He/him.

I go by Madmage, but you can call me Mad, Mage, or even Phil for those who might remember me back from the original Legend of the Five Rings Online and its second iteration.

I have been playing TTRPGs off and on for a little over 30 years, having started as a pre-teen (yes, I'm old), and running games of my own for about 25 years. Like many of my generation, I was introduced to the hobby through AD&D 2nd edition by some grade school friends. My friends were rabid serial RPG collectors and over the years I've played dozens of different systems across multiple editions.

My first experience with L5R was with the 1st edition RPG. My best friend had gotten the CCG and later the RPG. I bought my second non-AD&D/Forgotten Realms RPG sourcebook ever: Way of the Unicorn. Our first campaign covered about half of the official published adventures of the edition, including City of Lies and Tomb of Iuchiban, still some of my favourite boxed sets ever. Once most of my friends were in University, we started drifting apart and the campaign eventually died, but that is when I found fiveringsonline.com (FRO). I started off as a player there, later became an Assistant GM running the Unicorn clan, and then got promoted to Scorpion GM. I stuck around for the second iteration as the Court GM but quit after one of the other GMs leaked a rough draft I had written up for the first Winter Court to the player base which stirred up a ton of drama. It also coincided roughly at the time I found the metaplot of the CCG (and downstream the RPG) became particularly bad and I lost all interest in the game and setting. When FFG picked up the franchise from AEG, I was intrigued enough that I picked up the 4th edition of the game to run for some friends and along with the rebooted timeline, rekindling my enjoyment of the setting.

In late 2024, I saw an ad for Tales of Rokugan and joined the server. While I enjoyed playing with many of the players there, and some of the storylines, that campaign hit the usual problem of GM burnout followed by a drop in participation which spurred my desire to start my own campaign.

**GM Style**

My GM style is usually very player-oriented and improvisational. I have done improv comedy semi-professionally (I've been compensated twice so it counts!) in both short and long form, although I prefer the latter. That said, I'm very much a "yes-and" player and GM. Given the nature of a Westmarch campaign, and my role as Head GM, I will be mostly running one shot adventures, especially to onboard new characters, and the major metaplot events of the campaign. When it comes to player selection for voice sessions, I will tend to prioritize the new players to get them involved and those who participate outside of GM scheduled events. At the end of every session, I host what I call "highs and lows", where players provide feedback of the experience to better tailor future sessions or player interactions.