading to spoilers