Campaign Mastery

A process for designing & constructing big or complex things, from spells to magic items, castles to space stations, industrial processes to political campaigns, new chemistries to better TVs and AC systems, using something every RPG already has. The real world caught up with me somewhat in the course of writing this article – I […]

A ‘Power Skill’ measures how adept a character is at pushing an ability beyond its normal limits. These are rules for handling them, from my Zenith-3 System, and adapting them to other game systems, permitting their application to D&D class abilities and Feats and so on. Useful in any genre with unusual abilities. What Is […]

What is a Fairy Colony, and why should you never annoy one? Or attack one? I didn’t want to go full “Fey” so I came up with something different… In the Zenith-3 superhero campaign, there’s a Fairy Colony at the bottom of their back yard. It was placed there years ago (real time) but until […]

Today, Part 4b of the Topologia campaign completes exploration of the Ironbarb Crags and their many wonders. The Ironbarb Crags (Volcanic Wasteland) – (continued) The base image is colorful-grand-prismatic-spring-3864377.jpg by Mike Goad. I replaced the trees in the original with extracts from the Bryce Canyon photo that I used in the previous post, by Pexels […]

Today, Part 4a of the Topologia campaign explores the wonders – and terrors – of the Ironbarb Crags (part 1 of 2). Having bought myself an extra week to get it finished, I’ve decided that I really need to split this in two so that I’ve got the second part in my pocket. Why? Because […]

A quick post today about GMs seeking validation plus one or more bonus topics, number depending on time. 1. Keep Your Ace Up Your Sleeve What’s the biggest metagaming mistake you’ve ever made outside of anything approaching a plot train? Let me tell you mine. The scenario was over, and it hadn’t gone according to […]

While working on the subject of population and its distribution, I stumbled onto a method of using a Realm’s economics for worldbuilding and history generation. Originally subordinated to the main thread, I’ve decided to break it out into it’s own post. Note that the unfinished part that’s been set aside for the next post is […]

Today, Part 3 of the Topologia campaign setting details the Shadowfen and horrors that abide there, lots of creatures exportable to similar environments!. The Shadowfen Strictly speaking, the place should be called the Shadowfens,, plural, because the multiple similar environments under the one umbrella title. This is a terrible place where nothing much is really […]

This is part 2 of the guest article on Wars in TTRPGs by Alexander Atoz. Wars are inevitable in most RPGs, sooner or later, but GMs often struggle to walk the fine line between making the conflict seem realistically big enough and keeping the experience personal to the players. Vast armies lend themselves to Roll-playing, […]

The difference between the level of detail that you want when a PC is actually present and what is needed when it’s all NPCs and should happen purely in the background is almost total. Earlier treatment of the subject within this series focused on paring back and simplifying to the level of detail required for […]

Many authors have tried to explain how vast space, and the universe contained within it, really are, usually with less than total success, though with each attempt, some few are reached. This is both something that Sci-Fi GMs need to understand and yet, often hand-wave. I have thought of another approach, one that is strictly […]

Weather At Sea can be considered to comprise several of the unluckiest things that can and will happen to a ship, so it’s somewhat appropriate that this is the dominant subject of the thirteenth part of this series! Believe it or not, the entire weather system presented in the post was designed on a single […]