Campaign Mastery

I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship between intelligence and instinct as expressed by different game systems. Most systems have an INT or IQ score of some kind, but the handling of the other side of the equation varies considerably. D&D and Pathfinder have a WISdom score, the Hero System has an EGO score, my […]

From time to time, I like to look behind the curtain – to see what makes the mechanics of the games that I play tick, and what the implications are. Sometimes this leads down unexpected byways, and at other times it yields a nugget or two of insight. And sometimes, it just goes nowhere. So: […]

Sometimes we old hands, tired of a subject that’s been talked to death, or thinking that everything there is to be said on the subject has been said, forget that a lot of players and GMs have come into the hobby more recently than we have, and hence weren’t privy to those discussions. This produces, […]

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 […]

Pieces Of Creation is an occasional recurring column at Campaign Mastery in which Mike offers game reference and other materials that he has created for his own campaigns. A somewhat unusual example to get this first “Pieces Of Creation” off to a flying start. Normally, I would present the game materials within the column text, […]

Assassin’s Amulet is now on sale! For more information on how and where to purchase it, just check the link at the bottom of this article! But first:                 Legacy Items are one of the conceptual planks that form the infrastructure of the Legacies series. “A player’s Guide to Legacy Items” excerpts 15 pages from […]

We continue to inch closer to the release of Assassin’s Amulet. From months, the time scale has compressed to weeks, and now is being measured in mere Days (how many of them is still being decided). It’s so close, we can taste it! One of the ambitions that we have for AA is to break […]

Campaign Mastery reader D.M. asks the GMs, “I am looking for some suggestions on how to deal with players who like to disagree with game calls. I play D&D 2nd edition with a large group of seven to eleven players from 16 to 60 years old. I have trouble with two players who like to […]

While chatting with one of the players in my Superhero campaign yesterday, the subject of FTL travel in superhero and sci-fi games came up in the course of the conversation. Since I’m always on the lookout for good subjects to write about for Campaign Mastery, and this is a problem that’s come up in many […]

Ian Gray was going to be providing a second guest post for us today, but he’s had computer problems during the week and seems to have run out tof time. Fortunately, I had this post in reserve, just in case… A Sad Truth Dragons are supposed to be the most awe-inspiring, iconic creatures in D&D […]

What is the number one way to make combat go faster? For D&D type games, it is mastering the rules. When you can make decisions based on accurate rules knowledge, not only do you have more options available, but you play with more effectiveness and confidence. You also need to make fewer rules references on […]

As someone who writes about RPGs a lot, I am naturally interested in game design techniques and philosophy. As a former I.T. professional, I have discovered that a lot of the principles of sound program design practice also apply to rules design. With those as my starting point, I thought I would have a stab at defining […]