The Game Master's Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying

Is your roleplaying in a rut? Most adventures in traditional TTRPGs start out the same way: Something bad happens and your players must muster their courage and stand against it. Whether it's rescuing the little dog that was kidnapped by the local troll, stopping the assassination plot at the archduke's wedding or recruiting an army to disrupt the construction of a world-ending ritual site, the party will always find a way to save the day. After all, what kind of heroes would they be if they let the dog, duke, or entire population die? Saving the day is fun, but it starts to get repetitive after a while. If you're using a "bad guys try to do stuff, good guys try to stop them" engine to drive all your sessions, you're taking all the agency out of your players' hands.

But there's a better way to play (and prep) your sessions. The Game Master's Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying shows you how to convert your TTRPG gameplay from predictable action/reaction cliches to player-driven narratives that put all the choices (and most of the prep work) in the hands of your players. The goals are theirs. The decisions are theirs. Everything that happens in the world you're building together occurs not because you planned it, but because the PCs are following their own paths, rather than Game Master breadcrumbs, to the scene of the next adventure. The proactive approach ensures every battle has tension, every faction has a function and every session is high-stakes (and an absolute blast), putting the players and their characters in the driver's seat so you can sit back and put giant goal-and-soul-crushing roadblocks in their way.