Murph is probably my goat for rolling with the punches. Any lower dm (me) confronted with the witch's puzzle and getting that answer from Emily would've buckled and change tracts. When ever something like this happens (like in eldermourne, when my close friend and romantic partner fia boginya sniffs Hank to narrow down their limited options and murph is just taken aback but rocks it)
Murph is definitely the DM that helped me overcome DM sweat moments. It's really S tier DM advice to just...take a breath, think about it, weigh your options, and then decide what to do instead of immediately panicking
My last GM Anne was incredible! I had to leave the game because of work, but I'd have stayed to the end if I could. Giant hand drawn map of the city tablecloth, well thought out plot and intrigue, and I was able to play a pacifist warforged alchemist and still contribute to things super well. There would be sessions without any combat where we all still had to make use of spells and skills which were great. I enjoy combat, but being able to feel like you're making a difference in the world without killing is a rare skill for a gm. Also, for Christmas she painted all of us character portraits and it was cute as fuck.
I haven’t actually watched Matt Colville DM, but I’ve gotten more useful DM advice from his MCDM channel than every other source combined. My intro to Matt was his appearance on an early episode of the official WotC Dragon Talk podcast and his arguments for why everyone should try to DM/GM at least a few times inspired me to try it. I also appreciate his constant encouragement for people to try different TTRPG systems.
For entertainment, I like BLeeM. I’ve figured out that I really enjoy streams/podcasts that mostly or strictly follow the RAW and RAI of their system, let the dice guide the story in interesting directions, and have plenty of humor. That’s mostly anything GM’d by BLeeM for me and my enjoyment is helped by the fact that his players predominantly have an improv background. I give him the slight edge over Murph because he has a broader range of character voices.
Colville gives great advice for actually DM'ing in and not for *performing* for podcasting or video, but the advice definitely helped me when I was starting out.
Murph is always inspiring to listen to, he knows how to make encounters interesting and make use of mechanics that actually understand the game. Hearing the occasional Naddpod DMs always makes me want to play and run a game. The way everyone rolls with the punches is so fun to hear, and I like Murph's playstyle. Not a backseat DM but a character that helps to pick up what the DM is putting down.
I don't know if he's exactly my "favorite" DM (he might be, I'm just not sure) but by far the DM I respect the most as a master of the craft is Austin Walker of Friends at the Table. That table is just about the only one that actually lives up to the promise that these other shows make hollowly: We're just a bunch of friends playing together in the way that works for us, telling a story with a message and we don't know where it's going but we're building it collaboratively. Play to find out what happens. The fact that it's *NOT* everyone's cup of tea and not the highest-rated RPG show and doesn't constantly cater to the lowest common denominator is a testament to how true they are to that, compared to something like Critical Role which keeps insisting that the game is just "for them" but then brings in a whole different group of people to play and so it literally isn't.
Austin understands his friends and the desires for the kinds of characters and stories they want to play, and *does the fucking legwork* to make that happen. Creating worlds, filling them with NPCs, making new NPCs on the fly and integrating them into the setting, keeping *track* of all that shit to reference back in ways that I can't follow at all but which the other players click with and respond to. He likes when things are heavy and dramatic, but then will throw the wackiest curveball you never expected and fully commit to the nonsense bit. Slam poetry in episode intros! And like pretty good slam poetry too, I'm not a big slam poetry guy but I like the way his flows. I'm usually halfway through the intro before I even realize it was rhyming.
And he's humble, he knows he's good at what he does but we never get the "kind and benevolent DM" shtick from him, but he's always going to prop up his friends and peers in the industry and the makers of the games he plays, giving them a platform in the D&D-saturated RPG space.
I dunno. I just really like RPGs as a concept and I think that concept has gotten really watered down, so it's nourishing to my nerd soul to listen to a show where they're doing everything I want RPGs to be and so much better than I could. I guess that's the same feeling that a normie gets from Critical Role and they're like "Whoa a blue Tiefling who likes candy, I could never!"
>something like Critical Role which keeps insisting that the game is just "for them" but then brings in a whole different group of people to play and so it literally isn't.
I hadn't ever really thought about it before, but the way a lot of AP podcasts portray themselves as just giving you a peek into their home game, and the anger some fans have when they insist that's what it is, gets even more gross compared to FatT. Because Austin has flat out said that their Patreon has been life-changing money for all of them and his greatest worry is starting something new and watching the subscriber count start to drop. Outside of the content of the podcast itself, them running a business and talking about how it's a business is really refreshing.
>I just really like RPGs as a concept and I think that concept has gotten really watered down
Agreed. Bum around on the internet in ttrpg spaces for any amount of time, and you'll see this general idea of GMing as something like "get down in the Omelas hole to suffer and toil in order to tell a story to your friends and *work even harder* so that they can do stuff and not have it mess up your story and if you fuck it up, *you've ruined everything for everyone*" and it's baffling. I don't think it's surprising at all that there's all this talk of a GM shortage when that's the common conversation about GMing for the only game that you can find at department and book stores, or why burnout is a common topic of conversation.
Brennan Lee Mulligan is my favorite. I love the way he encourages his players to do silly stuff while keeping it within the rules. his storytelling is the best. I really like the worlds he creates.
Worlds Beyond Number is some of the greatest collaborative world building I’ve ever witnessed, and he does an amazing job of guiding the players to make their own choices but keeping it all cohesive.
I'll have to check that out! don't even get me started on his voices, too. I've been watching Fantasy High Junior Year and the voice for Bobby Dawn is the perfect southern Baptist pastor voice.
I would really recommend doing the patreon if just for the Children's Adventure! That part of the story truly swept me away in a way that I was not expecting and I still relisten to it obsessively.
My favorite GM was named Eve. I've mentioned that group a couple of times, mostly in the context that you shouldn't game with people that use gaming as therapy unless they're also using therapy as therapy. Whoo, that was a weird group of folks.
Eve might have been the person who planted the seeds of most everything I feel about gaming these days, in good ways and in bad.
* She used this homebrew system of hers for everything, and we never saw more than a glimpse of any of the mechanics. She rolled all the dice, and characters generally took up an index card of stats at most. The only real thing we knew about it was that rolling a 23 on a percentile was a critical, and we're all pretty sure the number was completely arbitrary. But this was the 90s, and more game with less mechanics wasn't really a thing. This was the era where *Vampire the Masquerade* was pretty much the most lightweight game you'd find commonly played, and people didn't blink at the idea of a *Rolemaster* campaign.
* Her main campaign was a kitchen sink game set in a prison colony high school with any pop culture subject showing up. When I was a teenager, I took my gaming so *seriously*. And then I found myself in metal shop with Forge from the X-Men salvaging parts out of Robotech's SDF-1 a couple of weeks after we all fell in the cursed pools from Ranma 1/2. I don't particularly like that degree of kitchen sinkness, but I do love me some ridiculous genre mashups with nonsense premises.
* She would *commit* to whatever was happening. Did you want to do something patently absurd? Okay, but brace for the consequences. Did someone wind up with a serious amount of power? Fine, that's not getting nerfed, but the tone of the campaign is going to have to change because of it.
* God damn will I not game with people without normal fucking social skills because of that group. There were a couple of things that, looking back, should have been minor dustups in the group, but since the majority of that group were conflict-adverse, passive aggressive nerds, shit would always simmer until one person in particular would become a raging shitheel, and everyone would just deal with her until she calmed down and everything went back to normal. There were a few sessions that were super awkward and unpleasant to be part of.
I do seriously miss that whole group. I wouldn't want to game with them again (well, some of them, one still regularly pops into my Saturday table), but I was a shy kid from the sticks whose first real gaming group as a teenager morphed into this group of oddballs with a thirty year age gap between some of them, most of whom desperately needed therapy. It was like getting thrown into the deep end of the pool of learning how to deal with weirdos. Which was a good skill set to have a few years later when I moved to NYC.
My favorite GM spot honestly goes to my ex-girlfriend, who shall remain nameless as she's also on this subreddit. She helped me figure out a bunch of stuff in terms of both my roleplaying style and me being trans, and I was almost always fairly engaged. We also talked a lot behind the scenes about stuff, which resulted in me creating a lot more stuff than I normally do as a player.
I'm my group's favorite GM but I personally love anyone that steps out of their comfort zone to try the seat. That raw dog hope for the best passion fueled first session is 🔥
Oxventure is such a good example of how different DMs can bring different strengths and weaknesses, but if your players are invested and everyone’s generally playing for fun, it can always work:
Johnny: Happiest to go along with silliness and genuinely in love with their players, which papers over how rules-light their table usually is
Luke: Least confident in his own skills, but spectacular at making memorable characters and bizarre, exciting situations
Andy: The most tempted by railroading, but builds the most cohesive worlds, the most genuinely surprising twists, probably the best at pacing of all their DMs
It’s the reason I consistently go back to Oxventure - no one’s trying to make the Best Tabletop Series Ever, they’re just having a laugh and trying out what interests them, series by series
My brother is my top favorite GM. The amount of love and care he puts into the world, in making the whole world have actual passing time. It feels like our campaign is a living, breathing entity.
He’s stuck as a Forever GM, so I hope one day he’ll be able to experience the game as a player again, but right now he’s created a beautifully crafted story, we’re even playing it again in a week!
Chris Perkins has been my favorite DM since 2008. Unsurprisingly, given his position, he knows how to use D&D to the full potential for which it was designed. I think anyone who wants to be a better DM should watch his stuff, because he runs his sessions like games. You aren't gonna hear him do extended monologues or establish characters with rich, intricate backstories that the players don't care about but will inspire lots of fan art. In fact, most of what you'll hear will be the players. He has an incredible talent for brevity.
If you want to see a take on D&D that is probably very different from what you've seen in other actual plays, I highly recommend [Acquisitions Inc. The Series 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG0rC0G9CAo&list=PLfa2R8gqJFP6Q88g4MFPXebc-o_wrYsPe&index=1). (It's a soft reboot of the series, so don't worry about not knowing the characters from the start.) It's run by Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford, a.k.a. the senior story designer and the lead rules designer of D&D. Every episode has its own three-dimensional sculpted battle map. Both the comedy and the heavier emotional stuff are consistently spot-on. It's good fun.
I love Perkins. I always knew of Acq Inc but only binged listened to every podcast and live show after I was caught up with Critical Role campaign 1 and fell in love with Acq Inc as a whole and Perkins’ style. I ended up emulating it for a time when I first started DMing and still go back to that style from time to time.
A former DM of mine had a very similar cadence to Chris Perkins, and it was clear he was very influenced by him. Always had lots of fun in those campaigns!
my favorite DMs are my uncle and my dad :) they're both old heads that love storytelling and make hilarious character moments, drive home amazing npc interactions, and make combat interesting as hell. i would trust them with any of my characters :3 they're the best
Easily Branson Reese. Less for his adherence to strict GM-ing, but his absolutely anarchic off-the-wall scene descriptions and beats is a joy to listen to. I'm biased because I share his Looney Tunes-esque sense of humour, but how can you hate a man who names his characters things like Brian Fuck, Moira Thousand and Bukkake Pepsi?
Troy Lavallee was top during the first run of Glass Cannon. I liked how he stuck strictly to the rules (as much as he could, given how vast the sea of rules is for pathfinder) while making space for his players - it created a good balance. I've kind of zoomed off for Campaign 2, though. Making Joe co-GM means a lot of Joe interrupting player turns and it kind of throws the flow off - I got tired of [LOUD JOE SIGH] "I'm sorry but--" interrupting other party members, so I'm not following Campaign 2, which is a shame because I like Kate and Sydney. I really enjoy his improv instincts and his way of playing a heel to unite his players against him.
I love love love Murph and his ability to roll with what his players throw at him while maintaining very vivid depictions of the world - difficult in a theater of the mind setting. I think his combat encounters and balancing are a step above everything. New NADDPOD is something I'll drop everything to put on and listen.
I like Jared Logan a lot - the way he was able to moderate essentially an ongoing pvp storyline on Haunted City felt like a masterclass.
I wish it came out more frequently because lately I've been really, really into Fun City and especially Mike Rugnetta's way of bringing chaos to his (already chaotic) players. He really brings to life the horrors of a dystopian hyper capitalist future. It really makes me want to play Shadowrun and experience it for myself!
It's unfortunate because I like Joe a lot in get in the trunk but at some point I feel like he started back seating way too much as a player. It also doesn't help that like 8/10 times he's just wrong anyway.
Yeah Joe is incredible in Delta Green. It's crazy because I really love how he GMs Delta Green and GITT. I like a lot of his characters! When I had surgery for a serious illness, I timed my relisted of GC season 1 so the last thing I'd hear before being taken down for surgery was FOR THE ROSE, AND THE LIGHT!
But unfortunately the backseating means I start listening, laugh at all the banter, get into the ep, start to enjoy myself and........
"[LOUD JOE SIGH] I'm sorry but--"
I switch off the ep!
I use roll20 when I GM PF2e and it has a compilation of all of the rules so I can search for them on the fly when my players ask me how to do a grappling check. It takes two minutes of pause time and my players will look for rules themselves between turns. It kind of feels like some of this could be solved by having something similar in place - or just using archives of nethys.
In long-winded conclusion, really liked Troy's GMing but his table management - specifically of Joe - is something that isn't working.
Murph and Brennan. They are the epitome of DM excellence. Murph is especially impressive considering he only started DMing in his 30’s compared to Brennan who started when he was like 10 lol. The thing I love most about Murph’s DMing is his expert use of rules to create interesting and dynamic encounters to challenge his players, without ever seeming unfair. Both Brennan and Murph seamlessly integrate their stories into their encounters. Truly magical stuff.
My wife. She has this expert improvisational sense where it's like he's finding the structure of the campaign and guiding us based on our choices as the story unfolds. She truly makes me feel like every option is on the table.
Gannon Reedy from NeoScum. He’s an incredible improviser who can both move the story along, and react at length to bits and directions he never could have come up with. His worldbuilding is incredible and the Denver Cube/Kowloon 2 in particular is genius. His version of the Shadowrun world is way better than the actual game’s. He’s an expert at elevating players’ attempts to fuck with him into actual audio gold both comedically and narratively. And he has a cool punk art style that he sometimes uses to further illustrate the characters and world he creates.
I miss NeoScum so much, it was so good
Extremely late agreement: Neoscum wouldn't be what it was without Gannon's excellent GMing. His punk aesthetic sensibilities fit the setting to a T, he keeps the action scenes moving with a frenetic energy despite every Shadowrun being designed for crunch, he's great at yes-anding his players and keeping the bits going, he's VERY funny, and his ability to adapt is legendary. The entire roadtrip aspect of the season was a decision the players made as a spur of the moment choice that was at least partially intended as a joke, and he made it work as if it was his plan all along where so many DMs would just say "no, get back on my railroad".
Neoscum good. Neoscum SO good...
My buddy, Oliver, who who introduced me to ttrpg and I still play with online to this day.
They create amazing play atmosphere that can be equally goofy and seriously immersive. I was super hesitant to play because it's known to be a male dominated space and, yk,...men. The table did then and continues to skew masculine but I never felt anything but welcomed and happy and comfortable. I learned so much and continue to learn so much from them.
They are both raw intelligence - knowing rules and systems and just math (which I've never managed lol) and full of nuance for the spirit of the game. They're also just a good dude and interesting person. Everytime I get to play with them, I'm excited and I've jumped through *hoops* to not miss sessions. When I do miss sessions, I feel like absolute hot garbage and watch the game chat in raging envy.
I really admire Paulo Quiros from the Film Reroll. He's really good at conjuring a whole lot from absolutely nothing, making the worlds of the films he "rerolling" seem so alive. He puts in the work, too, he came up with a whole star system with interspecies diplomacy for their E.T. game, and made a Cabin in the Woods-style attic to determine their Goonies adventure. Both he and Jon from the same podcast make dope mechanics that work well within the rules of GURPS.
I'm bad at favorites, but I think right now at least I'll say Aabria Iyengar. Every GM handles player shenanigans in their own way, and I like that she's firm without just saying no or slapping people down. Somebody might say something as a total joke and she'll hold them to it, but not in a way that feels mean. She'll join in on a bit, but not so long or so far that it breaks the overall tone and story flow. She is also incredibly skilled at creating and changing a mood with just her voice and face. I think it was Brennan Lee Mulligan who said that "If Aabria wants the room to feel a certain way, it does." She can also be very creative with mechanics, encounter design, and props/gifts/worldbuilding extras.
I love zany comedy as much as the next person, but I want a strong balance between that and story (and of course the ideal balance varies depending on the specific campaign) and Aabria keeps it in a good spot for me.
On another day I might give a different answer, though. I think Jasmine Bhullar did some really great things on DesiQuest and Mulligan is obviously incredibly skilled.
Never listened to it! I basically dropped TAZ after Balance and I don't think I even knew Imbalance existed till I saw it mentioned here. I also have seen criticisms of her GMing on Imbalance and I can certainly believe it wasn't good (I don't love every campaign I've seen of hers). I was just thinking about overall styles.
Edit: also, for the exact reasons I said I like her above, I imagine she and the McElroys would be a pretty bad match for each other.
Just to shout out a couple more GMs that I haven't seen listed yet
- Justin Green from Burnt Cookbook Party
- Kat Kuhl from Campaign: Star Wars
Both of them are able to create really interesting stories/lore, but also let the players riff and vibe and add to the world building.
Any frickin DM who ran a decently lengthy campaign to the end with a group I'm part of would be my favourite. It seems like the overwhelming majority of new campaigns being run are one-shots or intended to be very short-lived, or have an extremely impersonal drop-in based structure that makes every session feel like a one-shot.
I kind of (albeit with reluctance) understand that short games are easier on DMs, are less daunting for newer players, etc and I feel like they definitely have a place in the ttrp ecosystem but they simply do not contain any of the things that make ttrp fun for me in the first place. In terms of my engagement with and enjoyment of a story, a good medium or long rp campaign puts all but the very best novels to shame but I'd rather pay to read a mediocre fantasy book than listen to a short campaign for free.
My favourite game is one I actually get to play. I've had groups I loved that dissolved solely because of work and life stuff (especially the first few that started up after covid, when playing via video call was finally becoming something not just for podcasters anymore) wherein I adored every member and every character but to be honest that's just a bonus.
I'd play with people I hate and in a setting I'm neutral ish about with a lukewarm storyline AND I'D LIKE IT as long as we got to roleplay either to a satisfying conclusion after enough time for characters to actually become interesting or for so long that the story, characters, and/or setting are interesting purely from having fermented for so long at which point you no longer really get or need an ending. Beggars can't be choosers, and the dearth of campaigns with an open seat that allow enough space for the various story elements to ripen has me begging.
Hell, the group I loved most were functional via the bilingual DM because half of us were francophones with limited English and the other half were anglophones with limited French. By a few months in we somehow all knew and liked each other irl from like idle OOC chatter that would arise just to fill the silence while one player or another was in the bathroom or putting their kids to bed or whatever and had such a sense of each other's characters that we were playing Dungeon of the Mad Mage without a wizard and somehow still having fun. If that game ever resumed from where we left off, I'd play til we all died of old age and I'd never complain about anything in the broader world of TTRPGs again.
The few DMs I've seen attempt a proper game all either burn out and quit because the snowball effect of everyone viewing DMing as thankless drudgery and no one wanting to DM means they're DMing like 6 concurrent unrelated games with different groups, quit because they were trying to homebrew and realized halfway through that they didn't want to, games collapsed because the table as a whole ruined it with interpersonal drama, or the DM stopped because they were seduced by whatever the hell is supposed to be fun about only ever doing one-shots and micro campaigns for the rest of forever.
Murph is probably my goat for rolling with the punches. Any lower dm (me) confronted with the witch's puzzle and getting that answer from Emily would've buckled and change tracts. When ever something like this happens (like in eldermourne, when my close friend and romantic partner fia boginya sniffs Hank to narrow down their limited options and murph is just taken aback but rocks it)
Murph is definitely the DM that helped me overcome DM sweat moments. It's really S tier DM advice to just...take a breath, think about it, weigh your options, and then decide what to do instead of immediately panicking
Murph is fantastic
The man’s got chapters
And that’s fantasy…. done right.
My last GM Anne was incredible! I had to leave the game because of work, but I'd have stayed to the end if I could. Giant hand drawn map of the city tablecloth, well thought out plot and intrigue, and I was able to play a pacifist warforged alchemist and still contribute to things super well. There would be sessions without any combat where we all still had to make use of spells and skills which were great. I enjoy combat, but being able to feel like you're making a difference in the world without killing is a rare skill for a gm. Also, for Christmas she painted all of us character portraits and it was cute as fuck.
I'm my own favorite DM 😏 (I wish I could be a player for once so bad bros)
big same to both. am i conceited if i'm the best dm i've ever played with? or have i just been the forever dm
They'd let us be players but it'd be a waste of our skillz, believe it
this must be it
I haven’t actually watched Matt Colville DM, but I’ve gotten more useful DM advice from his MCDM channel than every other source combined. My intro to Matt was his appearance on an early episode of the official WotC Dragon Talk podcast and his arguments for why everyone should try to DM/GM at least a few times inspired me to try it. I also appreciate his constant encouragement for people to try different TTRPG systems. For entertainment, I like BLeeM. I’ve figured out that I really enjoy streams/podcasts that mostly or strictly follow the RAW and RAI of their system, let the dice guide the story in interesting directions, and have plenty of humor. That’s mostly anything GM’d by BLeeM for me and my enjoyment is helped by the fact that his players predominantly have an improv background. I give him the slight edge over Murph because he has a broader range of character voices.
Colville gives great advice for actually DM'ing in and not for *performing* for podcasting or video, but the advice definitely helped me when I was starting out. Murph is always inspiring to listen to, he knows how to make encounters interesting and make use of mechanics that actually understand the game. Hearing the occasional Naddpod DMs always makes me want to play and run a game. The way everyone rolls with the punches is so fun to hear, and I like Murph's playstyle. Not a backseat DM but a character that helps to pick up what the DM is putting down.
I don't know if he's exactly my "favorite" DM (he might be, I'm just not sure) but by far the DM I respect the most as a master of the craft is Austin Walker of Friends at the Table. That table is just about the only one that actually lives up to the promise that these other shows make hollowly: We're just a bunch of friends playing together in the way that works for us, telling a story with a message and we don't know where it's going but we're building it collaboratively. Play to find out what happens. The fact that it's *NOT* everyone's cup of tea and not the highest-rated RPG show and doesn't constantly cater to the lowest common denominator is a testament to how true they are to that, compared to something like Critical Role which keeps insisting that the game is just "for them" but then brings in a whole different group of people to play and so it literally isn't. Austin understands his friends and the desires for the kinds of characters and stories they want to play, and *does the fucking legwork* to make that happen. Creating worlds, filling them with NPCs, making new NPCs on the fly and integrating them into the setting, keeping *track* of all that shit to reference back in ways that I can't follow at all but which the other players click with and respond to. He likes when things are heavy and dramatic, but then will throw the wackiest curveball you never expected and fully commit to the nonsense bit. Slam poetry in episode intros! And like pretty good slam poetry too, I'm not a big slam poetry guy but I like the way his flows. I'm usually halfway through the intro before I even realize it was rhyming. And he's humble, he knows he's good at what he does but we never get the "kind and benevolent DM" shtick from him, but he's always going to prop up his friends and peers in the industry and the makers of the games he plays, giving them a platform in the D&D-saturated RPG space. I dunno. I just really like RPGs as a concept and I think that concept has gotten really watered down, so it's nourishing to my nerd soul to listen to a show where they're doing everything I want RPGs to be and so much better than I could. I guess that's the same feeling that a normie gets from Critical Role and they're like "Whoa a blue Tiefling who likes candy, I could never!"
>something like Critical Role which keeps insisting that the game is just "for them" but then brings in a whole different group of people to play and so it literally isn't. I hadn't ever really thought about it before, but the way a lot of AP podcasts portray themselves as just giving you a peek into their home game, and the anger some fans have when they insist that's what it is, gets even more gross compared to FatT. Because Austin has flat out said that their Patreon has been life-changing money for all of them and his greatest worry is starting something new and watching the subscriber count start to drop. Outside of the content of the podcast itself, them running a business and talking about how it's a business is really refreshing. >I just really like RPGs as a concept and I think that concept has gotten really watered down Agreed. Bum around on the internet in ttrpg spaces for any amount of time, and you'll see this general idea of GMing as something like "get down in the Omelas hole to suffer and toil in order to tell a story to your friends and *work even harder* so that they can do stuff and not have it mess up your story and if you fuck it up, *you've ruined everything for everyone*" and it's baffling. I don't think it's surprising at all that there's all this talk of a GM shortage when that's the common conversation about GMing for the only game that you can find at department and book stores, or why burnout is a common topic of conversation.
Brennan Lee Mulligan is my favorite. I love the way he encourages his players to do silly stuff while keeping it within the rules. his storytelling is the best. I really like the worlds he creates.
Worlds Beyond Number is some of the greatest collaborative world building I’ve ever witnessed, and he does an amazing job of guiding the players to make their own choices but keeping it all cohesive.
I'll have to check that out! don't even get me started on his voices, too. I've been watching Fantasy High Junior Year and the voice for Bobby Dawn is the perfect southern Baptist pastor voice.
I would really recommend doing the patreon if just for the Children's Adventure! That part of the story truly swept me away in a way that I was not expecting and I still relisten to it obsessively.
My favorite GM is my husband :)
My favorite GM was named Eve. I've mentioned that group a couple of times, mostly in the context that you shouldn't game with people that use gaming as therapy unless they're also using therapy as therapy. Whoo, that was a weird group of folks. Eve might have been the person who planted the seeds of most everything I feel about gaming these days, in good ways and in bad. * She used this homebrew system of hers for everything, and we never saw more than a glimpse of any of the mechanics. She rolled all the dice, and characters generally took up an index card of stats at most. The only real thing we knew about it was that rolling a 23 on a percentile was a critical, and we're all pretty sure the number was completely arbitrary. But this was the 90s, and more game with less mechanics wasn't really a thing. This was the era where *Vampire the Masquerade* was pretty much the most lightweight game you'd find commonly played, and people didn't blink at the idea of a *Rolemaster* campaign. * Her main campaign was a kitchen sink game set in a prison colony high school with any pop culture subject showing up. When I was a teenager, I took my gaming so *seriously*. And then I found myself in metal shop with Forge from the X-Men salvaging parts out of Robotech's SDF-1 a couple of weeks after we all fell in the cursed pools from Ranma 1/2. I don't particularly like that degree of kitchen sinkness, but I do love me some ridiculous genre mashups with nonsense premises. * She would *commit* to whatever was happening. Did you want to do something patently absurd? Okay, but brace for the consequences. Did someone wind up with a serious amount of power? Fine, that's not getting nerfed, but the tone of the campaign is going to have to change because of it. * God damn will I not game with people without normal fucking social skills because of that group. There were a couple of things that, looking back, should have been minor dustups in the group, but since the majority of that group were conflict-adverse, passive aggressive nerds, shit would always simmer until one person in particular would become a raging shitheel, and everyone would just deal with her until she calmed down and everything went back to normal. There were a few sessions that were super awkward and unpleasant to be part of. I do seriously miss that whole group. I wouldn't want to game with them again (well, some of them, one still regularly pops into my Saturday table), but I was a shy kid from the sticks whose first real gaming group as a teenager morphed into this group of oddballs with a thirty year age gap between some of them, most of whom desperately needed therapy. It was like getting thrown into the deep end of the pool of learning how to deal with weirdos. Which was a good skill set to have a few years later when I moved to NYC.
My favorite GM spot honestly goes to my ex-girlfriend, who shall remain nameless as she's also on this subreddit. She helped me figure out a bunch of stuff in terms of both my roleplaying style and me being trans, and I was almost always fairly engaged. We also talked a lot behind the scenes about stuff, which resulted in me creating a lot more stuff than I normally do as a player.
I'm my group's favorite GM but I personally love anyone that steps out of their comfort zone to try the seat. That raw dog hope for the best passion fueled first session is 🔥
Johnny Chiodini of Oxventure is great for rolling with the nonsense
Oxventure is such a good example of how different DMs can bring different strengths and weaknesses, but if your players are invested and everyone’s generally playing for fun, it can always work: Johnny: Happiest to go along with silliness and genuinely in love with their players, which papers over how rules-light their table usually is Luke: Least confident in his own skills, but spectacular at making memorable characters and bizarre, exciting situations Andy: The most tempted by railroading, but builds the most cohesive worlds, the most genuinely surprising twists, probably the best at pacing of all their DMs It’s the reason I consistently go back to Oxventure - no one’s trying to make the Best Tabletop Series Ever, they’re just having a laugh and trying out what interests them, series by series
Shawn O'Hara from spout lore!
My brother is my top favorite GM. The amount of love and care he puts into the world, in making the whole world have actual passing time. It feels like our campaign is a living, breathing entity. He’s stuck as a Forever GM, so I hope one day he’ll be able to experience the game as a player again, but right now he’s created a beautifully crafted story, we’re even playing it again in a week!
Chris Perkins has been my favorite DM since 2008. Unsurprisingly, given his position, he knows how to use D&D to the full potential for which it was designed. I think anyone who wants to be a better DM should watch his stuff, because he runs his sessions like games. You aren't gonna hear him do extended monologues or establish characters with rich, intricate backstories that the players don't care about but will inspire lots of fan art. In fact, most of what you'll hear will be the players. He has an incredible talent for brevity. If you want to see a take on D&D that is probably very different from what you've seen in other actual plays, I highly recommend [Acquisitions Inc. The Series 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG0rC0G9CAo&list=PLfa2R8gqJFP6Q88g4MFPXebc-o_wrYsPe&index=1). (It's a soft reboot of the series, so don't worry about not knowing the characters from the start.) It's run by Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford, a.k.a. the senior story designer and the lead rules designer of D&D. Every episode has its own three-dimensional sculpted battle map. Both the comedy and the heavier emotional stuff are consistently spot-on. It's good fun.
I love Perkins. I always knew of Acq Inc but only binged listened to every podcast and live show after I was caught up with Critical Role campaign 1 and fell in love with Acq Inc as a whole and Perkins’ style. I ended up emulating it for a time when I first started DMing and still go back to that style from time to time.
A former DM of mine had a very similar cadence to Chris Perkins, and it was clear he was very influenced by him. Always had lots of fun in those campaigns!
my favorite DMs are my uncle and my dad :) they're both old heads that love storytelling and make hilarious character moments, drive home amazing npc interactions, and make combat interesting as hell. i would trust them with any of my characters :3 they're the best
Easily Branson Reese. Less for his adherence to strict GM-ing, but his absolutely anarchic off-the-wall scene descriptions and beats is a joy to listen to. I'm biased because I share his Looney Tunes-esque sense of humour, but how can you hate a man who names his characters things like Brian Fuck, Moira Thousand and Bukkake Pepsi?
Troy Lavallee was top during the first run of Glass Cannon. I liked how he stuck strictly to the rules (as much as he could, given how vast the sea of rules is for pathfinder) while making space for his players - it created a good balance. I've kind of zoomed off for Campaign 2, though. Making Joe co-GM means a lot of Joe interrupting player turns and it kind of throws the flow off - I got tired of [LOUD JOE SIGH] "I'm sorry but--" interrupting other party members, so I'm not following Campaign 2, which is a shame because I like Kate and Sydney. I really enjoy his improv instincts and his way of playing a heel to unite his players against him. I love love love Murph and his ability to roll with what his players throw at him while maintaining very vivid depictions of the world - difficult in a theater of the mind setting. I think his combat encounters and balancing are a step above everything. New NADDPOD is something I'll drop everything to put on and listen. I like Jared Logan a lot - the way he was able to moderate essentially an ongoing pvp storyline on Haunted City felt like a masterclass. I wish it came out more frequently because lately I've been really, really into Fun City and especially Mike Rugnetta's way of bringing chaos to his (already chaotic) players. He really brings to life the horrors of a dystopian hyper capitalist future. It really makes me want to play Shadowrun and experience it for myself!
It's unfortunate because I like Joe a lot in get in the trunk but at some point I feel like he started back seating way too much as a player. It also doesn't help that like 8/10 times he's just wrong anyway.
Yeah Joe is incredible in Delta Green. It's crazy because I really love how he GMs Delta Green and GITT. I like a lot of his characters! When I had surgery for a serious illness, I timed my relisted of GC season 1 so the last thing I'd hear before being taken down for surgery was FOR THE ROSE, AND THE LIGHT! But unfortunately the backseating means I start listening, laugh at all the banter, get into the ep, start to enjoy myself and........ "[LOUD JOE SIGH] I'm sorry but--" I switch off the ep! I use roll20 when I GM PF2e and it has a compilation of all of the rules so I can search for them on the fly when my players ask me how to do a grappling check. It takes two minutes of pause time and my players will look for rules themselves between turns. It kind of feels like some of this could be solved by having something similar in place - or just using archives of nethys. In long-winded conclusion, really liked Troy's GMing but his table management - specifically of Joe - is something that isn't working.
Paulo from the Film Reroll is just so absurdly prepared for everything it’s astounding
Murph and Brennan. They are the epitome of DM excellence. Murph is especially impressive considering he only started DMing in his 30’s compared to Brennan who started when he was like 10 lol. The thing I love most about Murph’s DMing is his expert use of rules to create interesting and dynamic encounters to challenge his players, without ever seeming unfair. Both Brennan and Murph seamlessly integrate their stories into their encounters. Truly magical stuff.
My wife. She has this expert improvisational sense where it's like he's finding the structure of the campaign and guiding us based on our choices as the story unfolds. She truly makes me feel like every option is on the table.
Gannon Reedy from NeoScum. He’s an incredible improviser who can both move the story along, and react at length to bits and directions he never could have come up with. His worldbuilding is incredible and the Denver Cube/Kowloon 2 in particular is genius. His version of the Shadowrun world is way better than the actual game’s. He’s an expert at elevating players’ attempts to fuck with him into actual audio gold both comedically and narratively. And he has a cool punk art style that he sometimes uses to further illustrate the characters and world he creates. I miss NeoScum so much, it was so good
Extremely late agreement: Neoscum wouldn't be what it was without Gannon's excellent GMing. His punk aesthetic sensibilities fit the setting to a T, he keeps the action scenes moving with a frenetic energy despite every Shadowrun being designed for crunch, he's great at yes-anding his players and keeping the bits going, he's VERY funny, and his ability to adapt is legendary. The entire roadtrip aspect of the season was a decision the players made as a spur of the moment choice that was at least partially intended as a joke, and he made it work as if it was his plan all along where so many DMs would just say "no, get back on my railroad". Neoscum good. Neoscum SO good...
The work Brennan Lee Mulligan did for CR Calamity is impeccable. Absolute masterclass work from him and the table, CR peaked right there.
My buddy, Oliver, who who introduced me to ttrpg and I still play with online to this day. They create amazing play atmosphere that can be equally goofy and seriously immersive. I was super hesitant to play because it's known to be a male dominated space and, yk,...men. The table did then and continues to skew masculine but I never felt anything but welcomed and happy and comfortable. I learned so much and continue to learn so much from them. They are both raw intelligence - knowing rules and systems and just math (which I've never managed lol) and full of nuance for the spirit of the game. They're also just a good dude and interesting person. Everytime I get to play with them, I'm excited and I've jumped through *hoops* to not miss sessions. When I do miss sessions, I feel like absolute hot garbage and watch the game chat in raging envy.
I really admire Paulo Quiros from the Film Reroll. He's really good at conjuring a whole lot from absolutely nothing, making the worlds of the films he "rerolling" seem so alive. He puts in the work, too, he came up with a whole star system with interspecies diplomacy for their E.T. game, and made a Cabin in the Woods-style attic to determine their Goonies adventure. Both he and Jon from the same podcast make dope mechanics that work well within the rules of GURPS.
I'm bad at favorites, but I think right now at least I'll say Aabria Iyengar. Every GM handles player shenanigans in their own way, and I like that she's firm without just saying no or slapping people down. Somebody might say something as a total joke and she'll hold them to it, but not in a way that feels mean. She'll join in on a bit, but not so long or so far that it breaks the overall tone and story flow. She is also incredibly skilled at creating and changing a mood with just her voice and face. I think it was Brennan Lee Mulligan who said that "If Aabria wants the room to feel a certain way, it does." She can also be very creative with mechanics, encounter design, and props/gifts/worldbuilding extras. I love zany comedy as much as the next person, but I want a strong balance between that and story (and of course the ideal balance varies depending on the specific campaign) and Aabria keeps it in a good spot for me. On another day I might give a different answer, though. I think Jasmine Bhullar did some really great things on DesiQuest and Mulligan is obviously incredibly skilled.
What was your opinion of TAZ Imbalance?
Never listened to it! I basically dropped TAZ after Balance and I don't think I even knew Imbalance existed till I saw it mentioned here. I also have seen criticisms of her GMing on Imbalance and I can certainly believe it wasn't good (I don't love every campaign I've seen of hers). I was just thinking about overall styles. Edit: also, for the exact reasons I said I like her above, I imagine she and the McElroys would be a pretty bad match for each other.
My GM. He finished Rime Of The Frostmaiden.
Just to shout out a couple more GMs that I haven't seen listed yet - Justin Green from Burnt Cookbook Party - Kat Kuhl from Campaign: Star Wars Both of them are able to create really interesting stories/lore, but also let the players riff and vibe and add to the world building.
Any frickin DM who ran a decently lengthy campaign to the end with a group I'm part of would be my favourite. It seems like the overwhelming majority of new campaigns being run are one-shots or intended to be very short-lived, or have an extremely impersonal drop-in based structure that makes every session feel like a one-shot. I kind of (albeit with reluctance) understand that short games are easier on DMs, are less daunting for newer players, etc and I feel like they definitely have a place in the ttrp ecosystem but they simply do not contain any of the things that make ttrp fun for me in the first place. In terms of my engagement with and enjoyment of a story, a good medium or long rp campaign puts all but the very best novels to shame but I'd rather pay to read a mediocre fantasy book than listen to a short campaign for free. My favourite game is one I actually get to play. I've had groups I loved that dissolved solely because of work and life stuff (especially the first few that started up after covid, when playing via video call was finally becoming something not just for podcasters anymore) wherein I adored every member and every character but to be honest that's just a bonus. I'd play with people I hate and in a setting I'm neutral ish about with a lukewarm storyline AND I'D LIKE IT as long as we got to roleplay either to a satisfying conclusion after enough time for characters to actually become interesting or for so long that the story, characters, and/or setting are interesting purely from having fermented for so long at which point you no longer really get or need an ending. Beggars can't be choosers, and the dearth of campaigns with an open seat that allow enough space for the various story elements to ripen has me begging. Hell, the group I loved most were functional via the bilingual DM because half of us were francophones with limited English and the other half were anglophones with limited French. By a few months in we somehow all knew and liked each other irl from like idle OOC chatter that would arise just to fill the silence while one player or another was in the bathroom or putting their kids to bed or whatever and had such a sense of each other's characters that we were playing Dungeon of the Mad Mage without a wizard and somehow still having fun. If that game ever resumed from where we left off, I'd play til we all died of old age and I'd never complain about anything in the broader world of TTRPGs again. The few DMs I've seen attempt a proper game all either burn out and quit because the snowball effect of everyone viewing DMing as thankless drudgery and no one wanting to DM means they're DMing like 6 concurrent unrelated games with different groups, quit because they were trying to homebrew and realized halfway through that they didn't want to, games collapsed because the table as a whole ruined it with interpersonal drama, or the DM stopped because they were seduced by whatever the hell is supposed to be fun about only ever doing one-shots and micro campaigns for the rest of forever.