Archive for the ‘D&D 3.x’ Category

On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 1-4

This entry is part 6 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, in public, I’ll either never get it done in time… But First, One more piece of context: In preparing this article, and the series as a whole, it’s suddenly occurred to me that I’ve never explained just why this […]

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Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 5

This entry is part 5 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got a lot of campaign prep to get done. In fact, I’ve got so much to do that if I don’t do it here, I’ll either never get it done in time. But first, I have to paint a picture of the background for this to be useful to the rest of Campaign Mastery’s […]

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The Poetry Of Meaning: 16 words to synopsize a national identity

There are certain words whose literal translation can be considered telling when defining the mindset of a nation or culture. Most of these are identified after the fact, when a scholar matches a literal translation with a key insight into the profile of a particular group, but for roleplaying purposes we can define and redefine as necessary to employ selected terms as key indicators and giveaways to the psychology of a group or race.

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Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 4

This entry is part 4 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got a lot of campaign prep to get done. In fact, I’ve got so much to do that if I don’t do it here, I’ll either never get it done in time. But first, I have to paint a picture of the background for this to be useful to the rest of Campaign Mastery’s […]

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Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 3

This entry is part 3 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got a lot of campaign prep to get done over the next few months. In fact, I’ve got so much to do that if I don’t do it here, in public, I’ll either never get it done in time – or be so distracted that Campaign Mastery will suffer. I’ve chosen to do the […]

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Top-Down Design, Domino Theory, and Iteration: The Magic Bullets of Creation

There are three tricks that I use all the time when designing adventures, characters, races, campaigns, cultures, NPCs and Villainous Plans for RPGs, and for rebooting tired old characters. I call them the magic bullets of design, and I’ve written about most of them several times before – but there is always something new to […]

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Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 2

This entry is part 2 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got a lot of campaign prep to get done over the next few months. In fact, I’ve got so much to do that if I don’t do it here, in public, I’ll either never get it done in time – or be so distracted that Campaign Mastery will suffer. I’ve chosen to do the […]

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Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 1

This entry is part 1 of 31 in the series Orcs & Elves

I’ve got a lot of campaign prep to get done over the next few months. In fact, I’ve got so much to do that if I don’t do it here, in public, I’ll either never get it done in time – or be so distracted that Campaign Mastery will suffer. I’ve chosen the former course… […]

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Theology In Fumanor: The collapse of Infinite No-Space-No-Time and other tales of existence

In Deus Ex Machinas And The Plot Implications Of Divinity I talked about the relationship between divine beings and a campaign’s structure and narrative, and how a big-picture perspective on the role divine power plays within a campaign can make or break the plausibility of the campaign. At the end of that article, I suggested […]

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The Longex Dextora (The Hinterlands)

This entry is part 7 of 7 in the series On Alien Languages

Having given Campaign Mastery’s readers (and myself) a break from the series, today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign, once again in more detail than even the players have seen it before… Metagame Origins A ‘Hinterland’ is technically a region behind a coast or rivers, i.e. separated from the main […]

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The Ineodolus Imperascora (The Traders And Commerce Empire)

This entry is part 6 of 7 in the series On Alien Languages

Today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign. This one isn’t quite as developed as the others (but the last time I said that, I wrote 11300 words and it became one of the most developed of the Kingdoms. I don’t expect history to repeat itself, but you never know…. Postscript: […]

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Therassus Amora, The Centre Of Attraction

This entry is part 5 of 7 in the series On Alien Languages

Today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign. So far, these have appeared in exactly the same order as they were presented to my players in the initial pre-campaign briefing notes apon which these articles are being based. With this part, that changes; the next item on the agenda, if that […]

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