I started DMing my first campaign yesterday. I wanted to share this shot of my set up because I think it's epic and augers good things about how this will go.

The Circle Of Lost Truths Light Keeper: Elizabeth Montgomery - Deceased by the end of campaign. Circle Members: Enola Ross: Scholar and NPC. She was primarily responsible for research. What she knew depended on the dice, and in a combat/high-risk situation, her having a turn was usually because I was rewarding the team members who rolled two or more sixes in a roll. It was super fun to play that way, I'm not gonna lie. Walter Dooley - AKA Walter Leideaux - Group Criminal, used an alias to hide the fact that he's the owner of Ledeu Cabeling, one of the first companies to help manufacture electrical cables. His father had managed to garnish a deal with Halen government forces during the Last Great War. Incredibly weather, but incredibly jaded about his childhood best friend and chosen brother going missing. Walter, instead of becoming a serious businessman like his father, chose to delegate the matters to capable employees who would help care for and run his company while he investigated his brother's disappearance. His investigation led him to Candela, where he was received with expectancy instead of surprise. He was skeptical at first, but curious. Until he found out that his brother was, in fact, a member of Candela Obscura. His circle had gone missing for some time during an assignment. While most of his 7-member circle had been found dead in Old Faire at the site of the assignment, his brother and two others were instead missing. He went into his first Candela assignment with some hope that he might be alive and that Candela would lead him to wherever his brother was. Character Fun Facts: The player of this character, *also my husband btw*, decided he wanted it to be a mystery to HIMSELF. "I already told you my brother is missing, and my search led me to Candela's doors. I want you to write the rest for me because I want to feel surprised by the end of the story." To which my SISTER said, "That sounds so fun! I've never played that way before. Me too! Me too!"

The session 0 that didn’t happen Session 0 was supposed to happen last night. I put the group together through a local D&D Facebook group. None of us knew each other going in, but we’ve been chatting on Discord for about a month. I shared a few player primers about the campaign, and everyone seemed genuinely excited to get started. Then the weather got involved. The big winter storm threw a wrench into things. Even though the worst of it wasn’t expected until Saturday, one player was feeling anxious about the possibility of getting stuck in bad conditions. They let the group know they couldn’t make it and didn’t want to hold everyone else up, even offering to bow out. Since this was Session 0, I felt it was too important for anyone to miss. I decided to push the start back two weeks. We meet every other week, and I’d rather have everyone present and comfortable than rush it. The good news is everyone was understanding, and a couple of others admitted they were also feeling anxious about the weather. Honestly, that response made me feel even better about the group. I’ve got a strong feeling this is going to be a really good table. I think the moral of the story for GM’s would be: take care of your players before the schedule. I think when players feel safe, heard, and included, the group becomes stronger and more connected.

Hi, first post here. I've been DMing 5e for my friend group for going on 6 years now. In the last year I've been trying to use the principles of proactive roleplay, to highly mixed success. We play remotely, due to geography, which obviously introduces quirks and nuances not present at an in person table. Personally, I think it weakens the community element, but short of a significant lottery win I don't see how to change that. But getting people to send me their goals is unreasonably difficult. I've made it as low friction as I can, with a shared Google Sheet. They can punch in goals, things they want their character to buy, a wishlist of sorts for items, a column for little downtime activities. They've got a box each to tick when they're done. Doesn't mean I need a weekly update, so long as that box gets ticked each week and I know I can export that to a to-do list for prep. In the last 3 months I can only count 2 weeks where that tickbox has been done by the whole group. This week, none of them did so. We've had discussions, and people have said in the past that they're all in on the idea; they like it and think it makes for a better campaign. But they don't follow through on their part. 2 of the 4 have DMed, so they know that prep can be a slog. Something a player wants to do, that they came up with with a few minutes, can turn into hours of finding/making maps, picking enemies, writing NPCS etc etc. Right now, I'm in a bit of a hole of being angry and disappointed. I've written 3 different drafts of what I want to say, but I don't know if any really hit the core issue well enough. Part of me wants to just take "carry on and try to do better" off the table. We've been there before, and people did not do better. Some did worse. The other ideas I have are less satisfying, like dropping the approach entirely, or don't hit the real problem, like moving to a fortnightly game to give them more time. So how do people keep their groups on track?

There's something about moving Blades forward 100 Years that seems really appealing. Maybe it's just because I recently rediscovered the game Deathloop, or the more modern geo-political themes that can be woven into the narrative, I'm not sure. https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/bbd583d2-7c42-478b-a4f2-4c73f30e7022/landing