Hi everyone! I’m so excited to be here, I have joined the community for a while now 🎉

Hello Game Master's Laboratory! My name is Michael (like many of us) and I've been playing RPGs beginning with but not limited to D&D (like many of us) for many years. Although I played in the "good old days" I'm only somewhat nostalgic for them. I like almost everything that has evolved in roleplaying games. I joined Skool to build my own community around teaching the art of being a "Dungeon Master" and I was delighted to find this group because I'm already a fan of proactive roleplaying. It actually comes pretty close to my own philosophies in a lot of ways, and in the past I have had similar thoughts to putting that in a system. "Player-centric" was one term I've played with before. But you guys have done a lot better with proactive, because I realized along the way that we need to involve the players in the creative process, but there is more to game than just satisfying the player's needs. What I think about, these days is in terms of the whole table is working together to serve the needs of the world, itself: a world in which nothing is real (or canonical) until it happens at the table. The GM may have ideas about the lore and background of the setting, they may know about plots and agendas going on behind the scenes, but the output of playing, the living world, is the result of those ideas coming together with the actions of the players, one scene or encounter or adventure at a time. Well, there's my grand philosophical statement. That was the assignment, right? "introduce yourself with a grand philosophical statement on the deep structure of Tabletop Roleplaying Games?" Or did I make that up?

I have been reading through draft character goals for the new campaign and nearly snort-laughted at this one ... "He intends to complete his mission in spite of his assigned party's incompetence, and will succeed in not only identifying sources of arcane power, but in securing them for responsible exploitation." Not quite the format I asked for, but I can completely picture this character now. I am curious what you would pick as a favorite character goal...

I'm at Origins in Columbus, OH. It seems to me like a place where a lot of people from all across the sex/gender spectrum feel comfortable being their genuine selves. I don't know everyone's story but I've seen a *lot* of people signalling pretty openly about things from kink to sexual orientation to gender identity. There are a lot of rainbows here and while some of them are attached to unicorns or rain clouds, many of them are on lapel pins, suspenders, decals on laptops, etc. There are also the more subtle things like hearing to 50-something guy who was teaching me the character creation process for a new (to me) RPG, excitedly talking about a recent character of his, who was a 20-something woman who had been a star athlete in high school and who now used those gifts and training to fight crime. There are enough people walking around in cosplay or fantasy armor that I can't always spot the kinksters, but they're definitely here. That (all) is the Good News. I spent part of today trying to find a friend of mine. I knew what company he was working for and I went looking for him at their booth (vendor hall isn't open yet, but Iget access during set-up). He wasn't around. We exchanged some messages and I found out where he was -- or where I thought he was. I wandered the Gaming Hall looking for him, going up and down 1-2 aisles where I thought he would be. I thought I spotted him a couple of times -- because he's a P.O.C., and there were few enough that any time I saw someone it was noteworthy. Now, it's early in the con and that means there are fewer people here overall, but that shouldn't change the proportional makeup of the people here. And I know we're in Ohio, but I also know this event draws people from all over the country. There are all different aspects of Gaming represent here -- trading card games, LARPs, Escape rooms, board games, kids games, social deduction games, RPGs, etc. I'm not casting aspersions on any one segment of the the gaming world -- but I think we all can and should do better. I don't have a solution and I don't have it in my power to fix it. But I'm hoping that by gently pointing out the wildly disproportionate representation here -- at least for one segment of the population -- we'll all try to do better.

I just got a promotion at work and will be transitioning into an HR adjacent job. As I am getting ready, I have been chuckling as I realize how similar proactive GMing is to HR. Character drama comes in, try to hold on to rules and policy to resolve the conflicts. Big difference is that at home I am playing an active role in creating messy and complex conflicts to cause grief at the table. Somehow I think the work version wont be nearly as fun.