Campaign Mastery

Wow. I just realised this is the 351st post here at Campaign Mastery! A quick thank-you to everyone who has contributed, participated, commented, or read our stuff along the way! I also want to spare a moment to mention the people affected by the flooding here in Australia at the moment. We’re about 2 days […]

Introduction Let’s talk about the art of naming characters, especially NPCs. This is one of the (thankfully few) aspects of the GMing craft that doesn’t come naturally to me. I can usually get there in the end, but off-the-cuff names can be a real struggle. To deal with this handicap, I have evolved a system […]

Written by Michael Beck, with contributions and editing by Da’Vane. GM’s Toolbox, looks at tools, tips, and techniques you can use to improve your games. Toolbox offers you a skeleton for running a campaign, rather than fleshed out tips. This series is presented in a discussion style, and we ask you to contribute with comments […]

Written by Michael Beck, with contributions and editing by Da’Vane. GM’s Toolbox, looks at tools, tips, and techniques you can use to improve your games. Toolbox offers you a skeleton for running a campaign, rather than fleshed out tips. This series is presented in a discussion style, and we ask you to contribute with comments […]

Written by Michael Beck, with contributions and editing by Da’Vane. GM’s Toolbox, looks at tools, tips, and techniques you can use to improve your games. Toolbox offers you a skeleton for running a campaign, rather than fleshed out tips. This series is presented in a discussion style, and we ask you to contribute with comments […]

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 […]

This is part four from two (yes, you read that right) in a discussion of the basic principles of creating adventures and hooking them together to form a campaign; I wasn’t originally going to include these examples, feeling that the principles would be clearer to the reader if they weren’t distracted by another narrative threat […]

This is part three from two (!) in a discussion of the basic principles of creating adventures and hooking them together to form a campaign; I wasn’t originally going to include these examples, feeling that the principles would be clearer to the reader if they weren’t distracted by another narrative threat running concurrently – and […]

WordPress has a lot going for it – that’s why we use it for Campaign Mastery! For a long time now, I’ve been thinking that it has many of the advantages of a campaign Wiki, and a few more on the side, that would make it an ideal platform for game documentation – with the […]

A short time ago, we received an ATGMs question that made me stop and think for a minute. The question was straightforward; Angeline wrote, “I need some help, I’m a starting DM and I just have so much trouble coming up with Campaigns or good plot lines. Please help!!” Last week, in Part One of […]

Written by Michael Beck, with contributions and editing by Da’Vane. GM’s Toolbox, looks at tools, tips, and techniques you can use to improve your games. Toolbox offers you a skeleton for running a campaign, rather than fleshed out tips. This series is presented in a discussion style, and we ask you to contribute with comments […]