Alcuin Gersh
Pronouns: He/Him/His
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Bio
Alcuin is a veteran of Actual Play streams, having appeared as a Game Master or Player on channels including Wizards of the Coast, D&D Beyond, Hyper RPG, Queuetimes, Hunters Entertainment and Geek and Sundry. As a Writer, Developer and Tester he has contributed to numerous projects and Kickstarters.
Alcuin’s worldbuilding style emphasizes the dark, intimate, and tragic. No kitchen sink High Fantasy here. His themes are anti-colonial, and his aesthetics eccentric, from Baroque Occultists to Decopunk Mecha.
Game Style
Prep for the campaign begins online a month before the castle begins, with Alcuin guiding the players through building characters with strong individual narrative arcs tied to the story. No matter how epic the scale of the world and action, personal stakes will drive the story for the players. The games are very challenging, without the implicit expectation that the characters are heroes and will ultimately succeed. Conflicts and obstacles can often be devastating and require failing forward and persisting. Horror and survival themes intermingle with culture clashes, doomed romances, and broken families. Before beginning the games there are detailed discussions of lines and veils, as the cathartic nature of collaborative storytelling pushes the emotional limits of the group. That being said, Alcuin is consistent and transparent with game mechanics, sticking to the 5th Edition ruleset and allowing the dice and players to tell their stories. Production value is very important to the campaign, with music and ambient sound to score the adventure and deepen engagement. Combat formats are on a spectrum between theater of the mind and detailed maps and terrain with miniatures to balance pacing and tactical clarity. Players from Alcuin’s games at the castle emerge from their games bonded, shocked, awed, and moved.
“That was amazing; Is there a place we can all go to talk and uh… process some things?”
“I didn’t know D&D could be this good.”