Campaign Mastery

As you can see from the title, this is part 2 of a series looking at the underlying principles and applications of Game Physics. The first part looked at exactly what the term meant, and found that it needed quite a lot of definition because it could be used to mean any of several different […]

It’s not easy making a completely fresh start. This series examines the systematic process of creating a new campaign in detail, from start to finish. The contents (updated with each post) can be found in “part zero” of the series. Bone, Cartilage, and Flesh: A metaphor Everything that’s been done so far has been in […]

The subject of today’s article emerged during a twitter discussion between John Kahane (@jkahane1), Joe Kushner (@JoeGKushner), and myself (@gamewriterMike) on Twitter last week. The conversation started when I mentioned to John that I had just started a mystery plotline in my Zenith-3 (superhero) campaign, and that special effort was going to be needed to make […]

It’s not easy making a completely fresh start. This series examines the process of creating a new campaign in detail. Last time, I went through the development process of taking ideas and some indications of direction and welding them together into a campaign plan. Now it’s time to think about the game world… I am […]

There are times when we all have to make a fresh start. Creatively – and GMing is a creative aspect of the broader RPG hobby – a change of scene may be needed. Enthusiasm may have waned. The old campaign may have ended. One or more key players may have dropped out and you want […]

Still Twisting… Campaign Mastery is hosting this month’s Blog Carnival. The subject I’ve chosen is “With A Twist” and anything about Surprises, the Unexpected, Plot Twists, etc, is right on topic. I started with an article on the rules interpretation of Surprise, and followed that with a two-part article looking at types of Plot Twist […]

With A Twist Campaign Mastery is hosting this month’s Blog Carnival. The subject I’ve chosen is “With A Twist” and anything about Surprises, the Unexpected, Plot Twists, etc, is fair game. The Carnival started with an article on the rules interpretation of Surprise, and last week I posted the first part of this exploration of […]

Politics is one of those inevitable conditions, like death and taxes, that every GM has to master to some extent because it will make its presence felt in every campaign. There’s always something more to say on the subject. In this article, I’m going to look at the basics of political relations between similarly-scaled entities; […]

Pulp Rules for Healing, and how & why Pathfinder & 3.x GMs should consider adapting them to their games.

This is the first of a four-part* series outlining the house rules that Blair Ramage and I have adopted over the years for the Adventurer’s Club campaign, a Pulp-genre campaign run using Pulp Hero, which is a Pulp-genre variation on the Hero System. There are four major chunks of rules, that have developed at four […]

The Perils, pitfalls, and potential benefits of using an RPG to write a fantasy novel.

I was watching an interview with Jim Keays from 1975 the other day, discussing what was then his latest album. He was explaining that he had started with three or four songs that all had similar subject matter, and realized that he could build the entire album around that subject. The interviewer, as part of […]