Other than Tristan and Jonah, have the rest of us gotten to play in a game with a GM following these proactive principles? I have not and I wonder if that is one of the challenges I am facing, that I don't understand the subtlely of how some of these principles feel or should feel in practice. I don't have first hand experience with which things a GM does enhances or supports proactivity and which errode it.

I pulled together a group of story focused players to try an emergent campaign (collaborative+proactive). I am going to use this thread to share periodic updates on how it is going and what is working. Meetings will be sparse this fall and then weekly after the new year. It is five players from my in-person games who had to move out of town.

I wonder if the debrief questions for experience in Blades in the Dark or Monsters of the Week would work well for leveling in proactive D&D and PF2e games. D&D and PF2e have some varients of three ways of handling XP: xp for kills, xp for story milestones, or levels for story milestones. Milestone leveling has become very popular for running prewritten modules to avoid getting to areas under or over leveled. I have been trying awarding XP for completing character goals, but it is adding complexity to writing and using goals. I think it could work, but is not working with a GM and players new to proactive goals. In Blades in the Dark, each playbook (class specific character sheet) has a set of questions that determine how XP is awarded. Here are the questions for the Whisper: Every time you roll a desperate action, mark xp in that action's attribute. At the end of each session, for each item below, mark 1 xp (in your playbook or an attribute) or 2 xp if that item occurred multiple times. - You addressed a challenge with knowledge or arcane power. - You expressed your beliefs, drives, heritage, or background. - You struggled with issues from your vice or traumas during the session. I would note that this structure means that if you don't build a character that fits the setting and group, you won't get as many chances to level. This has an interesting effect on how the game is played and discouraging lone wolfs. So, as a thought experiment, what would good debrief questions be for tracking experience in a proactive game, I would love your thoughts and additions... Note: the proficiency with level mechanic in PF2e means that it is quite important to keep people at the same level, so I think it needs to be group XP, which negates one of the coolest impacts :( - Did you struggle with conflicting goals within the party? - Did you apply your backgorund/expertise to help anohter party member acomplish their goal? - ??? Need to think more on what exactly I am trying to do...

Just starting a new TTRPG Castles and Crusades. It looks awesome and I’m very excited Also I just ran a charity D&D 5.5 game for 7 people this weekend. 12 hour high level game with terrain and lots of cool stuff on an adventure I wrote and we raised $1750 for Shriners Hospitals

Starting Wednesday March 18th, we'll be running a West Marches style, ongoing campaign that anyone can join! We'll use the practices of our books to build an emergent, proactive game, starting with a Session -1 and creating character goals. We're expecting to run a few different games in the future, but to start, we'll be using Blades in the Dark for it's pretty easy-to-pickup rules, and its crew rules (which facilitate a rotating table). Something we've been seeing in the lab a lot is that most of the GMs here haven't actually been able to play in a proactive game (as a PC, that is). So much of this hobby is learned via experience, plus we just want to run more games, so this is our way of getting both. So how will it work? On the 18th, we'll have a Session -1. There will be polls and other events in the leadup for folks who can't make it, so everyone will help shape the variation of the Blades in the Dark setting we'll be playing in. Afterwards, we'll play each Wednesday. Signups for a game will go out two weeks before it starts for our Gold members, and one week before for the rest of the lab---seats are first come, first serve! Our tables will start at a max of five players---this may change as we learn and adjust. The games will be absolutely free of charge to make them as accessible as possible (for reference, StartPlaying games will usually be about 15--30 bucks a seat). This is what's called a "West Marches" game. For anyone who doesn't know this style, it's basically an open table campaign with an ongoing setting. Whoever can make it to a session forms the group, they set their own objectives, and they usually work as some sort of broader organization (in this case, a crew of criminals). A player could attend a dozen sessions, or they could just try once and not need to feel pressured to continue. If you're interested in more info about what this style of game is, give it a google! If you want a longer explanation, this video has a great overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGAC-gBoX9k