Campaign Mastery

This is part four from two (yes, you read that right) in a discussion of the basic principles of creating adventures and hooking them together to form a campaign; I wasn’t originally going to include these examples, feeling that the principles would be clearer to the reader if they weren’t distracted by another narrative threat [...]

This is part three from two (!) in a discussion of the basic principles of creating adventures and hooking them together to form a campaign; I wasn’t originally going to include these examples, feeling that the principles would be clearer to the reader if they weren’t distracted by another narrative threat running concurrently – and [...]

A short time ago, we received an ATGMs question that made me stop and think for a minute. The question was straightforward; Angeline wrote, “I need some help, I’m a starting DM and I just have so much trouble coming up with Campaigns or good plot lines. Please help!!” Last week, in Part One of [...]

A short time ago, we received an ATGMs question that made me stop and think for a minute. The question was straightforward; Angeline wrote, “I need some help, I’m a starting DM and I just have so much trouble coming up with Campaigns or good plot lines. Please help!!” Every now and then in this [...]

Sometimes GMing is flashy, and fun. When everything is ready, and you’re in the groove, when you know what is going to happen and can lose yourself in the game, and simply present the PCs with the consequences of their actions and concentrate on your performance in the guise of NPCs and on the delivery [...]

In the last issue of Roleplaying Tips (Issue #522) Johnn passed on a request for advice from an RPT reader and new GM: Hi Johnn, I am new to being a GM and have only been running a D&D campaign for about 6 weeks now (one day a week). I’m a high schooler and have [...]

In the course of part 2 of this series, which was all about overcoming a resistance to studying rules for their own sake, I suggested that the GM learning a new set of rules should watch for patterns, and use them to make understanding the rules a little easier. Starting in this part of the [...]

A lot of blogs and articles talk about “realism” (or verisimilitude) in RPGs and how to achieve it. Campaign Mastery is no different in this respect, a number of my articles having dealt with the subject. Over the last few weeks, as I write this, I’ve been spending time thinking about a fundamental question that [...]

Back when I was first given a copy of the Champions Game System, it was only the third genre of game that I had ever been exposed to: The first was FRP (In the form of AD&D) and the second was Science Fiction (in the form of Space Opera). As a comics fan from way [...]

Last time around, Johnn described (via exerpted email) his difficulty in getting enthusiastic about reading rules. Johnn has been making a common mistake, and it’s one that I have been guilty of myself in the past. When reading rules becomes tiresome, we avoid reading and re-reading the rules because we have the impression that we [...]