Campaign Mastery

When I started writing this article, it was expected to be another short one. I had only 3 or 4 impacts in mind… deeper analysis when I started detailed planning soon dispelled that expectation. Of necessity, I’ve had to break it into smaller pieces… Being close to the population / administration / social center of […]

Have you ever tried to run a prison-break scenario? Was it as successful as you would have hoped? I’m betting that most readers will have answered “no” to the first question and that virtually everyone else will have answered “no” to the second. There’s good reason for this state of pessimism: no matter how essential […]

I’ve read a lot of RPG content and advice over the years, much of it D&D related. I’ve contributed my fair share to that total, it must be admitted. Every D&D supplement (that’s not explicitly a collection of monsters) contains new magic items. Websites and magazines abound in them. AD&D creatures, at least came with […]

Character skills can be divided into three categories (with some overlapping): skills that enhance the character’s ability to survive/succeed in adventures; skills that the character archetype is expected/required to have; and the oddballs from left field, which I refer to as Characterization Skills. The last category also includes anything from the first two categories that […]

Things didn’t exactly go according to plan in the Adventurer’s Club campaign this weekend past. Entirely my fault; I was running late and assumed that the adventure that we were about to start had been copied onto a USB stick as is our usual practice. After all, it was finished several months ago. On top […]

How do you take three plot ideas and interlink them to make one grand adventure? I’ve often skimmed over this point because it’s usually arisen in the context of campaign planning, so I thought it was high time that I went into it in greater detail. Another reason why I’ve been dodging this discussion for […]

“A difference that makes no difference is no difference.” — William James “So make sure that the smallest difference makes a difference.” — Mike’s Corollary to William James’ statement (as applied to RPG Plotting) In Monday’s article, I looked at the first question raised by Ronald, “In fantasy settings, how can the GM and players […]

I’ve been re-watching Season 2 of The West Wing over the weekend. I only meant to watch a couple of episodes, but as usually happens when I put it in the DVD-player, I started to binge. It’s a show that never fails to tickle my sense of optimism, my hope for the future, my love […]

For today’s article, I’m reaching back into my memories of the mental processes that I employed to construct the Orcish Society in my Fumanor Campaign, and generalizing them, because it works for any society in any game – heck, I’ve just been applying the same basic principles to 27th-century Scotland for my Dr Who campaign. […]

Having been delayed 8 hours by a massive spam attack last night (650+ spam in 6 hours – but the effectiveness of my response is clear, only 17 spam made it through my protections while writing this article), it’s back to business. The fact that this is appearing rather less than 8 hours after it […]

There is something about “undead” that tantalize GMs and players. Maybe it’s because their very existence in a game world hints at fundamental questions about what life is. Every GM will, sooner or later, run an undead-dominant campaign or adventure arc. So it’s kind of a pain that so many of them suck in so […]

A trio of questions that take me out of my comfort zone, because I don’t know the game system, and they are – to some extent – heavily system-related issues. But I had the advantage of being able to consult my fellow GMs on this one, and also had the luxury of being able to […]