Lessons

Where

For our comfort, classes will be held at a game store, restaurant or coffee shop in the greater Seattle area (favoring the East side; Kirkland, Kenmore, Bothell). Places like Zulu’s Board Game Cafe or Mox Boarding House are ideal.

For those that don’t live in Western Washington, video chat is a great way to get the gaming education you desire without leaving the comfort of your home.

When

As I do still have a regular full time job, classes are held after 5 PM PST and are concluded before 10 PM PST on weekdays. Weekends are up for negotiation.

Players

What – As a player the books can be daunting, creating a character is complicated and playing it can be challenging. These classes are designed to help you master the creating and playing characters in a pen and paper roleplaying game.

Character creation is more than just filling out numbers. The concept of a character can be a challenge to tackle when you don’t know what options you have. Once you have a character concept, you know who you want to be, how do you translate that into the raw numbers of the game. And for more advanced character creation, what do you do if you want to play a character that doesn’t fit neatly into parameters that the roleplaying game you are playing in have given you.

Once a character has been made you have to be able to play them. How does your character walk through a door work, or even look like in the game? How does combat work? How are you going to seduce that Orc?? All these questions and more can be answered.

Why – Teaching yourself how to make a character is very doable. I taught myself the basics of how to play the game. Having a mentor with almost 2 decades of experience can make the whole process much quicker and smoother. In the same way that you could teach yourself how to play an instrument but it is a much easier to go to a tutor to teach you how to play the instrument, so too can I help you through the learning process. Pen and Paper roleplaying games can be quite complicated and I will be there to answer your questions, give suggestions for readings or things to practice as well as help you answer the questions you didn’t even know to ask.

Dungeon Masters

What – As the Dungeon Master (DM) or Game Master (GM) you will be in charge of constructing the narrative structure for the players. This will include the broad strokes of the world they live in, what gods govern that world, what nations are in the world, down to the minutiae of whether of not the ston they just stepped on can hold their weight or if it will collapse to into a deep underground cavern. Oh and if there is a cavern you have to make that up too. Some of these details can be answered by using campaign books but those come with their own host of challenges.

Once you have carefully built the story you let the players into the world. If a player wants to pick a door or kick that door down you need to know how hard it is to pick or how much strength it takes to kick the door down. If a player wants to knock the ceremonial dagger out of the hand of the cultist before they can plunge it into the belly of the unsuspecting victim by bicycle kicking the torch out of the wall sconce and into the cultist’s eyes, you have to know how hard that is to do, and how she will do it.

This class is designed to address these challenges and to give you the tools to be able to address the challenges you don’t know about yet. This class can also help a seasoned DM add a little more to their game if they are feeling like they need improvement.

Why – Running a game can be overwhelming. Rules are complicated or people don’t feel creative. In the same way a warrior has armor and shield or a wizard has a spell book to be able to conquer their advisories, so too can you have your tools to be able to address any challenge. While the grimoires of knowledge are detailed and designed to give you that edge, they are large, dense and difficult to conquer. These tutoring sessions will help you forge your weapons and armor of storytelling. These tutoring sessions will help you pick the spells of game mechanics to prepare for your gaming sessions.

How Long – Some information can be conveyed in a single session. Things like making your first character, story brainstorming for a new campaign, or things like a Q and A session don’t take more than a single session. Role Playing games are complex and there is a lot to lean and even more to learn to master. Continuous sessions are designed to address challenges and educate in a way that can only be achieved by having multiple sessions.

Special Lessons

Group Character Creation

What – Characters in role playing games rarely travel alone and the interaction between the characters can be the difference between the Fellowship of the Ring and a skit by the Monty Python’s Knights of the Round Table. This class is designed to teach a new group how to make characters and make sure that they work as a cohesive group.

One-Shot Practice Session

What – Reading is one thing, practice is a wholly different thing. This session is designed to take characters through a session of role playing to help familiarize you with the mechanics of the game by having you use them.

Full Starter Package

What – I take your group of players as well as someone that wants to be a DM and I wip you into shape, like a good old fashioned underdog story. And like a baby bird ill push you out of the nest. Don’t worry, i got you.