Campaign Mastery

In part one of this series, I talked about the philosophical grounding of random encounters – the theoretical why’s and wherefore’s that underpin the encounters that result, and the ways and reasons why they matter. In this part, I’m going to discuss ways of creating better, smarter, encounter tables – ones that prompt you to […]

On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 27-28 I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… ************************************************************************************************* Chapters 27 and 28 were partially unfinished when I started this series, which means they are presented in first-draft form and not the fully […]

The epic conclusion to the Second Great war between Elves and Dwarfs as plots, intrigues, betrayals and surprises come to a head.

How to overcome the problems with random encounters

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… ************************************************************************************************* While most of Chapter 21 had been done when I started this series, Chapters 22 and 23 were at best partially finished, which means my easy ride is over. In the […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll either never get it done in time… ************************************************************************************************* Chapters 18-20 are all in final form. I don’t change “speaker” in mid-paragraph, but the speaker does change from one paragraph to the next. So if it seems like the […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it in public, I’ll either never get it done in time… ************************************************************************************************* Chapters 15-17 are all in reasonably final form. I try not to change “speaker” in mid-paragraph, but the speaker does sometimes change from one paragraph to the next. So […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, in public, I’ll never get it done in time… ************************************************************************************************* Chapters 10-13 are all in final form. I don’t change “speaker” in mid-paragraph, but the speaker does change from one paragraph to the next. So if it seems like […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, in public, I’ll either never get it done in time… ************************************************************************************************* A shout-out to the sources There aren’t many sources of non-original material that I have used in my Campaigns, but sometimes something is just too useful. These chapters […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, in public, I’ll either never get it done in time… But First, One more piece of context: In preparing this article, and the series as a whole, it’s suddenly occurred to me that I’ve never explained just why this […]

I’ve got a lot of campaign prep to get done. In fact, I’ve got so much to do that if I don’t do it here, I’ll either never get it done in time. But first, I have to paint a picture of the background for this to be useful to the rest of Campaign Mastery’s […]

There are certain words whose literal translation can be considered telling when defining the mindset of a nation or culture. Most of these are identified after the fact, when a scholar matches a literal translation with a key insight into the profile of a particular group, but for roleplaying purposes we can define and redefine as necessary to employ selected terms as key indicators and giveaways to the psychology of a group or race.