Campaign Mastery

Popularity Being popular earns a government a lot of power, though it is always a fragile thing. Think of popularity as a form of temporary affiliation. Popularity is often restricted to a subset of urban society – you can’t please everyone. Strengths With a large amount of consent, a government can rule with fewer objections […]

The city power base series picks up again this week with thoughts about something you will not find in real life, but which affects fantasy cities in a huge way: levels. Think about it – most fantasy RPG systems offer class levels that create huge disparities between those who have them and those who do […]

Hexographer RPG Mapping Software Summary: Hexographer rocks and solves wilderness mapping fast for RPGs. Even left-brain squareheads like me can churn out beautiful and functional maps quick with Hexographer. I have known about this software for awhile but only recently contacted the owner for a review copy. Erin Smale, publisher of Chimera, put me onto […]

In the introduction last week I covered the goal of this series, which is to use the idea of power bases – where do fantasy governments, government officials and factions get power and influence? – to make your cities interesting places to adventure. Each part in this series will cover two or three power bases […]

The topic of city government causes GMs big yawns. Other than picking a government type, you find it a difficult city element to make interesting for game sessions, adventures and city design. However, it is an important part of urban environments that should not be ignored. And it does not have to be a difficult […]

Drow are soon to make their appearance in my Riddleport campaign. They are part of The Great Game being played out in the background as the characters struggle for fame and power in the pirate city. To help me GM the dark elves I created the following tables and references. Maybe they would be useful […]

Yesterday I put Pathfinder Bestiary 2 in my shopping cart. I need to wait for a few Christmas bills to get paid before I order it, though. I also happened to meet with one of my players for coffee, and we got to talking about monster books. He is not a fan of them. Why? […]

Last post I covered 2010 and how I fared against my plans and intentions. This week, I lay out my goals for 2011. Gamer Lifestyle has a good pair of posts of setting goals for 2011 you might want to check out. Goal #1: Hit every scheduled Campaign Mastery post My blogging schedule will probably […]

Today I go over my 2010 goals to see how I graded. In part two, in an upcoming post, I talk about my 2011 goals and let you know what kind of posts and products you’ll see from me next year. I believe goals make you more effective, whether you are aiming to improve your […]

Dungeon Master Toolkit is an RPG iPad app aimed at game masters of any game system. It is my favourite dedicated RPG app, and my review will explain why. I am using version 1.21 of DM Toolkit. Level 99 Games has promised a 1.3 update soon that offers some interesting new features. Level 99 also […]

It is time for you to get selfish here and get some GM advice customized just for you. What ebook would you like me to write next that you would use to make your GMing better, easier, more fun? I am wrapping up the editing on my latest product. It’ll be released in 2011, though […]

You can win a set of the dice that appear in this blog post. Details at the end. Thanks for Q-Workshop for supplying dice to give away! A gamer recently mentioned a disappointing lack of detail when his GM handed out a “pouch of gems.” The player wanted more flavour. It is difficult detailing every […]