Campaign Mastery

This page contains a list of the hand-curated best articles at Campaign Mastery, 2008-2015.

The Best Of 2008-2009

• A Quality Of Spirit – Big Questions in RPGs
• Guilds, Organisations, and other Bad Company
• Distilled Cultural Essence [Series]
• Ask The GMs: Networks Of NPCs
• Ask The GMs: Weather, Not Climate
• Ask The GMs: Pacing Your Campaign
• Lore Enforcement: The Legal System in an RPG
• ‘There Is A Hole In Your Mind…’: Solving Mental Block
• Shadow Levels: A way to roleplay the acquisition of Prestige Classes in D&D 3.x
• Two related articles in combination – Ask The GMs: An Epic Confusion, or how to stage a blockbuster finish, and A Grand Conclusion: Thinking about a big finish
• Broadening Magical Horizons: Some Feats from Fumanor and Shards Of Divinity
• The Nimble Mind: Making Skills Matter in RPGs
• Ask The GMs: Going Beyond The Rules
• Ask The GMs: “Let’s Split Up.” – “Good Idea, we can do more damage that way!”
• Legendary Achievements: Colouring Your Campaign with Anecdote and Legend
• The Perils Of Prophecy: Avoiding the Plot Locomotive
• Revealing the Exotic

The Best Of 2010

• Downsize Your Disasters: GMing catastrophes in your RPG
• Relatively Uncertain: Taking Control of Game Physics
• The Characterization Puzzle [Series]
• Ask The GMs: Penetrating the veil of mystery
• The Pursuit Of Perfection Sub-series (Parts 1 to 5 of the Lessons From The West Wing series)
• Ask The GMs: How do you GM Player Characters as Spectators?
• With An Evil Gleam: Giving Treasure a Personality
• Sophisticated Links: Degrees Of Separation in RPGs
• How To Be A Confident GM, Part 1 and Part 2
• Time Travel in RPGs [Series]
• Ask The GMs: Rubbing Two Dry Words Together
• A Monkey Wrench In The Deus-Ex-Machina: Limiting Divine Power
• Action Trumps Description
• Ask The GMs: How to survive political games with paranoia and intrigue
• The Anatomy Of Evil: What Makes a Good Villain?
• “How Hard Can It Be?” – Skill Checks under the microscope
• Examining Psionics [Series]
• 6 Ways to Enhance Magic Items
• 40 Great Name Resources, Lists and Generators
• The Ubercharacter Wimp: Plotting within your PCs limitations

The Best Of 2011

• Lessons From The West Wing III: Time Happens In The Background
• City & Government Power Bases [Series]
• Reinventing Pulp For Roleplaying [Series]
• Experience for the ordinary person
• The Nth Level Of Abstraction
• Taming The Time Bandits: Some time-saving combat techniques
• Directed Plots, Undirected Narrative, and Stuff That Just Happens
• The GM’s Toolbox [Series]
• Creating Alien Characters: Expanding the ‘Create A Character Clinic’ To Non-Humans
• Missing In Action: Maintaining a campaign in the face of player absence
• Objective-Oriented Experience Points
• A potpourri of quick solutions: Eight Lifeboats for GM Emergencies
• By The Seat Of Your Pants: Adventures On the Fly
• By The Seat Of Your Pants: Six Foundations Of Adventure
• Fascinating Topological Limits: FTL in Gaming
• Forging Unexpected Connections: Putting PC Dossiers To Work
• Theme vs Style vs Genre: Crafting Anniversary Special Adventures
• Making The Loot Part Of The Plot: Loot as a plot mechanic
• Loot As Part Of The Plot: Making, Earning, Finding, Analyzing, Using, Selling, and Destroying Loot
• Making The Loot Part Of The Plot: The Value Of Magic
• Gaming With The Family – Lessons from yesteryear
• Back To Basics Part 1: Adventure Structures
• Back To Basics: Campaign Structures
• Pieces Of Creation: The Hidden Truth Of Dopplegangers
• Taking everyman skills to the next level: The Absence of an Alibi
• The Nuances of computer use in a simulated world

The Best Of 2012

• The Foundation Of Averages: Psychohistory and RPG Rules
• A Twist in Time: Alternate Histories in RPGs
• A Good Name Is Hard To Find [Series]
• Big Changes For The Little Guy: How to go from Premise to Campaign
• Living in an RPG: The Accumulation Of Mundane Events
• Look beyond the box: a looser concept for NPCs
• Theologies at 30 paces: The Hell of Evil in D&D
• The Butler Did It: Mystery Plotlines in RPGs
• By the seat of your pants: the 3 minute (or less) NPC
• A two-part article: Value for money and the pricing of RPG materials – Part 1 of 2 and Part 2 of 2
• By The Seat Of Your Pants: Using Ad-hoc statistics
• Ensemble or Star Vehicle – Which is Your RPG Campaign?
• Adventure Structure: My Standard Formatting
• Another two-part article: Been There, Done That, Doing It Again – The Sequel Campaign Part One of Two: Campaign Seeds and Part Two of Two: Sprouts and Saplings
• The Acceptable Favoritism: 34 ‘Rules’ to make your players’ PCs their favorites
• What do you give the Gamer who has everything?
• Making a Great Villain [Series]

The 2012 Honorable Mentions

• The Echo Of Events To Come: foreshadowing in a campaign structure
• Exceeding the Extraordinary: The Meaning Of Feats
• One word at a time: How I (usually) write a Blog Post
• Go Hard Or Go Home: Graceful Character Aging
• May the camels of 1,000 fleas – wait, that’s not right: Improving Curses in 3.x
• All Wounds Are Not Alike [series]
• The Physics Of Uncertainty
• Turning Reaction into Proaction – plotting techniques to get your players moving
• On Alien Languages [Series]
• Good Storytelling Technique Or Bad? – Chekhov’s Gun and RPGs
• What matters to your character: the value of the shameful secret
• The Arcane Implications of Seating at the Game Table

The Best Of 2013

• Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series parts 1-5 [Series]
• Top-Down Design, Domino Theory, and Iteration: The Magic Bullets of Creation
• Game Prep and the +N to Game Longevity
• The poetry of meaning: 16 words to synopsize a national identity
• Creating ecology-based random encounters [Series]
• Refloating The Shipwreck: When Players Make A Mistake
• Amazon Nazis On The Moon: Campaign Planning Revisited
• Creating The World Of Tomorrow: Putting the SF into Sci-Fi [Series]
• The Seven Strata Of Story
• Breaking Through Writer’s Block [Series]
• The Poetry Of Place: Describing locations & scenes in RPGs
• Location, Location, Location! – the Roundup and Wrap-up (for now) [Blog Carnival] –
  • Location, Location, Location: How Do You Choose A Location?
  • 52+ Miniature Miracles: Taking Battlemaps The Extra Mile
  • People, Places, & Narratives: Matching Locations to plot needs
  • Adjectivizing Descriptions: Hitting The Target
  • Big Is Not Enough: Monuments and Places Of Wonder
  • Six Wonders: A selected assortment of Wondrous Locations for a fantasy RPGs
  • Five More Wonders: Another assortment of locations for a fantasy RPGs
  • Still More Wonders: Fifteen Amazing Locations for a Sci-Fi RPG
• Trivial Pursuits: Sources of oddball ideas
• Quantum Distractions With Dice: Types of Sci-Fi Campaign
• The Bargain Arcane: Selling Magic Items
• Taking Care Of Business: The Corporia Kickstarter Campaign
• A folder for every file: My Document Organization for RPGs
• Gaming In A Crowd: Some Advice
• Fire Fighting, Systems Analysis, and RPG Problem Solving [Series]
• The Scariest Villain
• Leaving Things Out: Negative Space in RPGs
• The compounded interruption of basic services
• Lessons from the Discworld of Terry Pratchett
• A Blogdex Celebration: Campaign Mastery’s (official) 500th post!

The Best Of 2014, Part 1:

• The Application Of Time and Motion to RPG Game Mechanics
• Growing Plot Seeds Into Mighty Oaks
• 3 Feet In Someone Else’s Shoes: Getting in character quickly
• Creating Partial NPCs To Speed Game Prep
• Vampire’s Creep and other stories: Working With Places
• Quantum Entanglement and the Tech of Tomorrow
• I See It But I Don’t Believe It – Convincingly Unconvincing in RPGs
• The Envelope Is Ticking: Insanity In RPGs
• Brick By Brick: Base Rules Made Easy
• Swell And Lull – Emotional Pacing in RPGs Part 1 and Part 2
• Inversions Attract: Another Quick NPC Generator
• The Blind Enforcer: The Reflex Application Of Rules
• The Premise Of Falsehoods – Luck Vs Skill in RPGs
• Stream Of Consciousness: Image-based narrative
• Domino Theory: The Perils and Practicalities
• The Hierarchy Of Receipt: How and when to lie to your players
• The Fields Of Magic
• The Personal Computer analogy and some Truths about House Rules
• The Pillars Of Assumption: A Source of Plot Ideas
• Dream A Little Dream – using Dreams in RPGs
• Ergonomics and the Non-humans
• Ask The GMs: My table runneth over (too many players)

The 2014 Honorable Mentions (part 1)

• Ask The GMs: The Passage Of Substantial Time
• The Loss Of Innocence: Some unexpected insights
• Strangers sharing ideas: RPG writings in a Collaborative World
• Ten Million Stories: Breathing life into an urban population
• Writing to the limits of longevity
• Ethics For Sale? – The Role of Native Advertising
• By Popular Demand: The Ergonomics Of Dwarves
• Prodigious Performances Provided In Due Course
• It’s Not ‘Just A Game’: The legacies we leave

The Best Of 2014, Part 2:

• The Flunkie Equation – quick and easy Hors d’Combat
• Stormy Weather – making unpleasant conditions player-palatable
• Shades Of Suspense Pt 1 – Eight Tips for Cliffhanger Finishes
• Shades Of Suspense Pt 2 – Fourteen Types of Cliffhanger Finishes
• Thatch and Confusion – creating a village
• The Expert In Everything?
• The Wandering Spotlight Part One of Two: Plot Prologues
• The Wandering Spotlight Part Two of Two: Shared Stories
• The Secrets of Stylish Narrative [series]:
  • Polished Loquacity; Part 1
  • Bullet To The Point: Part 2
  • Words, Like Raindrops, Fall: Part 3
  • The Impact Of Polished Text: Part 4
  • Pearls Of Spontaneous Prose: Part 5
  • The Keys to the Kingdom Of Literacy: Part 6
• Memorials To History – an ‘a good name’ extra
• There’s Something About Undead
• Ask The GM: Seasoning The Stew (making races feel distinctive)
• Layers Of Mis-translation: RPGs and Dubbed TV
• “I know what’s happening!” – Confirmation Bias and RPGs
• Alien In Innovation: Creating Original Non-human Species
• The Unexpected Creeps Up Behind You – Dec 2014 Blog Carnival
• Pretzel Thinking – 11 types of Plot Twist for RPGs, Part 1
• Let’s Twist Again – Eleven types of Plot Twist for RPGs pt 2
• Ask The GMs: Buzz and Background
• The Thinking Man’s Guide to Intelligence for Players and GMs
• Seven Circles Of Hell – Creating Politics for an RPG
• A Population Of Dinosaurs and the impact on RPG ecologies
• An Experimental Failure – 10 lessons from a train-wreck Session
• Race To The Moon – a lesson in story structure
• Studs, Buttons, and Static Cling: Creating consistent non-human tech
• Flavors Of Victory: Why do good GMs fail?
• Pieces of Ordinary Randomness: Random Techniques Of Chance
• Gifts In Gaming: Overlooked Seasonal Plot Hooks

The 2014 Honorable Mentions (part 2)

• Touchstones Of Unification [series]:
  • Pt 1 – Themes
  • Pt 2 – Concepts
  • Pt 3 – The Big Picture (Genre and Style)
• A tabula rasa – focusing the mind before writing
• ‘I Can Do That’ – Everyman Skills For Pulp
• On the binding of Wounds – Everyday Healing For Pulp
• Dr Who and the secrets of complex characterization
• Tourism in Sleepland: Sleep management for GMs & other creative people
• There’s Something About Christmas

The Very Best Of Jan-April 2015

• The Final Twist: Dec 2014 Blog Carnival Roundup
• Random Encounter Tables – my old-school way
• The One Player Is Enough series
• The New Beginnings series
• The End Of The Adventure
• Ask-The-GMs: The ‘Some Arcane Assembly Required’ Series
• The Gradated Diminishing Of Reality – Travel in FRPG
• Stride The Earth in 7-league boots: Travel (and Maps) in FRPG Pt 2
• Always Something There To Surprise You – Plots as Antagonists
• Stealth Narrative – Imputed info in your game
• Principle, Cause, and Course – Complexities In Motivation
• Disease and Despair – the healing-resistant nightmare

The Honorable Mentions Jan-April 2015

• Incredible Truth and Improbable Stories: Oratory in an RPG
• 3-D Battlemaps for the financially challenged – Updated & Enhanced
• Inn Through The Side Door – Reinvigorating the cliché
• Shadows In The Darkness – The nature of True Evil
• A Legacy Of War: The Founding Of National Identities

The Very Best Of 2015 May-August

• Taking advantage of the sensory heirarchy
• The Further Thoughts On Pacing series
• Overprotective Tendencies: Handling Player Risk Aversion
• The Plunging Into Game Physics series
• A Vague Beginning
• A Helping Handout
• The Cinematic Combat series
• Traditional Interpretations and Rituals Of Culture
• Imperfect Imbalance – Personal Injury Law in RPGs
• A target of inefficiency: from Dystopian trends to Utopia
• The Basics For Beginners (and the over-experienced) series
• The Care and Feeding Of Vehicles In RPGs 1: A 2-part guest article
• The Care and Feeding Of Vehicles In RPGs 2: A 2-part guest article

The Honorable Mentions: 2015 Part 2: May-August

• Fogs, Clouds and Confusion: A Battlemap technique
• Ask The GMs: On Big Dungeons
• The Power Of The Question-mark in RPG Plotting
• Tales from the front line: The Initiative Conflict

The Very Best Of 2016 Jan-Apr

• Creating A Building: A Metaphor and Illustration
• Pieces of Creation: Énorme Force
• The Rolling Retcon: how much campaign history is fixed?
• Ask The GMs: Building on opportunity
• Pieces of Creation: Mictlan-tecuhtli
• Ask The GMs: Iceberg Plotlines: Massive Plot Arcs in RPGs
• TCCT and N: Excessive Wealth in D&D
• A Hole In Your Past: Character Connections With Yesterday
• Support Your Local Hero
• Character Capabilities: An often-forgotten source of plots
• Character Incapability: The distant side of the coin
• Boogie to the tune of the hidden Mastermind in your ranks
• Pickin’ and Choosin’: Cherry-picking RPG Elements
• Choosing A Name: A “Good Names” Extra (Revised & Extended)
• The Perils Of Players Knowing Too Much
• Small Motives and Personal Activities
• The Beginnings Of Plot
• Who Owns Your Campaign?
• An Amazing Ancestry

The Honorable Mentions: 2016 Part 1: Jan-Apr

• Pieces Of Creation: Maxima and Minima
• Bidding For Characters (and related metagame alternatives)
• Definitions and the Quest For Meaning in Structure
• Use The Force, Fluke: Who’s On First This Time?
• Finding Your Way: Unlocking the secrets of Google Image Search
• The Incremental Art Of Escalation
• The Gilligan Tools for better characterization

  
 
More to come…