Campaign Mastery

This post details a more tactical combat system for D&D and similar rules systems than the standard one. At the heart of the system lies not d20 or 3d6, but a standard deck of 52 cards. The core concept of the mechanism came to me when I was shuffling cards for a game of patience […]

Today’s article is sci-fi in orientation but fantasy GMs should stick around, there’s stuff for you too before I’m done. In a similar way, this is all about “world” design, but the techniques can be applied elsewhere, for example, adventure creation. So Buckle Up, we’re about to take a wild ride together. Theory / Concept […]

It seems natural to me to follow an article about campaign structures with one about adventure structures. So that’s what I’m going to do. Furthermore, since the campaign structures addressed were specifically about Sandboxed campaigns, so will be this Adventure Structures post – though it can easily have relevance beyond those limits, that’s just a […]

Today, I get to focus on one of my favorite subjects, campaign structure! There are lots of choices out there, but today I’m going to focus on one that I don’t use all that often, the improv sandbox. This article was prompted by something I saw on the screenwriter’s blog that I linked to an […]

Introduction This wasn’t intended to be a separate post at all; it is the second half of the response to a guest article published back in March, before the unwanted disruption of my life caused by relocating to a new apartment (I’m still unpacking!) Rather than repeat a lot of material from Part II, I […]

I love it when I discover something that GMs should be using and aren’t, because it means that I get to analyze the reasons, and devise solutions to whatever is holding people back – and I learn things and develop tools for my own use in the process. By my count that’s win-win-win-win – and […]

One of the newsletters to which I subscribe offers advice for scriptwriters (“The Story Guy Newsletter”). Occasionally, there’s a nugget that can be adapted to service a TTRPG, it’s well-written, and not too long to read (having said that, I’m about 4 behind). One post that dropped shortly before or just after I moved talked […]

The break / disruption caused by my forced migration has been longer than expected, but at long last I’m back, with a reasonable expectation of being able to resume posting regularly. That disruption hasn’t quite run it’s course, so there may be one or two late / missed posts still to come, but it’s a […]

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 […]

Although I have outlined this post in the usual manner, something about the structure doesn’t feel quite right, as though at some point, my narrative is going to zig when my plan calls for it to zag. If there appears to be the occasional discontinuity in the discussion, that’s what’s caused it. No AI.-generated content […]

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 […]

Preamble Revisit: A long time ago, I rewrote some fairly fundamental parts of Orrorsh, the Horror Realm. While packing, I discovered where it had been filed away. This is not a complete standalone work; you will still need the official supplement to use it. Why, then, should I read it? The reasons are the same […]