Max

I've been trying out online DnD for a few months now and Robert is the first I've felt came even close to reproducing the engagement and preparedness I've become used to in live play. I don't like oneshots, but even his oneshots are engaging. It's clear he's wholly committed to this craft. The last time I played with him, I was surprised that he had this little prologue scene with some centaur shamans performing a ritual. he had myself and the other players each read the invocaitons of one of the shamans before we cut to our actual players. It did so much to engage and immerse us in what was happening. Felt like a Howard or Lieber short story! Highly suggest playing with him at your earliest opportunity!

KT has a lot of positives but was disappointing in other important ways, so ultimately I'd have say it was a pretty average experience. On the one hand, he's a lot of fun in terms of character creation and letting/helping you play the character you want to play. He's also great about pumping up your team and making you feel badass, though they comes more through compliments ("you guys crushed that") rather than in-game narrative/description. Though, he does a decent job painting a picture, even drawing on the screen to indicate buildings and such. For me, phrases like "we cut to" or "we zoom in on" were a bit TOO cinematic for me but others will likely enjoy it. On the other hand, the storytelling was pretty mid. Didn't feel like he plausibly introduced my character or created good hooks for us to grab onto. Felt like he would introduce an encounter with one path in mind and if we didn't go that way he didn't have anything else compelling to do with that npc. These encounters sort of awkwardly idled and went on too long. The biggest issue was that I messaged him privately and politely voicing what I consider a pretty valid concern about session pacing (meeting three NPCs and having half a fight in more than three hours of play for $32 seems like underdelivery especially when you consider its biweekly) and he didn't seem to think it warranted responding to me at all, favorably or not. I would love to be less picky and open minded/patient playing DND, or to give it more than a couple sessions (about 7 hours) but the fact is DMs on this platform are saying "I'm a professional" not "come hang out with friends and it might get better as we go". We're paying for a service. DND is a game but Startplaying is a business, and I don't feel like I got my money's worth.