Archive for the ‘Mike’ Category

All About The Plugins: A campaign creation metaphor

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 […]

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A Long Road – Zenith-3 Notes for all Pt 3

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Zenith-3 synopsis & notes

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 […]

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The Ubiquity of Dystopia

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 […]

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Layering Depth Into Encounters

A relatively short and focused article today, designed to give me the maximum running room to get the final part of the ongoing Long Road series out the door. Adding Layers To Encounters Imagine that the PCs are in the middle of a fight, battling a non-sentient creature. It’s been a knock-down drag-out affair that […]

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A Long Road – Zenith-3 Notes for all Pt 2

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Zenith-3 synopsis & notes

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 […]

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Budgeting For GMs (and others)

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 […]

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A Long Road – Zenith-3 Notes for all Pt 1

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Zenith-3 synopsis & notes

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 […]

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25 Campaign Milestones and their impact

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 […]

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Old Words, New Directions

999! This is my 999th post at Campaign Mastery! Next week, four figures, a landmark achievement and one that I am quite proud of reaching! Old Words Today’s article is all about looking back, which is a natural thing to do when you approach any milestone. And yet, the connection with the currently-imminent landmark is […]

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The Price of Bricks and Soil (and more)

  This is my 998th post at CM! Two more to the 4-figure milestone!   In my superhero campaign, the PCs are currently shopping for a building to convert into a base of operations for a second set of superhero/civilian Identities that UNTIL has prompted them to create so that they can deal with problems […]

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Welcome To Tanares, Land Of Chaos

Finished at last – this is only about 90 minutes late! Enjoy :) Anytime a product with the combined talents of multiple industry heavy-hitters like Ed Greenwood and Skip Williams comes onto your horizon, you pay attention. When that product made its funding targets in just 2 1/2 hours, you pay even closer attention. Clearly, […]

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(So You Think You’ve Got A) Reputation

This is a post in three almost completely unrelated segments. I start with some sad news, follow that with our regularly-scheduled article, and conclude with a sneak preview of next week’s article, for reasons that will become obvious.   In Memorium I have to open today’s post with some sad news: Brian “Fitz” Fitzpatrick has […]

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