Testimonials

There are a few reasons that my game is worth paying for: Since I first discovered this game at 10 years old, I have been passionate about it. I have 20 years' experience running D&D games, and I have seen through many campaigns from start to finish, well exceeding 10,000 hours of play. This ensures a level of thoughtfulness and quality in my games you won't find in many other places. I am extremely consistent in making games happen. I show up not only with fun ideas that I'm proud to share with my players, but also with carefully crafted or selected visual aids to help with immersion. I understand the subtle art of scheduling, one of the most important aspects of DMing. I have enough experience wrangling folks to make sure that the game will actually happen on a consistent basis. I have a pro account with the 5th edition Players' Handbook included, so if you're making a character with elements from the core rules, the process will be greatly streamlined and a lot more enjoyable since you don't have to be flipping around a book or scouring a .pdf. Also see these testimonials written by past players: Drew G "Vince has been my DM for the better part of 5 years. Off the top of my head, I'd say we've had to cancel ten times in that span, give or take. Vince's games are frankly phenomenal. He creates complex worlds populated with memorable characters, intricate storylines, and manages to fold a fun, challenging game seamlessly into the experience. Your sessions will stay with you, and every game will be consistent in quality. His ability to have in game reactions to player choice completely off the cuff is fucking ridiculous. For example. My character in our current campaign is an illusionist. There was a storyline where our party had to convince our country's rulers to declare war. I created an illusion to show them the things we'd seen. Vince had one of our antagonists take over the illusion to deliver a message that impacted the story (I don't remember the exact details, having been very stoned at the time) and triggered our party's next quest. He didn't know I was going to cast that illusion. He completely free-styled a contextual story beat. Things like that happen more often than not. His characters are fun to interact with, his dungeons have fun bosses and puzzles, and his worlds are genuinely fun to explore. If you have any interest in D&D at all, his game will not disappoint you." Srikar V "In the short amount of time our current campaign has been running, we've seen his ability to introduce surprises, keep us on our toes, vary his encounters, develop complicated storylines, allow for RP and player choice, and integrate individual storylines to an exceedingly impressive extent. The freedom in choice we have from ranges from builds to story choices to criticism and feedback leaves me always looking forward to our next session. New or experienced, Vince can make a game for you." Srivan V. "Overall, there are many qualities that I really appreciate when it comes to the work that Vince puts into his games. Most of which, are thoroughly covered by the other posts here. However, there are two qualities of Vince's DM'ing ability that I value the very most. First is his ability to scale the world to our characters. What I mean is that he has an incredible ability to create monsters/encounters that are perfectly, and I mean perfectly, suited to our character's abilities and "power levels". I emphasize this point so specifically because I play a constantly teleporting Mystic that switches his proficiencies and tool skills at the drop of a dime, and yes I mean that HIGHLY unbalanced UA class, but Vince is able to perfectly keep me grounded and in check through clever character design and world building without taking away/curbing any of my abilities. Second, is Vince's willingness to take feedback from us, the players, and make meaningful changes to the world/setting. It makes all of us feel as though we're all a part of, and exploring, our own secret world as opposed to feeling like guests in Vince's. The level of immersion is so great that we've played 6 hours once without even really realizing it." Willard L. "As a beginner to DnD, I'm glad that Vince has been my first DM. He is experienced in DnD and it manifests in many ways. He has an uncanny ability to perfectly scale encounters to our players abilities, regardless of how unorthodox they may be (Unearthed Arcana). He consistently manages to hit the difficulty "sweet spot" where the encounters are doable, but still challenging enough to require tactics, positioning and good teamwork to succeed. He has many varieties of enemies, and I've enjoyed seeing and learning about various monster types that Vince manages to work into the setting, from dragons to giant apes to snake men it's always interesting to see what the next encounter will hold. Besides the enemy variety Vince also knows how to make fights mechanically interesting, from horseback chases to stealth sections to surprise encounters he manages to add another layer of interaction to the mechanics of the game which provides a rich gameplay experience. I look forward to loading up roll20 every week to explore the stories that Vince has allowed us to shape."

Jenin V. I have played in many campaigns, but with Vince, I always felt like I could wholly rely and trust the DM to create meaningful sessions, fun role-play interactions, complicated storylines and challenging combat. This is remarkable considering that some of his sessions are done on the fly in order to accommodate his player’s varying schedules. Coupled with his great command of the language, and the complex, highly realized setting he creates, everything feels like a story, and the sense of adventure is palpable and real.  I can attest that despite running a tight ship, Vince has also proven to be quite flexible and responsive to player feedback, allowing for a more collaborative and enjoyable experience. He is also rather adept in dealing with in-game or irl conflict. That’s a huge plus considering how much drama figures in tabletop games. With his DM-ing style, I can just relax and focus on building my character and playing him/her/it to its full extent, confident that the DM will give it the justice it deserves—whether through in-game mechanics, roleplay or a sense of being part of a larger story. TLDR. His games are amazing, Period.

I’m going to be completely honest here- I am a murderhobo. I can attempt to justify it, claiming that I really get into my character, and the strength of D&D is its freedom, but when it comes down to it I’m just a real pain in the ass. This is because Vince was my first ever DM and he could always handle it. I never even knew I was doing anything impolite until I left for college and met other DM’s who were really annoyed with my play style. I take partial credit for Vince’s mastery of improv storytelling because, throughout our childhood, I was always the wrench in his plans. Once, on our way to a dungeon, we took an extended rest after a random encounter. We were sitting around our campfire, when a patrol of priests and temple knights happened upon our encampment. I, being a worshipper of Pelor and complete asshole, judged them to be unworthy of their cloth. Vince played them perfectly. They tried to de-escalate the situation in a number of ways before we fought and killed them all. He would let us go in any direction we desired, while always giving appropriate consequence for our actions. After that fight he informed me that my alignment was no longer Neutral good, and that I would have to pay serious penance or find a new deity.  It wasn’t just improv, either. As Vince got to know us as players, he would mould his worlds around our play-style. Once he took us through as Kenku hive city, which would be our hub for the next few missions. Knowing me, he had prepared a great deal of material within this city’s crime ridden underworld. Lo and behold, we went down to the slums and started wreaking havoc. In the sessions that followed, we went from petty crimes and kept escalating until we triggered a turf war between rival gang factions. He had turned D&D into Grand Theft Auto, because he knew that’s what we wanted.  I usually DM when I’m with others, and the best piece of advice I’ve gotten from Vince is that “Each time you open a rulebook it’s like a loading screen, ideally you should never do this during a session.” I then realized that he literally never consults the rules during a session. From first to fifth edition, he basically has them memorized. Any gaps that do exist in his knowledge are made completely irrelevant by his intuition. Recently I haven’t had much time for D&D, but I’ve still met with Vince occasionally for some one-off dungeons. These dungeons were a real world tour of his encyclopedic knowledge of D&D rules and lore. He instinctively knows what you should have to roll on a D20 to swim up a waterfall, the dex value of a zombie dire bear, or which wandering monster you’re likely to encounter in the seventh plane of hell. It’s extremely difficult to prepare for a session in such a way that you won't ever have to break rhythm, and I don’t think it’s possible unless you have the level of experience that Vince has gained over thousands of hours DMing.  Vince creates an interesting and mysterious world with minimal description. He won’t often wax poetic, and when he does you’ll be glad he did. I don’t know if it’s his degree in history or the shocking amount of fantasy he’s read, but he never seems to have trouble putting his players in a new situation that’s simultaneously simple and interesting. My favorite session ever was when he asked me to try out second edition. He gave me a high level mage to play for a couple sessions while we were both home for summer break. Our first session started when a powerful mage drained a point of my wisdom and told me I could have it back once I retrieved a relic for him. Feeling bullied, I attacked him. A mage fight occurred. The paradactyles on the skyline turned out to be more than a colorful setting when they all descended on me, and I felt genius when I stopped them with a wall of fire. We were flying through the air flinging spells at one and other, and Vince never missed a beat. The fight ended when I successfully cast the humble “Sleep” on my opponent, and he went limp, falling a thousand feet to his doom. He builds robust scenarios that allow for total freedom, his knowledge keeps the game moving, and his talented storytelling arouses a desire to explore.  TLDR: I know there are many free DMs available, so why would you pay for one? Well, I can go down to my local rec center and watch some people play basketball, so why do people pay thousands of dollars to watch the NBA? The difference is quality, and Vincent Marocco DMs like he’s Lebron in the finals.