A need without a solution... I am having the time of my life with my new campaign with a group of truely amazing players. None of these players started this way and we don't always have the luxury of picking the great group. It has me thinking about what practices from GMs and from other players helped them grow into who they are now. From my teaching background I clearly understand that at least half of what I should be teaching my intro chem students is how to be a good student and how to learn science in a way they can actually use it. Telling doesnt work and it is more complex than just rewarding good behavior. So brainstorming... - all of them have GM'd at least once, but they gravitate towards playing - all of them have played more than one system and more than one type of game (dungeon crawl, political, exploration, ...) - they all respect one another and value other players trusting them - they ask questions about other players and their characters - none of them are "doing a voice" but all of them vary cadence, word choice, tone, and have phrases they reuse in a way that we know when they are talking in character

Since I started running proactive games, and especially with some collaborative worldbuilding, my games tend to be very fast paced. There’s always something going on, and my players are always sprinting forward as fast as they can. I’ve had a few groups say they want to turn down the speed a bit and have some lower stakes sessions, which they always call beach episodes lol, some time to just chill, talk to people, shop, engage in some tomfoolery, downtime, etc. I highly recommend incorporating that, especially if your players mention it. At first, it really went against my instincts—as a GM, I tend to prep by adding as much tension, raised stakes, and drama as I can cram in my notes, and I prep by specific encounter using a PC v NPC goal structure. So the more free form, laidback stuff made me nervous that it would be boring for my players—I felt like I had so little prepared! But it’s always resulted in a great time. My players will have the opportunity to do stuff they never would otherwise, and the Freeform format makes it so they really steer the story themselves. I’ll do very little and relax, and they’ll talk amongst themselves, form more goals, make allies and enemies, etc. anyone else had some good seasons this way? How did you prep for it?

My name is Jay, I am a long time GM and TTRPG player (though mostly GM) staring back with Dungeons and Dragons 2nd ed. These days I primarily play using my own home-brew systems though love jumping into the occasional Delta Green, Fall of Delta Green or gritty Call of Cthulu action. Other interests include GMT published ConSim games, hex and counter stuff (ala Avalon Hill) and the COIN series. My primary campaign (small player group) primarily focuses on global political intrigue with a healthy dose of skullduggery where players play multiple characters on multiple landmasses often in direct political opposition to each other. Its been very fun and I hoping to produce it as a modular system for other gamer out there at some point (next year?). At the moment, I am running a small 'cozy?' Zine for Zinequest about letter writing for which I could happily send over any information to anyone interested. Until then, lets chat gamezzzzz! Nice to meet everyone.

So I recently finished reading through Jonah and Tristan’s role playing book as well as Return of the Lazy DM. Both excellent reads by the way and you should check them out as a game master, but does anyone suggest other books on running games?

My name is Phil and I am a long time game master. I have been playing and running for 38 years. First game I played was DnD. First game I ran was After the Bomb. I have played DnD, most Palladium Books stuff, Cyberpunk, Deadlands, and a handful of others big in the 80’s and 90’s. I am currently running three Pathfinder 2e games. One weekly ( Abomination Vaults) and one monthly (Shackled City) and as of last night one bi-weekly which we used Collaborative Campaign Design to build the world. At this time because the monthly and weekly games have just been in one area we put them as givens and they will be included in the world build on the next times they play. As of now I have 14 players across three games.