Campaign Mastery

Back in “Exceeding the Extraordinary: The Meaning Of Feats” (April 2012), I promised that a future article would discuss the approvals process for feats, prestige classes, etc, in my 3.x Fantasy campaigns…

There’s a debate that has been fought ever since man invented games that have an element of chance has been, “Is it better to be lucky or skilled?” It’s a debate that has a number of unique resonances within the sphere of an RPG. How should a player or GM simulate a character who relies […]

“Negative Space” sounds like the sort of thing that pretentious art critics fill the air with when they have nothing of substance to contribute. It’s not some antimatter or “mirror, mirror” universe, either – though it can be either or both those things if you want. It may come as some surprise to those with […]

James Seals asked in the comments to Places to go and people to meet: The One Spot series from Moebius Adventures (responding to my comments about magic shops),   Mike, Can I ask – what do you do when your players want to sell magic weapons? In the past I have just allowed them to […]

In my first article for this month’s Blog Carnival, I asked the question ‘Location, Location, Location: How Do You Choose A Location?‘ and identified ten or eleven influences on the decision, and an approximate hierarchy within them, but was unable to offer even a guideline beyond those observations in answer to the question. Today, the […]

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 […]

There are certain words whose literal translation can be considered telling when defining the mindset of a nation or culture. Most of these are identified after the fact, when a scholar matches a literal translation with a key insight into the profile of a particular group, but for roleplaying purposes we can define and redefine as necessary to employ selected terms as key indicators and giveaways to the psychology of a group or race.

Having given Campaign Mastery’s readers (and myself) a break from the series, today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign, once again in more detail than even the players have seen it before… Metagame Origins A ‘Hinterland’ is technically a region behind a coast or rivers, i.e. separated from the main […]

If you’ve followed the advice that I proffered in the first part of this article, your proposed sequel campaign is now brimming with ideas but they are scattered and incomplete. Some of these campaign seeds will flower and bloom, others will wither and lie dormant and unused. They are not yet part of a campaign. […]

For some time now, I’ve been aware of a subtle difference between the advice being dispensed here at Campaign Mastery and what really happened in the games that I run. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure that my perception was accurate; I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what the differences were, indicating that it […]

Today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign. This one isn’t quite as developed as the others (but the last time I said that, I wrote 11300 words and it became one of the most developed of the Kingdoms. I don’t expect history to repeat itself, but you never know…. Postscript: […]

Today’s article contains another Kingdom write-up from my Shards Of Divinity Campaign. So far, these have appeared in exactly the same order as they were presented to my players in the initial pre-campaign briefing notes apon which these articles are being based. With this part, that changes; the next item on the agenda, if that […]