Rules Mastery For Dummies & Busy GMs Part 1: Introduction

This entry is part 1 in the series Rules Mastery

In October, my co-author and partner here at CM contacted me to ask, (Extensively Paraphrased:) Something that has slipped away from me this past decade is a solid knowledge of the rules I game with. This lack of foundation has a number of serious consequences. Good thing I trust my players so much. Not having […]

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Rules Mastery For Dummies & Busy GMs Part 2: Getting Enthusiastic About Rules

This entry is part 2 in the series Rules Mastery

Last time around, Johnn described (via exerpted email) his difficulty in getting enthusiastic about reading rules. Johnn has been making a common mistake, and it’s one that I have been guilty of myself in the past. When reading rules becomes tiresome, we avoid reading and re-reading the rules because we have the impression that we […]

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Rules Mastery For Dummies & Busy GMs Part 3: Student, Tutor Thyself

This entry is part 3 in the series Rules Mastery

Back when I was first given a copy of the Champions Game System, it was only the third genre of game that I had ever been exposed to: The first was FRP (In the form of AD&D) and the second was Science Fiction (in the form of Space Opera). As a comics fan from way […]

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Rules Mastery For Dummies & Busy GMs Part 4: The Quality of Rules

This entry is part 4 in the series Rules Mastery

A lot of blogs and articles talk about “realism” (or verisimilitude) in RPGs and how to achieve it. Campaign Mastery is no different in this respect, a number of my articles having dealt with the subject. Over the last few weeks, as I write this, I’ve been spending time thinking about a fundamental question that […]

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Rules Mastery For Dummies & Busy GMs Part 5: Rules Touchstones – Combat

This entry is part 5 in the series Rules Mastery

In the course of part 2 of this series, which was all about overcoming a resistance to studying rules for their own sake, I suggested that the GM learning a new set of rules should watch for patterns, and use them to make understanding the rules a little easier. Starting in this part of the […]

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