Campaign Mastery

It’s still not certain which game system will be used for the Zener Gate campaign, but discussion with one of the players clarified many of the concepts of the original game system that was forming in the back of my mind as an option. As I thought the process and ideas might be of interest […]

I’ve seen all sorts of ways to ignite your creativity, nudging your mental capacities into a completely different orbit to their usual. I’ve even offered a few, myself, here at Campaign Mastery, that work best when you have some idea of what it is that you’re trying to create. They don’t work that well, however, […]

“He skulked down the alleyway, blending into the shadows and taking care to avoid the occasional patche of loose cobblestones…”   Sounds good, doesn’t it. Sounds literary, the way you would read – or write – it in a novel or short story. Let’s translate that into typical Game dialogue, and see how well it […]

“Lessons From The West Wing” is a series of occasional articles inspired by the Television Series. I have several of these tucked away in development, and every now and then, prompted by watching the series for the umpteenth time or by relevant world events, I will dust one off and put it out there. I […]

This is being written a little under the deadline pump; I’m still playing catch-up from my week away at the Family Reunion / 40th Birthday party for my nephew. So it may not quite live up to my usual standards, but I’ll do my best. Actually, I’m cheating for a lot of this article, which […]

The Story Of Prohibition When Prohibition became law in the US in 1920, it was expected that, albeit reluctantly, the citizenry would simply obey. This was no mere law, after all; it was an Amendment to the Constitution, the very document that defined the United States as a nation, and hence an attempt to willfully […]

In part 1, I identified AERO, four roles that the majority of significant NPCs occupy in most adventures or encounters: Ally Enemy Resource, and Opportunist …and then considered the combinations, demonstrating how rich the in-game plot functions of characters became when one of these roles adopted one of the other roles as a secondary function. […]

Most NPCs occupy one of four niches in terms of their impact within an adventure or an encounter: Ally, Enemy, Resource, and Opportunist. I use AERO as a mnemonic to remind me of them. The four roles These four roles define, in broad parameters, how an NPC will interact with the PCs and how that […]

Have you ever tried to run a prison-break scenario? Was it as successful as you would have hoped? I’m betting that most readers will have answered “no” to the first question and that virtually everyone else will have answered “no” to the second. There’s good reason for this state of pessimism: no matter how essential […]

I’ve read a lot of RPG content and advice over the years, much of it D&D related. I’ve contributed my fair share to that total, it must be admitted. Every D&D supplement (that’s not explicitly a collection of monsters) contains new magic items. Websites and magazines abound in them. AD&D creatures, at least came with […]

Character skills can be divided into three categories (with some overlapping): skills that enhance the character’s ability to survive/succeed in adventures; skills that the character archetype is expected/required to have; and the oddballs from left field, which I refer to as Characterization Skills. The last category also includes anything from the first two categories that […]

Readers may have noticed that the last couple of posts have been unusually short and to the point, instead of the usual depth that is the hallmark here at Campaign Mastery. There’s a couple of reasons for that. First, I have a family function coming up in June and won’t be around to write my […]