I’ll need to check it out! Sounds awesome

@Eric Person Definitely! I think a couple of safer hexes where it's made clear than the party can set up camp for awhile without danger could serve the same narrative and rhythmic purpose

One of the most frustrating parts of GMing, and one that took me a very very long time to accept, is that almost no group of players will do additional work outside of a game, and most of what they will do is gonna be self-directed. I’m not sure what quirk of player psychology does this, because I’ve found myself doing it as a player, and I’ve had incredible, thoughtful, generous GMs who have done the same thing when they were players at my table. It’s frustrating, but it’s sort of something we have to accept and work with. If it makes you feel any better, I’m sure your players don’t mean anything negative by it, the game just seems to occupy a different part of the brain for most players than their GMs, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t invested or having fun. My solution (which @Jonah Fishel figured out pretty much immediately and did right off the bat—I was stubborn and took some time to follow) is to always do that stuff at the table. The end of the session works best if you can get the timing right, since it gives you time to prep, but the start is also nice because everyone is at max energy and you *have* to get that done before you can play. When everyone is there talking about it, you can ask some specific questions and get them talking to each together and essentially planning, which has worked with most of my groups. I’ve had some success texting them in a group chat and asking, but it’s been mixed depending on the players, what time I ask, and how much momentum the game currently has. After a major arc or a lot of goals wrap up, I tend to get non-specific responses, and if I ask while everyone is working, th same. But sometimes after a session, I can ask what they’ll do next, and write down the responses myself. The other answer that I hate to say but is sometimes the case is that not all players like proactive play. If prep is the only issue, I would try doing your goal stuff on call in session, but if the players seek to prefer reactive roleplaying, that’s not a failing on their part, it’s just preference. Jonah and I don’t tend to say that very much, because I do think that once most players have a taste of it, they do enjoy it, and it takes practice and experimentation! But proactivity is definitely a spectrum, so you may need to reintroduce some reactivity into your game to keep things moving until the group settles into it a bit. Again, I don’t tend to offer that advice often because I don’t want to encourage GMs to quit too early, since proactive play usually does take a few tries to get a feel for. But if you’ve been trying for a bit and are getting really frustrated, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with trying some other approaches to keep the game fun for everyone

@Mathew Bain nooooooo ah I'm sorry, that's too bad. Hopefully once you get a session in, that groove will get reestablished. Sometimes all it takes is actually playing for a bit. Hope to hear about it soon!

Absolutely. I think the second character people make is easier to get attached to, because they know what they're doing a lot better. They know what sort of game hooks worked well last time, what all the cool new abilities they picked do (as opposed to the vibe-based picks my new players usually like) and as a result it's easier to feel more protective. I also think part of this behavior is cooked into the DNA of the game itself---in early, dungeon-crawl heavy editions of the game, caution was sort of the point, it was almost a survival game. Scout for traps, avoid unnecessary fights, grab the loot with as little risk as possible! Even though the modern game isn't necessarily about that, a lot of the language and mechanics of that idea survive. Additionally, since D&D has lots of resource management elements, every time the players get in a fight, they become weaker, so they tend to avoid conflict. Not a bad thing, just a style of play encouraged by the game! I tend to try to reward them for caution in my games by setting up lots of encounters where careful navigation of dangerous scenarios lets them stay safe while watching the chaos they set up unfold. ie, my players love negotiating with potential enemies to make them fight each other and avoid danger, so I'll run some tense social scenes that culminate in a big fight where the PCs have the upper hand and their foes are at eachother's throats, etc But not all players, and not in every game! John Harper, the creator of the game Blades in the Dark, has one of my favorite pieces of advice for any game. "Drive your character like a stolen car." That game is all about scoundrels, daring heists, and raising the stakes relentlessly, so it works incredibly in that "pressure cooker" setting, but honestly I think it also works great for D&D style games where the PCs are hard to kill and encouraged to pull off crazy heroic stunts. Act recklessly! Get into trouble! Raise, raise, raise the stakes, the tension! Create drama!

Great to have you, and sounds like an awesome start! I’d love to see some updates and hear how it goes, and please feel free to throw any questions into the lab :)

@Jarrad Maiers best of luck! Let us know it goes :)