Campaign Mastery

A well-crafted campaign – or video game, novel, TV Show, movie, or short story – is composed of multiple layers acting in harmony and in concert. This is a simple point that is often overlooked, especially by novices or those focusing too intensively on a single medium, and not looking at the wider world around […]

Our special effects gurus get better all the time, and at the same time, their product becomes more affordable with improving technology, making it more ubiquitous in entertainments. I first wrote about the impact of this phenomenon back in 2009, when I asked Are Special Effects Killing Hollywood?, a question which shed a new light […]

I’ve written a number of articles on the subject of Campaign Planning & Structuring which have been very well received, notably (oldest to newest): Back To Basics: Campaign Structures(also contains links to another twelve related earlier articles). Back To Basics: Example: The White Tower Back To Basics: Example: The Belt Of Terra The Echo Of […]

While there are a lot of things the Hero System does well, there are a few things that it does exceedingly poorly, and one of those is the Bluff. This article offers a system to correct that.

I thought that I’d talk a little today about the way Blair and I write adventures for the Adventurer’s Club campaign. Because we share the GMing responsibilities in that campaign – and I don’t mean alternating in the GM’s Chair, I mean we both GM at the same time – this process is necessarily somewhat […]

The death of a player naturally forces a GM to reassess his campaign and plans. But this sort of tragic event is not the only reason why this might become necessary – a player might move away, or might simply tire of the campaign and want to play something else, or might even give up […]

I use scenario/adventure titles all the time. Used correctly, they can put players into the correct frame of mind to react in the “right” way to the events in a scenario, conceal the identity of a villain until or hide a plot twist until the big reveal, heighten the drama of a situation and/or raise […]

So, here it is: a day late, thanks to the Easter long weekend, but better late than never! Normal Service will be restored next week… in the meantime, enjoy. We’re still working our way through what was originally intended to be Part 4 of this series, believe it or not! Part 1 concerned itself with […]

Introduction Let’s talk about the art of naming characters, especially NPCs. This is one of the (thankfully few) aspects of the GMing craft that doesn’t come naturally to me. I can usually get there in the end, but off-the-cuff names can be a real struggle. To deal with this handicap, I have evolved a system […]

From everything I’ve read – starting with early issues of The Dungeon, continuing with “Through Dungeons Deep”, and running all the way through to numerous blog posts – a lot of GMs have trouble connecting the desire to “make the loot part of the plot” with techniques for actually achieving this goal. It’s my impression […]

Recalling the creation of a Divinity We’re continuing to build up to the big release of Assassin’s Amulet, and my excitement is reaching fever pitch (I can’t speak for Johnn & Michael). As part of that buildup, next week I’m going to present you with another excerpt from the book – but before I do, […]

300 and other landmarks This is our 300th post here at Campaign Mastery! Over the last couple of months we’ve seen a number of other landmarks come and go, but this is the biggest of them. While we thought about making a fuss over the others, it just didn’t seem that long ago that we […]