Campaign Mastery

General Articles

See Also the “Touchstones Of Unification” series on the Genre Overviews 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.

Organization

• See also the “Campaign Structure” section of the Campaign Construction page.
• See also the “Campaign Pacing” subsection of the Campaign Plotting page.
• See also the “One Player Is Enough” series on the Game Mastering page.

• A folder for every file: My Document Organization for RPGs – Over the years that I’ve been using a computer to work on my RPG campaigns, I’ve evolved a very specific structure to the organization of documents into folders and subfolders. In this article, I describe that structure in detail.
• Writing to the limits of longevity – As GMs, we have to do a lot of writing. Every minute spent writing more than is needed is time wasted forever. Therefore, it makes sense to adjust the way you write to match the longevity that you need that writing to posess. I divide time into three general categories – short-term, medium-term, and long-term/forever – analyze the differences and potential problems (with as many real examples as I could sneak in), and then offer practical advice on how best to write for that degree of longevity. Even experienced writers usually find something of value in this article, because there are some mistakes that we all make, learn from, forget, and then make again.
• 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.
• Part 8 of the Basics For Beginners series deals with Depth In Plotting. Like “Adventure Creation”, there have been a number of articles that deal with expanding a GM’s plans from isolated adventures into campaigns. Like Part 7, this focuses on the plot of adventures, but instead of focusing inward at the adventure content, it looks outward to the context within the campaign in which that adventure takes place. Once again, I start by spelling out the ‘natural’ progression most GMs experience. I then clarify the purpose of Back To Basics: Campaign Structures, a relevant article when it is read and used properly, before offering a shortcut through the rather lengthy GM-development path enunciated earlier. I then present two simplified methods of constructing complex plotlines: Russian Babushka Dolls and Spiderweb Plots. I go into the first of these in some depth, with a substantial example; the second is explained by the ‘Back To Basics’ article linked to earlier. I then point out that many of the more complex techniques actually used, such as the one described in the New Beginnings series, are actually combinations of these two simplified approaches. Next, I classify all adventures as being one of just two types – plot-driven adventures, or adventure-driven plots. These discussions use the earlier example campaign to explain various aspects of the differences. I then propose just two rules that every GM (Beginner or expert) needs to remember – “Make the adventures fun” and “The Forest Mandate,” i.e. don’t get so wrapped up in making the trees look pretty that you lose track of making the shape of the Forest look attractive, too. I then point readers at the campaign ideas that I’ve given away here at Campaign Mastery, discussing each in terms of the two simplified methods of Deep Plotting described earlier, before wrapping up the article with some concluding advice on choosing the plot structure that is right for you, at your current level of expertise.
• Part 11 of the Basics For Beginners series returns to the subject of Campaigns, more specifically the differences between a campaign and a larger, multi-adventure plotline. With plot relationships between individual adventures the subject of Part 8 of this series, this takes as its topic the other ways that adventures can integrate. The discussion starts by defining, for the umpteenth time, a campaign. I then step through the way the campaigns a GM is likely to run evolve, using diagrams – and stopping at the point where things are likely to get too complicated for a beginner. I then discuss Campaign Structure, offering a couple of alternative types, which then segues into a discussion of Simulationist vs Gamist (I argue against the existence of “Narrativist”, often touted as a third axis), and Strong Continuity vs Episodic, with examples from my own campaigns. Next, I introduce (again) the concept of Sandboxing vs “Temporally-Constant” campaigns, discuss the advantages of sandboxing, and the substantial downsides; that’s followed by the downsides of “non-sandboxed” campaigns, before introducing a third option, the Phased Campaign, which is a hybrid of the two that avoids the worst vices of both but doesn’t completely capture the advantages of either. After discussing 5 campaign aspects that are amenable to Sandboxing, and 4 aspects that are always excluded (even in Sandboxed campaigns), and providing a free blank map, I explain the principles of Phased Campaigns and the impact of the solution on the downsides previously identified. After noting that Note Organization is critical to all three approaches, I look at the Sandboxable material from the Phased Campaign approach (offering another cautionary tale along the way). I then interrupt to review the Kickstarter campaign for Song Of Swords that may represent a fourth option. Discussion then turns to some advanced tools that can be used even by a Beginner to good effect – Campaign Themes and Nested and/or Parallel Plot Arcs (i.e. subplots that thread together to form a larger narrative), with a 22-episode example.
• 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.

Prep Management

• See also the “Cinematic Combat” series on the Rules & Mechanics page, especially part 3.

• Fire Fighting, Systems Analysis, and RPG Problem Solving Part 2 of 3: Prioritization offers broad advice on prioritizing problems, dismembering problems into smaller (more solvable) issues, does a deep dive into a theory of Criticality and problem interactions, and then applies the principles derived to generate two different, practical, ways of prioritizing game prep requirements. I’m forever losing track of where I put the latter advice, so I’m going to emphasize it in blogdex cross-indexing.
• To Module Or Not?: A legacy article – I originally wrote this article in 2006, but Johnn never got around to writing the second half of what wa planned to be a two-part article to cross-promote CM and Roleplaying Tips. It details the differences between writing your own adventures and running published 3rd-party modules while strenuously avoiding any suggestion that one approach is better than any other. Favorably reviewed as “another article that every GM should read” in a couple of places.
• Tourism in Sleepland: Sleep management for GMs & other creative people – lessons from a lifetime of coping with not-enough-sleep are distilled into this rather lengthy article, produced because people kept asking me. How would you like to add an extra 5 productive years to your lifetime? Or more than 8 extra 35-hour weeks a year free from work commitments each year? Those are the sort of rewards that Sleep Management can confer. Because of my conditions, these days, I rarely get more than 4 1/2 hours sleep a night – and usually get awoken three or four times a night from pain and discomfort. These are no longer optional extras to me, they are now survival techniques. Fortunately, in my case at least, I know what I’m talking about, having practiced for decades. Your mileage may vary.
• Adventure Structure: My Standard Formatting – I describe the standard format and nonclemanture that I have evolved for writing the adventures that I run. Also deals with prep management. In the comments I describe how much game prep I do and how long it takes me to write an adventure.
• Phase X: Beginning from the “New Beginnings” series – deals with the transition from the design & construction stage of the campaign to designing and constructing adventures on an ongoing basis, and especially the (arguably) most important adventure, the first. The subjects are Campaign Prep, Adventure Prep (and why the two are different), Fixing Campaign Plot Holes, and Writing Adventures.
• 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.
• Part 3 of the Basics For Beginners series, Preparations, points out that there are lots of articles about Game Prep here at Campaign Mastery, and no shortage of them elsewhere on the net, to boot. This is not like them, spending most of its time attempting to persuade the new GM that most prep is not only unnecessary, but potentially deliterious to a campaign. This is not the case for experienced GMs; this is advice aimed directly at the beginner and those of intermediate experience. I discuss using the expertise of more experienced players and GMs, the dangers posed by over-committing (which all GMs do, sometimes), the essential prep that has to be done (a very short list), and how to deal with the players going off-script (it will happen). That’s followed by advice on using and creating iconic moments, on letting prep take care of itself, and how a developing GMing style should start to alter this advice.
• 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).
• Part 7 of the Basics For Beginners series, Adventures begins by acknowleding that, (at the time of writing), there had been 140 articles at Campaign Mastery tagged “Adventure Creation”. That’s now up to 228. Most of this article selectively recapitulates, and sometimes expands upon, advice contained in this or that past article. After describing the usual growth path of GMing expertise, I look at how a GM can take shortcuts – and the limited value of those shortcuts. Next, I address the question of GMing confidence, both over- and under-confidence, before providing a simplified process for beginners to employ in creating a campaign, with an example. In the process of describing how to GM that campaign, I discuss the role of the GM and give further advice on how to avoid plot trains, before discussing sandboxing, prep schedules. and prep as an investment. In the conclusion, I provide a long list of topics that merit following up by the reader before announcing our 2016 Ennie nomination!
• Part 11 of the Basics For Beginners series returns to the subject of Campaigns, more specifically the differences between a campaign and a larger, multi-adventure plotline. With plot relationships between individual adventures the subject of Part 8 of this series, this takes as its topic the other ways that adventures can integrate. The discussion starts by defining, for the umpteenth time, a campaign. I then step through the way the campaigns a GM is likely to run evolve, using diagrams – and stopping at the point where things are likely to get too complicated for a beginner. I then discuss Campaign Structure, offering a couple of alternative types, which then segues into a discussion of Simulationist vs Gamist (I argue against the existence of “Narrativist”, often touted as a third axis), and Strong Continuity vs Episodic, with examples from my own campaigns. Next, I introduce (again) the concept of Sandboxing vs “Temporally-Constant” campaigns, discuss the advantages of sandboxing, and the substantial downsides; that’s followed by the downsides of “non-sandboxed” campaigns, before introducing a third option, the Phased Campaign, which is a hybrid of the two that avoids the worst vices of both but doesn’t completely capture the advantages of either. After discussing 5 campaign aspects that are amenable to Sandboxing, and 4 aspects that are always excluded (even in Sandboxed campaigns), and providing a free blank map, I explain the principles of Phased Campaigns and the impact of the solution on the downsides previously identified. After noting that Note Organization is critical to all three approaches, I look at the Sandboxable material from the Phased Campaign approach (offering another cautionary tale along the way). I then interrupt to review the Kickstarter campaign for Song Of Swords that may represent a fourth option. Discussion then turns to some advanced tools that can be used even by a Beginner to good effect – Campaign Themes and Nested and/or Parallel Plot Arcs (i.e. subplots that thread together to form a larger narrative), with a 22-episode example.
• 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.
• To Every Creator, An Optimum Budget? – After reiterating a conversation about Hollywood Blockbuster budgets, which ends with the determination that for each individual, there was a sweet spot in terms of budget. I then equate movie budgets with GM time budgets after realizing that the same principle applies, coming to the conclusion that “the neglected question of game prep is knowing when to stop.” That’s followed by a necessarily-fuzzy technique for finding your optimum, and then applying the concept of a limited budget to what you most need by way of prioritization. The different requirements of different genres are briefly discussed. I show how to calculate the game value of a task, how to adjust that value for relevance over multiple adventures, and finally, the psychological and creative value of artificially weighting inspirational prep prioritization more highly. DON’T skip the section aimed at Beginners or you will get lost very quickly.
• 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.
• 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.

Fantasy Campaign Ideas

• See also the “Portals To Celestial Morphology” series in the Magic section of the Campaign Creation page.

• Taming The Wild Frontiers – This article starts out as a think-piece inspired by the oft-cited comparison between the early internet and the American Wild West and marches headlong into the subtle but profound impact on RPGs of Political Correctness and then the socio-political models on which most Sci-fi games (and novels!) are traditionally based – and showing that there have been opportunities missed on all sides, and that the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater, in particular serious examination of the issues surrounding colonialism, equality, and exploitation. This article struck a chord with a lot of readers; one even told me that using it, he finally understood what he had been missing in modern games that turned him back towards “old-school” gaming.
• Who Are You? – An original character naming approach – Naming patterns are generally ubiquitous within and unique to a society – until the modern era, anyway. Some misheard commentary on TV and this fact inspired a new naming pattern – one that comes close to encapsulating an entire biography into the name. This idea can only reasonably be used in Fantasy and Sci-Fi campaigns. The article is included here because of the implications for the society that sees this as a reasonable approach to names.
• A Population Of Dinosaurs and the impact on RPG ecologies – I get curious about how many species of dinosaur there were, so I devise some calculations to answer the question. That might be interesting enough in its own right, but then I see how quickly genetic engineering could produce new (well-adapted) species. This is so interesting that it holds my attention until I realize that it has other ecological value to the GMs of D&D / Pathfinder – for example, the same process could be used to tell you how long Dragons have lived in a Fantasy environment just by factoring in their average lifespan and the number of different varieties.
• There’s Something About Undead – Blog Carnival Oct 2014 – for the Blog Carnival of October 2014, I penned this article, looking at what makes Undead what they are – in other words, I try to give them some depth. It alls starts with one of those simple little questions: What Is Life? The process of examining the answers reveals a fundamental inadequacy within the standard D&D/Pathfinder Cosmology.
• Ask The GM: Seasoning The Stew (making races feel distinctive) – a reader asks why I go to so much effort to distinguish Elves from Drow when the latter are an offshoot of the former. I spend most of the article looking at the advantages that derive from making the races of a campaign distinctive, not only from each other within the campaign, but from other campaigns, before providing some resources and sources of inspiration on the subject.
• Alien In Innovation: Creating Original Non-human Species – the first of two articles for the November 2014 Blog Carnival, this one asks “How do you create an original alien species?” then immediately points out the Fantasy RPG applicability before providing three answers, with multiple examples, including an entire alien environment and ecology. More examples and discussion in the comments.
• Gifts In Gaming: Overlooked Seasonal Plot Hooks – a serious seasonal plot idea, suitable for any genre, dressed up with some fun quotes (both real and invented). Give the PCs a gift…
• Disease and Despair – the healing-resistant nightmare – I start this fantasy-oriented nightmare scenario by looking at the historical impact of disease, and then the ramifications of the existence of the low-level D&D Spell, “Cure Disease”. Those show that from this factor alone, the historical accuracy of fantasy games would be severely impacted, infusing social changes from the reformation and population dynamics closer to those of the 19th or early 20th centuries. With that, and a quick review of the Black Death and its impact, I briefly discuss an article I wrote for Roleplaying Tips, Putting The Fear Back Into Disease (still available, I just checked), all as foundation for what follows: What would happen if a Cure Disease-resistant disease arose? To call the results dystopian is like calling The Great Wall Of China a “backyard fence”. Ironically, I also explain that if the GM has adopted the “Putting The Fear Back” approach, the impact would be minimal! I then look at how to integrate this social disintegration – and the responsibility for fixing things – can integrate with an existing campaign, before showing that having the disease also be Heal-resistant is actually less disruptive than the alternative!
• Part 7 of the Basics For Beginners series, Adventures begins by acknowleding that, (at the time of writing), there had been 140 articles at Campaign Mastery tagged “Adventure Creation”. That’s now up to 228. Most of this article selectively recapitulates, and sometimes expands upon, advice contained in this or that past article. After describing the usual growth path of GMing expertise, I look at how a GM can take shortcuts – and the limited value of those shortcuts. Next, I address the question of GMing confidence, both over- and under-confidence, before providing a simplified process for beginners to employ in creating a campaign, with an example. In the process of describing how to GM that campaign, I discuss the role of the GM and give further advice on how to avoid plot trains, before discussing sandboxing, prep schedules. and prep as an investment. In the conclusion, I provide a long list of topics that merit following up by the reader before announcing our 2016 Ennie nomination!
• What Empowers A Curse and other dangerous questions – For the September 2015 Blog Carnival, I ask “What empowers a Curse” in D&D / Pathfinder and find that the answer has some profound implications, potentially touching on everything from Cosmology to why Gods need congregations. Although I talk down the value of a curse sub-system within the game mechanics, I’ve actually found it necessary to craft one for an as-yet-unpublished (Jan 2019) series of articles.
• 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.
• Pieces Of Creation: Lon Than, Kalika, and the Prison Of Jade contains some thoughts on the pulp genre in general, and imputes more information on the adaption of 1920s-30s material for a modern audiance. No-one who knows the beliefs of ISIS could fail to note the parallels between them and those of Lon Than, for example, giving this game material a relevance not obvious to anyone else. The primary purpose of the article is to relay four pieces of content from the Adventurer’s Club campaign for others to use: Compiled information on “the mystic properties of jade”; Lon Than, a pulp villain (and his organization), who could easily be translated into a Fantasy or Superhero Genre (there’s some advice on doing so at the end of the article); and a ‘reinvention’ for game purposes of the Hindu Goddess, Kali, and a “twin sister”, Kalika, whose duality has an unmistakable resemblance to Cyrene, the Deity featured in Assassin’s Amulet. Trust me when I say that it would take an expert in the faith to find where we have twisted the lore, but the cumulative effect is to produce a figure that is far more sympathetic and relateable than most RPG representations (who don’t see beyonf the Thugee and get most of their information on that from the second Indiana Jones movie). The fourth item is a very brief summary of the way these items were used in-game, from dangling plot hooks through to adventure.

Sci-Fi Campaign Ideas

• See also the “Putting The SF Into Sci-Fi” series in the Sci-Fi section of the Genre Overviews page.
• See also the “Portals To Celestial Morphology” series in the Magic section of the Campaign Creation page.

• Taming The Wild Frontiers – This article starts out as a think-piece inspired by the oft-cited comparison between the early internet and the American Wild West and marches headlong into the subtle but profound impact on RPGs of Political Correctness and then the socio-political models on which most Sci-fi games (and novels!) are traditionally based – and showing that there have been opportunities missed on all sides, and that the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater, in particular serious examination of the issues surrounding colonialism, equality, and exploitation. This article struck a chord with a lot of readers; one even told me that using it, he finally understood what he had been missing in modern games that turned him back towards “old-school” gaming.
• Strangers sharing ideas: RPG writings in a Collaborative World – A guest article by G.F. Pace with Additional contributions & Editing by me that looks at using idea crowdsourcing to collaborate on campaign design specifically and RPG problems in general.
• Who Are You? – An original character naming approach – Naming patterns are generally ubiquitous within and unique to a society – until the modern era, anyway. Some misheard commentary on TV and this fact inspired a new naming pattern – one that comes close to encapsulating an entire biography into the name. This idea can only reasonably be used in Fantasy and Sci-Fi campaigns. The article is included here because of the implications for the society that sees this as a reasonable approach to names.
• Control-Alt-Delete – A Modern-day SciFi Campaign – An unusually dystopian idea from me, set in the modern day (or sometime close to it). This article is the outline of a campaign suitable for 4-5 players, using any reasonably modern-day game system – GURPS, Hero System, d20 Modern, or whatever. The PCs are all agents for a shadowy government agency. Rather than risk their highly-trained agents in the field, they have built up a bank of volunteers. These get cash, or a problem solved, or have their sentences reduced, in return for letting the minds of the trained agents be downloaded into their cortexes for a mission. While the agents can take a limited number of their practical skills with them, for the most part, they have to utilize whatever the host brings to the party. Unknown to the hosts but not the agents, it’s not just the modern-day bodies of the hosts that gets used; the agents are actually downloaded into a past version of the host.
• Alien In Innovation: Creating Original Non-human Species – the first of two articles for the November 2014 Blog Carnival, this one asks “How do you create an original alien species?” then immediately points out the Fantasy RPG applicability before providing three answers, with multiple examples, including an entire alien environment and ecology. More examples and discussion in the comments.
• Yesterday Once More: A pulp time-travel Campaign – in retrospect, this bears a strong but superficial resemblance to the Control-Alt-Delete campaign concept given above. The premise is “The PCs time travel into the bodies of people in the past in order to stop the spirit of an inventor bootstrapping himself into unearned wealth and power at the expense of everyone else in the planet.” But the details make it quite different. In addition to a very brief summary of the campaign background, the campaign is broken into 14 specific (named) adventures, some described at length and great specificity, followed by some additional notes.
• Gifts In Gaming: Overlooked Seasonal Plot Hooks – a serious seasonal plot idea, suitable for any genre, dressed up with some fun quotes (both real and invented). Give the PCs a gift…
• Phase 0: Introduction from the “New Beginnings” series – Almost half the article is taken up with the table of contents for the whole series. The remainder takes a fresh look at some general principles of campaign design – practical elements like “How much campaign do I need to design” – offers a new method of creating a campaign called the “The Modular Story-based approach”, and briefly describes an example sci-fi campaign idea, “Reality, But Not As We Know It”, which is a kind of space-opera version of Star Trek. Some issues of races within a campaign get discussed.
• A target of inefficiency: from Dystopian trends to Utopia – Starting with local issues, I highlight a disturbing trend in infrastructure collapsing because maintenance is too expensive, and couple that with other modern issues like Climate Change and the distribution of income to show that they are all connected by a common thread. Dystopian expectations have become near-universal, and utopias are considered unbelievable fantasies. All this is grist for the mill if you want a Dystopian setting for your sci-fi campaign; less so if you want something more optimistic. But then I thought of a simple solution to the problems in two steps…
• The very-expected Unexpected Blog Carnival Roundup – This lists all the posts submitted to the Nov 2015 Blog Carnival, “The Unexpected”. I start by analyzing a couple of mistakes that I made as host in introducing the topic and blaming them for the lower-than expected turnout. There’s the “Void Shock” series, my Gates and Portals series (linked to individually), a post on the game mechanics of surprise (again from CM and listed individually in the blogdex) and some ideas for plot and narrative surprise from my fellow GMs.
• 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.
• Pieces Of Creation: Lon Than, Kalika, and the Prison Of Jade contains some thoughts on the pulp genre in general, and imputes more information on the adaption of 1920s-30s material for a modern audiance. No-one who knows the beliefs of ISIS could fail to note the parallels between them and those of Lon Than, for example, giving this game material a relevance not obvious to anyone else. The primary purpose of the article is to relay four pieces of content from the Adventurer’s Club campaign for others to use: Compiled information on “the mystic properties of jade”; Lon Than, a pulp villain (and his organization), who could easily be translated into a Fantasy or Superhero Genre (there’s some advice on doing so at the end of the article); and a ‘reinvention’ for game purposes of the Hindu Goddess, Kali, and a “twin sister”, Kalika, whose duality has an unmistakable resemblance to Cyrene, the Deity featured in Assassin’s Amulet. Trust me when I say that it would take an expert in the faith to find where we have twisted the lore, but the cumulative effect is to produce a figure that is far more sympathetic and relateable than most RPG representations (who don’t see beyonf the Thugee and get most of their information on that from the second Indiana Jones movie). The fourth item is a very brief summary of the way these items were used in-game, from dangling plot hooks through to adventure.

Other Campaign Ideas

• Yesterday Once More: A pulp time-travel Campaign – in retrospect, this bears a strong but superficial resemblance to the Control-Alt-Delete campaign concept given above. The premise is “The PCs time travel into the bodies of people in the past in order to stop the spirit of an inventor bootstrapping himself into unearned wealth and power at the expense of everyone else in the planet.” But the details make it quite different. In addition to a very brief summary of the campaign background, the campaign is broken into 14 specific (named) adventures, some described at length and great specificity, followed by some additional notes.
• Gifts In Gaming: Overlooked Seasonal Plot Hooks – a serious seasonal plot idea, suitable for any genre, dressed up with some fun quotes (both real and invented). Give the PCs a gift…
• 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.
• Pieces Of Creation: Lon Than, Kalika, and the Prison Of Jade contains some thoughts on the pulp genre in general, and imputes more information on the adaption of 1920s-30s material for a modern audiance. No-one who knows the beliefs of ISIS could fail to note the parallels between them and those of Lon Than, for example, giving this game material a relevance not obvious to anyone else. The primary purpose of the article is to relay four pieces of content from the Adventurer’s Club campaign for others to use: Compiled information on “the mystic properties of jade”; Lon Than, a pulp villain (and his organization), who could easily be translated into a Fantasy or Superhero Genre (there’s some advice on doing so at the end of the article); and a ‘reinvention’ for game purposes of the Hindu Goddess, Kali, and a “twin sister”, Kalika, whose duality has an unmistakable resemblance to Cyrene, the Deity featured in Assassin’s Amulet. Trust me when I say that it would take an expert in the faith to find where we have twisted the lore, but the cumulative effect is to produce a figure that is far more sympathetic and relateable than most RPG representations (who don’t see beyonf the Thugee and get most of their information on that from the second Indiana Jones movie). The fourth item is a very brief summary of the way these items were used in-game, from dangling plot hooks through to adventure.