Is your roleplaying in a rut? Flip the table and try something new! Proactive roleplaying will re-energize your players – and your game.

Most adventures in traditional TTRPGs start out the same way: Something bad happens and your players have to muster their courage to stand against it. Whether it’s rescuing the little dog that was kidnapped by the local troll, stopping an assassination attempt 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. Bad stuff happens, good people have to try to stop it, roll, rinse, repeat.

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 simply put giant goal- (and soul-) crushing roadblocks in their way.

You’ll also find:

• Foreword by Ginny Di with an afterword by Jeff Ashworth
• Writer’s block-breaking charts
• Case studies from decades of sessions
• Templates for goal-driven NPCs and factions
• A modular adventure setting and much more!

The Game Master's Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying is compatible with your favorite 5th edition Fantasy Tabletop RPGs!

Frustrated with studying endgames that never seem to occur in your own games? Finally, help is here Essential Endgames Every Tournament Player Must Know is a carefully selected compilation of the most frequently encountered endgames occuring in practice. This book contains vital lessons for every tournament chessplayer involving those endgames which can be defined by clear and concise rules, summarized by the most important themes and require the application of specific technical principles to solve them.

The book is a result of the character Claudia found in the website, who hid the book in a castle in a dark forest many years ago. How or why she was able to do this is a part of the narrative found in the website. The mysteries presented are rooted in German literature and in the imaginations of the Grotrians, who come from a tradition of literature and art.

The Burma-Shave craze reached its zenith during the 1950s, with more than 7,000 signs posted across the United States.

To market Burma-Shave, Allen Odell, an advertising wordsmith, devised the concept of sequential signs to sell his shaving cream. Typically, six signs were erected, with each of the first five containing a line of verse, and the sixth trumpeting the brand name.

Burma-Shave signs appeared in every state except Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. The creative people at Burma-Shave, as well as customers who sent in jingles of their own, ultimately created more than 600 of the rhymes.

In the world of advertising, Burma-Shave stood as unique, creating signs that became a part of the popular culture.

Although the Burma-Shave company is no more, these fun little rhymes hold great nostalgic value for those of us who fondly remember them from our Sunday drives.

Learn how to play and win at the game of poker Chiapelli's Live Poker Strategies, a book written for novice and experienced players alike, features live poker games like Seven Card Stud, Omaha, and Texas Hold'em. Understanding the fundamentals of heavily popularized and celebrity-studded games of poker doesn't have to be an impossible or difficult feat. Written for the average person, this unique book is guaranteed to both entertain and educate any player worldwide. Included are modern, easy-to-follow illustrations on winning poker hands as well as new topics that often go unaddressed such as gaming etiquette, online poker, and poker room environments across the United States. With a no-nonsense approach that is sure to guide beginners and even the most experienced players into success, this book will prove to be the most beneficial one of its kind. Advocating good entertainment and responsible gambling, Chiapelli's Live Poker Strategies book is a must read for people of all ages Larry Chiapelli is an experienced poker player and owner of a successful floral nursery called Gramma's Gardens in Troy, Michigan. In addition to boosting his family business, Mr. Chiapelli plans to travel more by playing poker across the United States and around the world. Publisher's website: http: //sbpra.com/LarryChiapelli Author's website: www.ChiapellisPoker.com

The Eastern approach to Feng Shui practice is timeless while from the Western perspective it is timely. Feng Shui is Chinese in origin while the casino game of craps is American in design. For the first time in print, the author advocates the use of this Eastern approach to enhance the player's chances of winning at casino craps. No book to date has addressed the influence and role of Feng Shui in craps or the subject of craps and Feng Shui together.

The book has an affluence of new material heretofore not published, such as the concept of the Circle of Chi, the flow chart of Feng Shui concepts, which eventually leads to a craps table, the statistical validation of the number 7 coming out more often, after a die accidentally falls off the table, dice presetups, medical tenets germane to the Yin and Yang concept, Feng Shui of selected casinos, and much more.

The superstitions that thrive at a craps table are presented with humor and insight. Learn about Chi management that is as pivotal as money management in augmenting one's chances of winning at craps.

Kakuro is the next hot puzzle craze, and everyone can give it a try with this new, multilevel series. These language-free number puzzles use pure logic and require just simple arithmetic to solve. So, in addition to being fun, they help develop your powers of deduction and reasoning. Beginners can get started - and more experienced solvers hone their skills - with these perfectly tiered "belt" books, each containing 150 kakuros. They take their cue from the belt colors in martial arts: white is for novices, green for intermediates, brown for very accomplished players, and black for those consummate experts who crave a challenge.

With complex stories and stunning visuals eliciting intense emotional responses, coupled with opportunities for self-expression and problem solving, video games are a powerful medium to foster empathy, critical thinking, and creativity in players. As these games grow in popularity, ambition, and technological prowess, they become a legitimate art form, shedding old attitudes and misconceptions along the way. Examining the Evolution of Gaming and Its Impact on Social, Cultural, and Political Perspectives asks whether videogames have the power to transform a player and his or her beliefs from a sociopolitical perspective. Unlike traditional forms of storytelling, videogames allow users to immerse themselves in new worlds, situations, and politics. This publication surveys the landscape of videogames and analyzes the emergent gaming that shifts the definition and cultural effects of videogames. This book is a valuable resource to game designers and developers, sociologists, students of gaming, and researchers in relevant fields.

Another huge collection of classic and challenging crossword puzzles from Simon & Schuster, complete with tear-out perforated pages so you can take your puzzles to go
Prepare yourselves Here are 225 big--and tough--crosswords taken from out-of-print books in the famous Simon & Schuster crossword puzzle series. Inside these covers are tons of "Sunday Times"-caliber wordplay just waiting to taunt and tantalize you. Originally edited by former "New York Times" crossword editor Eugene Maleska and his colleague John Samson, every puzzle in this book has been completely revised and updated. "Super Crossword Book #12" is the ultimate challenge for the truly fearless crossword aficionado--so sharpen your pencils and wits and get ready for hours of delightfully frustrating fun.

The Traveling America Book is a book of songs, games, p puzzles, pictures to color, past presidents and general information about the United States. I would like to dedicate this book to my son Michael E. Redman who passed away of a heart attack in October of 2011. Michael and his Wife Valli did a lot of work and research to make this book become a reality.