Campaign Mastery

I know a number of former GMs who gave up the job. Some of them reverted to being players, some of them occasionally still dabble in the big chair, and some were so traumatized by the experience that they gave up RPGs entirely. There are always three parts to the equation that dictates a GM’s […]

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 […]

The GM puts a problem in front of the PCs – a couple of thugs extorting the locals. The players come up with a plan to solve the problem which works perfectly. The public shower the PCs with rewards and gratification. Sounds pretty boring to me. Where’s the challenge? Where’s the adventure? Roadblocks, Tripwires, Deceptions, […]

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 […]

At the end of the last Pulp session, one of our players informed my co-GM and I that they might not be able to attend the next session. Because sessions of this campaign are a month apart, this constituted ample notice, and we’re going to be able to carry on without him. We’re sure that […]

Clickbait. That one word can open a fascinating can of worms in any discussion, should anyone care to sample the contents. In researching this article through Wikipedia, “Clickbait” led me to “Betteridge’s law of Headlines” which led me to “Sensationalism”, while the original article also called up “Yellow Journalism” and “Media Manipulation”. I’m going to […]

How do you design your dungeons? For me, the only technique worth contemplating is the Narrative Approach, in which the dungeon’s location and structure derive from the adventure in which they are to be found, and the encounter content and similar details derive from the location, structure, and adventure. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But, as […]

We all roleplay our character’s professions or character classes, right? Actually, we don’t. What we usually roleplay is someone pretending to belong to a profession, because that’s a lot faster and easier. The difference between the two might seem small, but the impact when you compare the two is like night and day. Awareness of […]

On Quora recently, I (and others) were asked for GMing techniques to help shy players come out of their shells. As it happens, I already had this article underway, in one of those serendipitous coincidences that stretch credibility to the point of near-fracture. As it happens, I have 17 techniques to offer by which the […]

It’s an important question, and one not easy to answer. Too much description can not only be boring to listen to, it can obscure important details and confuse the players. Not enough and players will not be able to differentiate between the NPC being described and any others they happen to encounter – or a […]

I’m interrupting my planned schedule of posts to talk about what happened this weekend past in the Adventurer’s Club campaign, because it will be relevant to all campaigns regardless of genre. I was notified on Friday Afternoon that one of the regular players could not make it that weekend. My first thought was to whether […]