Show Menu
Cheatography
  1. Home >
  2. Games and Hobbies >

The GM's Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying Summery Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by

The Game Master's Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying by Jonah and Tristan Fishel This is my summery of their guide that I can keep in my campaign binder. You should read the book to fully understand it. The book is a fairly quick read and the best resource I have on GMing

This is a draft cheat sheet. It is a work in progress and is not finished yet.

Character Goals

Think about your charac­ter's backstory, abilities and traits. Explain them to the group. Come up with a long- or mid-term goal.
Is the goal achiev­able? Does it seem fun? How could it fail forward?
Does it meet the criteria? Share goals with the table and adjust to collab­orate better is needed.
Record each player's long-term goal.
Create one to two short term goals to achieve the longer goal.
Is the goals achiev­able? Do they seem fun? How could it fail forward?
Do they meet the criteria? Share these goals with the table and adjust to collab­orate better is needed.
Record each player's short term goals. Think about if any of these goals involve the same places, people or objects and make a note of that too.

Player Goal Criteria

Players should have at least one mid or long term goal and two to three short term goals to achieve these longer goals.
Short - Can be done in a few sessions with current power
Mid - Typically longer than 6 sessions to complete and need to gain power, skills or hard to get inform­ation to complete
Long - Campaign long goals (achieve godhood, or learn to love again)
Goals must be measurably achievable I want to become powerful vs I want to win the martial arts tourna­ment.
Goals must have conseq­uences for failure. Failure to warn the settlement of an impending attack will bring about grave casualties when the people are unprep­ared. There is no conseq­uence if the goal is immedi­ately repeat­able.
Goals must be fun to pursue. (Read the book pg. 30)

Factions (Good start for a given settle­ment)

Identity
Area of Operation
Power
Goal
Count
Government
Authority over a group or territory
High
Order, stability, status quo
One
Labor
Guilds, unions, cartels
Medium
Improve the lives of its members
Multiple, typically non-ov­erl­apping trades
Crime
Organized groups at odds with the law
low to medium
Wealth and power
One syndicate to multiple competing gangs
Religion
A group devoted to a deity, sometimes to their detriment
Low to medium
Whatever their god calls for
One

NPCs

Allies - Goals align with player goals
Villains - Goals conflict with the player's goals
Patrons - Grants the players access to the resources of a faction so long as the players advance the patron's and/or the factions goals
Goal Alignment - Not all goals need be perfectly align. Diverging goals create their own conflict.
Villainous - Unless your a novel writer, don't go with a morally ambiguous.
What resources does their faction have?
Method of Pursuit - Do they use charm or violence? Do they fight at all?
Powerful - Strength, resources, cunning. This guy can hurt the players
How powerful is their faction relative to other factions?
Allied Factions - Do your players know a group or person related to the ally? Are they on good terms? How far will the ally go.
Goal Driven - Concrete goals that overlap and are at odds with the players goals. Long, Medium, and Short goals
Person­ality - Generous, greedy, ambitious?
   
What are their long and short term goals?