We are unbelievably excited for the launch of the second book in the Game Master's Handbook series, and follow-up to the Proactive Roleplaying book: The Game Master's Handbook of Collaborative Campaign Design! This book walks GMs through planning and executing full campaigns, from a full Session -1 system to kick things off to finishing every arc in a satisfying conclusion. We are so, so, so proud and grateful to share this with you, and we can't wait to hear what folks think! You can find it on Amazon (link below) or with all major book retailers, so check what's available near you! We can't wait for you to read it! We'll have more news for you soon, so keep an eye out! Thank you all again for being a part of the journey, and we'll be chatting with you a ton in the coming days. There's an invitation to this lab in the book this time, so we're expecting a few new friends in the coming weeks. We can't possibly convey to you all how grateful we are for the welcoming, helpful, and kindhearted people here, and we trust that vibe will continue as we meet new folks. Talk to you soon! Tristan https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Handbook-Collaborative-Campaign-Design/dp/1964487048

Big news everyone! Jonah and I have been hard at work, and it's finally time: the next book in the Game Master's Handbook series is almost here! You can take a look here. The Game Master's Handbook of Collaborative Campaign Design is the follow up to our Proactive Roleplaying Book, with lots of the same core philosophies but covering new challenges and topics. We're super proud of this one, and we think we've taken all the lessons we learned from the Proactive Handbook and made something really special for this one. If the first book was about creating player-driven narratives, this is about creating collaborative campaigns: how to discover a story with your friends together, not tell them one you've already written yourself. We've worked super hard to make this concept as approachable as possible, even for GMs that don't enjoy using improvisation at the table, and I'm pretty confident we've succeeded. While I'm very proud of our first book, it was definitely a learning experience, and I think those lessons were put to good use---I genuinely believe every single chapter in this book has something useful for a GM's table (and you don't need to have read the Proactive book to enjoy this one---they cover different topics!) The incomparable Jeff Ashworth, creator of the original "Game Master's Book of ____" series, of which our handbooks are cousins, continued to consult with us on this entry, providing invaluable feedback along with Phil Sexton and Tim Baker. Will Earl (of DnD Shorts fame) is writing the foreward, and Luke Eidenschink returns with his fantastic illustrations. We could probably write about this book for a very, very long time, so we're going to try to spare all of you from that by hosting a *live Q&A here in the lab Tuesday, April 8th, at 8:30 PM EST.* We'll post more details soon, and for those who can't make it, we'll be collecting some questions beforehand and recording the session to post in the lab, so don't worry!

Hola Masters! I’m still working on the very first proactive campaign and I have a question maybe you can all help me? When a player sets a goal, let’s say a short one. And the step/steps he is going to take to complete it, is it always right? Example: My players sets the goal of killing the Kobold King, asking around he is told by an NPC that it is hidden in this cavern. May the NPC been lying? Is it better that the players fulfill their goals using exactly the steps they came up with to do so? All advice will be appreciated! Gracias!

I have been using Notion off and on for several years to keep up with my GM notes, session prep, etc. Partly based on Sly Flourish's Lazy DM templates. It has been very handy to have all of this in one place, but sometimes it can be over-complicated. I have more recently been using Obsidian to do this same thing as I also use Obsidian in my daily life for work and personal projects. Again, I have just transmongrified the Lazy GM templates from Notion to work in Obsidian. Everything was going great until I ran across this little book about Proactive Roleplaying that has upended all of my thought processes about how I both prep and run my games. I was wondering if: - anyone here has experience with either of these systems in terms of Proactive Roleplaying. Would love to hear your usage on either. (Please no "X is better than Y" discussions. I deal with that enough already and have come to determine that each system works for each person for different reasons, and that is ok.) - for either one of these, how would you set up goal tracking, faction tracking, session planning, etc. I have some ideas, but we are far better as a hive mind, right? Looking forward to hearing from you. Jay

Curious what Physical Tools/Props and digital tools everyone uses. I'll go first. Character Management: DNDBeyond, but due to the problems with the latest 24.5e (requiring homebrewing 2014 spells) I may transition to Demiplane. EDIT: DNDBeyond just walked back their homebrew requirement for rewritten content. I'll be sticking with dndbeyond. https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1806-2024-d-d-beyond-ruleset-changelog-update VTT: Dndbeyond maps and Owlbear Rodeo Audio/Video: Discord with Avrae Notes, Lore, Session planning. Google docs with Table of Contents for NPCs, Session Notes, Plots, Characters, Magic Items, Locations, Factions, etc. NPC Generator: This Chrome extension by Power Word Spill: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/npc-generator/kbomfcanlhhooddbinjiekepooimpcma Idea brainstorming: Everything. Occasionally, if I need to somehow fit ideas together or something out of left field, I use chatgpt, but keep in mind, chatgpt is highly repetitive and can often times use a lot of words to say nothing. Encounter creation: Kobold Plus Fight Club or Dndbeyond. Advice or collaborative discussion: Here or reddit. Guides for Character creation for new players: rpgbot.net