Campaign Mastery

Information Dumps, better known as Infodumps, are a necessary evil in every RPG from time to time. Creating and delivering one is a little like trying to feed vegetables to a child – you get the occasional good experience but it’s more often an uphill struggle. I describe them as a necessary evil because they […]

Few campaigns make any attempt to match real-time with game-time, and mine certainly don’t. I’m quite capable of hand-waving days, weeks, or even months of time if nothing of interest is happening. I’m equally capable of spreading a single game-day over 3 or 4 game sessions if there’s a lot going on. And I don’t […]

The other week, while hard at work on the Long Road trilogy of articles, I received an alert about a vulnerability in a plug-in and what to do about it. Nothing unusual about that, it happens regularly. I gave the message a quick scan, and double-checked that the affected software wasn’t in use at Campaign […]

This is the third, longest (53,566 words!), and final part of my review / demonstration of the “Tangled Web” campaign sub-structure. I’m going to presume that you’ve already read part two, which you can find at this link and dive straight in right where I left off. And, if you haven’t gotten in on the […]

Why are dystopian settings so popular? Is that a good thing? What are the consequences and what are the alternatives? Another relatively short post this week (in theory, if all goes according to plan), because this approach worked so well for me last week – I had time to get more than 16000 words of […]

WARNING: At around 35000 words, this is certainly one of the longest posts here at Campaign Mastery! Settle in for a long and sometimes-bumpy ride, folks… This is part two of my review / demonstration of the “Tangled Web” campaign sub-structure. I’m going to presume that you’ve already read part one, which you can find […]

Today I’m going to attempt to make the world’s most boring subject – How I Manage My Money – sexy. No, that’s going too far. I’ll settle for interesting. That might be asking too much, too – but there is RPG Relevance to the subject. The goal will be to not make it boring, and […]

This article started out as a way to save time and at the same time present some tips and tricks that often get overlooked in my scramble to get material ready for publication here. It was also intended (originally) to be part of last week’s 1000th-post celebration – so there are certain themes that will […]

1000 posts: a personal milestone So. 1000 posts. Four figures. That’s no small achievement. It’s something to be proud of. I’ve been casting about for suggestions on how to commemorate this milestone for the last few months, but the few suggestions I’ve received haven’t really been all that helpful – “Something reflective”, “Something forward-looking”, “Something […]

The Unexpected Microcosm A department store is a near perfect-simulation of, well, just about everything, really. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration – but much less so than most people realize. This article will seek to simultaniously demonstrate the truth of the general statement and show readers how to use the microcosm of the Department Store […]

A shorter article today (by CM standards), but one with a lot of impact to offer. The head of the ruined statue lay on its side, half-buried in soil and vegetation. Three meters from crown to chin, the sculpture of which it was originally a part must have been enormous. The left side of the […]

The adventurers are moving over rugged grasslands punctuated here and there by the leaves of a wild melon. One of the PCs has been gathering these as they traveled to add a touch of flavor to the goat’s meat purchased in the last town, which has the flavor and consistency of stringy bark, in his […]