Campaign Mastery

The Campain Structure series: Back To Basics Part 1: Adventure Structures Back To Basics Part 2: Campaign Structures Back To Basics Part 3: Example: The White Tower Back To Basics Part 4: Example: The Belt Of Terra In my recent posts on campaign structure (refer the panel above), I made a big point of the [...]

In Roleplaying Tips #536, Johnn ran a tips request (reproduced below) asking for tips on how to GM computer hacking. I decided that simply offering a few tips wasn’t quite going to cut it, and that the subject deserved a slightly more in-depth treatment. I’m currently running a sci-fi future campaign where computers are an [...]

Introduction to ‘Everyman Skills’ As GMs develop in experience, and begin to develop their campaign worlds more extensively, they generally arrive at the idea of everyman skills. Typically, this idea will first emerge in a modern-setting campaign, or future-tech campaign, though this is becoming less true all the time. The idea is that characters, by [...]

Pieces Of Creation is an occasional recurring column at Campaign Mastery in which Mike offers game reference and other materials that he has created for his own campaigns. A somewhat unusual example to get this first “Pieces Of Creation” off to a flying start. Normally, I would present the game materials within the column text, [...]

Last week, I gave you the backstory behind the creation of Cyrene, a deity of Life who figures prominantly in our forthcoming game supplement, Assassin’s Amulet. This time around, it’s time to followup that post with an edited excerpt from AA describing the lady herself… Cyrene (Greater Deity) Titles/Incarnations: Giver of Mercy, Weaver of Nets, [...]

Recalling the creation of a Divinity We’re continuing to build up to the big release of Assassin’s Amulet, and my excitement is reaching fever pitch (I can’t speak for Johnn & Michael). As part of that buildup, next week I’m going to present you with another excerpt from the book – but before I do, [...]

Here’s another excerpt from Assassin’s Amulet while you’re all waiting for the announcement of the winner of the cover contest. This is taken from the GM Advice chapter and first appeared in this week’s Roleplaying Tips. Many GMs struggle with running killer NPCs. One big goal of the book is to arm you with enough [...]

An edited excerpt from the upcoming book for game masters, Assassin’s Amulet. Assassins make awesome NPCs. Thing is, they often have paper-thin character development. Well, you can fix this right now. Start by giving your next assassin one of the tasty hooks below. Some hooks concern motives, others personality traits, and others situations or objectives. [...]

Assassins should be compelling NPCs in every encounter in which they appear. This article, an excerpt from the forthcoming Assassin’s Amulet, describes how to run Assassins as compelling characters to roleplay and deadly adversaries to fight. And don’t forget to vote for the cover! Step 1: Pick an Archetype or Example Creating an assassin NPC [...]

Real Life has caught up with me this week, so this won’t be as extensive an article as I was originally intending. But I’m going to do my best to turn that into an asset. This post was also intended to be Campaign Mastery’s entry into this month’s Blog Carnival, which was going to be [...]