Posts Tagged ‘Adventure-Prep’

Trade In Fantasy Ch. 2: Trade Units Pt 1

This entry is part 3 in the series Trade In Fantasy

The concept of an abstracted “Trade Unit” lies at the heart of making Trade a playable event on a recurring and large scale. Without it, you bog down in minutia; with it in place, direct comparisons become easier and decisions far more prone to “make themselves” unless overridden for story purposes. Understanding the process of […]

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Break Management for RPGs: 12 Simple Rules

We all need to take a break from time to time. Managing the process is an underappreciated part of the GM’s toolkit. Here are 12 rules to follow. Taking A Break Today’s topic is one that I don’t think I’ve ever discussed here at Campaign Mastery. Quite obviously, I’m taking a break from the Trade […]

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Trade In Fantasy Ch. 1: Ownership

This entry is part 2 in the series Trade In Fantasy

Certain fundamental questions need to be answered about any business operation that the PCs get involved with, either as employees or owners before we can get into game mechanics for the actual operation of an in-game business. Credit where it’s due: The series title graphic combines three images: The Clipper Ship Image is by Brigitte […]

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Dominoes and Daisy Chains: Writing Adventures

The subject this week is adventure writing and structure. I have evolved a fairly functional process to translating ideas into ready-to-run plots over the years, and today I’m going to share it. This can be viewed as a companion piece to One word at a time: How I (usually) write a Blog Post, which has […]

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Systematic NPCs: Design With Purpose

I employ a structured and systematic approach to NPC design. Today, I’m going to give readers the low-down – everything they need to use it for themselves. The system revolves around a text document or sheet of notepaper, and an 8×4 grid on another sheet of notepaper – and something to write with. As ideas […]

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The Local Ambrosia: Food In RPGs

Cuisine is one of the ultimate distillations of culture. This is how RPGs can harness this fact. Introduction I watch a lot of travel documentaries and short videos, especially those that compare cultures. Not only are they inherently interesting to me, they give me vital cultural reference for games that take place in those nations, […]

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The Mundane Application Of Genre Part 3

In Part 1, I shared a simple technique for creating immersion within the specific genre of a campaign, and applied it to Fantasy campaigns. Part 2 took a solid look at Science Fiction campaigns (and was supposed to also include everything I cover this time around. These genres were not chosen capriciously; between the four […]

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The Mundane Application Of Genre Part 2

In Part 1, I shared a simple technique for creating immersion within the specific genre of a campaign, and applied it to Fantasy campaigns. This time, Science Fiction! Recapping The Process 0. Make a list of possible Mundane Activities (optional, but it helps). 1. Pick A Mundane Activity. 2. If it’s not something the PCs […]

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The Mundane Application Of Genre Part 1

It goes without saying that we want players to sense the distinctive ‘aura’ of a campaign’s genre, but all sorts of things get in the way of that, so it only happens occasionally and fleetingly. But there’s an easy solution, and it works in literary applications as well! When I broke this article down into […]

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Use Encounter Sub-stories to add interest

Sub-stories are akin to small anecdotes of a dramatic nature that can add interest, depth, color, and backstory to encounters. What’s not to like? I’ve started writing this article at least half-a-dozen times over the years, but it’s always fallen apart on me before I got to the interesting parts, simply because it’s been so […]

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Adding Stealth Dynamics To Sandboxes

It seems natural to me to follow an article about campaign structures with one about adventure structures. So that’s what I’m going to do. Furthermore, since the campaign structures addressed were specifically about Sandboxed campaigns, so will be this Adventure Structures post – though it can easily have relevance beyond those limits, that’s just a […]

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Order In The Sandbox

Today, I get to focus on one of my favorite subjects, campaign structure! There are lots of choices out there, but today I’m going to focus on one that I don’t use all that often, the improv sandbox. This article was prompted by something I saw on the screenwriter’s blog that I linked to an […]

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