Campaign Mastery

I’ve been thinking about Influences, Styles, Trends and Oscillations. It started when I was thinking about Nostalgia and the “death” of Disco and its subsequent morphing into “Electronic Dance Music” in the very early 80s. All fads and styles have a natural lifetime; the length varies, but at the conclusion, they are clearly recognized as […]

When first I listed this article as a to-do, it represented a very straightforward concept, but I’ve taken so long to get around to writing it that other notions have presented themselves. I now find myself in possession of three distinct and – at first glance – mutually contradictory ideas on the subject. With these […]

Introductory Recap This is the third post on the development of a bespoke game system for use in my latest campaign, which is now scheduled to start play on October 21st – so finishing this has become a priority. Let’s start with a recap. A couple of minor details that weren’t properly explained the first […]

The Elephant In The Gray Room is a metaphor that I have created to represent Plot Holes. These are matters of huge significance or importance that everyone is overlooking because they are not immediately obvious, but that once you see one, you can never forget that it’s there. This is a series about methods of […]

I’m not sure how I’ll go when it comes time to upload this article; my internet connection (and telephone) are giving me a lot of trouble at the moment. If I have to, I’ll hit an internet cafe tomorrow. I’m always looking for ways to sneak campaign background and historical information into my adventures so […]

Every GM experiences deadlines and deadline stress. There comes a point at which you have to be ready to play, whether you are or not, and whether you feel adequately prepared or not. In learning how to cope with that situation, you also learn how to manage – at least somewhat – the many analogous […]

In November 2016,. Campaign Mastery hosted the Blog Carnival with the subject being Everyday Lives. Today I have a new technique for integrating the everyday lives of your PCs into the campaign that is virtually effortless, has virtually zero impact on game-play, and yet makes the life of the PC affected more substantially real. Where […]

It’s one of the easiest techniques to follow – you simply copy a character or a plotline from some other source, be it Television, a Movie, or a literary source. If you’re particular clever, you might go so far as to rename the character. There are a number of reasons why a GM might be […]

One task that confronts every GM is giving characters a personality. There have been a number of articles on the subject here at Campaign Mastery and I have no doubt that there will be many more. I tend to think of characters as coming in three different kinds or tiers: Feature Characters, Secondary Characters, and […]

As long-time readers will know, I like to break up larger series, on the theory that any given subject will interest only part of the readership. On that basis, I’ve let this series lie fallow for a few weeks, but now it’s time to get back to it! The Elephant In The Gray Room is […]

There is a principle of script-writing and fiction writing that says that if you want to grab the audience’s attention, you should start the story in the middle. Perhaps the ultimate expression of this principle is the James Bond teaser. I’m not sure if it’s the case with the most recent movies – I’m not […]

This is going to be a really long article* unless I control my enthusiasms really tightly, so expect me to be a little more succinct than usual. Until I get carried away, that is…. * Actually, it was always going to be a really long article. I should have said, “incredibly long article”! The Roots […]