Campaign Mastery

From everything I’ve read – starting with early issues of The Dungeon, continuing with “Through Dungeons Deep”, and running all the way through to numerous blog posts – a lot of GMs have trouble connecting the desire to “make the loot part of the plot” with techniques for actually achieving this goal. It’s my impression […]

Recalling the creation of a Divinity We’re continuing to build up to the big release of Assassin’s Amulet, and my excitement is reaching fever pitch (I can’t speak for Johnn & Michael). As part of that buildup, next week I’m going to present you with another excerpt from the book – but before I do, […]

Here’s another excerpt from Assassin’s Amulet while you’re all waiting for the announcement of the winner of the cover contest. This is taken from the GM Advice chapter and first appeared in this week’s Roleplaying Tips. Many GMs struggle with running killer NPCs. One big goal of the book is to arm you with enough […]

Assassins should be compelling NPCs in every encounter in which they appear. This article, an excerpt from the forthcoming Assassin’s Amulet, describes how to run Assassins as compelling characters to roleplay and deadly adversaries to fight. And don’t forget to vote for the cover! Step 1: Pick an Archetype or Example Creating an assassin NPC […]

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 […]

Sometimes GMing is flashy, and fun. When everything is ready, and you’re in the groove, when you know what is going to happen and can lose yourself in the game, and simply present the PCs with the consequences of their actions and concentrate on your performance in the guise of NPCs and on the delivery […]

This is the second half of a two-part guest article by Phil McGregor. To anyone who doesn’t know who he is, check the brief bio at the bottom of the article. Silver or Gold The other thing I find really interesting in almost all D&D descended/inspired FRPs is the 1/10th (45.4 grams* gold (or any […]

This is the first half of a two-part guest article by Phil McGregor. To anyone who doesn’t know who he is, check the brief bio at the bottom of the article! The second part will appear on Thursday. Wood or Iron? One of the reasons I got into roleplaying games way back in the mid […]

Why do we hand out experience for combat? No, I’m serious – this is a question that’s been preying on my mind as a consequence of an article I wrote earlier this year, “Experience for the ordinary person” – you should probably go and read at least the first section (down to and including “Reward-matching […]

Introduction Back in late February or early March, Holly Lisle’s books came to my attention – I’m no longer sure how, but it was probably a Twitter link to her blog. Several of her e-books sounded interesting, so I passed the information on to Johnn, who surprised me in late March by giving me several […]

As happens every now and then, this isn’t the blog post I had intended for this week; the planned post was simply taking too long to come together and would not have been ready to post. So, instead, I offer up for your consideration All is Three: A 3.x fantasy campaign premise. In February last […]