For my upcoming Night City Daggerheart mini-campaign.

I've watched a very informative video talking about Premises, People, and Pushes (https://youtu.be/mh1Yq592I5A?si=NAhVdyZQiWBp1inK). Out of all the concepts this video talks about, pushes seems to be the one I can find the least additional information about. The creator talks about pushes being events that occur in the world in order to make it feel alive, specifying that these are NOT plot hooks but are instead events that would happen, big or small, in a way that makes sense for the world to feel alive. This includes, for example, a scene where an accident takes place and the push is a news van interviewing a group of students all giving varying accounts of what happened. Are there more resources exploring this topic about how to make world feel alive without pressuring the players down a plot (similar to the advice in the video)? Perhaps the concept is called something else in other books.

I am currently running a campaign in Obojima (5e setting) and it is the game I find myself coming back to in my thoughts over and over again. When going through the setting with my players, I had them talk about their backstories and what brought them to this specific part of the world. Then, by encouraging co-creation, we all came up with an inciting incident and area. We are four sessions in and we haven't even had combat yet! I am the one doing the least amount of talking in the room while my players bring themselves to life and I am simply reacting as the world. As a way to learn what to focus on, I have my players do a fun little exercise where they write a small journal entry (A few sentences to up to a paragraph or so) from the perspective of their character so I can see what resonated the most from the session we had. Now that I've started "The Game Master’s Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying", I have asked them all to list one overarching, long-term goal and one or two short term goals that supplement it. I'm so excited to finish the book so I can continue to apply its principles to my game! I am currently re-reading the chapter about factions.

I've been playing TTRPGs since highschool in the early 2000s. I've dabbled into GMing here and there over the years but didn't start to get more serious about the role until the past year. I recently moved to a new city and I wanted to teach my friends how to play as a way for us to keep in touch online! My exploration of the hobby lead me to an aspect of it called 4D Roleplay. It is through there that I learned about The Beginner's 4D Handbook (https://questinghousepress.itch.io/beginner-4d-handbook). After reading it, I found "The Game Master’s Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying" as one of the books listed in its additional readings section. I am now on Chapter 3 of this wonderful tome of knowledge and I am so excited to learn more! I am so excited to create WORLDS - not plots - that feel alive and react to the goals and desires of my players and not railroad them through a predefined story!

Welcome to the Game Master Laboratory! This is a place for people who are running (or planning) TTRPG games to brainstorm ideas with other GMs, share ideas and resources, and test their creations with each other. I recorded a short video to get you started, which you can view in this post. It's all about what we do here, but it's also about how to use Skool, so if you're new to Skool, make sure to check that out! If we haven't met you yet, we would like to. Please make a post in the "General Discussion" channel to introduce yourself and tell us... 1. Which systems you like to play/run 2. A bit about the games you're running right now Glad you're here. DM us if you have any questions.