Campaign Mastery

If you’ve been following this series from the beginning, then you are now equipped with three new techniques for character development, all of which are useful when for some reason you’re struggling to find an idea. So how do you choose between them? I can’t answer that for you. It might be that one of […]

New techniques for getting under a character’s skin don’t come along every day; the techniques described earlier in this series have been my standard weapons for such tasks for the last two decades. So, when I thought of an original one earlier this year, I paid attention. This new technique is, in many ways, even […]

The second technique of character development that I call apon when stumped for ideas is something that I call The Inversion Principle. Some parts of this I had worked out many years ago, but it was when I read an interview with John deLancie (“Q” in Star Trek The Next Generation) that the final pieces […]

Why are mysteries so hard? Campaign Mastery was asked, I’m making a Hero System 5.5 campaign for some of my friends. I wanted to do a non-power game that was mystery based. First session went off fine, and I had some good hooks and an o.k. story. Now I find myself looking to plan another […]

This is technique number 1 for getting inside your character’s heads. It’s something I was taught in a Graphic Design course that I completed back in 1992 – so here we are 18 years later, and it’s still fresh in memory. That speaks volumes of its usefulness! Step 1: Prep Get a couple of pencils […]

I often come up with ideas for new campaigns. Some of these are rubbish and discarded almost immediatly; some get saved, stored up for when I might need them; but most often they just get thrown away because I have no hope of ever using the idea. One such concept came to me recently, and […]

We all have problems with our imaginations freezing up on us every now and again. While there are a number of things that you can do to kick-start your creativity when this happens, I have always found that it’s a good idea to have a stockpile of ideas that can be developed as needed for […]

The following ideas could be used for player characters stuck on a PC background and purpose. Game masters could also use them for interesting NPC wizard hooks. If you have any ideas for more hooks, just comment below, maybe we’ll get to 100. Master’s experiment goes wrong, transforming the PC and cursing the master. PC […]

Prophecies and prophetic visions are a staple of just about every game genre (even in Western Campaigns, the Indian Medicine Men might have them). GMs like using prophecies for a number of reasons: They impart a sense of wonder to the campaign They confer the impression of a wider universe around the PCs They show […]

I know I’ve written about this before (An Epic Confusion, Or How To Stage A Blockbuster Finish), but I’ve been thinking some more about big finishes to campaigns, prompted by the fact that my superhero campaign is currently in what I hope turns out to be an epic conclusion. As I developed this final scenario, […]

In part one of this series, we presented a guest article by Garry Stahl, “The Conundrum Of Alignment”. Part two discussed the justification for alignment being part of the rules, looked at the arguement against oversimplified moral arguements, and concluded that the real problem with alignment was misuse attributable to the judgemental and morally-extremist labels […]

This post is the end of a long road! It started with a guest article by Garry Stahl, “The Conundrum Of Alignment”. Parts two and three highlighted what I believe to be the causes of the problems Garry identified, and provided an alternative perspective on Alignment that turned it into one of the most useful […]