Campaign Mastery

Part 1 of a campaign setting with some unique features – like limited immortality, topological insanity, a touch of the Wild West, and the Church of the Holy Octopod… 40,000 words done for the next post in the Trade In Fantasy series and it’s still not ready to post. So it will be a monster […]

This is part 2 of the guest article on Wars in TTRPGs by Alexander Atoz. Wars are inevitable in most RPGs, sooner or later, but GMs often struggle to walk the fine line between making the conflict seem realistically big enough and keeping the experience personal to the players. Vast armies lend themselves to Roll-playing, […]

Today I bring you a guest article on Wars in TTRPGs by Alexander Atoz, in two parts. Wars are inevitable in most RPGs, sooner or later, but GMs often struggle to walk the fine line between making the conflict seem realistically big enough and keeping the experience personal to the players. Vast armies lend themselves […]

An observed pattern sheds surprising light on how RPG styles differ from one nation to another. This is the latest in my series of time-out posts in between the Trade In Fantasy series. The YouTube viewer that I use most often displays, at the end of a video, thumbnails of other videos that you might […]

Running a campaign is a lot easier if there’s a clear process that maximizes opportunities for success and avoids the worst traps and pitfalls. Campaign Mastery has again been recognized as one of the top 20 blogs devoted to the subject of RPGs. Given the caliber of the opposition, I consider this to be a […]

Today’s post focuses on Rafts and small boats like Kayaks and Canoes. The defining trait of such vessels is that while they can have sails, their primary motive power derives from the use of oars or paddles. It’s taken quite a bit longer than I intended, due to a fundamental truism of publishing, at least […]

So your character has a cooking skill. What dishes can he prepare? What will be inedible? What does that mean? Adaptable all systems. We’ve all grown up with the concept of a recipe being utterly reliable. If you do the same thing every time, you will get the same result, every time. Most of us […]

“I attack him while he’s distracted.” That’s not an appropriate response to an antagonist Monologing, but it happened once. There came a time when a new player, unfamiliar with the genre, joined the Adventurer’s Club campaign. At one point, in an adventure, the villain began to Monologue – and that was this player’s response. This […]

Rivers provide a natural alternative to roads and overland travel, if the river happens to go where you want it to. That’s more likely than it might initially seem, because rivers provide natural resources and defenses that make them natural locations for settlements, with transportation of cargo a bonus on top of those advantages. Table […]

I was recently offered the opportunity to review a copy of Mythwoven, a new RPG supplement by Sphynx Tale Games, by the Author Brett Moore. His description sounded intriguing: a collaborative worldbuilding game designed to enhance session 0 and immerse players in the game world’s lore. From the additional details that his email disclosed, I […]

The 4th chapter of the Trade In Fantasy series looks at Modes Of Transport and trade route planning (9th post in the series). Table Of Contents: In today’s post: Chapter 4: Modes Of Transport 4.0 A Word about Routes 4.0.1 Baseline Model 4.0.2 Relative Sizes 4.0.3 Competitors 4.0.4 Terrain I 4.0.5 Terrain II 4.0.6 Multi-paths […]

The last installment of the third Chapter of the series looks as worker productivity and how race and other factors influence it. It’s been an interesting 2025 so far, characterized by things going wrong in unexpected and unusual ways and recovering from those problems. It actually started on New Year’s Eve, when I rebooted my […]