Hey everyone! @Jonah Fishel and I have been working on a new style for TTRPG adventures, and the first test of this method is now available in the classroom tab! These are meant to facilitate proactive play and emergent narrative. At the same time, we're working on making resources that both make this style of play easy to introduce to players, or are easy to bring to your friendly local gaming store and set up a new group. When we released the Game Master's Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying, we weren't quite satisfied with the adventure provided in the back of the book. We'd been scratching our heads on how to combine a prewritten adventure with the player-driven narratives of proactive play; they seemed to be at complete odds with one another. After lots of discussion and failed drafts, we're very happy with the result, and we think the core of what makes an adventure useful is preserved in this type of module, alongside the freedom to tell stories with friends around the table. We're almost done with a Proactive Adventure Manifesto that explains the details of this format and why we think it's an improvement on the industry standard, but for now, we can offer a quick explanation. These adventures are built around encounters as the fundamental unit of play, and those adventures or organized and altered by player goals. We've tried to reduce lengthy prose and make it as easy as possible for GMs to run these at the table with minimal prep, while keeping enough information to minimize prep and put newer GMs at ease. We also threw in some small changes we find useful: color coded highlighting, mechanically interesting monsters, stat blocks placed in the encounter where they are used, etc. Down the line, we'll be adding premade character sheets and pools of goals to choose from for groups in an extra hurry, and a compendium of stats (right now they're all only found in the encounters where they appear), but for now we want to get the basic adventure design down. We'll also be creating more game aids like printable paper miniatures, a map of the area (as opposed to battlemaps), a video walkthrough on how to use the packet, and possibly some art. For now, please check out the packet, and let us know what you think! We'll be making it available outside of the lab eventually, but in the meantime, you're welcome to run it, show it to whoever you like, and otherwise use it as you will. I'll post a feedback form on here in a few days, but feel free to discuss it in this post and chat with your fellow gamemasters.

Big news everyone! Jonah and I have been hard at work, and it's finally time: the next book in the Game Master's Handbook series is almost here! You can take a look here. The Game Master's Handbook of Collaborative Campaign Design is the follow up to our Proactive Roleplaying Book, with lots of the same core philosophies but covering new challenges and topics. We're super proud of this one, and we think we've taken all the lessons we learned from the Proactive Handbook and made something really special for this one. If the first book was about creating player-driven narratives, this is about creating collaborative campaigns: how to discover a story with your friends together, not tell them one you've already written yourself. We've worked super hard to make this concept as approachable as possible, even for GMs that don't enjoy using improvisation at the table, and I'm pretty confident we've succeeded. While I'm very proud of our first book, it was definitely a learning experience, and I think those lessons were put to good use---I genuinely believe every single chapter in this book has something useful for a GM's table (and you don't need to have read the Proactive book to enjoy this one---they cover different topics!) The incomparable Jeff Ashworth, creator of the original "Game Master's Book of ____" series, of which our handbooks are cousins, continued to consult with us on this entry, providing invaluable feedback along with Phil Sexton and Tim Baker. Will Earl (of DnD Shorts fame) is writing the foreward, and Luke Eidenschink returns with his fantastic illustrations. We could probably write about this book for a very, very long time, so we're going to try to spare all of you from that by hosting a *live Q&A here in the lab Tuesday, April 8th, at 8:30 PM EST.* We'll post more details soon, and for those who can't make it, we'll be collecting some questions beforehand and recording the session to post in the lab, so don't worry!

Lowell Francis was talking about a TTRPG called Sword Opera and around the 35” mark he mentioned Proactive Roleplaying and goals for PCs. (Side note, one of the podcasters on this episode has a bit of a warble in their recording) https://aroundthehearth.openhearthgaming.com/episodes/open-hearth-podcast-episode-3

Ben Milton of Questing Beast recently talked about Time Until Next Impactful Choice (TUNIC) and I thought it was an interesting, though nebulous suggestion. I mean, I know exactly what he means, but it’s less of a technique and more of a piece of generalized advice. Wondered if anyone else saw this and what their takeaways were? https://youtu.be/j-ywPjMEtq4?t=396&si=xPRn3Km85r0JFxVn

Has anyone tried playing this? For me, there’s probably too many rules, but I do like the presentation. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/507201/grimwild-free-edition