How to undo major events in your campaign without destroying it. The worst case scenario in my games has to be erasing gameplay, rewinding and replaying that part of the game again. I’ve only done that several times and it’s always felt horrible. A logic flaw pops up, or an inconsistency conflicts with what has [...]
Confessions Of A Fan: A partisan review The 7 seasons of The West Wing emerged a couple of years ago from a packed field of contenders to become my all-time favorite TV series. Early in its life, it wasn’t even a contender. I wasn’t a fan of political shows, just as I wasn’t particularly opinionated [...]
In 2008 I implemented the Getting Things Done system (GTD) for organizing my RPG campaign’s emails, ideas and to do items. It worked so well that I now use it for every campaign, and I think you should consider it as well. Here is my version of GTD for managing and organizing my campaign. Gather [...]
If you’ve been following this series from the beginning, then you are now equipped with three new techniques for character development, all of which are useful when for some reason you’re struggling to find an idea. So how do you choose between them? I can’t answer that for you. It might be that one of [...]
New techniques for getting under a character’s skin don’t come along every day; the techniques described earlier in this series have been my standard weapons for such tasks for the last two decades. So, when I thought of an original one earlier this year, I paid attention. This new technique is, in many ways, even [...]
A guest post by Bobby.Catdragon An orphan, the character only knows his powers came from somewhere. However, coincidental circumstances seem to point to something demonic or diabolical. Should the character find out why? And what happens when he does discover the truth? One day the character’s father disappears. The next day the character’s powers manifest [...]
The second technique of character development that I call apon when stumped for ideas is something that I call The Inversion Principle. Some parts of this I had worked out many years ago, but it was when I read an interview with John deLancie (“Q” in Star Trek The Next Generation) that the final pieces [...]
You can win a copy of the new hardcover Martial Power 2 for D&D 4E thanks to Gator Games. How to enter Entering is easy and you have two options: Option 1. Leave a comment below telling us you’d like to enter the contest. Option 2. Follow @gatorgames and @johnnfour on Twitter and send us [...]
Why are mysteries so hard? Campaign Mastery was asked, I’m making a Hero System 5.5 campaign for some of my friends. I wanted to do a non-power game that was mystery based. First session went off fine, and I had some good hooks and an o.k. story. Now I find myself looking to plan another [...]
This is technique number 1 for getting inside your character’s heads. It’s something I was taught in a Graphic Design course that I completed back in 1992 – so here we are 18 years later, and it’s still fresh in memory. That speaks volumes of its usefulness! Step 1: Prep Get a couple of pencils [...]
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