When commenting on @Jesse Livingston 's Post I had a Jimmy Newton style brain blast about this graphic. I'm not a graphic designer so I am not sure if it gets my point across, but I think I unlocked why I like this style of gming so much. I think there is the explicit idea of making sure that the story is developed by the players as much as the GM, but I think another implicit or perfect accident is making sure that the story is created by each of the players, not just the loudest in the room (speaking as the loudest in the room in most cases). It is really easy in the traditional model to fall into the trappings that the players can only propose side quests that are just set dressing. In this side quest mentality, eventually you have to address the "real problem" and often a player gets cut off during their arc, or even before. I am running a Buffy the Vampire Slayer game right now, and I think I am going to be very intentionally making the main plot a source of obstacles of their goals, rather than the core driving force. With a player that wants to have his character romance another character (its cute because they are married, he wants to them to fall in love all over again), and two others who are dealing with the hole left if their lives by their missing mothers (one of whom inherited her families werewolf powers and the other who is dealing with being the slayer), I feel like I've got some good (heart) Strings to pull on.

Isn't it interesting that you can have a proactive player goal where "good" is still reactive? Take the following player goal from the book as an example (the book is excellent BTW so this is not a criticism at all): - "I want to free my hometown from the rule of the orc clans." This goal is: Player = Proactive Good = Reactive See that? The orcs did something bad and good is reacting to it, even though the player is the proactive one here. Or take this example: - "I want to break the curse plaguing my family line." This is also, player = proactive, good = reactive. The curse (evil) made the first move and the player is reacting to that. So, there are actually two layers of proactivity here. There is the player / GM layer, and then there is the good / evil layer. I bring this up not to say that this is a problem necessarily. The players came up with these goals, they are driving the plot forward (which is the center of proactive play). It's just to point this out: Proactive Good is sometimes rare and can be challenging to envision even in a proactive game. It made me curious to make a list of all some goals a player might have where good is actually proactively like: - Obtaining a magical artifact - Mentoring someone - Establishing a new city - Seeking out a lost person - Winning a love interest - Building a structure of some kind Perhaps it's just a philosophical consideration, but I think the thrust of the argument in the beginning of the book is a strong one. It begs is to ask the question: How can we have stories where good is truly proactive?

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!

Greetings gamers! I just joined this community after seeing the YouTube video from GinnyD. I've been very drawn to the idea of proactive role playing ever since I read this article, "Don't Prep Plots": https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots I've been intrigued by the idea that D&D isn't a story. It's a toy that we hand our players. I myself am always more engaged when I'm playing and driving things rather than being told a story. Glad to have found this community and these resources. Cheers!

I'd like to know how you all get players to work together in a proactive model. Here's something I've noticed: The more proactive I am as a player the more independent I become. My character wants to do something that doesn't necessarily align with what the other players want to do. In a reactive model, they all work together because they aren't thinking about what they want anyway. The DM gives them an objective, and they all do it. So how does this work in a proactive model?