Archive for the ‘PCs’ Category

When Inspiration Is Not Enough: Time Travel in RPGs, Part 1

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Time Travel In RPGs

When writing my submission to the June 2010 Blog Carnival, A Medley Of Inspiring Media, I said that Time Travel was a special case. This article started off as just another section of that Blog Post, but quickly showed signs of growing into another of those monster subjects requiring a multiple-part post to completely contain […]

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Ask The GMs: An Inconsistency of Play

How do you fix it when inconsistent roleplay or interpersonal conflicts are killing the campaign? The more restrictions on gameplay you have, and the more expectations on play style you have, the more you need to talk about this with everyone in the group and reach consensus. Assumptions kill groups faster than monsters. Campaign Mastery […]

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Sophisticated Links: Degrees Of Seperation in RPGs

Introduction This is not the post I was originally going to write for today, but a paragraph in one of the books I am reading brought to mind the game that seemed to be everywhere just a few years ago, “Six Degrees From Kevin Bacon”, and social networking in general, and I suddenly saw applicability […]

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Book of Dead Characters to Celebrate Your Gaming

A friend I once gamed with was awesome at celebrating gaming. He made sessions into special events. He had props. He talked about games in a special way, like a sports fan does about when their team won the championship that year. He celebrated the details and told stories about special session moments. It was […]

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Ask The GMs: How to GM solo PCs (especially in combat)

Campaign Mastery was asked, GM Brian: “I’m trying to run a D&D 3.5 Eberron campaign that will mostly be a solo campaign for my friend. I’m just looking for tips on how I can run a well balanced solo campaign that can still have a good amount of combat.” Johnn’s Answer: This is a great […]

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A Slippery Slope: Level Adjustments Under The Microscope

There are times when an Ask-The-GM’s question doesn’t inspire one of us, or is too attached to the mechanics of one specific game system, or doesn’t have enough depth to justify a full blog post, or has already been answered by one of our articles, or for some other reason simply doesn’t suit the approach […]

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The Pursuit Of Perfection, Part 5 of 5: Character Evolution

This entry is part 5 of 9 in the series Lessons From The West Wing

In the first part of this article, which is itself just the first installment of a series of articles, I discussed the execution and delivery of unique-ness in an RPG campaign, and derived a definition of doing so to a standard of perfection that was achievable in more than a hypothetical sense, that was actually […]

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Ask The GMs: The Momentum Of The Inevitable

Should there ever be something that is too big or has too much momentum for the PCs to be able to stop? In the discussion following a previous Ask The GMs, (Giving Players The Power To Choose), James Carter asked that very question. We were talking at the time about NPCs making moves and counter-moves […]

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The Pursuit Of Perfection, Part 4 of 5: Evolving The Campaign

This entry is part 4 of 9 in the series Lessons From The West Wing

In the first part of this article, which is only the first installement of a series, I discussed the delivery of uniqueness in an RPG campaign, and derived a definition of doing so to perfection that was achievable in more than a hypothetical sense, that was actually a practical goal: “Perfection in an RPG is […]

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The Pursuit Of Perfection, Part 3 of 5: Laying A Campaign Foundation

This entry is part 3 of 9 in the series Lessons From The West Wing

In the first part of this article, which is itself just the first installement of a series of articles, I discussed the execution and delivery of uniqueness in an RPG campaign, and derived a definition of doing so “to perfection” that was achievable in more than a hypothetical sense – that was actually a practical […]

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The Pursuit Of Perfection, Part 2 of 5: A Perfect Vision Through A Glass, Darkly

This entry is part 2 of 9 in the series Lessons From The West Wing

In the first part of this article, which itself is the first installement of a series of articles, I discussed the execution and delivery of uniqueness in an RPG campaign, and derived a definition of doing so to perfection that was achievable in more than a hypothetical sense, that was actually a practical goal: “Perfection […]

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The Characterisation Puzzle: The First Decision

This entry is part 5 of 5 in the series The Characterisation Puzzle

If you’ve been following this series from the beginning, then you are now equipped with three new techniques for character development, all of which are useful when for some reason you’re struggling to find an idea. So how do you choose between them? I can’t answer that for you. It might be that one of […]

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