Campaign Mastery

Over the weekend, Campaign Mastery was described by the very flattering term, “one of the best Treasure Troves for a DM”. Aside from feeling very chuffed at the compliment, my mind immediately started to think about Treasure Troves. This article is the result. The Map So, how do you find a treasure trove? The two […]

This article was prompted by last Saturday’s play in my Zenith-3 (superheroes) game, but I use the techniques in all my campaigns. But I want to start by quoting a question that I answered over the weekend on Quora, because it’s also relevant. When running an AD&D game, what do you do to really make […]

Pocket dimensions have been an important element of my superhero campaign for decades. Over that span of time, the understanding of their origins and properties have evolved in richness and complexity. Pocket dimensions were also much-sought-after magic items in my Fumanor campaigns, in the form of Bags Of Holding. And so I applied the conceptual […]

This started off as a simple idea for a quick little article. It grew….. How rulers gain their offices should be reflected in the society around them. Think about that for a moment. How rulers gain their offices should also be reflected in the personality and capabilities of the ruler, either at the time of […]

The March 2019 Blog Carnival challenges GMs to revisit and re-purpose material from the first half of their career behind the scene. For Campaign Mastery’s first entry (I have another in mind but might not have time to write it) I’m going Waaaay back – all the way, in fact, to my very first AD&D […]

One problem. Two characters with the same Skill. How do they combine abilities to make the problem easier to solve? Or are two heads no better than one? This is the Dual Competence rules problem. Another problem. One character has the Skill needed to solve it, another who doesn’t – but who has to actually […]

It’s a funny thing, but once you’ve thought of two or three tips on an important subject, other thoughts on the same subject start crowding in. This was going to be a quick article listing a handful of tips, things that I always keep in mind when creating an NPC, but then the ideas started […]

Last week’s post was (technically*) the 1000th here at Campaign Mastery. Appropriately for such a number, it dealt with big-picture abstractions and the fundamental principle upon which the blog is founded – having more fun at the gaming table. That make’s this post (again, technically*) the 1001st – a number that itself both the seeds […]

There are lots of good reasons to have a strong supporting cast in an RPG. They permit interactions which reveal or highlight aspects of a PC that otherwise might get an infrequent airing, for one thing. Trusted NPCs can serve as proxies for the PCs, or can supplement their skill-base. Or, fourth, they can facilitate […]

Or, “Dwarves are from Marz, Elves are from Venusia”, which was almost the title of this article! I was thinking about another post (that you will hopefully see in a week or so) when an idea for a completely original D&D/Pathfinder cosmology occurred to me. In a matter of minutes, it had become a fully-fledged […]

This is something of an unusual article. As many of you know, I got my start submitting guest articles for Roleplaying Tips, and eventually co-founded Campaign Mastery with the writer/editor/publisher of that email newsletter, Johnn Four. A recent article was about “How To Think Like An Alien” – Johnn no longer numbers the issues in […]

Although I’ve lived in the state capital for more than half my life, and am a creature of thoroughly urbanized habits and propensities, at my core, I come from a small town almost 600km away named Nyngan, as explained in Location, Location, Location: Nyngan, in which I describe the township and how to adapt it […]