In my 5e game I have 4 different types of note takers, the traditional minutes taker, the a bag full of memos note taker, a journalist (mix of sketching and writing) and a scrapbooker. I want to add in things that are relevant for each style of notes. The writen note takers are easy to accommodate for as I'm used to the minetes and memo styles. It's the more creative notes I have ideas for. My ideas are: picture puzzle clue rewards for my scrapbooker Symbols and marks for the journalist to sketch down Is there any idea you guys have?

I use AI a lot for RPGs, in my case DnD 5e. I’m confident some of you hate AI and for good reasons. Some may be unaware. We may know people who let it replace their own creativity. I brainstorm with it. For example, we had Session -1 last week. It my first time facilitating it and I’m sure it needs inprovement. We developed factions. Well…we developed a ton of ideas for factions. I will use one as an example. The players feel done, so I want to organize their faction ideas into something cohesive and then ask them to edit it (we need one more short Session -1) So I said to AI, “Now let’s create factions. I’ll give you the notes from Session -1 and then let’s discuss the faction. Discuss! I don’t need you to create a faction for me.” Then I gave it these notes: The world is a little bit like Harry Potter, with some people that know about magic and most people do not. - This faction wants everyone to know about magic, wants to expose magic and make it public. They want power and to control it - They are hunting the party. Opposed to the magic group and the cleric group that dislikes use of magic not sanctioned by the gods. They are working behind the scenes — working with the assassin’s guild. It’s a network of cells, not centralized AI asked about their motivation, what they thought was wrong with the world, and what their methods were. Also, why are they hunting the party? Finally, it asked how united or decentralize the cells are. I used voice-to-text to give it a long answer in response to everything it provided. 1. It clearly didn’t understand my notes because my notes are out of context. So I explained them. 2. It asked a lot of really good questions and made some suggestion suggestions. 3. I disagreed with a lot of the suggestions, liked some of them, but the best part was that it launched my own creativity. I know all the other background for this world and the probing questions and ideas allowed me to really think about what the players wanted.

(N.B.: I'm not asking for a debate on the utility or necessity of Safety Tools in RPGs) A question for RPG players and GMs: I'm building a new Safety Tool similar to the X-Card but with a wider range of message. (The X card is a clean, direct, non-verbal way of communicating a single, important piece of information. In the case of the X Card, it's "Stop everything right now") There are some other similar safety tools out ther. The X-Card was expanded to include "N" ('please fade to black'), and "O" ('everyone OK?'). What sort of things might you want to communicate to a GM (or have communicated to you) in a way which doesn't necessarily interrupt a scene? And -- I can't believe I have to say this -- but they don't necessarily need to be bad things. Here are some examples: - "Can we take a break after this?" - "Proceed with Caution" - "I enthusiastically consent to this, even though my character seems to be hating this" - "I have a rules question"- - "More of this, please!" - Think of it like a semaphore or an ideaogram. It's a way to communicate a potentially complex idea in a single moment. What sorts of things do you want to be able to communicate to your GMs?

I thought long and hard about this. And played a lot of systems. And I have to say I like it better to gain XP with bother my completing micro task to keep myself engaged in the story we are trying to tell. But at the same way I am torn by getting XP by failures. The idea getting XP by learning from your mistakes. Speaks to me. And then again I like what as a group we all level up with milestones. I know how bad it felt when one class would level up and you did not.

I read Proactive Roleplaying a few months ago and now I’m in to the second book, which has options for wiring with a homebrew or published book. How many of you are using homebrews? I started playing in 1980 and have played and DM’d on and off since. I had a traditional homebrew created with key elements and lots of choices. I had thought to use it for our first Collaborative Campaign, but I’m so excited as I read the book that I may start from scratch to get more player agency. I would love feedback on that, too.