Sam Tillis
@stillisgaming.bsky.social
📤 103
📥 153
📝 270
Your friendly neighborhood professional Game Master.
https://startplaying.games/gm/stillis-gaming
pinned post!
At final count, I ran 428 RPG sessions in 2024. Granted, some of those were 1 hr afterschool games for kids. I pound out four 75 min sessions in a row most Saturdays. Then again, others were 9 hr marathons, so it all balances out. Hi. I'm Sam. I'm a Professional Game Master. Follow me for stories.
10 months ago
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Writing email newsletters and then sharing those email newsletters on social media like its 2017.
buttondown.com/stillisgamin...
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"I Like to Watch"
…damn it Tillis, you think in this Year Of Our Lord 2025 you can subject-line a newsletter with a reference to cult-classic ‘70s film Being There and expect...
https://buttondown.com/stillisgaming/archive/i-like-to-watch/
about 16 hours ago
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Professional proofreading is changing "cluster fuck" to "clusterfuck" in a legitimate publication because, incredibly, Merriam Webster has an entry and a strong preference on the matter.
@merriam-webster.com
5 days ago
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That terrible feeling when you've finished your D&D prep-work early, so now you've got nothing to do but wonder what you've *forgotten* to prepare for over the course of several hours.
12 days ago
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Several years later, this middle school history textbook cover of the Silmarillion is still the cleverest thing I ever created and I'm willing to fight anyone who says otherwise.
13 days ago
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I am, apparently, the single person on the entire internet who unironically enjoys playing Civilization 7. Ask me anything.
20 days ago
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Just another Thursday afternoon where I'm inventing a surf-fishing minigame for an RPG I've almost never run before...
27 days ago
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Oh! This is up! Warning: the saddest scene I have ever run as a DM, ever, happens near the end of this episode. (After quite a bit of unbridled joy, natch.)
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The One Ring: Over Hill and Under Hill 2 - The Crowned Hill
YouTube video by Quests & Chaos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eFGRN35N3E
30 days ago
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I now have three (3) different groups lining up trying to get me to run the Cosmere RPG. Guess I finally need to get into Brandon Sanderson...
30 days ago
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Being a professional DM is wishing mid-session that you had a random disease chart, then realizing that you *have* a random disease chart that you printed out for a session 8 months ago, but it never came up and has been sitting in the back of your DM kit ever since.
about 1 month ago
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The only (and I mean ONLY) downside to running a superhero RPG is having to do the thing where you check everyone's character sheets to make sure they don't have a power that would just let them entirely bypass a session's worth of plot.
about 1 month ago
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13 yr old D&D player to other 13 yr old D&D player: Bro, you wanna be a korok with me for Halloween?
about 1 month ago
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Me: Have you thought of a name for your D&D character yet? 8 yr old girl, first time D&D player, without a moment's pause: Mr. Massacre. ...yep. You'll fit right in, kid.
about 1 month ago
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Hot take: the plural of "cliff" should be "clives."
about 1 month ago
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Damn. I hate it when I agree with a youtube D&D video. (jk Justin Alexander is great. My leveling rule of thumb is: when everyone knows what they're doing with the abilities granted at this level, it's time to move to the next one)
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The Speed of Leveling | Advanced Gamemastery
YouTube video by Alexandrian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sw8s2vyPPM
about 1 month ago
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If my toxic trait is writing read-aloud text for my own D&D adventures, I make it even worse by occasionally writing whole sections of that text in stealth-iambic pentameter.
about 1 month ago
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Sometimes I pick up a D&D books in my hands—a monster manual or players handbook; anything, really—just so I can close it dramatically at the end of a session.
about 1 month ago
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Piedmont, CA
about 2 months ago
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Feels pretty cool to be the 6th hit on youtube when you search a pretty common thing. (It's us playing about the first third of the new The One Ring RPG starter set Over Hill and Under Hill, by Free League Publishing. Stay tuned for more. 💍)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0qn...
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The One Ring Starter Set - Over Hill and Under Hill Ep 1 - A Last Tale for the Night
YouTube video by Quests & Chaos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0qn2xMRfWM
about 2 months ago
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I'm chaotic evil; I use Verdana as a print font.
about 2 months ago
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Went to an outdoor theatre-show. Seagull shits on me within first minute. 10/10 would recommend see more theatre.
about 2 months ago
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Hey! Check out this nifty GM-less story game that I have an editing credit on. (And, roundaboutly, made a very good friend once by running on international waters.)
www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Emissa...
about 2 months ago
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Me, preparing a D&D session for a game that hasn't met in months and months...
about 2 months ago
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oops i'm gonna do another of these livestream things. monday 9/1, 9/15, 9/22 7pm PST.
www.twitch.tv/questsandchaos
about 2 months ago
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My toxic trait is abbreviating Mind Flayer in my notes as MFer.
#dnd
2 months ago
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Click to "unsubscribe" from a junk email I received. Unsubscribe page says "you cannot unsubscribe because you're already unsubscribed." This is a bad sign.
2 months ago
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I've said this before and will say this again: 90% of being a professional Game Master is spending entire mornings on four different communications platforms trying to hammer out gaming schedules.
2 months ago
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Wanna play an RPG with me? I've got some Wednesdays free coming up, which means I've got some offerings for you-yes-you!
buttondown.com/stillisgamin...
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An RPG to Occupy Your Wednesdays?
i’ve added some new email addresses to this newsletter list. hello, this is sam. i promise i only send one email per month, maximum. but if you want to not...
https://buttondown.com/stillisgaming/archive/an-rpg-to-occupy-your-wednesdays/
3 months ago
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Get you a D&D group who reacts like *this* to your GM shenanigans.
3 months ago
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I went to a Sports Game. Local Team lost 0-8. It was, as the song accurately predicted, "a shame." Photographic evidence of my displeasure.
3 months ago
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That feeling when you go to the game store to buy something specific but they don't have it so you buy something totally at random instead.
3 months ago
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Let this go down in history as the year that I made an ENTIRE POKEMON/D&D HACK IN ONE WEEKEND in order to appease a gaggle of uncompromising, and ultimately deeply unimpressed, eight-to-twelve-year-olds.
3 months ago
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Running a Ravenloft D&D game for a bunch of 9-12 year olds like the absolute monster I am.
3 months ago
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Oops dressed up to GM a game. (ft. unpressed Hook the Cat)
3 months ago
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I will not justify the circumstances under which I just uttered the sentence "We don't get the Patti LuPone we want; we get the Patti LuPone we deserve," but know that I said it, and that I stand by it.
4 months ago
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Man. ICE really has been ruined as an acronym for In Case (of) Emergency, hasn't it.
4 months ago
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What a time to be a professional DM.
4 months ago
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Ahhh. Another week of D&D camp, another party with character names on every point of the spectrum between (and including) "Kayla Darkstar" and "Bob Jr."
4 months ago
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The Alameda County Fair: classy as ever.
4 months ago
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Party split up in a situation where every part of the plot might run into a dangerous random encounter. Dice were 1d3, 1d4, and 1d6 (random encounter on a 1) for the different regions they were traveling through. ...and you bet your ass we triggered that 1.39% chance to hit all three. 🙃🪦
4 months ago
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Welp. I've never had a kid D&D player start to cry when I told him he *could* level up his character before...
4 months ago
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Very pleased to see that Bad!Tillis is finally going to fade into irrelevancy and stop besmirching my good name by association.
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Sen. Thom Tillis won't run for reelection in 2026
Trump said he'd meet with Tillis's challengers and accused the North Carolinian of grandstanding.
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/29/thom-tillis-retire-senate-north-carolina
4 months ago
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Millions of galaxies.
4 months ago
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**cracks knuckles** 7 weeks of kids' summer camp D&D games (very loosely) plotted. Spelljammer, two weeks of Planescape, Eberron, the Forgotten Realms, and then back to Spelljammer. Let's do this thing.
4 months ago
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Sitting in a hip cafe watching a cool, attractive patron talking to the cool, attractive barista about their D&D campaign and thinking gosh, we really have arrived, haven't we?
4 months ago
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I will literally read anything posted anywhere on the internet about the masterpiece Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
www.filfre.net/2025/06/alph...
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» Alpha Centauri The Digital Antiquarian
https://www.filfre.net/2025/06/alpha-centauri/
4 months ago
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I love (RPG) rules as much as the next red-blooded nerdperson, but there's nothing quite like an entire D&D session without a single dice role. Viva roleplaying!
4 months ago
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My D&D toxic trait is that I unabashedly adore boxed text.
4 months ago
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@zarlez.com
offhand gave me the idea for a Wishbone RPG and I'm **obsessed** with trying to figure out what that would look like.
4 months ago
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There's something wildly life-affirming about printing out a fresh batch of character sheets.
5 months ago
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D&D with the surly teen group is frequently hilarious. Surly Teen: I hit him with my sword. 33 points of damage. Me: [enthusing as hard as possible] Yep, that'll get 'em! How do you want to do this? Surly Teen: [deadpan] I hit him with my sword until he's dead.
5 months ago
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