Campaign Mastery

Something got me thinking the other day about the villains trilogy that I wrote last year – Part 1 – The Mastermind, Part 2 – The Combat Monster, and Part 3 – the Character Villain and about something that wasn’t included. What makes the scariest villain? Beginning at the Beginning: What is Fear? Wikipedia has […]

This is the third, final, and largest part of this series, which examines the lessons in problem-solving that I learned through training as a fire warden and as a systems analyst back in the early 90s, as applied to an RPG context. The goal is offer practical techniques that can be used to get a […]

The second of three articles looking at lessons learned in the art of problem solving focuses on Prioritization, which is an essential skill for long-term success. Knowing which problem to tackle first can make the difference between achievement and disaster. The article considers a theoretical analysis and then uses it to offer two practical approaches to the problem.

Introduction A week or two ago (as I write this) I was chatting with someone on twitter, and they wanted to show me a map they were working on – but couldn’t find where they had stored it on their computer. File organization is one of those areas that no-one ever really talks about, so […]

In celebration of Guy Fawkes Night, this month’s blog carnival, hosted by Nearly Enough Dice is all about Gunpowder, Treason, and Plots. I decided to take a comprehensive look at treason and betrayal as Campaign Mastery’s contribution…

Last Thursday I delivered six locations for GMs to insert into their campaigns that celebrated the fantastic. You could argue that at least one Wonder Of The game-World should reflect what is unique about that particular campaign, and that by leaving a slot free, I achieved the mythical seven; but that presupposes that each of […]

As a final dénouement of the articles on Wondrous Locations, I am offering a collection of wondrous places, all of which have been created just for this article (none are from my past campaigns). These aren’t quite as polished as I might have liked (I ran out of time), especially in terms of the descriptions […]

How to describe wonders and monuments.

Updated with an additional section in the comments Mention of Easter Island in a previous article has had me thinking about monuments and places of wonder, and what is needed to make them amazing. It’s a lesson that Australians in general don’t do very well at – hence “tourist attractions” like the “big prawn”, “big […]

In my first article for this month’s Blog Carnival, I asked the question ‘Location, Location, Location: How Do You Choose A Location?‘ and identified ten or eleven influences on the decision, and an approximate hierarchy within them, but was unable to offer even a guideline beyond those observations in answer to the question. Today, the […]

52+ techniques to vastly increase the scope of what you can depict on your battlemaps.

Nyngan (pronounced Ning-gan) is the small town in central New South Wales where I grew up, so I know it well – at least as it used to be. It’s so remote that I haven’t been back there for years. In the following passages, I hope to bring it to life for my readers, then […]