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Sugar, Spice, and a touch of Rhubarb: That’s what little names are made of

This entry is part 3 of 11 in the series A Good Name Is Hard To Find

This is the third part of this series on character names. Part 1 discussed the value of a good name, and examined the attributes and benefits that characterized a good choice of name. In Part 2, I explored “Name Seeds”, the heart of a system that I have developed for the creation of passable-or-better names […]

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The Imperial History of Earth-Regency, Part 5: The Cold War Begins – 1945-1959

This entry is part 5 of 12 in the series The Imperial History of Earth-Regency

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. All images used to illustrate this article are public-domain works hosted by Wikipedia, Wikipedia Commons, or derivations of such works.   The Empire Fractures – 1945-1953 (~100 […]

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Top Apps in 2012 for DMs: a guest article by Melanie Gray

Want a quick game in the break room? Run a game session from your smartphone! Introduction Modern technology has revolutionized many aspects of everyday life, and – since it’s a slightly geeky hobby – tabletop gaming was one turf very quickly invaded by the latest in mobile computing devices – the telephone. In this article, […]

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The Imperial History of Earth-Regency, Part 4: An Empire At War – 1910-1945

This entry is part 4 of 12 in the series The Imperial History of Earth-Regency

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. All images used to illustrate this article are public-domain works hosted by Wikipedia Commons or derivations of such works, save for the illustration of The Mao.   […]

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The Wellspring Of Euonyms: Name Seeds

This entry is part 2 of 11 in the series A Good Name Is Hard To Find

Wow. I just realised this is the 351st post here at Campaign Mastery! A quick thank-you to everyone who has contributed, participated, commented, or read our stuff along the way! I also want to spare a moment to mention the people affected by the flooding here in Australia at the moment. We’re about 2 days […]

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The Imperial History of Earth-Regency, Part 3: Birth Of An Empire – 1782-1910

This entry is part 3 of 12 in the series The Imperial History of Earth-Regency

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.       All images used to illustrate this article are public-domain works hosted by Wikipedia Commons or derivations of such works. Introduction The Magna Carta was […]

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The Imperial History of Earth-Regency, Part 2: The Road To Empire – 1220-1782

This entry is part 2 of 12 in the series The Imperial History of Earth-Regency

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.     Welcome to part two of this series of articles introducing the history of Earth-Regency. Part 1 showed how a small change in one weak Baron’s […]

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A Good Name Is Hard To Find

This entry is part 1 of 11 in the series A Good Name Is Hard To Find

Introduction Let’s talk about the art of naming characters, especially NPCs. This is one of the (thankfully few) aspects of the GMing craft that doesn’t come naturally to me. I can usually get there in the end, but off-the-cuff names can be a real struggle. To deal with this handicap, I have evolved a system […]

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The Imperial History of Earth-Regency, Part I: The Middle Ages – 1189-1220

This entry is part 1 of 12 in the series The Imperial History of Earth-Regency

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.     Introduction A couple of weeks ago I described my ground rules for handling alternate histories in RPGs and promised to excerpt the writeup I did […]

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The Ethical Reviewer

From time to time, gaming companies offer us products to review here at Campaign Mastery. Past such reviews include Tome Of Monsters from 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming in ‘Perfect Skin: Some Musing On The Design Of Monsters’, Players Option: Flaws in ‘On The Nature Of Flaws’ (also from 4 Winds), Nobis: The City-States from Pantheon […]

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A Twist in Time: Alternate Histories in RPGs

The latest iteration of my superhero campaign has just gotten underway. Being set (mostly) on an alternate-history Earth, it holds a number of elements that may be of interest to readers, especially if I explain the thinking that led to the various choices that were made and my approach to the construction of a detailed […]

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A Game For All People: The Perfect DnD Recipe

This article is being written in advance of reading any material concerning the actual content of DnDNext from WOTC. Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere, the odds are that you’ve heard the announcement of D&D… well, no-one’s quite sure what it’s going to be called yet. The most common handle seems to be […]

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