Suann (Geekstress)

Fellow GM here: Steven has gone through one full campaign and is partway through another with me as a player. He is consistent, considerate, punctual, and clearly communicates with me as a GM but also his fellow players at the table. Steven is also organized and thinks deeply about his character, the story, and is a great collaborator. For the crunchier bits, he's highly proficient in PF2e, SF2e, and Foundry VTT, so you'll be in good hands whether you're new or a veteran. But most importantly, he's a chill, fun person and genuinely wants everyone at the table to have fun together.

I joined a Cosmere learn to play one-shot, and my TL;DR is that it was a very negative experience. I based my review on two questions: did I learn and did I have fun? The answer to both is NO. Before I go into details: I don't write this review lightly or to flame another lover of the hobby. As a fellow GM on the platform, I strive to bring positivity to games I join and look for the good in what another GM brings to the table. Perhaps the GM was having an off day -- he has stellar reviews and callouts for being a great teacher, which is why I selected him for the learn to play. I write this review because this is how we improve our skills and assist fellow players in finding a good match on the platform. Pros - Golvin followed up with me regarding my Lines and Veils immediately after I signed up. He took great care to make sure I felt safe (at the time of the written communication). This is often overlooked or minimized, but he messaged me as soon as he saw a potential conflict. - He put in work and effort to provide guidance in resource/learning channels on his Discord server. - He interacted with players promptly on his Discord server even though some of us signed up weeks before the session. - He shared his screen during the session which can be helpful when you're getting lost in a VTT issue. - He gave some guidance right away regarding some Roll20 set up to make life smoother. - He kept to the time estimates listed for the session. Cons - He introduced himself but didn't ask for players to do the same. This is my personal pet peeve, perhaps, that isn't necessarily a con for everyone. But when I'm a player, I like to at least put a name to a voice/character. It also avoids mispronouncing names or using incorrect pronouns. - He went into excessive hedging and chatter about about my Lines during the session, pointing it out and making the situation awkward (for me). We already discussed it in messages AND I self-identified my Line publicly to all players in the text chat weeks before the session. It was unnecessary, and the players at the table were not new to rpgs and seemed familiar with safety tool concepts. The whole debacle just made me feel like I made things terribly inconvenient for the GM, and this was at the beginning of the adventure. (I am not accusing him of trying to do so, but he mismanaged the situation.) It was as though he didn't think about how to handle the change despite having advance notice or struggles with improvisation. - Full disclosure: I have experience as a linguist and an educator working with people with speech impediments of various types, so I am not calling this out to shame. --- The GM has a speech impediment but did not address it with the group. It's severe enough to be a major hindrance to comprehension, and it got very bad when he spoke quickly (and he had a tendency to do so often). As soon as I realized I'd need to ask for an accommodation, I asked for him to slow his rate of speech. He initially accommodated, but this is clearly something he needs to work on more diligently. Perhaps he was tired and it made things more pronounced. However, despite exerting my full attention, asking for slow downs, and piecing together things through context, I lost a lot of details and had to request summaries/reviews of what we just did in the story. We also had a highly fluent but non-native English speaker in the group, and he had an incredibly difficult experience. - The GM was ill-prepared. He did not refresh on the rules (self-disclosed) and the functions of the VTT from the player's side. Terms were not used correctly or were incorrectly defined. There were handouts that helped, but I don't expect to need to read pages of handouts if there's a GM to guide and facilitate my understanding. It was only because I--and other players--had done some reading in advance that we could make corrections at the table. I don't inherently dislike learning together, but that was not the purpose of this one-shot. - The GM spoke over everyone frequently. He'd begin answering a question before the question was fully stated. - I asked for some creative options in a scene but was turned down, and similar interactions happened with other players trying to use their abilities RAW that didn't "make sense" to the GM. This in and of itself is not wrong -- the GM is the arbiter of the rules and we were there to learn. However, I asked if the system itself has a way to handle creativity (it does) but this all emphasized that the GM does not improvise well. Again, he may have had an off day or he's less dynamic in Cosmere than in other systems, but for the rest of the session I stuck to minimal RP and minimal interactions. And this did seem to make things smoother for the GM. - His attention wandered. A lot. In mid sentence. He also mumbled and spoke to himself about needing to not have a wandering mind or other areas he needed to improve upon. Some self-deprecating humor/inner monologue is fine as a way to smoother over a flub, but he flubbed often and repeatedly, so it was a useless refrain. All in all I would *not* recommend this GM for a Cosmere learn to play experience.

I participated in a Vampire the Masquerade (5e) learn to play with Joseph. He is a dynamic storyteller, provides excellent voices/characterizations, has lovely descriptions and narration, and made me feel immediately at ease to RP. It was easy to tell that he's done this for a long time and loves not only GMing but also the setting. We had some technical hiccups and ran over on time, but the entire experience was positive. To be honest, I was hesitant to try the system because of negative experiences with World of Darkness in the past. The session with Joseph makes me curious to explore more, however, and it's difficult to think of a better way to say that he's a great up-and-coming GM to SPG.

I participated in Danil's webinar to learn more about Daggerheart. He has a lot of experience with the system and his presentation showed it -- he was organized and approachable. Even though I already had experience with the system, I'm grateful I was able to get extra tips and tricks from him.

Friday is a wonderful mentor to fellow GMs. I've had the pleasure in being in two (and hopefully more) workshops with her. She speaks from experience and with genuine love of the industry. I look forward to learning more from her!