Community | Book Club JGR HAS TAGGED ME IN for this edition of Book Club. After all, a club should have multiple voices. So, what if you ran your next meeting like it was a game of Dungeons & Dragons? If you’re not a nerd or somehow didn’t watch Stranger Things, then let me explain: Dungeons & Dragons (or D&D if you’re cool) is a cooperative tabletop roleplaying game in which everyone pretends to be fantasy heroes: powerful wizards, dastardly rogues, valiant knights and such. One of the players in the group takes on the role of the game master, and that person guides all the other players through epic scenarios that build on each other to tell a story. Think of it like playing out a season of your favorite television series, but instead of actors, there are players. Instead of scripts, there’s a lot of improvisation and dice rolling. Instead of big budget special effects, there’s your imagination. It’s both as awesome and as nerdy as it sounds, and believe it or not, taking on the role of a game master and running a session of D&D can teach us a lot about running successful business meetings. Player-Centric Focus I’ve been playing some form of D&D since middle school, and The Game Master’s Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying is probably one of the best, most helpful books on running games I’ve ever read. I’ve taken the information I learned from the authors – Jonah and Tristan Fishel, a pair of brothers who are equally huge nerds – and applied it to the way I’ve run everything from small touchbase meetings to large group working sessions and even full-on lectures. The Fishels’ guide to effective game mastering takes a player-centric focus on preparing for your game sessions. That means instead of the game master worrying about creating the fantasy world (aka the dungeons part of D&D) and all the obstacles, the game master relies on information given to them by their players. How does that work in a business setting? Well, let’s assume the game master is the person leading the meeting and the “players” are the other attendees. Each player in a session of D&D has a specialized role (wizard, thief, front-line fighter, etc.), and likewise, each participant in the meeting has a specialty: project manager, subject matter expert, account manager, etc. The “dungeon” you’re navigating is the project or meeting topic, and the “dragons” are the obstacles in the way of delivering your work on time. (Usually, the game master is the one putting those obstacles in the way of the players, and a meeting leader’s role should be to remove them, but in both cases, the goal is to help the players/ attendees succeed.) In the Fishels’ “playercentric” approach, the game master identifies the players’ goals. What do their characters want to accomplish in the short term, the midterm and the long term? In a game of D&D, these could be things like finding the entrance to the secret stash of treasure (short term), acquiring magic armor and weapons from the Title: The Game Master’s Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying Authors: Jonah and Tristain Fishel Allow me to indulge you in a business-centric review of The Game Master’s Handbook of Proactive Roleplaying. By Josh Storey From The Game Table To The Conference Table 86 • JUNE 2025 • PPAI
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