Campaign Mastery

How do you create a campaign that gives the players absolute freedom but still leaves the GM in control? Recently, Campaign Mastery was asked, Is it possible to create a truly player-choice driven campaign (within reason)? I’m trying to create a campaign that’s anywhere from 75 – 90% roleplaying (there will be dice, but not […]

Some GMs read nothing but official gaming product. Others expand their horizons to include Game Supplements from other sources, both officially-sanctioned and homebrew. A few go further, and seek out genre-related works and referances from which they can seek out inspiration and detail. Very few are what I would describe as “Literary GMs”, who read […]

Some mistakes you (hopefully) only make once; the mistakes that I’ve blogged about so far as part of this month’s carnival fall into that category. But some mistakes are bound to recur by their nature, and it is just as important to know how to recover from those. These mistakes might derive from a flawed […]

There came a time when I had to move out of the city (where my players were), and back to the small town in which I had grown up, for financial reasons. That would spell the end of most campaigns, but I had willing players and exceptional determination. I would write a scenario each week […]

How do you extrapolate from existing rules to cover new situations? Recently, Campaign Mastery was asked, If a giant has rapid shot can he throw 2 rocks in a full round action? (d&d 3.5) This sparked some debate over whether Campaign Mastery should answer rules questions of this sort; we aim to deal with big-picture […]

Some expectations are made to be confounded if it’s at all possible. If someone expects a dull and boring campaign, that’s one you don’t want to live up to. If someone expects to get favourable treatment because you owe them money, I’m happy to dissapoint them – and to repay the debt as soon as […]

How can a campaign last for decades, and what does such longevity imply? A question recently asked us, I remember Mike mentioning his decades-long superhero game a few times, and am currently planning my next campaign, so I was just wondering how y’all can extend a game so far. Even if the players are still […]

As you should know by now if you’re a regular visitor here – and with 2 new articles every week, why aren’t you, if you’re not!? – this month’s blog carnival is on the subject of mistakes, how you recover from them, and what lessons you’ve learnt for the future. I made a couple of […]

We all make mistakes. Some are trivial – I mean, who really cares in the long run if that critter did d6+1 damage and not d6+2? But I’m talking about bigger mistakes, the kind that matter. I’ve got five of them, and as part of this month’s blog carnival, which we at Campaign Mastery are […]

Mistakes – ones you’ve made in the past and how you got past them, one’s you’re making now and don’t know how to solve. That’s the theme for this month’s RPG Blog Carnival. I remember reading some great advice awhile ago: it’s ok to make a lot of mistakes as long as you don’t make […]

This month’s RPG Carnival is about RPG conventions. GMing at cons is a fine art. It’s high pressure chaos that includes a lot more table and environment management than your typical home game. Add in a group of total strangers as players with unknown skills and game knowledge, and you have a recipe for an […]

I recently had the need to design a Drow Outpost for my Shards Of Divinity campaign, and in the process, I made a few mental notes concerning how I go about designing cities, and population centres in general, that I thought I would share with our readers. Design First, Draw Later I don’t put pencil […]