Campaign Mastery

Today, I get to focus on one of my favorite subjects, campaign structure! There are lots of choices out there, but today I’m going to focus on one that I don’t use all that often, the improv sandbox. This article was prompted by something I saw on the screenwriter’s blog that I linked to an […]

Introduction This wasn’t intended to be a separate post at all; it is the second half of the response to a guest article published back in March, before the unwanted disruption of my life caused by relocating to a new apartment (I’m still unpacking!) Rather than repeat a lot of material from Part II, I […]

One of the newsletters to which I subscribe offers advice for scriptwriters (“The Story Guy Newsletter”). Occasionally, there’s a nugget that can be adapted to service a TTRPG, it’s well-written, and not too long to read (having said that, I’m about 4 behind). One post that dropped shortly before or just after I moved talked […]

Introduction Last week, Last month, (third time’s the charm): Back in March, I offered a guest article by Franklin Veaux on how memory works, and some of its features and failings. Today, I’m going to follow it up with analysis of how The phenomenon that he describes, which I have named “Fuzzy Plastic Memories,” applies […]

Welcome …to the latest installment of the “Value Of Material Things” series. Today’s article will focus on Pottery & Ceramics, and Peridot, with room for a sideline along the way if anything crops up. Although Jade and Ivory are also laid out and ready to write, I lost a lot of time over the last […]

Preamble Revisit: A long time ago, I rewrote some fairly fundamental parts of Orrorsh, the Horror Realm. While packing, I discovered where it had been filed away. This is not a complete standalone work; you will still need the official supplement to use it. Why, then, should I read it? The reasons are the same […]

Welcome …to the latest installment of the “Value Of Material Things” series. Today’s article will focus on Tesserae (Mosaic Tiles), Silk, and Moonstones. It’s sure to have been deduced, I think, that much of the content of this series is being driven by game prep, and that means that I can simply collate my notes […]

Writing and uploading this in advance in hopes of forestalling any disruption. It’s been a while since I did something on characterization; the last such was Four Roads To Characterization, back in late 2022. Hopefully this is a worthy extension of the subject. While packing recently, I discovered first-hand something that I already knew, deep […]

Preamble: A long time ago, I rewrote some fairly fundamental parts of Orrorsh, the Horror Realm, for reasons explained in the text below. While packing, I discovered where it had been filed away (hidden?). This is not a complete standalone work; you will still need the official supplement. Why, then, should I read it? First, […]

News From the Rear-view Mirror: I’m usually pretty good at noticing anniversaries and milestones, but I have to admit to missing one. Back in August, officially, I posted CM’s 1250th article or part-article, Holistic NPCs: Creating Special Characters, which gave a process for finding consequences and ramifications of character elements that would feed back into […]

It’s been a long time since I’ve just had a ramble on about assorted semi-related matters but that’s what’s in store today. I’ll move from topic to topic with what may at times seem gay abandon, but it will all come together in the end. This is all stuff that’s derived from, or been inspired […]

Okay, so here we go with #2 of three locations generated for my campaigns. This is definitely sci-fi in nature, and would especially suit Traveler campaigns, though it can be used more generally. As usual, a bit of a preamble, but I’m setting it off in a text box so that those with no interest […]