Campaign Mastery

All players expect to be thrown into the deep end from time to time by the GM, with no idea of how to solve the conundrum that confronts them. Most commonly, this results from characters not having the skills that would solve the problem via the most straightforward course. Instead, the character has to take […]

In the current Adventurer’s Club plotline, my co-GM and I needed to create a fabulous gem to be at the heart of the story-line, the Kalhoolie Diamond. To go with this fabulous gemstone, and lend authenticity to the fabled gemstone, we needed to create a history for it. Today’s article will examine the legend of […]

A Narrative Evolution Of Reality I construct very detailed plotlines for most of my campaigns. There are: Primary Campaign-Level Plotlines that permanently shape or reshape the context within which all the individual adventures take place. Usually consist of tent-pole Events and paradigm shifts within adventures, and are often describable as the outcome of a string […]

I hardly ever start plotting a story or an adventure at the beginning. There’s too great a chance of chasing yourself down a blind alley when you do so. The First Pass: Back To Front Instead, I leap ahead to the next significant development and ask “what do the star(s) of the story – the […]

New years are about new beginnings, about punctuating the year that was, to separate it (however artificially, however optimistically) from the year that is to come. This article is about new beginnings, and being aware of the options you have, but it might not seem so, at first. Bear with me…. One of the hardest […]

  There’s a long tradition of TV shows doing Christmas episodes. These are Christmas themed in some way, often by having the action occur over the holiday period, and if necessary are out-of-continuity or even non-canonical. This has led to an equivalent pattern occurring in some RPG Campaigns. Christmas adventures are often much harder to […]

This article has been in preparation for a very long time – since May 2017, in fact. I hope it proves to have been worth the wait… While there is no such thing as “winning” in an RPG, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t success, and that not all success is created equal. Some success […]

Anarchy. Chaos. Flexibility. Uncertainty. Control. Challenge. Unpredictability. All of these words can be used to describe the influence of Randomness within an RPG. Every GM uses randomness in all seven of these ways, the relative significance being the primary variant. But why do RPGs contain a random element? Randomness in RPGs derives from two sources, […]

There’s a show that I like to watch now and then on a local Free-To-Air lifestyle channel called “Rescue My Renovation”. It appeals because it not only explains what was done wrongly but the correct way that it should have been done, and why. This presents practical information that I’ve found useful from time to […]

I know a number of former GMs who gave up the job. Some of them reverted to being players, some of them occasionally still dabble in the big chair, and some were so traumatized by the experience that they gave up RPGs entirely. There are always three parts to the equation that dictates a GM’s […]

There are lots of good reasons to have a strong supporting cast in an RPG. They permit interactions which reveal or highlight aspects of a PC that otherwise might get an infrequent airing, for one thing. Trusted NPCs can serve as proxies for the PCs, or can supplement their skill-base. Or, fourth, they can facilitate […]

The GM puts a problem in front of the PCs – a couple of thugs extorting the locals. The players come up with a plan to solve the problem which works perfectly. The public shower the PCs with rewards and gratification. Sounds pretty boring to me. Where’s the challenge? Where’s the adventure? Roadblocks, Tripwires, Deceptions, […]