Campaign Mastery

A number of my recent articles here at Campaign Mastery have been derived from conversations with other GMs on Twitter (yes, readers, we GMs do actually talk to each other – and no, it’s not to find better ways to screw the players, well usually not.) Today’s article derives from just such a discussion between […]

Some game systems have rules built in for character aging. Others don’t. Some of those aging rules function gracefully. Others don’t, or are shockingly clumsy. This post is all about how I handle character aging in my campaigns – gracefully and relatively painlessly. The Harbinger Of Aging Quite early on in my GMing career, I […]

Only a short article this week (at least in terms of word count) because there is easily five times as much work beneath the surface! A few weeks ago, I read a really interesting analysis of the mathematics of the D&DNext advantage mechanic by the Online DM. And yet, there was a disconnect between that […]

For obvious reasons, I’ve been in a very introspective frame of mind in recent weeks. It occurred to me today that my life has now changed almost comp-letely from where I was ten years ago. Ten years ago, my primary occupation was as a bookkeeper. I hadn’t worked for a few years, but was still […]

The death of a player naturally forces a GM to reassess his campaign and plans. But this sort of tragic event is not the only reason why this might become necessary – a player might move away, or might simply tire of the campaign and want to play something else, or might even give up […]

An empty Death is a terrible thing When Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby) died in Star Trek: The Next Generation, there was an outcry amongst fans. Not because the character had been killed off so much as because she died what was later described even within the series as “an empty death” – a death without […]

I’m taking a break from the ongoing Earth-regency Alternate History series this week (mostly because research has been taking more time than I’ve had available. Instead, the following is based on an email exchange between one of my players and myself, raising some serious questions about the population dynamics of longer-lived species and aging in […]

From time to time, I like to look behind the curtain – to see what makes the mechanics of the games that I play tick, and what the implications are. Sometimes this leads down unexpected byways, and at other times it yields a nugget or two of insight. And sometimes, it just goes nowhere. So: […]

One of my regular players and an occasional contributor here at Campaign Mastery, Ian Gray, has a simple philosophy when it comes to rewards – never ask for +5 when five +1’s will do. The Judo Of Wishes It’s a philosophy that has developed from his experiences with Rings Of Three Wishes and similar items. […]

Welcome to “part 3a” of this series on names and naming things – and finding the right choice. Today’s post was actually intended to be part of the previous entry in the series, but the subjects of Mononyms (got it right this time, thanks again elijah!) and bi-structured names just sort of grew… a lot. […]

This is the third part of this series on character names. Part 1 discussed the value of a good name, and examined the attributes and benefits that characterized a good choice of name. In Part 2, I explored “Name Seeds”, the heart of a system that I have developed for the creation of passable-or-better names […]

Wow. I just realised this is the 351st post here at Campaign Mastery! A quick thank-you to everyone who has contributed, participated, commented, or read our stuff along the way! I also want to spare a moment to mention the people affected by the flooding here in Australia at the moment. We’re about 2 days […]