Campaign Mastery

“Show, don’t tell is an admonition to fiction writers to write in a manner that allows the reader to experience the story through a character’s action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the narrator’s exposition, summarization, and description.” – Wikipedia Great advice for writers. And the third dimension – interactivity – makes this […]

In 2008 I implemented the Getting Things Done system (GTD) for organizing my RPG campaign’s emails, ideas and to do items. It worked so well that I now use it for every campaign, and I think you should consider it as well. Here is my version of GTD for managing and organizing my campaign. Gather […]

In a previous blog, I’ve written about my Superhero campaign currently facing a big finish (A Grand Conclusion: thinking about a big finish). This post will be a sequel of sorts, because any big finish naturally invites the question, “what’s next?” In this case, “next” is a sequel campaign. Many of the preceeding characters will […]

In one campaign years ago, the PCs did so much travel it seemed far-fetched to give them an encounter every time they hit the road. However, I still wanted to pace things so the party was not instantly appearing at their destination each time. A fun solution we came up with was campfire chats. This […]

This post is the end of a long road! It started with a guest article by Garry Stahl, “The Conundrum Of Alignment”. Parts two and three highlighted what I believe to be the causes of the problems Garry identified, and provided an alternative perspective on Alignment that turned it into one of the most useful […]

In part one of this 5-part examination, we presented a guest article by Garry Stahl, “The Conundrum Of Alignment”. In Part two, “A Neccessary Evil?”, I discussed the justification for alignment being part of the rules, looked at the historical precedent for oversimplified moral arguements, and concluded that the real problem with alignment was misuse […]

How do you extrapolate from existing rules to cover new situations? Recently, Campaign Mastery was asked, If a giant has rapid shot can he throw 2 rocks in a full round action? (d&d 3.5) This sparked some debate over whether Campaign Mastery should answer rules questions of this sort; we aim to deal with big-picture […]

I recently had the need to design a Drow Outpost for my Shards Of Divinity campaign, and in the process, I made a few mental notes concerning how I go about designing cities, and population centres in general, that I thought I would share with our readers. Design First, Draw Later I don’t put pencil […]

It doesn’t take much more than a quick flip through the pages of “…And A 10-foot Pole” to realise that it’s an extensively-researched volume. Aside from breaking history into twelve periods covering everything from the stone age (prior to 9000 BC) to the information age (1980+), it divides commodities into standardised categories and gives prices […]

Someone once asked me why D&D bothers to include skills at all. After all, the GM generally tells the players anything they really need to know (rather than seeing all his hard work in preparing the game crash and burn); and even if he doesn’t, players can always take a twenty. After further discussion, this […]

How much, if at all, should the final villain of a long running campaign pull his punches? My campaign boss [villain] is a high level wizard with access to epic spells, and my party just made 20th level. They are on the way to fight him. Should I open up with his most powerful abilities, […]

Summary Alea Tools sent me a sample pack of their magnetic markers for review. I have played with them for several sessions now and I give them a thumbs up. Details – Alea Markers in Use Alea markers have a great feel to them. Smooth surfaces all around and a nice weight. The plastic seems […]