Archive for the ‘Game Mastering’ Category

Fuzzy Plastic Memories I, A Guest Article

Introduction In the recent article on the challenges facing Generative AI and how they can be overcome, I listed a number of Quora contributors whose work I will always read. One of them is Franklin Veaux. Today I am presenting one of his Quora answers in full, with his permission. I was going to follow […]

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The Value Of Material Things V

This entry is part 7 in the series The Value Of Material Things

Welcome …to the latest installment of the “Value Of Material Things” series. Today’s article will focus on Pottery & Ceramics, and Peridot, with room for a sideline along the way if anything crops up. Although Jade and Ivory are also laid out and ready to write, I lost a lot of time over the last […]

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Living Hard: Disabled in RPGs

I get asked every now and then how I’m doing, same as everyone else, but there’s a difference since I am officially disabled. I’ve always resisted talking about my physical condition and medical problems in any depth here are Campaign Mastery, though I relented a little in Dice & Life: pt 2. But recently I […]

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The Value Of Material Things IV

This entry is part 6 in the series The Value Of Material Things

Welcome …to the latest installment of the “Value Of Material Things” series. Today’s article will focus on Tesserae (Mosaic Tiles), Silk, and Moonstones. It’s sure to have been deduced, I think, that much of the content of this series is being driven by game prep, and that means that I can simply collate my notes […]

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The Import of the Color of Neckties

Writing and uploading this in advance in hopes of forestalling any disruption. It’s been a while since I did something on characterization; the last such was Four Roads To Characterization, back in late 2022. Hopefully this is a worthy extension of the subject. While packing recently, I discovered first-hand something that I already knew, deep […]

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The Mists Of Fear Orrorsh Revisited 1

This entry is part 2 in the series Extracts from Mike's TORG Materials

Preamble: A long time ago, I rewrote some fairly fundamental parts of Orrorsh, the Horror Realm, for reasons explained in the text below. While packing, I discovered where it had been filed away (hidden?). This is not a complete standalone work; you will still need the official supplement. Why, then, should I read it? First, […]

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All about Frames – Merry Christmas!

This entry is part 5 in the series The Value Of Material Things

Christmas Day falls on a Monday this year – today, in fact! – and so I’m preparing this in advance, in effect doing on Sunday what I would normally do Monday, which means doing on Saturday what I would normally do Sunday, and so on. AND posting a day early as a Christmas Bonus to […]

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The Value Of Material Things III

This entry is part 4 in the series The Value Of Material Things

News From the Rear-view Mirror: I’m usually pretty good at noticing anniversaries and milestones, but I have to admit to missing one. Back in August, officially, I posted CM’s 1250th article or part-article, Holistic NPCs: Creating Special Characters, which gave a process for finding consequences and ramifications of character elements that would feed back into […]

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Three Strange Places Pt 3: Azuria

0. Introduction Even if the main subject matter doesn’t interest you, or doesn’t fit the genre of your campaign, there’s still content of value for you within the article – look for the sidebars, they contain useful tools, techniques, and fascinating side-issues, and apply to D&D / Pathfinder / Cthulhu / Pirate / Western games […]

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The Value Of Material Things IIa

This entry is part 3 in the series The Value Of Material Things

First, A Correction (and some expansion) I wasn’t going to be talking about this stuff today. I’ve done almost half of the third “Strange Places” article, and that was my intended post of the week. But…. When I calculated how much a Gold Dime would weigh last week, I uses diameter instead of radius. This […]

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Asset Valuation Worksheet 2.0

This entry is part 1 in the series The Value Of Material Things

How much would this be worth if it were discovered in the American backwoods today? How much more if it had been found in the early 1700s, when no-one really knew the ancient Egyptian “style”?Image by Artie_Navarre from Pixabay                     Two weeks ago, in the then-final […]

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Economics In RPGs 9: In-Game Economics

This entry is part 16 in the series Economics In RPGs

A word of advice: Each part of the series builds heavily on the content from the previous one. While you may be able to get relevant information without doing so, to get the most of out of each, you should have read the preceding article. In this case, though, that “previous part” is actually the […]

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