Reviewing Chris Perkins

[DM_]

Chris Perkins for me is THE DM. Watching the AI games I am always thoroughly entertained and I would sell my first born to Asmodeus for a spot at his table. I feel as though watching his style has helped me out in my home game quite a bit, especially in rolling with the punches as it were. As wedgeski stated the Darkmagic Manor was absolutely magnificent. I love his philosophy of "go big", especially as evidenced when the AI crew was manning the giant statue of Halaster against the Tarrasque.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I would certainly give him a 9/10 in most situations, and the Acquisitions game he designed that took place at the Darkmagic family home was an outright 10/10 masterclass.

I agree with both of these statements. Notably, Chris Perkins doesn't make many mistakes common to GM's.

He lets the players dictate their own actions, keeps the game moving, and does NPC interactions well. 9/10.

The Darkmagic family home session is the best of the Acquisitions Incorporated games. It is titled "The Last Will and Testament of James Darkmagic" and was played live at PAX 2011. You can view it on YouTube here, although it has the song intro first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzIJemFtXXs

 

[rjfTrebor]

i'm very jealous of the life he's able to give his NPCs. they all come across so distinctly that you forget he's only one guy.

 

[transtemporal]

Normally he sets a cracking pace which is exciting to watch, but occasionally he gets stuck on minutiae and lets roleplaying become rollplaying. In one of those videos theres a 5-minute sequence of rolling dice to get on a dragons(?) back. I know he has to tow the line sometimes and show off the mechanics (this may have been a skillchallenge, I'm not sure) but not even Penny Arcade could make that interesting.

 

[Psikerlord#]

There's one on the news page right now.

Cheers for that. I watched the first hour or so. I think he's a good DM - willing to roleplay, prompts the game forward and keeps his players engaged and lets them try stuff.

Alas, he was saddled with two awful characters. The as*hole paladin, and the psychotic rogue. Their play clearly demonstrated why (i) you dont allow in party fighting and (ii) you dont allow evil PCs. From what I saw of that first hour, if the game had just had the other 4 PCs, it would have been more fun and a better marketing tool for wotc.

 

[Nemio]

What I find interesting is that Ben (the Paladin) was the DM in previous D&D video's he's done.
He's also had to face in-party conflict and fighting before so he must know it isn't fun.

Perhaps he wanted to test a more experienced DM or he was just glad he could play and that's just his style.

 

[Blackwarder]

I love Chris Perkins, his DMing style looks so effortless which makes me jealous since every time I finish DMing I feel exhausted.

Warder

 

[wjaehnig]

I think he's an excellent DM. I had the pleasure of playing in one of his games at a convention once, he was outstanding.

-NPC were great as mentioned
-emphasis was on fun, lots of storytelling with slightly less than an average number of dicerolls
-very few pauses to check his source material (which stands to reason as he had written the adventure himself)
-his map, which he drew as we explored a ruin, was pretty amazing

Altogether easily the top DM I've played with (not that that's a long list) and someone I try to model my own DMing after.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I think he's fantastic. I find his NPCs to be well acted and his pacing for the Acquisition Inc. one-shots is spot on. For me his Dungeon Master Experience articles in the Dungeons and Dragons magazine were pensive and chock full of useful advice on how to build and run campaigns and plots. I found those articles more useful than most DMGs.

A+ GMing!

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

The first video I watched where Chris was the DM was for the writers of Robot Chicken. The video can be viewed here.

I love his DMing, especially the way he always managers to keep his composure. The player's can be goofing off or coming up with terrible plans or hacking each other to pieces but Chris never seems bothered. He genuinely embraces whatever the player's bring to the table. You can also clearly tell he loves what he does.