Post by hobbad on Mar 22, 2015 22:26:57 GMT -7
About me:
I'm a 26 year old Web Developer / Designer out of North Carolina who works for a Tech Start Up. I have four older brothers and the oldest one ( in his 40's now ) started a family spread obsession with D&D when he purchased his copies of AD&D, Monster Manual, & Deities and Demigods in the 80's. The books have been passed down brother to brother, each one taking a position as Dugeon Master for the 'next generation'. While my time with the original AD&D was brief it was amazing, we had all read ( & watched ) the Hobbit ( the animated one ) and the rest of the LotR books and the elements showed. ( My first character, a noble elf warrior, brandishing his fathers sword that glowed when danger was near and when it's blade met an enemies flesh it banished them into another plane. Tolkien Much? ). We never really got into the strategic monotony of placement on a board, every now and then we would pull out graph paper but we found it got in the way. After all, when your Noble Elven Warrior charges head long into an invading army of Orcs, like a sea of bodies crashing down onto your spinning glowing blade, adjusting positions on paper pulled you out of the experience.
Then came the years of 3.5. Another brother, Another Time. This brother had a love of cinema and brought the experience to another level by the addition of music. "So your Psion Warrior sits down in the chair, the workers in this hidden futuristic psion city strap you into your chair, hooking you up to what they call the 'Net' and they turn on the machine what do you do?." "Umm.. Download?" "Never having used this tech before you begin downloading EVERYTHING. Roll 6 consecutive Will saves, if you fail 2 you die." Que 'Otherworld' from FFX. First 4 Rolls Succeed. Next Fail. "Your body convulses, blood oozing from your nostrils and eyes. The information.. it's too much." Final die is cast. Crit Succeed. "The lights go out as you drain the city of it's power and you fall unconscious."
After a lengthy campaign with my brother, he left for college and I turned to my friends. It was my turn to be a DM. How hard could it be? I invited some friends over ( 6 to be exact ). "Alright, let's make characters!" Time passes. "aaaand it's 8 in the morning and we just finished making characters... okay maybe next time we'll actually get to play..." The adventure was fun and it lead to several campaigns, sprawling dungeons. Epic stories. Lots of laughs. ( "I steal all of Mitch's gold. Yes, all 5,000 GP while I'm talking to him." [Danielle rolls nat 20 to stealth] [Mitch rolls nat 1])
Throughout the years as I gained experience GMing. I got the same response from my players, "You're the best GM!" and when I asked them why, because I didn't think so they would tell me, "You build a world and just drop us in it and ask us what we want to do. If we want to set the Inn on fire, you roll with it and now we're banditos on the run. That rice merchant we stole something from 2 years ago shows up out of no where claiming to have been tracking us, all this time! No one else does that!"
But I still don't take the credit for that. I just do what my brother's have always done. Tell a story.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Goals:
After playing a few games at Dragon's Gate I would like to give back. I got burnt out being the only person willing to GM with my circle of gamers. ( Always the GM, never the PC ) I would also like my hand at World Building, preferably smaller arcs. I would like to start expanding on player backgrounds, possibly planning sessions with specific players and bringing a few along for the ride. My primary goal is character development, which I believe, doesn't have to be mutually exclusive from one shots.
I'm a 26 year old Web Developer / Designer out of North Carolina who works for a Tech Start Up. I have four older brothers and the oldest one ( in his 40's now ) started a family spread obsession with D&D when he purchased his copies of AD&D, Monster Manual, & Deities and Demigods in the 80's. The books have been passed down brother to brother, each one taking a position as Dugeon Master for the 'next generation'. While my time with the original AD&D was brief it was amazing, we had all read ( & watched ) the Hobbit ( the animated one ) and the rest of the LotR books and the elements showed. ( My first character, a noble elf warrior, brandishing his fathers sword that glowed when danger was near and when it's blade met an enemies flesh it banished them into another plane. Tolkien Much? ). We never really got into the strategic monotony of placement on a board, every now and then we would pull out graph paper but we found it got in the way. After all, when your Noble Elven Warrior charges head long into an invading army of Orcs, like a sea of bodies crashing down onto your spinning glowing blade, adjusting positions on paper pulled you out of the experience.
Then came the years of 3.5. Another brother, Another Time. This brother had a love of cinema and brought the experience to another level by the addition of music. "So your Psion Warrior sits down in the chair, the workers in this hidden futuristic psion city strap you into your chair, hooking you up to what they call the 'Net' and they turn on the machine what do you do?." "Umm.. Download?" "Never having used this tech before you begin downloading EVERYTHING. Roll 6 consecutive Will saves, if you fail 2 you die." Que 'Otherworld' from FFX. First 4 Rolls Succeed. Next Fail. "Your body convulses, blood oozing from your nostrils and eyes. The information.. it's too much." Final die is cast. Crit Succeed. "The lights go out as you drain the city of it's power and you fall unconscious."
After a lengthy campaign with my brother, he left for college and I turned to my friends. It was my turn to be a DM. How hard could it be? I invited some friends over ( 6 to be exact ). "Alright, let's make characters!" Time passes. "aaaand it's 8 in the morning and we just finished making characters... okay maybe next time we'll actually get to play..." The adventure was fun and it lead to several campaigns, sprawling dungeons. Epic stories. Lots of laughs. ( "I steal all of Mitch's gold. Yes, all 5,000 GP while I'm talking to him." [Danielle rolls nat 20 to stealth] [Mitch rolls nat 1])
Throughout the years as I gained experience GMing. I got the same response from my players, "You're the best GM!" and when I asked them why, because I didn't think so they would tell me, "You build a world and just drop us in it and ask us what we want to do. If we want to set the Inn on fire, you roll with it and now we're banditos on the run. That rice merchant we stole something from 2 years ago shows up out of no where claiming to have been tracking us, all this time! No one else does that!"
But I still don't take the credit for that. I just do what my brother's have always done. Tell a story.
Strengths:
- Story telling
- Highly Adaptive
- Creativity
Weaknesses:
- I work a lot and I live with my SO, so when I can play tends to be later at night from most sessions.
- New-ish to Pathfinder but, the rules are not so different to 3.5 and it's pretty easy to look up references.
- I don't hold back on my rolls, if your mage ran out to the front lines and gets coup de graced then start rolling a new character.
- New-ish to Roll20 but it seems simple enough, will probably start watching more of the how to videos.
- I don't like kick down the dungeon door style. It's one of the few complaints I get from players who just want to get into a dungeon and stab stuff in the face. My opinion, if that's all you want to do I can point you in the direction of some great video games / board games that do that but if I'm running the ship the bad guy is going to have complicated back story, and you're going to like it.
- I'm used to having more time to run sessions and a chance to more intimately intertwine character back stories into the main arc
Goals:
After playing a few games at Dragon's Gate I would like to give back. I got burnt out being the only person willing to GM with my circle of gamers. ( Always the GM, never the PC ) I would also like my hand at World Building, preferably smaller arcs. I would like to start expanding on player backgrounds, possibly planning sessions with specific players and bringing a few along for the ride. My primary goal is character development, which I believe, doesn't have to be mutually exclusive from one shots.
