Reese

Joseph is excellent at what he does. Being a fairly new player, with only one class under my belt, I was nervous to start at a higher level in his campaigns in a different class, but he was astoundingly patient with me, explaining rules and tools to use to help craft a character and update my character sheet. He knows a LOT about the actual rules of the game but never makes you feel silly for still catching up. He ran some pre-written adventures and was faithful to the book without it feeling like he was reading off the page. I often forgot he wasn’t just crafting it all on the spot because he’s so engaging. You can tell he puts a lot of work into it all, from the maps, to the voices, to the icons used to represent NPC’s. I love that he uses the rule of cool when one of our party has an unhinged idea that just might work. As long as it didn’t directly contradict how a function was designed to be used, he lets his players have a lot of creative freedom to do what they think their characters may do in any given scenario, during combat and otherwise. All this being said, I absolutely recommend Joseph both to newer players who want to learn more about the game, and to experienced players looking for a challenge (because he does not make it too easy for you!)

I hadn’t ever played D&D before joining Joel’s campaign, and I didn’t know what to expect. Even though it’s been a while now, I remember being terrified before session 0, but honestly felt so excited and happy after maybe five minutes in. He didn’t make me feel stupid for any questions I asked then, and still doesn’t, even though I’ve been playing with him for months now. Since then, I look forward to a session with him every week, even if I know we’re walking straight into a tense battle or difficult conversation with NPCs. Okay random Joel stuff now that is rad. He always asks us how we’re doing and actually wants to know the answer. He has awesome background music that really gets you into the atmosphere of the scene. Some of it even has our characters’ names in the lyrics. He makes complex and beautiful maps and character icons. He sometimes reminds me when I have a helpful new feature that I forget about. (I forget a lot.) He knows the rules and will double check them as needed to ensure that everything is above board if there's any question. He has us roll luck checks to determine the outcome of things, so a plot line isn’t just bent to his personal will, but left to the dice to tell the story. He sometimes tells us what could have happened if a different number was rolled- (which I love!!) It keeps the height of the stakes at the front of my mind and also showcases his creativity in being able to come up with multiple detailed outcomes of a certain situation on the fly. So neat. He challenges me and my party members, but not to the point that we feel helpless and useless. In fact, when I first started, I often felt like my character was a bit useless; however, he constantly makes sure to point out when someone does something great that should be celebrated. In critical moments of battle or rolls on tables, he’ll take his hands off the keyboard and hold them up on camera so there’s no question about him metagaming or fiddling with stuff behind the scenes to change an outcome to his wishes. He does fun and diverse voices for all the NPCs, and you can tell exactly who he’s voicing at any time because they’re all so unique and distinct. He does an unreal amount of background work. When we find a unique item, we as a party have received MULTIPLE spreadsheets and documents from Joel with literally thousands of words each. For example, my character expressed interest in bonding with a dragon when they found a book on dragons. Joel then wrote up an over 2300 word document on dragons and posted it for us to read. He did the same thing with even more words for another instance of finding something marvelous. Joel seamlessly facilitates the highlight of my week, every week. Long story short- Pros: - Phenomenal guy. Very empathetic and considerate, as well as creative, bold, funny, and intelligent. - Creates a space where the players feel comfortable both exploring their characters as well as just being ourselves. - Helped loads in session zero when I literally had no previous interaction with D&D apart from watching a few Dimension20 episodes on YouTube. - Incredibly knowledgeable about lore, geography, species, classes, spells, character abilities, and things that I would never have even expected to come up. Cons: - Should definitely brag about himself a lot more because he is fully incredible. Jk- no cons.