Campaign Mastery

In part one, I looked at techniques for extrapolating from the world of today into a future world where technology has changed. These techniques have served me well in both fiction writing and developing sci-fi oriented game settings. In this second part, I will be examining some core technologies that everyone engaged in anything sci-fi […]

When you get right down to it, there are only three sources you can use when creating the world of tomorrow in a game: Copy something you’ve seen elsewhere, filing off serial numbers as necessary; Get it from the game setting; or Create it yourself. The Problems: All three of these solutions have their place […]

Last night, I caught up with a documentary that I’ve been waiting to view (lack of time) since early February. The subject, and title, of the documentary was the question, ‘Are We Still Evolving?’. And, as with many subjects that I digest, it sparked a number of thoughts, all of which are relevant to the […]

A Guest Article by Dave Viars, line developer for Interface Zero These week I’m interrupting the Orcs & Elves series to give readers wgho aren’t into it a break, and to bring you a guest article advance sneak-peek at a new Game Setting that’s on the way, in a genre that hasn’t yet received a […]

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.

A book on the structures and natures of different governments within our world got me to thinking anew about perhaps the most seminal creation within the background of the Hero System – U.N.T.I.L. Specifically, thinking about who the organization is; how they fit into the policies, principles and charter of the United Nations; what’s wrong […]

Earlier this week I received an email from Richard Hetley, a writer & game designer from Megara Entertainment. Magara have a new kickstarter-funded project, and Richard was inviting me to write an article about that project. I’ve received a number of such invitations in the past, and turned them down (politely and with words of […]

A long time ago, when I had an idle six months or so, I came up with a theoretical model for chaotic systems from a roleplaying point of view. I was looking for a way to simulate the behaviour of the stock market in the Champions Universe. The result was 31 pages of 6-point type […]

A bit of a departure from the usual today, with an article that is only indirectly game-related. Every now and then, you have to let your imagination run wild or it gets soft and flabby… normal service will resume on Thursday, this was just something that I had to get out of my system. Hopefully, […]

This is an article that’s been brewing in the back of my mind for a very long time, encouraged in part by the Numb3rs Season 2 episode ‘Double Down’ (and several subsequent episodes), in part by movies such as ‘The Sting’, ‘Oceans 11’, and ‘Oceans 13’, in part by the Babylon-5 Season 1 episode ‘The […]

In Roleplaying Tips #536, Johnn ran a tips request (reproduced below) asking for tips on how to GM computer hacking. I decided that simply offering a few tips wasn’t quite going to cut it, and that the subject deserved a slightly more in-depth treatment. I’m currently running a sci-fi future campaign where computers are an […]

Introduction to ‘Everyman Skills’ As GMs develop in experience, and begin to develop their campaign worlds more extensively, they generally arrive at the idea of everyman skills. Typically, this idea will first emerge in a modern-setting campaign, or future-tech campaign, though this is becoming less true all the time. The idea is that characters, by […]