Jason (Mer)

To be a good GM, you need to 1. Have a lot of skills and experience with the specific TTRPG you are running. 2. And to be a good VTT GM, you need to be an expert in that VTT. 3. To be a good StartPlaying GM, you need to also be very good at scheduling, organization, and not to mention being fair in regards to what people are paying for. I'm afraid Badger missed the mark on #2 and #3. No doubt it is a darn hard job. I hate leaving negative reviews, but I feel it is my duty to give fair and hopefully constructive criticism for the GM and for future potential players. There is no request for a monetary refund, I don't want it. Cons: - Expectations were set incorrectly or were simply ignored. This is crucial for player enjoyment. e.g. In my conversations before signing up, it was clear I could play a certain class in Shadowdark, and that we'd be starting with the old TSR module Keep on the Borderlands. The first sentence of his public game description is "All the old school favorites from the B series and X series modules, which are perfect to set in the ShadowDark system." And the final sentence in the description is "As the title suggest we start in the Borderlands, it's time to investigate those mysterious ruins outside the keep!" Neither of those things came to fruition. Quite the opposite, with a "yay vote" from only one out of 4 players, the entire session changed to a Shadowdark funnel/gauntlet "Trial of the Slimelord", where characters are level 0 (no classes, etc.). I've played funnels/gauntlets before and enjoyed them... but I didn't sign up for one this time. I wasn't going to complain or quit out and ruin the night for everyone, so I went along with it (as I expect the other 2 players did). - Not enough prep work done before our game. Specifically, we spent about an hour getting ready to play, mostly creating 12 pregens for 4 players. In this scenario, a GM should create pregens (pregenerated characters) beforehand. We had confusion later in the game due to misnamed tokens and "invisible" characters. A GM should have readied all the tokens beforehand to choose from (every GM I've played with so far has readied tokens + portraits beforehand for the VTT). - A slow, rocky execution of our game. e.g. The GM had trouble explaining Foundry VTT settings to people. e.g. The dreaded torch timer issues... caused some cursing out loud on the GM side as both he and we were getting flustered. e.g. GM taking phonecalls during our game multiple times. - A lack of respect for the players' time. e.g. Multiple times our GM Badger went silent for about 30-120 seconds. We found out later he was "taking important phonecalls". I'm not sure if he has a side business that requires 1 minute phonecalls or what exactly, but it was very disturbing to the flow of our game. - A lack of respect for others' needs. A lack of organization. e.g. Scheduling games back to back with zero minutes to spare. Indeed, our game bled over 15 minutes into another of his hosted games before he realized it, as we discovered when Badger proclaimed the other group was upset and messaging him/he had to run. This was not fair to the people in the game session after ours. - Not enough content for a 3 hour session. e.g. During a 3 hour session, we as a group of 12 characters essentially explored 2-3 hallways and 1-2 rooms (besides the starting room). Zero NPC interaction (fine and expected for a funnel). No real backstory or atmosphere building to speak of (not the end of the world, but should have given us more time to dungeoncrawl). We had one random encounter that was just starting, then the session ended (not nearly enough for 3 hours of gaming). Pros: - Badger allowed creative options, but wisely balanced things that were allowed. e.g. We got a "stick"... we lit it to be used as a torch. The implication was that it would not last long. Then a player thought to make it a true torch by wrapping a rope around the stick and dousing it with oil. This made it a true torch, and it acted as one (bravo to all involved). - The ability to push through awkward problems or inconveniences to others. OK, maybe this is as much as Con as a Pro, it's some sort of balancing act to not become flustered but also respect others. - Badger has enthusiasm for Shadowdark as a TTRPG. - He knew the Shadowdark rules. Sending good will and best wishes to all the players in our session and to the GM Badger. Sorry I am exiting. Good luck in the future and take care!

David is simply great - enthusiastic, a fair referee, and lots and lots of fun. He is also experienced such that he can tweak a one-shot to get a lot in but not overwhelm. You get great voices, cool atmosphere (music/visuals), interesting NPC interactions, and varied and interesting combat. This one shot is over, but I hope to get to game with him more in the future, what a pleasure. And that also goes for the rest of the gang last night who were equally great, very nice meeting you folks (if you ever see this review), I think we all had a blast! Dragonbane newbies, the whole party, we were introduced to the Alchemy VTT and Dragonbane very well... couldn't have gone smoother. And I can't help but do a mini review of the VTT and Dragonbane. The Alchemy VTT was really easy to use. The maps look awesome. It's at the top of my usability and easy-on-the-eyes list. Dragonbane - what a cool and interesting system. So many things to like about it. The art is pretty darn great, and I'm picky there. The Mallard duck people are a little odd coming from older school D&D, but it works in that whimsical way. The monsters are fierce and not to be taken lightly. There are tons of things to do outside of combat to keep the flow going. And the combat mechanics encourage a different approach in many ways with things like being able to switch initiative with friends or the enemy, trading your attack for a possible parry/evade to avoid damage, etc. are all refreshing and fun to play. Most memorable moments - might it be the creepy NPC who turned out to be helpful? Or the hilarious roleplaying of our Wolfkin party member after failing on a fear(?) check... what an unforgettable funny but heroic character all around. Or maybe when my Mage character, not being overly worried about a few coins but then heard someone mention "old book" in a chest... running over to have some friendly banter over getting his hands on it. Not to mention our Huntress party member who couldn't stop rolling either 20s or 1s... we had more than one epic critical that night that changed the flow of the game. All great stuff. In summary - I could check every one of the Tags presented, three is simply not enough. David is an easy 10/10!

Awesome and fun. A friend and I did a one-shot using Shadowdark (first time for both of us with that system) with Lawful Cherry, and it was some of the most fun I've had with an online TTRPG yet. L'Cherry was able to get that perfect balance of serious to fun vibes that we were looking for. He is able to read the room and adjust levity to seriousness as needed in the moment. Also super impressive GM skills were on display, ... difficulty was adjusted before the module even started so that we had the correct amount of tension & uphill battle were asking for, while still having enough resources to pull out a win without a TPK. In the Shadowdark/OSR-adjacent tradition we might have wanted to skip a couple of foes, but somehow there "was a way" and we found it. The sound effects, music, voices, etc. were great. I'm definitely going to do more gaming with Lawful Cherry when our schedules meet up again in the near future. Yep, 10/10.

George is awesome. We had a great time, experienced and new players alike. I will definitely be back for many more. I love the overall calm but good pacing and especially fun attitude you get from George. The whole "table" gets immediately comfortable, and that leads to a good time. He teaches when we ask, and he allows the map and enemies to do their thing without having to hold back. Making his own maps, you feel the decades of experience on how to make a cool dungeon crawl come alive. If you are interesting in an OSR old school style, George will serve up an engaging and fun time. Newcomers will have no fear, as two of us were very new to online TTRPGs. And a few of the party were less familiar with the rules of OSE or B/X, but George was like an encyclopedia of knowledge... things moved very smoothly, never a dull moment. One thing that stood out for our first session is George knew how to throw the party some extra options from the beginning, which I appreciate as more tools/options leads to more fun. Have I mentioned fun yet, because it seems like a game should always be fun, and our man George here is smart enough to know how to make that happen. What else can I say? Cool classic monsters. Neat puzzles. Great looking maps. Fun game. Let's go, I'm ready for another adventure night. 10/10 another great DM/GM you should check out.

I had an awesome and fun experience with our first game, and I'll be playing much more with Ryan running things. The smoothest, best looking, and coolest maps you can find on a VTT (I've watched many a youtube and played a handful online)... the lighting/pathing works super well which I am quickly finding leads to more immersion and fun. Really interesting and engaging scenarios, so much goodness packed around every turn. Great vibe with light background music to fit the map. He perfectly balances tone/rulings of when to be serious and when to be a little looser. But we're playing in the OSR style so the party can definitely make a mistake, and the stakes are "real", which is a blast. Advanced players will be confident Ryan as the GM knows exactly what he is doing in combat/puzzles/dungeoncrawl/roleplay/exploration including expert knowledge of the rules, while newer players will get excellent pre-game training and smooth/non-rushed help whenever needed during a game (I am still fairly new to online aspects of TTRPG play as I write this). Nothing is forced as the scenes are laid out, and the party can affect the outcomes of encounters naturally but without getting away with nonsense. Newest RGP memory: When our party member was able to negotiate with a certain dangerous foe that I (and others) completely didn't see coming. I'm very far from being Mr. roleplay myself, but that was a golden moment I'll never forget. Highly recommended guy: 10/10.