Campaign Mastery

Still Twisting… Campaign Mastery is hosting this month’s Blog Carnival. The subject I’ve chosen is “With A Twist” and anything about Surprises, the Unexpected, Plot Twists, etc, is right on topic. I started with an article on the rules interpretation of Surprise, and followed that with a two-part article looking at types of Plot Twist […]

I originally came up with this as an adventure outline for the Adventurer’s Club campaign, but it quickly became far too big and too complicated for that. Rather than throw it away, I have recast it as the outline of a standalone Pulp Campaign. The overall premise is The PCs time travel into the bodies […]

This month’s Blog Carnival is hosted by my buddy (and ex-partner here at Campaign Mastery) over at Roleplaying tips. The subject is Races and Species and everything that goes with these concepts. This is the first of two articles I have planned and written for the Carnival. How do you create an original alien species? […]

Today’s question comes from all the way back in June 2010 – I’m sorry it’s taken so long to answer it! The question comes from Brett, who wrote: “I am an extremely new DM, but I have played for 7 years now. I am looking to put my players in conflict with Drow. At one […]

When you’re designing a battle for an FRP adventure, how do you make it different from every such battle that you’ve had in the past? How do you make it more interesting than a mere dice-rolling exercise? It’s even more difficult than it sounds. I have a novel solution to offer to these problems, but […]

Halloween, things that go bump in the night, and all things spooky, creepy, scary, or just plain haunted. This month’s Blog Carnival, hosted by Scot Newbury at of Dice and Dragons is devoted to the subject… and this is Campaign Mastery’s contribution. BWAH-HA-HA-HAAA… I’ve got a problem with Undead, and I think it’s one that […]

I love a great location, and one of my favorite settings is an abandoned island. There are lots of reasons for this. Here’s just a few: They contain great visual elements, even when described in narrative. Decay and Ruin can be used symbolically to represent almost any situation in a game. And there’s always overgrowth […]

I come up with more ideas than I can ever use. Until I co-founded Campaign Mastery, I simply threw away the excess that I couldn’t use; since CM came along, it’s been my practice to give these away for free to the readers here. Yesterday, I woke up with a complete campaign outline in my […]

How many types of dinosaurs were there? And how can a theoretical examination of the question be applied to RPG games? This is going to be one of the more unusual posts here at Campaign Mastery. For a start, it’s full of maths, and for another it’s about real science (at least at first). But […]

For those who came in late: Cliffhangers are a wonderful way to end a gaming session. Ending play at a moment of high drama leaves players anxious to get back to the gaming table, and makes a gaming session memorable. They serve as milestones within the adventure. In Part 1, I listed eight general tips […]

I was half-listening to the commentary from the Tour De France a few moments ago (as I write the first draft of this opening paragraph), and I misheard something. No great surprise there, that happens all the time when you’re only half-listening. But what I thought I heard gave me a great idea for a […]

A review of One Spot No. 3 from Moebius Adventures and some musings on a consequence of the rise of crowdfunding.