Introduction
A Referee is a GM Archetype recognized by Introversion, Intuition, Feeling, and Perceiving traits. People will take note of your quiet imagination as you contemplate events that have happened or could transpire. It is a simple task to step out of your body and into your mind giving a robust empathetic response to grant you open-minded listening. Through all elements, post consideration, you respond with care and creativity to find solutions to any problem that comes into your life.
You enjoy the deep connections that art allows you
What people perceive as a quiet nature is contrasted powerfully with a vibrant mind filled with ideas developed from every conversation. Your sensitivity to others gives a profound emotional response to the creative expression of others and echoes when you take the time to share these moments with others. Undeniably, you enjoy the deep connections that art allows you and others to experience.
Game Mastering Styles
With a mind far in the clouds, you draw concepts an exquisitely conjured imagination creating a particular ideal. The perfect game system and setting exist, you know it, and you refuse to settle for anything less. You establish expectations long before sifting through stories from childhood to adulthood that expand in your mind. Eventually, you will determine that there are no perfect systems and find something that allows you to adjust the details as necessary.
Once you have found a system with lite rules that can be adjusted as desired, it might as well have been what you have been looking for since the beginning. A chance to retell the stories you have fixated on for untold hours carries an amplified passion. Of course, you will not rush out into the streets to tell people, but any conversation related to your locked-in system and interests is quick to deliver. This passion is powerful as your words, spoken sparing, carry weight, and those that share your interest follow without hesitation.
You relish the opportunity to retell stories
You spend your time as a GM working with something you are deeply connected to, guaranteeing that participants will experience nothing but the best. A small yet intimate table with people that have shared interests going through a long-term story with a focus on the story and each other means that you have found your paradise in gaming.
Storytelling Style
The nature of humanity is fascinating, not from any perspective other than the shared value of introspection. Learning and understanding who we are and why we do what we do are core components of a story that draws you in. You likely take time to ensure your players experience this by diving deep into the characters and their place in the world. Gaining insight into the factors that bring joy and pain is not an objective but an excellent outcome of sincere empathy.
you conjure moments in the story that blend players with their characters
Taking the time to understand each of the components of a person means that you slowly absorb the identity and carry the emotions with you. This understanding translates in powerful ways through a meaningful expression of thoughts and feelings through intricate metaphors and intense characters. Even the most distant NPC at any given moment will have a story that makes them a person as real as the player characters.
These roads eventually lead to the eventual junction where characters discover their calling. That is a narrative trope to some, but you maintain a sense of realism in expressing such. Taking everything you have learned about the character, and even the player, to make a moment of worth in a scene brings genuine emotion to the surface. You conjure moments in the story that blend players with their characters, facilitating their attachment to someone they have known their whole lives.
Table Management
Life can be a journey, and a calling pulls you towards others who embark on self-exploration and expression. Members at your table experience your desire to be war, caring, and open-minded. There is a joyous experience giving players the freedom to form opinions during play and discover the type of player they wish to be. Establishing clear boundaries at the table to build a foundation ensures players feel supported in exploring unconventional routes.
your permissiveness stems from a nonconfrontational personality
Players are free to make decisions that fit within the foundation, and should they act beyond those limits, compassion rises to establish natural consequences. Rather than simply dismissing a choice as is, you’re more likely to permit deviations from the core rules and adjust to counterbalance. This permissiveness stems from a nonconfrontational personality. You may avoid direct conflict over rules by simply creating new rules that encompass that expanding boundary.
This nonconfrontation applies only to the game regarding the story and system, but should any behavior break the safety boundaries set by the table, that’s a different story. Disrespect, to any degree, is unforgivable when it affects a fellow player, and that is when the rules lawyer surfaces. The game may change to fit the table, but a player’s independence or safety is always the primary objective.
Session Resources
Many tools can amplify the table experience, but the one most preferred by you is a truly interactive and engaging session zero. Establishing boundaries for the foundation moving forward while also taking the time to make characters and living people with an identity is all that truly matters. With such a free-thinking approach to exploring circumstances, it is essential to lock down a road map.
Campaign trackers, NPC relationship maps, location breakdowns, and other tools that help create connections are lovely. You include the players in the world’s development with honesty and integrity. Creating space for players to add their notes, ideas, and even character thoughts, in a way that allows you to understand the depth of an individual is a markedly favorite concept to use.
You prefer an interactive & engaging session zero
There is little desire to use many resources at the table, as it can distract from the point of connecting. So large battle maps, terrains, dozens of elements in a VTT, and more are overwhelming to the senses and emotional responses. This preference doesn’t mean you don’t implement these, but do so sparingly. This way, everyone gets the most out of their table experience.
The Game Master's Toolbox
- World Anvil: A worldbuilding program that helps you create, organize and store your setting with detailed wiki-like organization and interactive maps to store your notes.
- DnD Beyond: An excellent place for digital character creation and creating a campaign group for easy roll shares and sheet management.
- Notion (TTRPG University Notion Templates)
- Evernote
- DnD Beyond’s Encounter Builder: I’ve heard it’s helpful. You can build an encounter and determine its difficulty level based on math.
Role Generator: You can randomly generate everything from cities, to magic items, to herbs, to NPCs. https://www.rolegenerator.com/
- Inkarnate: For fantasy world and city maps. Yearly subscription.
- Wonderdraft: For fantasy world and city maps. One-time purchase.
- Dungeon Scrawl: For creating flat and isometric dungeon maps. Completely free.
- Dungeondraft: Building and Dungeon crawl maps, full color.
- Azgaar Github Fantasy Map Generator
- Dungeon Fog: Free map-making tool
- Dungeon Map Doodler
- Spotify: There are so many D&D playlists to choose from, or, pick your favorite video game tracks to play.
- Syrinscape: With Syrinscape, you can control the master playlist and players can decide their preferred volume from their end.
- YouTube Premium: Put on a 3-hour ambiance video without commercial interruptions.
- Google Forms
- TTRPG University Google Forms to Copy
- DMs Guild: A place to find supplemental guides and campaigns to enhance your official D&D content.
- Drive Thru RPG: The all-TTRPG sister of DMs Guild.
- The Monsters Know: A book series about monster tactics and strategies to help enhance gameplay.
- Point Buy Calculator: Doing a character sheet from scratch? This will help so much with the number crunching. https://chicken-dinner.com/5e/5e-point-buy.html
- DnD Beyond: The best place to build a digital character sheet. Fully connected to all the official D&D content. Makes leveling up take about 30 seconds.
- Wild Shape Tracker: Super helpful for druids. https://arcaneeye.com/apps/wildshape-tracker/
- Character Backstory Template: https://arcaneeye.com/dm-tools-5e/dnd-character-backstory-template/
- Xanathar’s Guide to Everything: I use this particular book ALL the time to help build my character backstories. There are roll tables in the “This is Your Life” chapter.
- Google Dice Roller: Super simple. Go to Google, type “dice roller,” and you have a dice roller.
- Roll Dice With Friends: You can give your temporary room a custom name, share the link with your friends, and all roll together!
- Owlbear Rodeo (straightforward and intuitive)
- Canva (DIY, simplified VTT)
- Roll20 (complicated learning curve)
- Foundry VTT
- Norse Foundry
- Shard
- Tablespire
- Tabletop Simulator
- Fantasy Grounds
