Campaign Mastery

• See Also the We All Have Our Roles To Play series in the Characterization section of the Characters page.

The Role Of Players

• See also the “One Player Is Enough” series on the Game Mastering page.

• A Campaign Mastery 750th-post Celebration includes advice from a host of GMs on just about every subject as the climax of the party (and some from stragglers in the comments). So I’m listing it at the start of each page, as well as a handful of places where specific content warrants inclusion.
• Layers Of Mis-translation: RPGs and Dubbed TV – you have a TV show filmed in a foreign language, full of foreign cultural referances, that has been dubbed into your language by skilled translators and voice-over artists. What you see and hear becomes the basis of your relationship with the character on-screen. How much of that relationship stems from the original performer and how much is added by the voice-over artist? That question unlocks this article on the reality of an RPG as percieved by players, on the reality of player actions as percieved by the GM, and of the individual projecting themselves into what may be printed before them in black and white.
• Phase 2: Baggage Dump from the “New Beginnings” series – This is not so much about clearing your head more than temporarily, it deals with what you want to keep from previous campaigns and what to throw away. Significant areas of attention are GMing (stress & exhaustion & recovery), Races, PCs, NPCs, and Players.
• Phase 9: Completion from the “New Beginnings” series – is mostly about dotting i’s and crossing t’s and a few other tasks that were put off, at least temporarily, earlier in the series. In particular, the categories of Campaign Structure, Adventure Format & Structure, House Rules Theory, PCs, Races, Archetypes & Classes, Campaign Background, and how Players will integrate with the campaign are considered.
• Fantastic Flop: GMing Lessons from a filmic failure – I deconstruct the failure of the rebooted Fantastic Four movie to discover lessons every GM should learn from. It’s a shame that those responsible for Man Of Steel and Batman Vs Superman didn’t read the article, because they made many of the same mistakes – admittedly to a lesser degree – and compromised their products earning powers and entertainment value as a result.
• Blog Carnival: The Unexpected Reality – A submission to the RPG Blog Carnival (that CM was hosting at the time) opened a pandora’s box of a concept: deliberately leaving things out of player briefing materials so that they can be revealed as surprises in the course of play,” in other words, using Plot as a Rules Delivery System. This article uses my Shards Of Divinity campaign extensively, and especially the Illusion rules, as an example and as a tool to test the arguements along the way. I identify three specific dangers inherent to the proposal, but when examining solutions to those problems, find that there are indeed circumstances (including a variant on the sci-fi campaign rules/campaign that inspired the article in the first place) in which this can be an asset to, and positive virtue of, a campaign – if they are used properly. Mid-way through outlining the article, I realized that this sort of thing happens on a smaller scale all the time – every time you encounter a situation in which the established rules are inadequate and have to concoct a house rule to resolve the situation.

Player Types

There has been a lot of RPG theory and discussion invested in trying to get inside player’s heads to learn what makes them tick over the years since I started gaming. Most of it is overgeneralized and oversimplified, or worse – but it all contains grains of truth. Nevertheless, the limitations that I percieve have made this a topic rarely visited at Campaign Mastery.

• Part 4 of the Basics For Beginners series, is About Players. I didn’t intend for this series to become a slayer of sacred cows, but for the second post in succession, that’s a theme. In this case, it’s spelled out in the opening line, “I’ve read a lot of nonsense and enlightened theory over the years when it comes to players”. I then go on to walk that back as being too dismissive of RPG Theory. After looking at the factors that go into making a particular part of a particular day’s play “the most enjoyable part” for a particular player-character combination in a particular campaign of a particular genre on one day in particular (try saying that three times fast!), I link to various pages discussing player types in various ways, each of which (I contend) have some validity but which also fail in various ways. Since it’s unfair to criticize without at least attempting to offer something better, I then present a richer 9-axis classification system in which preferances inhabit “zones” or “regions”, not pinpoints. After a few caveats, I discuss the nine (Character, World, Concept, Drama, Conflict, Plot, Interaction, Amazement, and Heroism) individually, especially looking at the sensitivity to GMing style, genre, and campaign. As usual at Campaign Mastery, theory is then translated into practical advice: classification of campaigns, recruiting of players, and designing campaigns and adventures, before considering the impact on player surveys and finally, on game prep requirements. After diving deeper than I really should have for an artiicle aimed at a beginner, I wrap up the article with a pair of much simpler general principles that, in combination, won’t steer beginners wrong: “Give every player a focus on something they enjoy in each and every game session, and your game will be a success,”, and “Predefining some aspects of the game to achieve that in the majority of cases frees your attention up to the task of being creative in all the other areas. The rest takes care of itself.” As a post-script, I (very superficially) review “Era: The Consortium & Secret War” in case I didn’t get to a more substantial review in time (I did, just barely).

New Players

• Interviewing Potential Players – “Filling the empty chair” was written by Johnn during the time when he was working on Campaign Mastery, and I contributed to it. In response to a question raised by a review of the book, Johnn added this extension to the book on how to use an interview to screen prospective players for a good gaming ‘fit’ and potential problems.
• This Survey For New Players Ensures A Good Fit – Roleplaying Tips reader Zerfinity sent Johnn the player recruitment survey that he used to build his new group. Johnn offers the survey in this article because it answered the question of a reviewer of “Filling the empty chair” (paraphrased): How do you select a new player if you get multiple responses to your ‘gamer wanted’ ads?
• Bringing on the next generation, Part One: Player Peers – How I was taught to be a good player and how you can teach someone else to be one – not to mention being a better player yourself.
• Ask The GMs: Fresh Meat In A Hurry – After putting forth a plan to diminish the waiting list for responses (which worked for a while), this article turned to the question of how you integrated new PCs into a campaign after an existing one dies. From first principles, Ian Gray and I derive three key questions that need to be answered before the specific one can be properly answered – “What is the best way to introduce this specific character at this specific time within this specific campaign?”. We then examine nine general answers to the question before moving on to general advice relevant to the situation, before applying all this to the specific question asked (because the campaign concept was an unusual one, placing the answer in an unusual context).
• Ask The GMs: Buzz and Background – This article is split into three parts: Ways to deliver campaign background to players, with their respective pros and cons; Ways to generate buzz and enthusiasm about a new campaign; and, finally, What common ground can be found between these two mutually-antagonistic objectives.
• Part 4 of the Basics For Beginners series, is About Players. I didn’t intend for this series to become a slayer of sacred cows, but for the second post in succession, that’s a theme. In this case, it’s spelled out in the opening line, “I’ve read a lot of nonsense and enlightened theory over the years when it comes to players”. I then go on to walk that back as being too dismissive of RPG Theory. After looking at the factors that go into making a particular part of a particular day’s play “the most enjoyable part” for a particular player-character combination in a particular campaign of a particular genre on one day in particular (try saying that three times fast!), I link to various pages discussing player types in various ways, each of which (I contend) have some validity but which also fail in various ways. Since it’s unfair to criticize without at least attempting to offer something better, I then present a richer 9-axis classification system in which preferances inhabit “zones” or “regions”, not pinpoints. After a few caveats, I discuss the nine (Character, World, Concept, Drama, Conflict, Plot, Interaction, Amazement, and Heroism) individually, especially looking at the sensitivity to GMing style, genre, and campaign. As usual at Campaign Mastery, theory is then translated into practical advice: classification of campaigns, recruiting of players, and designing campaigns and adventures, before considering the impact on player surveys and finally, on game prep requirements. After diving deeper than I really should have for an artiicle aimed at a beginner, I wrap up the article with a pair of much simpler general principles that, in combination, won’t steer beginners wrong: “Give every player a focus on something they enjoy in each and every game session, and your game will be a success,”, and “Predefining some aspects of the game to achieve that in the majority of cases frees your attention up to the task of being creative in all the other areas. The rest takes care of itself.” As a post-script, I (very superficially) review “Era: The Consortium & Secret War” in case I didn’t get to a more substantial review in time (I did, just barely).
• Morgalad In Reflection – I review the Morgalad starter book, finding some excellent content and some flaws. I offered the author the chance to rebut or reply to my comments and he stated that many of the issues I raised were in the process of being rectified – since that was 2015, and it’s now more than three years later, I would hope that this process is now complete. At the conclusion of my review, I recommend Morgalad as a “d20-lite”-like system (in feel, not mechanics) for the purposes of educating new players, playing with children, first-time GMs, and for convention play, all applications which would take maximum advantage of its virtues.

Playing With The Family

• Gaming With The Family – Lessons from yesteryear – As part of the Teach You Kids To Game Week, I write about my experiences serving as a relative novice GM to my teenaged older brother and my much younger brother in the very early 80s, and how their different ages and abilities shaped my role behind the screen.

Missing Players

• Increase game attendance with great session reminders – Johnn talks about ways to improve session reminders. The benefits extend far beyond increased game attendance.
• Missing In Action: Maintaining a campaign in the face of player absence – How do you maintain a campaign when several players are unable to attend regularly?
• Ask The GMs: Parting is such a frayed plot thread – When a player wants or has to leave, there are repercussions at every level of the game, and it can often be overlooked that unless you intervene, his PC is going to be leaving, too. This article attempts to forewarn and forearm GMs against events of this type, because the 11th hour (or the stroke of midnight) is the worst possible time to try and frame a coherant plan for coping with such trauma.

Lost Players

• The Ultimate Disruption: The loss of a player – I consider what a GM has to consider when he loses a player. Is the campaign still viable? What can be done about it? And, what should be done about it? I go on to review my campaigns in light of the then-recent passing of my friend and player, Steven, who I still miss, these many years later.
• Ask The GMs: Parting is such a frayed plot thread – When a player wants or has to leave, there are repercussions at every level of the game, and it can often be overlooked that unless you intervene, his PC is going to be leaving, too. This article attempts to forewarn and forearm GMs against events of this type, because the 11th hour (or the stroke of midnight) is the worst possible time to try and frame a coherant plan for coping with such trauma.

Engagement

• See also the “Campaign Pacing” subsection of the Campaign Plotting page, especially the Further Thoughts On Pacing series.
• See also the “Cinematic Combat” series on the Rules & Mechanics page.
• See also “The Secrets Of Stylish Narrative” series on the Fiction & Writing page.

• Ask The GMs: PC Choices and Consequences – How can you make the players feel like their actions have an impact on the world? A simple question but like an iceberg, nine-tenths don’t show. In order to properly answer this question, Johnn & I had to answer five even more complicated questions: How can the players impact the game world? How are the consequences of PC actions determined? How do the PCs become aware of these consequences? How can the GM ensure that the Players recognize the connection between action and consequences? And how can the administration of these changes be kept practical? All those answers, and more, are in this article.
• Stream Of Consciousness: Image-based narrative – This article describes how to use Google Image Search to flesh out location descriptions so much that you need never be caught without specific details again. The feature image is not only on-point but demonstrates what can be done with some simple photoshopping.
• Shades Of Suspense Pt 1 – Eight Tips for Cliffhanger Finishes – I love ending game sessions on a cliffhanger, especially if I can get the players talking about how it’s all going to work out. This two-part article takes a good hard look at Cliffhangers, starting with these eight tips for employing them. In particular, I offer three methods that I reserve for improvising a cliffhanger when planning has gone awry.
• Shades Of Suspense Pt 2 – Fourteen Types of Cliffhanger Finishes – Wikipedia asserts that there are 2 kinds of cliffhanger, and neither of them are defined in such a way to be useful in an RPG. Other people also told me that they doubted there were 14 types of cliffhanger (prior to the pubication of this article, at least). For each of the 14, I describe it, describe how to implement it at the end of a session, describe the best way to restart play in the following session, and – in some cases – provide further discussion and deliberately over-the-top examples from various genres.
• The Wandering Spotlight Part One of Two: Plot Prologues – The first part of a two-part article examining the techniques used to ensure each player is engaged in the plot even when the party is split up and everyone’s doing their own thing. The first part functions as introduction and foundation, looking at character Prologue Scenes and subplots, and the functions that they serve in the Adventurer’s Club campaign. This process makes the adventures longer, both to play and prep, but the benefits – not all of which are listed in the article (because I didn’t recognize them at the time) – more than justify the extra time.
• The Wandering Spotlight Part Two of Two: Shared Stories – The second part of this two-part article addresses main adventures and how we work to ensure spotlight time is shared amongst all the players. As the article closes, I also look at epilogues. One of the key points is discerning what makes an individual PC different from another PC; another key point is discerning what makes one Player different from another. These are both vectors to customizing content to shine the spotlight, however briefly, on a PC.
• Flavors Of Victory: Why do good GMs fail? – Some articles are easily summarized for the Blogdex. This isn’t one of them. I noticed some patterns to the reasons some clearly skilled chefs lost in a series of cooking contests, and then realized that they provided insights into why one game fairs better than another – even if the GM running the second is superior to the first in some key attributes of the GMing craft. I then looked at what the “loser” could do to correct his situation, discovered a link through to good adventure and campaign design. This is one of the more profound articles at Campaign Mastery. It would be too easy to synopsize those results and oversimplify the findings, missing half the message. So I won’t try.
• The End Of The Adventure – Although it deals with tone on an adventure-by-adventure scale and applies an even smaller granularity, looking at how the tonal quality of an ending influences the start of the beginning that follows, this is just a close-in zoom of what happens throughout the campaign – it’s one domino after another, with limited option for taking control. It’s therefore important to seize those opportunities when they arise. To that end, this article provides a somewaht-dubious list of 31 possible tones for ending adventures, and analyzes them before considering the plot structures that enable them to be controlled by the GM.
• Stealth Narrative – Imputed info in your game – This builds on the techniques described in the Secrets Of Stylish Narrative series to further compress, compact, and polish narrative by sneaking it into other parts of the game. There are considerable side-benefits that result. One small section discusses perception / spot checks and when it’s least-disruptive to the game to request them.
• Part 4 of the Basics For Beginners series, is About Players. I didn’t intend for this series to become a slayer of sacred cows, but for the second post in succession, that’s a theme. In this case, it’s spelled out in the opening line, “I’ve read a lot of nonsense and enlightened theory over the years when it comes to players”. I then go on to walk that back as being too dismissive of RPG Theory. After looking at the factors that go into making a particular part of a particular day’s play “the most enjoyable part” for a particular player-character combination in a particular campaign of a particular genre on one day in particular (try saying that three times fast!), I link to various pages discussing player types in various ways, each of which (I contend) have some validity but which also fail in various ways. Since it’s unfair to criticize without at least attempting to offer something better, I then present a richer 9-axis classification system in which preferances inhabit “zones” or “regions”, not pinpoints. After a few caveats, I discuss the nine (Character, World, Concept, Drama, Conflict, Plot, Interaction, Amazement, and Heroism) individually, especially looking at the sensitivity to GMing style, genre, and campaign. As usual at Campaign Mastery, theory is then translated into practical advice: classification of campaigns, recruiting of players, and designing campaigns and adventures, before considering the impact on player surveys and finally, on game prep requirements. After diving deeper than I really should have for an artiicle aimed at a beginner, I wrap up the article with a pair of much simpler general principles that, in combination, won’t steer beginners wrong: “Give every player a focus on something they enjoy in each and every game session, and your game will be a success,”, and “Predefining some aspects of the game to achieve that in the majority of cases frees your attention up to the task of being creative in all the other areas. The rest takes care of itself.” As a post-script, I (very superficially) review “Era: The Consortium & Secret War” in case I didn’t get to a more substantial review in time (I did, just barely).
• The Conundrum Of Coincidence – Players know that the GM has total control over the game world, and so expect that there’s no such thing as coincidence. Yet, if the game world is to be believable, it must have coincidence as part of its makeup. This combination makes coincidence the hardest phenomenon in gaming to simulate with verisimilitude, which is what makes this article (that explains how to do it) so valuable. As usual, this starts with theory and proceeds to assemble practical advice; I mention this because the “theory” section of this piece is some of my best writing to date. Plato, Aristotle, Quantum Theory, RPGs, and a measurable improvement in my gaming as a result – what more could you want?

Spotlight Time

• See also the “Cinematic Combat” series on the Rules & Mechanics page.

• Ask The GMs: The right to be heard – How do you ensure that every player gets a fair share of the attention when one of them has a dominant personality?
• Ask The GMs: My table runneth over (too many players) – How many players is too many, what are the consequences of having too many players, and what practical advice can be offered for coping?
• The Wandering Spotlight Part One of Two: Plot Prologues – The first part of a two-part article examining the techniques used to ensure each player is engaged in the plot even when the party is split up and everyone’s doing their own thing. The first part functions as introduction and foundation, looking at character Prologue Scenes and subplots, and the functions that they serve in the Adventurer’s Club campaign. This process makes the adventures longer, both to play and prep, but the benefits – not all of which are listed in the article (because I didn’t recognize them at the time) – more than justify the extra time.
• The Wandering Spotlight Part Two of Two: Shared Stories – The second part of this two-part article addresses main adventures and how we work to ensure spotlight time is shared amongst all the players. As the article closes, I also look at epilogues. One of the key points is discerning what makes an individual PC different from another PC; another key point is discerning what makes one Player different from another. These are both vectors to customizing content to shine the spotlight, however briefly, on a PC.
• Always Something There To Surprise You – Plots as Antagonists – This article is all about the right and fair and practical way to use metagaming, taking the most difficult type of plotline – a mystery – as its context and example. This is an article that memory and first impressions always underestimate, for some reason, yet the techniques here can solve many otherwise almost-unsolvable problems for the GM.
• Getting Into Character Pt 2: PCs – To make a PC the central focus of a plotline, the GM needs to get into the PC’s head as he/she is played by the Player, so that scenes can be crafted that lead the PC natuarlly from scene to scene within the adventure. This practice can also help the player get more deeply into character.

Player Agency

• See also the “Cinematic Combat” series on the Rules & Mechanics page.

• The Power Of The Question-mark in RPG Plotting – I struggled in deciding where this post should be indexed. It’s kind of about plot structure and kind of about plot writing and kind of about agency and giving some to players while keeping a measure of control as GM. I discuss 7 different uses for the question mark.
• The Conundrum Of Coincidence – Players know that the GM has total control over the game world, and so expect that there’s no such thing as coincidence. Yet, if the game world is to be believable, it must have coincidence as part of its makeup. This combination makes coincidence the hardest phenomenon in gaming to simulate with verisimilitude, which is what makes this article (that explains how to do it) so valuable. As usual, this starts with theory and proceeds to assemble practical advice; I mention this because the “theory” section of this piece is some of my best writing to date. Plato, Aristotle, Quantum Theory, RPGs, and a measurable improvement in my gaming as a result – what more could you want?
• The Breakdown of Intersecting Prophecies – Using conflicting prophetic techniques to generate history and settings. Followed by a brief review of a Kickstarter that, unfortunately, didn’t make its funding target, “Fortune’s Wheel The Game”.
• Ask The GMs: The Great Handouts Question – is “How much should there be?” if you’re wondering. This article defines a range of standards for handouts that are to be distributed pre-campaign, ranging from “The Tolerable Minimum” to “An Extreme Excess”. In the subsequent section, I describe a magic item and accompanying plotline, the “Tome Of Past Destinies,” that seemed to work very well. After some more general notes, I then describe (far more succinctly) the practices for pre-game, in-game, and post-game that I employ and best practice for delivering such background information.
• Blog Carnival: The Unexpected Reality – A submission to the RPG Blog Carnival (that CM was hosting at the time) opened a pandora’s box of a concept: deliberately leaving things out of player briefing materials so that they can be revealed as surprises in the course of play,” in other words, using Plot as a Rules Delivery System. This article uses my Shards Of Divinity campaign extensively, and especially the Illusion rules, as an example and as a tool to test the arguements along the way. I identify three specific dangers inherent to the proposal, but when examining solutions to those problems, find that there are indeed circumstances (including a variant on the sci-fi campaign rules/campaign that inspired the article in the first place) in which this can be an asset to, and positive virtue of, a campaign – if they are used properly. Mid-way through outlining the article, I realized that this sort of thing happens on a smaller scale all the time – every time you encounter a situation in which the established rules are inadequate and have to concoct a house rule to resolve the situation.
• Sequential Bus Theory and why it matters to GMs – I start by looking at the logic (some might say, ‘Illogic’) of bus timetables and why any given bus is almost always early or late. I then use the phenomenon of passangers getting on or off the bus to create a means of getting rid of monty haulism once and for all, and the distribution of game rewards like wealth and treasure, and (finally) consider a hypothetical way of letting PCs benefit from good character design without coming to totally dominate combat. That last is more of a thought experiment, not yet ready to be seriously advocated.
• Transferable Skills From Bottom to Top and back again starts by studying the theoretical foundations of Skills Systems, identifying two different types (bottom up, with lots of specific skills and narrow definitions, and top-down which has few skills and applies them liberally), and determining that a lot of GM problems and GM-player conflicts stem from using the wrong approach with a specific system type. I then find that the D&D / Pathfinder skills system (as of version 3.x) can best be described as “confused” in this respect, and offer three solutions: A bottom-up solution, A top-down solution, and a flexible compromise. I also describe (too briefly, to be honest) the skills system in use in my Superhero campaign.
• Pieces of Creation: Mortus is an extremely radical reinvention of the Marvel Villain, Thanos, one whose backstory and personality conflict with what he does so strongly that it poses fundamental questions of morality and ethics of the PCs who encounter him. In the course of this write-up, I briefly relate a couple of stories of Behemoth, because Mortus originally thought that he was a Behemoth-clone. In dealing with Mortus, the PCs of my campaign went WAY beyond what was expected of them, but I had enough notes about the “Big Picture” prepared to go with the flow – a lesson that justifies including this article in the relevant campaign and adventure plot sequencing sections. Mortus should be adaptable to any campaign in which the PCs are “the good guys”; his impact might be diminished in campaigns where that’s not the case.

Player Problems

• Moral Qualms on the Richter scale – the need for cooperative subject limits – How questions of morality can impact your game when a player’s personal beliefs come into conflict with the campaign.
• Lessons From The West Wing IV: Victory At Any Price – Players, and Characters, in RPGs sometimes grow so fixated on winning that they will pay any price to achieve it. This article considers the subject in detail, with an extensive example from the Adventurer’s Club Campaign.
• The Blind Enforcer: The Reflex Application Of Rules – The speed of events in the computer world mandate that rules be codified and violations detected, and acted upon, automatically. Yet, human behavior does not readily boil down to neat straight lines, and that opens the door to rules being enforced when they shouldn’t, or not being applied when they should. Human Error is an inherent part of the system. I use these thoughts to re-examine the question of how much dominion the GM should have over the rules and update a previous article, Blat! Zot! Pow! The Rules Of Genre In RPGs, which examined these issues from a genre-and-campaign perspective.
• Ask The GMs: My table runneth over (too many players) – How many players is too many, what are the consequences of having too many players, and what practical advice can be offered for coping?
• An Experimental Failure – 10 lessons from a train-wreck Session – If you’re human, you make mistakes. If you’re a fair or better GM, you learn from them. Better still, you can learn from the mistakes of others. This article (and the discussion in the subsequent comments) is one big mea culpa on my part (and on behalf of my Pulp GM) for a total trainwreck of a game session. I detail what went wrong, why it happened, what could have been done to avert the trainwreck and why it wasn’t, what was done to get the campaign back on track, and conclude with ten lessons that I (and any reader) can take out of the experience, including what early warning signs were there to see but were ignored. In the comments, there’s a discussion between myself and one of the most-affected players, extending several of the threads mentioned above. How effective were the lessons identified? This was more than four years ago, as I compile the Blogdex, and not only is the campaign still running (with the same GMs) but the same player is still a regular. Now remember that the trainwreck was supposedly a bigger-than-life adventure to celebrate the campaign’s tenth anniversary…
• The Gradated Diminishing Of Reality – Travel in FRPG – The players want to get to the interesting stuff, the GM wants them to feel what the world around the PCs is like, to immerse them in its colors and textures, and to make them feel like their characters are part of that world and not simply passing through. Over time, a series of level-based compromises has evolved (this article is specifically about D&D / Pathfinder and similar level-based games) in which both sides get some of what they want – and in which the GM gets compensated for giving in to the players, whether they realize that or not.
• Always Something There To Surprise You – Plots as Antagonists – This article is all about the right and fair and practical way to use metagaming, taking the most difficult type of plotline – a mystery – as its context and example. This is an article that memory and first impressions always underestimate, for some reason, yet the techniques here can solve many otherwise almost-unsolvable problems for the GM.
• Overprotective Tendencies: Handling Player Risk Aversion – the longer a player lives with a particular character in his pocket, the more attached to that character he becomes, and that can lead to overprotective tendencies and over-planning by players. In this (brief) article, I look at six solutions to the problem, several of which I don’t personally recommend. This post seemed to connect with a lot of readers at the time.
• A Helping Handout – Hungry from Ravenous Roleplaying complained that his players were glancing at his handouts and then setting them aside, and that consequently, his effort invested in creating them was being wasted. He then linked to an article at Gnome Stew by Phil Veccione which promised to alleviate the problem. Having seen the “three second glance” myself, I was sufficiently intrigued to check out Phil’s article, and while it was good, I thought it didn’t go far enough. Phil identified 4 ways handouts could be used to increase their utility; I added 9 to that list in this article, and a tenth if you include maps, including how-to information.
• What is An Adventure? – Trying to find the perfect name for the amalgum of plot, planned dialogue, and narrative that the GM brings to the table is not as easy as you might think – but it matters. Mismatched expectations have been the cause of more than a few player drop-outs in campaigns. Finding an answer requires a close examination of what “game prep” really is.
• Ask The GMs: The GMs Help Network – Where does a GM go for help and advice? I discuss the history of GM connectedness from GM Bull sessions through to social media before creating a list of places where a GM could go for advice in a reasonable time-frame (read: a couple of days or less). Most of the advice contained in this post is still 100% accurate – the one thing that stood out is that these days FBook won’t even show you all the posts that you’re specifically tagged in, just the ones that IT thinks you are mostly likely to interact with. That’s a good thing – just because I liked a movie or a book or a TV series or whatever doesn’t mean that I want my FB timeline to be filled with posts about it, and you are still more likely to get a quick response through Twitter. I’m listing this in all the categories for which help has been asked and seen to have been recieved in recent years through my Twitter account, and redundancy be damned.
• Transferable Skills From Bottom to Top and back again starts by studying the theoretical foundations of Skills Systems, identifying two different types (bottom up, with lots of specific skills and narrow definitions, and top-down which has few skills and applies them liberally), and determining that a lot of GM problems and GM-player conflicts stem from using the wrong approach with a specific system type. I then find that the D&D / Pathfinder skills system (as of version 3.x) can best be described as “confused” in this respect, and offer three solutions: A bottom-up solution, A top-down solution, and a flexible compromise. I also describe (too briefly, to be honest) the skills system in use in my Superhero campaign.

Problem Players

• Evil GM Tricks For Over-Resting PCs – Do your players stop to rest as soon as they run low on power for the game-day – even if that’s just five minutes after their adventuring day starts? Johnn excerpts some material from his Faster Combat course to offer some solutions to the problem. I offer a refinement in the comments.
• Ask The GMs: The Passage Of Substantial Time – How can you have substantial time take place in between adventures, with characters aging and eventually being replaced due to old age / death? I begin by analyzing the theoretical underpinnings and implications of this type of campaign, then move into practical considerations of the difficulties that will be faced in creating and running a “Discontinuous Campaign”. Topics touched on include delivery of campaign backstory, technological advances, The evolution of Language, Development of Infrastructure, Social Advances, Attempted Player Rorting, Metagame issues, the Impact of the Campaign Concept on characters, and The need for rules to cover Aging, R&D and Manufacturing, and Investments. There are a lot of similarity between running a Discontinuous Campaign and running a Time Travel campaign – though this is certainly one of the more prosaic and yet unusual forms of ‘Time Travel’.
• The Blind Enforcer: The Reflex Application Of Rules – The speed of events in the computer world mandate that rules be codified and violations detected, and acted upon, automatically. Yet, human behavior does not readily boil down to neat straight lines, and that opens the door to rules being enforced when they shouldn’t, or not being applied when they should. Human Error is an inherent part of the system. I use these thoughts to re-examine the question of how much dominion the GM should have over the rules and update a previous article, Blat! Zot! Pow! The Rules Of Genre In RPGs, which examined these issues from a genre-and-campaign perspective.
• The Premise Of Falsehoods – Luck Vs Skill in RPGs – I start with a question that’s been around forever – “Is it better to be lucky or skilled” – and proceed to analyze just what luck is and what skill is. In the process, an understanding of RPG concepts from different perspectives emerges that verges on the revelatory. Several side topics of relevance are explored, including the role of players in how Campaigns evolve, and by the end, even the concept of what a campaign is has been redefined. While it contains nothing of practical value, this is practically certain to give you a changed awareness of the world, and of the hobby of RPGs – which is either worthless or infinitely valuable to you.
• The Gradated Diminishing Of Reality – Travel in FRPG – The players want to get to the interesting stuff, the GM wants them to feel what the world around the PCs is like, to immerse them in its colors and textures, and to make them feel like their characters are part of that world and not simply passing through. Over time, a series of level-based compromises has evolved (this article is specifically about D&D / Pathfinder and similar level-based games) in which both sides get some of what they want – and in which the GM gets compensated for giving in to the players, whether they realize that or not.
• Sequential Bus Theory and why it matters to GMs – I start by looking at the logic (some might say, ‘Illogic’) of bus timetables and why any given bus is almost always early or late. I then use the phenomenon of passangers getting on or off the bus to create a means of getting rid of monty haulism once and for all, and the distribution of game rewards like wealth and treasure, and (finally) consider a hypothetical way of letting PCs benefit from good character design without coming to totally dominate combat. That last is more of a thought experiment, not yet ready to be seriously advocated.
• Ask The GMs: The GMs Help Network – Where does a GM go for help and advice? I discuss the history of GM connectedness from GM Bull sessions through to social media before creating a list of places where a GM could go for advice in a reasonable time-frame (read: a couple of days or less). Most of the advice contained in this post is still 100% accurate – the one thing that stood out is that these days FBook won’t even show you all the posts that you’re specifically tagged in, just the ones that IT thinks you are mostly likely to interact with. That’s a good thing – just because I liked a movie or a book or a TV series or whatever doesn’t mean that I want my FB timeline to be filled with posts about it, and you are still more likely to get a quick response through Twitter. I’m listing this in all the categories for which help has been asked and seen to have been recieved in recent years through my Twitter account, and redundancy be damned.
• Transferable Skills From Bottom to Top and back again starts by studying the theoretical foundations of Skills Systems, identifying two different types (bottom up, with lots of specific skills and narrow definitions, and top-down which has few skills and applies them liberally), and determining that a lot of GM problems and GM-player conflicts stem from using the wrong approach with a specific system type. I then find that the D&D / Pathfinder skills system (as of version 3.x) can best be described as “confused” in this respect, and offer three solutions: A bottom-up solution, A top-down solution, and a flexible compromise. I also describe (too briefly, to be honest) the skills system in use in my Superhero campaign.

Player Mistakes

• See also the “Mistakes, Problem Solving, & Emergencies” section of the “Game Mastering” page.

• Refloating The Shipwreck: When Players Make A Mistake – For the April 2013 Blog Carnival, I look at how GMs can cope when the players make a major, potentially campaign-ending, mistake.
• The Soundbite Of Tomorrow is 140 Characters Long – An article that is as much about social media and its impact on communications, both past and future, as it is about RPGs. While there have been a few developments that weren’t anticipated, like Presidential Decree by Tweet, most of this article’s forecasts have come to pass. It rates listing in the section because it considers the problem of player misinterpretation or misremembering of information provided by the GM, and the processes that I use to combat the resulting confusion.
• Layers Of Mis-translation: RPGs and Dubbed TV – you have a TV show filmed in a foreign language, full of foreign cultural referances, that has been dubbed into your language by skilled translators and voice-over artists. What you see and hear becomes the basis of your relationship with the character on-screen. How much of that relationship stems from the original performer and how much is added by the voice-over artist? That question unlocks this article on the reality of an RPG as percieved by players, on the reality of player actions as percieved by the GM, and of the individual projecting themselves into what may be printed before them in black and white.
• “I know what’s happening!” – Confirmation Bias and RPGs “The human brain is always trying to convince itself that it has a complete picture of what is going on, and … when contradictory information comes in, there is a tendency called Confirmation Bias to ignore it, to concentrate on, and act upon, what you think is happening”. I’ve encountered confirmation bias on a number of occasions as a GM. In this article, inspired by the quote, I examine the nine options the GM has for dealing with the problem when it occurs. the compromises and price-tags and baggage that they carry, and the pitfalls that can result. There’s additional meat in the comments for readers. After you’ve read it, click on this link and scroll to the bottom of the text for a description from Hungry of Ravenous Roleplaying of how Confirmation Bias on his part can tip the RPGing truck off the rails.
• The Gradated Diminishing Of Reality – Travel in FRPG – The players want to get to the interesting stuff, the GM wants them to feel what the world around the PCs is like, to immerse them in its colors and textures, and to make them feel like their characters are part of that world and not simply passing through. Over time, a series of level-based compromises has evolved (this article is specifically about D&D / Pathfinder and similar level-based games) in which both sides get some of what they want – and in which the GM gets compensated for giving in to the players, whether they realize that or not.
• Always Something There To Surprise You – Plots as Antagonists – This article is all about the right and fair and practical way to use metagaming, taking the most difficult type of plotline – a mystery – as its context and example. This is an article that memory and first impressions always underestimate, for some reason, yet the techniques here can solve many otherwise almost-unsolvable problems for the GM.
• The Conundrum Of Coincidence – Players know that the GM has total control over the game world, and so expect that there’s no such thing as coincidence. Yet, if the game world is to be believable, it must have coincidence as part of its makeup. This combination makes coincidence the hardest phenomenon in gaming to simulate with verisimilitude, which is what makes this article (that explains how to do it) so valuable. As usual, this starts with theory and proceeds to assemble practical advice; I mention this because the “theory” section of this piece is some of my best writing to date. Plato, Aristotle, Quantum Theory, RPGs, and a measurable improvement in my gaming as a result – what more could you want?
• Ask The GMs: The GMs Help Network – Where does a GM go for help and advice? I discuss the history of GM connectedness from GM Bull sessions through to social media before creating a list of places where a GM could go for advice in a reasonable time-frame (read: a couple of days or less). Most of the advice contained in this post is still 100% accurate – the one thing that stood out is that these days FBook won’t even show you all the posts that you’re specifically tagged in, just the ones that IT thinks you are mostly likely to interact with. That’s a good thing – just because I liked a movie or a book or a TV series or whatever doesn’t mean that I want my FB timeline to be filled with posts about it, and you are still more likely to get a quick response through Twitter. I’m listing this in all the categories for which help has been asked and seen to have been recieved in recent years through my Twitter account, and redundancy be damned.