Session 3: Who Inspires me to GM?
- Julia Malitoris
- Sep 5
- 7 min read
So, I mentioned I haven't been doing this whole "Game Mastering" thing for very long, right? Only a handful of years, specifically during the pandemic where I had a lot of time to watch a lot of things (just like the rest of you). But let me give you some more of my background and my inspirations that set me on this journey. Maybe you've heard of some of them, maybe I'll introduce you to a new favorite of yours! Either way, here we go.
The before times...
I've mentioned that I've been writing stories since I was a little kid. A lot of that came from me being a little sister wanting to copy my older sibling (who is a far better writer). Soon, that shifted to Neopets roleplaying forums. (Oh boy, were those a place for grammar to go and die by the hands of Mary and Gary Sues.) Once I'd written myself out of those forums I danced about some others on the interwebs, especially those that valued flowery language over actual substance (i.e. instead of writing "'oh crap,' she thought" it instead was "'oh crap,' she thought harshly within her own mind). Intermingled throughout all of these forums was me writing the typical fanfiction and "alternate realities" of video games (Bioware games were my main bread and butter). As I went through college I found some select internet friends where our writing styles and topical styles meshed and I was able to correct my writing into the more "stream of consciousness" type that you are reading today.
To those of you that know of this group, that's right, I did technically start with Pathfinder 1st edition during my exploration of ttrpgs. I found Rusty Quill Gaming through my favorite anthology series of the Magnus Archives. A horror podcast
that is wonderfully written and produced and takes you on an amazing mystery filled with the horrors you hope don't go bump in the night. (It also feels very full circle that since really getting into GMing, they have now come out with a Magnus Archives ttrpg.)
The campaign I was listening to at Rusty Quill Gaming was a Pathfinder game in a steampunk-like world where a small group of adventurers were sent out to figure out the culprits to a bombing at an auction house followed by a heist. Almost all of the players had never played Pathfinder before. Having now read through the rules of Pathfinder, I really appreciate how the GM helped the newbies through it all with patience and the new players met each challenge with excitement. It was really a great example of how the story was what was important and the rules were merely semantics.
One of these days I'll run a Magnus Archives game...maybe after I've tried out the three other systems I have to get through too...lol.
Critical Role is the first "actual play" series I found I could watch while scrolling endlessly through my Youtube recommendations in 2020. It started just with some compilations of silly interactions and funny puzzle solving and soon I found myself hitting play on episode 1 of Campaign 1. (I'm a completionist, you see, and the idea that I had hours of media to catch up on was a dream for me.)
I'd known of the existence of Dungeons & Dragons before this, but only in the form that it had to do with dice rolling and combat. I hadn't understood that there was a collaborative storytelling aspect to it and all of that was suddenly laid out to me with Critical Role. It was like there was a click in my brain as all of the years of roleplaying on forums and emails and google docs, of compiling worlds and plots with others felt like it had perfectly lead up to this. This was everything I loved about writing stories with someone else only add in math rocks and figurines (I am a magpie in a human sack so that was also perfect for me).
If anything, Critical Role has shown me just how little you need to play a "perfect" game of D&D (hand drawn maps, dice for figurines, bottle caps for status markers, etc.) as well as how much you can put into it. I think a lot of people that jumped on the bandwagon via Campaign 2 think the only way to "play right" means custom minis, 3D maps, and color-changing lights. I'll go more into my thoughts on this in a future post. To be honest, I've only made it through the De Rolo story arc from the original series (I did inevitably get overwhelmed by the amount I had to catch up on). Fortunately, my wife watched all of Campaign 2, we both watched all of Campaign 3, and I'm pretty pumped for Campaign 4.
As Youtube does, once you start watching a particular type of video, it starts recommending you everything having to do with it. That is where I discovered Legend of Avantris via their "Witchlight" campaign run by Nikki. I just really enjoyed them as a group. As much as Critical Role implied "we're all friends" I just found myself feeling far more "part of the table" with Avantris even though they'd been around just as long as Critical Role.
And then I found their "Edge of Midnight" campaign also run by Nikki and I discovered the amazing world of horror in Dungeons & Dragons. In fact, it inspired me to take on Curse of Strahd as my very first campaign (I purposely did not watch their Curse of Strahdvania campaign). Nikki just did such an amazing job orchestrating the horrors of Druskenvald and the discomforts but also the rest of the table showed the importance of levity in horror and in the fun that could be hind while digging through the terror. Additionally, it's always awesome to have another badass lady GM in the space that likes to show just how far you can push the envelope!
I will talk about my obsessions with ttrpg Kickstarters in another post but I 100% was one of the "first in" and "all-in" contributors to their Crooked Moon extravaganza. I got to see them at GenCon this year (even though I was too nervous to say "hi") and I am just WAY too excited to give it a run.
This is a recent "obsession" of mine and I've mentioned them a few times in previous posts. Mystic Arts, while not an actual play sort of channel, is a very relaxed guy and his girlfriend that just like to talk about tips and tricks they think are important to run a good game of D&D. What I like the most about it is that he comes from the perspective that D&D - and all ttrpgs for that matter - are what you and the players make it, not what the rules make it.
He gives good advise on things like making combat more challenging, understanding a hexcrawl, and helping point out where you might have gone wrong while world building. But it's all bite sized pieces and is clearly displayed as something that he enjoys and is excited about.
Additionally, unlike a lot of D&D channels (especially with the roll out of 2024 5e), he was very honest about his enjoyment of D&D. He has his critiques of the system but makes it clear that you as the GM have the power to fix those friction spots, that you don't have to do it the way the book says. What's going to happen if you don't anyway? Is Gary Gygax's ghost going to haunt you? Doubtful.
Dimension20 (Dropout)...
I have always been a fan of CollegeHumor since it was it's own website in the early 2000s. I couldn't have been more pumped when it shifted to Dropout and jumped on to watch this new "Dimension20" campaign that they had going for them.
It was awesome. A game of organized chaos where there was no limit to "yes, and". It was also edited into a shorter form than other actual plays that I had been watching. What it also helped me learn was how important engaged players are to the overall story (not that the players in other actual plays above aren't). Listening to interviews with Brennan you could see his excitement where some of his players had gone in a way different direction than he expected and instead of trying to guide them back, he rolled with it and created amazing new plot lines and returning NPCs.
I was running Descent into Avernus when I really started watching Dimension20 and it helped me learn how to lean into the improv of ttrpgs rather than trying to plan every single, possible choice they could make. (Man...I can't even explain how much it cut down on my prep time.)
And of course, my wife...
It probably seems cheesy to say but my wife has been my greatest inspiration, both to dive into GMing and creating this blog. She was the first person that heard my stories and suggested that I would be good at GMing and that I should try running something. Maybe she regrets it now (given the hobby has started to take over the house) but she hasn't stopped supporting me since.
The most convenient part is that she has a background in film and is just a generally far more creative person than I am. What does that mean? It means as I have continued to want to expand on my experience of the games (music, maps, lighting, etc.) she's been right next to me to teach me how to push the buttons and fiddle the switches. I never realized how in depth some of this could be and honestly without her I probably would have still been playing my music through my phone speaker.
One of these days when we have a bigger house with a place for all of our games, we'll make a gaming table that makes all other gaming tables shake in their boots
And that's it! Or at least the most significant ones I can think of. I also like to watch the "D&D Horror" stories from creators like Crispy's Tavern. Fortunately, I don't have many horror stories like those (though maybe I might have a tale or two to tell in the future).
Either way, what have been some of your greatest inspirations in writing or GMing or just life in general?
Looking forward to your sentiments.
I'll see you next session.
Julia
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