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Sam Tillis

@stillisgaming.bsky.social
137 followers 191 following 498 posts

Your friendly neighborhood professional Game Master. startplaying.games/gm/stillis-gaming

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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 8h
Pro tip: if you're going to hire a professional DM, give your email a subject line like this.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Reprogramming D&D players to pronounce Sigil like 'sigil' (and not like 'siggle') one Planescape game at a time.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Why yes, I will run you D&D sessions for free if you give me a pile of old D&D 3.5 books.
A pile of old D&D 3.5 books.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Sharing the last 4 TTRPGs I [prepped] to expose [what people pay me to run for them]. D&D 5.5 Exalted Essence Pendragon Esper Genesis ...because if it were easy to run, presumably, people wouldn't be hiring a professional GM for it. (okok I'm also running a Star Trek FATE game. That one's easy.)
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
First World Problems, I know, but it would be so much more convenient, for my organization purposes, if the days of the week were in alphabetical order.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
"Nibling" is an appropriate gender-neutral word for the child of one's sibling, but while it works for young children it feels inappropriate to apply to a surly teenager. I would like to humbly submit the word "nerf."
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
An ominous note to find among old game materials...
A notecard reading "order > fun"
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Is it just me, or is the 9/11 9/11ier this year?
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Me: Why is my brain totally fried. Also Me: Oh. Right. Because I ran 10 hours of RPGs yesterday, codeswitching between OSR, high-level 5e, and wistful worldbuilding storygame. That's probably why.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
You ever... visit a game store so good you almost start crying, right there in the indie RPG section?
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I have just finished reading every Dune novel that Frank Herbert ever wrote. What utterly insane thing should I do next?
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
A 7 is not an auspicious first roll for a D&D campaign, except that it's an espionage-themed D&D campaign, in which case rolling a 007 is *massively* auspicious.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Well, I'll be damned. After running 7 weeks of D&D summer camps over the past few months, I managed to lose or have stolen *not even a single die*.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Reading poorly written D&D adventure modules from the early 2000s so I can feel something.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
I'm um... I'm rebuilding my collection of D&D 3.5 books, if anyone wants to help... 🙃 docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
docs.google.com
D&D 3.5 books
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
The stupidest bit I've ever done in any RPG is in the pirate game I'm running this evening, which features the NPC Captain Brisby Tems (pronounced Thames).
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Almost missed the one day in the history of the world when I can post this story. (Arguably tomorrow would have worked too.)
libraryofshortstories.com
There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury
“Today is Mr. Featherstone’s birthday. Today is the anniversary of Tilita’s marriage. Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bills.”
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
A Murder of Dungeon Masters. (and one baby)
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Figure out what your players want, and give it to them. That's it. That's the whole job of the Game Master.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
@waverlysm.bsky.social you're British can you explain [checks notes] Count... Binface...? to me?
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
This is a super cool game, and the GM Sean (like every Sean I know, somehow) is a super cool guy. Check this out!
startplaying.games
Nausica-inspired TTRPG
Cloud Empress is an ecological science fantasy game about being one small part of a vast and mysterious ecosystem. Explore, survive, love, protect.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Whats the best band with the worst name and why is it the Beatles?
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
What in the holy hell are you doing, Civ VII??
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Just an absolutely normal D&D game. Doesn't your game have a mandatory hat policy? (Technically not D&D. Bonus points to whoever can figure out what game we're actually playing.)
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
My toxic trait is that I secretly hate the word "homebrew" as it relates to D&D/roleplaying games.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
It's work, of course. Some days it's hard work. But DANG do I love my job.
A photo of yours truly caught mid-description, DMing.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
I need more nonsense dice like this d1000. www.amazon.com/dp/B0C3L81JM3
A d1000, apparently.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
My local game store just gifted me this stack of books, so I guess it's officially time to start rebuilding my D&D 3.5 collection...
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Me: I should really try to finish playing Baldur's Gate so I understand the past 3 years of nerd culture. Also Me: [reinstalls 2000-era PC classic "Majesty: the Fantasy Kingdom Sim]
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
When your D&D players have 3 options for where to go next: -The place that continues the main plot -The place with a character-driven side-plot -The batshit crazy place they have no earthly reason to visit ...you might as well not even prepare for options 1 and 2. 🙃
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
I overused em-dashes before it was uncool.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Op. Always forgetting to self-advertise. "Midnight in the Garden of Chrome and Fog," my character-limit busting cyberpunk RPG actual-play, starts its second season this evening at 7pm! You better believe things are gonna be **weird** for the holiday... www.twitch.tv/vanalosswen
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
What a horrifying item to find at the bottom of my to-do list, with no memory of how it got there.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
The existence of "Rogue State" as a geopolitical category implies Barbarian State, Bard State, Cleric State, etc., and we haven't spent enough time grappling with this as a community.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
I don't know if this stands up to scrutiny, but some quick&easy drinking contest rules for D&D: it's just blackjack, but your character's Constitution score is the limiter (instead of 21). You can stop drinking any time, but whoever has the highest number less than or equal to their Con score wins.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
My response to that one specific faction of Star Trek: Lower Decks and Starfleet Academy haters.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Not gonna prepare for D&D adventures ever again; just gonna use this:
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
I've said it before and I'll say it again: the main skill for being a professional DM is not storytelling ability, not understanding rules systems, not doing funny voices or balancing group dynamics. It's a tolerance for sending scheduling emails.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Spending today coming to terms with how my very, very mature gaming group starting their new 1690s pirate campaign is going to handle the word "pinnace."
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Every once in a while I feel a pang of D&D 3e/3.5 nostalgia. If you're like me, my friend Ben has just listed a game that I think will appeal to you mightily.
startplaying.games
Join Heroes Across Time - Discord / Roll20 - Dungeons & Dragons 3/3.5e | StartPlaying Games
A Viking raider, a weary American Revolutionist, and a scholar from Mars University (2371) wake up in a world that shouldn't exist. Their bodies are altered, their memories are fractured, and they are...
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
It was inevitable, perhaps, that my D&D party would start referring to svirfneblin and svirfs, and that that would immediately degrade to smurfs, but what an absolute humiliation for one of my favorite D&D species.
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Reposted by Sam Tillis
Seamus Conneely of Cannibal Halfling Gaming @cannibalhalfling.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Five Tiers of RPG Publishing Hasbro’s annual earnings came out this week, so I took a look. It is truly staggering how much Wizards of the Coast has changed the company since they were acquired; when looking at unadjusted earnings the Wizards of the Coast and Digital Games division was the only…
cannibalhalflinggaming.com
Five Tiers of RPG Publishing
Hasbro’s annual earnings came out this week, so I took a look. It is truly staggering how much Wizards of the Coast has changed the company since they were acquired; when looking at unadjusted earnings the Wizards of the Coast and Digital Games division was the only one that turned a profit in the entire company. Not only that, but Wizards is responsible for roughly 47% of the entire company’s revenue and over 90% of all revenue growth over the last year.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
One of my deficiencies as a DM is that most of my NPCs are mostly reasonable most of the time. I feel as if that's not true of all people in the real world—some people are really quite petty and spiteful in self-defeating ways—but I have a hard time channeling that into my games.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Introduced a loveable robot NPC to my teens game as a potential ally; they immediately called it "clanker" and destroyed it. Interesting cultural shift, there.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Gonna see how long it takes my Spelljammer players to notice that I'm just taking them through a beat-by-beat remake of The Mandalorian.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Wish I'd taken a photo of the new kid's D&D character sheet, where she listed her class as "Rogue" and her subclass as "Goth Baddie." 10/10 A+ no notes.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
This is very specific, but I love the feeling of going into prepwork for a D&D session knowing *exactly* what I need to prepare and roughly how long it will take. Sometimes half the work is figuring out what work you need to do; happily, today is not that day.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
I'm a professional Game Master. *My* GM, who is *also* a professional GM, has just launched a new campaign. By the transitive property, if you like me, you'll like him even more, so you should check this out: startplaying.games/adventure/cm...
startplaying.games
Join Breaking Coruscant (A Star Wars Tale) - Discord / Roll20 - Blades in the Dark | StartPlaying Games
The Emperor is dead. The Empire has fractured. Yet the Rebel Alliance is still far from victory. Over a dozen Imperial warlords each command more ships and men than all the Rebel Alliance combined. Ac...
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
There were plenty of good, useful things I could have done this morning instead of working on my tongue-in-cheek James Bond RPG, but here we are.
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Sam Tillis @stillisgaming.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
I know I'm going to regret thinking this—I've burned out on the system before—but I could really run some Traveller RPG in 2026 if I could find someone to pay me to do so.
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