Proactive GM
A Proactive GM brings the adventure to the players.
Choosing the Adventure
A Proactive GM decides which adventure to run or offers options to the players. The adventure can be a published module or plotted homebrew but should have a framing event, a specific goal, a villain and important NPCs, and a collection of locations and events through which the plot will emerge. The GM brings the chosen adventure to the table, the players make or bring characters, and play begins.
Beginning the Adventure
An adventure can start one of two ways.
The first is the framing event happens and prompts the PCs to act. A wizard approaches the party in the tavern and asks them to find a magic jewel. The PCs discover a murder and are prompted to investigate. The neighboring town is under attack and the PCs are asked to help. The common thread in these examples is the PCs are asked or prompted to intervene, but they don’t have to. This can be problematic if you’re a Proactive GM with typically reactive players.
The second option is to assume the PCs have accepted the quest and start the adventure at the first encounter after the framing event. A wizard has hired you to recover a magic gem, but while traveling to the dungeon you are attacked by orcs! As a favor to the mayor, you are tasked with investigating a murder and find a bottle bearing the label of the local apothecary at the scene of the crime. After hearing the neighboring town is under attack you rush to their aid and find yourself behind a catapult that enemy soldiers are preparing to fire. The common thread is the PCs have already accepted the quest. The goal is clear, the PCs are in the right location, and they’re plunged into the action with the first encounter.
If you want to offer your players multiple quests (see Reactive GM) and your players willingly follow clues, the first option is fine. If you have a strongly defined adventure and PCs that are indecisive or reluctant to take plot hooks, use the second.
Running the Adventure
Running a proactive adventure is similar to beginning one. As the adventure continues, the GM presents more framing events to set each scene. A proactive GM needs proactive framing events that bring the action to the PCs, forcing them to react. A monster attacks. The floor drops. An NPC begs for help. Be careful about presenting too many situations where the PCs must be proactive. Don’t prompt the PCs to investigate without clues. Don’t tax their attention with irrelevant details and trivial side quests. The situation should be urgent and the choices clear so the PCs can rarely say anything but yes to the adventure.
Constrain an “adventure” to a small geographic area such as a dungeon, town, or neighborhood, and narrate over any travel to or from that location. If your group is comfortable with it, consider narrating past the party deciding where to go next and simply put them there. Reserve traveling long distances, even with teleportation or similar, to the scope of the campaign, rather than a single adventure. Then choose whether the journey is an adventure itself (not recommended if your players are itching to get to the destination) or you can narrate to the destination and begin the next adventure. If you narrate over travel, be sure to convey the toll it takes on the PCs. Mark off rations and consider rolling for random events or encounters that halt travel or use resources.
Weaknesses
A Proactive GM must constantly coax the PCs to follow clues and herd them to the “correct” locations. If handled poorly it can break immersion for everyone at the table. If the PCs follow a clue in the wrong direction or decide to be proactive and do something different, the GM must either say no, or improvise and adjust the adventure to accommodate. The PCs are limited in choices and discouraged from becoming proactive.
Benefits
The GM can prepare an entire adventure with a cohesive plot. They may use or reskin a published module or write their own with some degree of confidence about what will happen. The GM can clearly present the goals of the adventure so the PCs should rarely be confused about what they are doing or why. Knowing the general theme and goals of the adventure, players can make characters that will be useful, relevant, fun to play, and invested, particularly if they had a hand in choosing the adventure. All of these benefits are enjoyed by the Proactive GM so long as buy-in is gained prior to play.
Reactive GM
A Reactive GM lets players lead, requiring them to make proactive decisions.
Choosing the Adventure
The crux of reactive play is choice and it starts with the players choosing the adventure both from a meta-game context (who the characters are, how they know each other, and why they’re together), and in play as they decide what they wish to achieve, where to go, and what to do to achieve it. There are many ways to choose an adventure with this style of play, or the adventure simply emerges as the players interact with what interests them.
The GM can provide a map the players can explore in a hex-crawl. The players can start making characters and creating relationships. They could create a faction, be hired for the same job, or decide they’re prisoners trying to escape. They can choose from “prepared” adventures in the game world by hearing rumors, being approached by quest givers, or literally choosing a job from a job board. The GM can create multiple villains or “fronts” in the game world that are working toward their own ends and will succeed if the PCs don’t interfere.
Beginning the Adventure
What adventure is chosen and how will determine how it begins. The PCs may review the job board or wait in a tavern for quest givers to approach. If they’re part of a faction, they may be given their first assignment. If they’re in prison, their first task is to break out. In any case, starting should come naturally from the decisions in the previous section.
Running the Adventure
This is the difficulty. Running a reactive game takes a lot of work. You cannot prepare too far in advance as most of your work will be ignored or wasted. You need a large amount of raw materials and a strong grasp of story structure. Your goal is to take these raw materials and create an inspiring world filled with framing events that invite the PCs to act. By not having a specific, plotted adventure you have the freedom make the world react. Show them how their actions can influence the world in visible, predictable ways. Then show how their actions also have unexpected effects.
Weaknesses
The GM must do a lot of prep that will be wasted, have a lot of experience, or both. The GM cannot prepare more than a few sessions in advance and must alter preparation to incorporate and reinforce things established in previous sessions. The players must be self-motivated and invested with characters that have strong beliefs or desires.
Benefits
Absolute freedom in a world tailored to respond to them is the ultimate RPG experience. However the GM chooses to populate the world with adventure and intrigue, the PCs can decide what interests them or even set their own goals.
