Campaign Mastery

This is the second part of a four-part article. The first part gave a relatively straightforward technique for creating a unique society; this part and the next (which were originally intended to be the whole article) gives some techniques for conveying the uniqueness of the resulting culture to the players, selling them on its credibility, […]

This post is being simultaneously posted here and as the feature article in Roleplaying Tips issue #433. Subscribe to the e-zine here if you haven’t already, and check out some of the GMing Articles (including three by yours truly: ‘Dragon Characters For Eberron’, ‘Putting The Fear Back Into Disease’, and ‘On Feats’) while you’re there. […]

“Don’t Bore Us, Get To The Chorus”— conventional wisdom in the popular music industry, also used as the title of Roxette’s Greatest Hits compilation album. I’ve blogged before about my Seeds Of Empire campaign. Following our last session over the New Year’s holiday, a problem arose that I had not had to deal with before, […]

I started to write this as a comment to Johnn’s post “Undead Are Taking Over. What Happens?”, but realised that my comments were so extensive as to require a post of their own. Note that this is an extra post, my usual blog entry for the week will follow in a day or two. Here’s […]

Ryder asks in my previous post about level of readiness in your campaign planning how I find time to work on my campaign between game sessions. My current recipe is very successful, based on years of trial and error and from facing a ton of time theft from other parts of my life. Bi-Weekly Game […]

Imagine a spectrum of planning effort. On one end you have every possible detail worked out, including complete world development, all the adventures until campaign end, a complete cast of NPCs, everything. Let’s call this end 10. On the other end of the spectrum you have nothing planned. You show up to the table and […]

(Too many GMs, not enough players!) NB: This is an extra post outside the normal schedule. My usual post will take place in a day or two. One of the duties I have reluctantly taken on for my fellow gamers is the organisation of the timetable. When I started playing with the eclectic collection of […]

As I write this, the Holiday Season is fast approaching. Johnn, my collaborator on this blog (and vice-versa) has written an excellent book on holidays in rpgs, but I thought it worth exploring some of the options for drawing inspiration from real holidays. (Obviously, since many are religious in nature, some people may be offended. […]

I had my spring cleaning just the other day (living in the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons are the reverse of what most readers would consider normal), and it reminded me of something that should be an annual tradition with gamers – spring cleaning of their games. For Players, that means looking at any long-standing character […]

When mapping, I tend to just focus on the corridors, rooms, streets, caverns, and buildings. However, every map has more than just these areas; each has three zones in your design control. Next map you build, think of these zones and how you can change things up to be fun and interesting for your gaming. […]

Got writer’s block? Draw a map. This is one of the best ways to get focus, organize your thoughts, and get moving again on your campaign preparation. Sometimes I’ll stare at a blank computer screen with a game session only a couple days away and wonder if I’ll have anything designed in time. What always […]