Campaign Mastery

In a previous blog, I’ve written about my Superhero campaign currently facing a big finish (A Grand Conclusion: thinking about a big finish). This post will be a sequel of sorts, because any big finish naturally invites the question, “what’s next?”
In this case, “next” is a sequel campaign. Many of the preceeding characters will make [...]

We hesitated before running this piece, which was written prior to the disaster on Haiti. It is certainly not our intent to trivialise what has occurred or in any way to be insensitive to the ongoing emergency there. Ultimately, we chose to run it at this time so that we could encourage all those reading [...]

I know I’ve written about this before (An Epic Confusion, Or How To Stage A Blockbuster Finish), but I’ve been thinking some more about big finishes to campaigns, prompted by the fact that my superhero campaign is currently in what I hope turns out to be an epic conclusion. As I developed this final scenario, [...]

September’s blog carnival was about about GM errors: Mistakes – ones you’ve made in the past and how you got past them, one’s you’re making now and don’t know how to solve.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the carnival. The stories and lessons you’ve shared will not only help new GMs but verterans too:

The original [...]

For a long time, I’ve been dissatisfied with the way some games handle wild, improbable, luck.
D&D, for example, has no luck mechanism per se; only the critical hits subsystem comes close, where if you roll well enough, you score multiple damage, and in the skills subsection, whereby rolling a 20 on a skill check permits [...]

Some mistakes you (hopefully) only make once; the mistakes that I’ve blogged about so far as part of this month’s carnival fall into that category. But some mistakes are bound to recur by their nature, and it is just as important to know how to recover from those. These mistakes might derive from a flawed [...]

Some expectations are made to be confounded if it’s at all possible. If someone expects a dull and boring campaign, that’s one you don’t want to live up to. If someone expects to get favourable treatment because you owe them money, I’m happy to dissapoint them – and to repay the debt as soon as [...]

How can a campaign last for decades, and what does such longevity imply?

A question recently asked us,
I remember Mike mentioning his decades-long superhero game a few times, and am currently planning my next campaign, so I was just wondering how y’all can extend a game so far. Even if the players are still having [...]

As you should know by now if you’re a regular visitor here – and with 2 new articles every week, why aren’t you, if you’re not!? – this month’s blog carnival is on the subject of mistakes, how you recover from them, and what lessons you’ve learnt for the future.
I made a couple of doozies [...]

Let’s talk for a minute about the law. Most legal systems are based on two things: the protection of certain general principles that are considered fundamental truths by the society in question, and a long history of precedents matching punishments with violations.
Criminal law, for the most part, is fairly straightforward. Not much has changed in [...]