Campaign Mastery

I’ve long thought that the term “writer’s block” is an oversimplification and generalization of a whole range of different phenomena that can afflict the creative endeavor. I have a unique perspective on the subject, being a writer, an artist, and a composer; all three bring with them virtually the same problems when confronted with an […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… For those who read the player-redacted version of The Ages Of Existence (presented in Inventing & Reinventing Races in D&D: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 3), it should […]

Let’s talk about institutional secrecy. Organizations have all sorts of reasons for keeping secrets. Good ones. Necessary ones. Bad ones. I’ve watching repeats of JAG lately and recently they aired the Season 8 episode “Need to know” which is about a submarine which was lost at sea 34 years earlier, with the loss of all […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… This is the material that in the original plan (as revised a couple of weeks ago), would have been posted last week. Chapter 59’s content would have appeared as Chapter 55. And […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… It’s a peculiar thing when you’re writing. You are continually reshaping and tweaking the content to be included to make the narrative as clear and valuable as possible, and sometimes what seemed […]

A well-crafted campaign – or video game, novel, TV Show, movie, or short story – is composed of multiple layers acting in harmony and in concert. This is a simple point that is often overlooked, especially by novices or those focusing too intensively on a single medium, and not looking at the wider world around […]

I’ve so much prep to get done for the Fumanor Campaign that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… With this post, the regular Orcs and Elves series resumes. This content didn’t exist in the original draft, but I felt it necessary to show the Orcish events during the […]

       While there is nothing graphic in the content below, it definitely warrants a PG-13 rating for    adult concepts. Children should obtain parental permission before reading.     We interrupt our regularly-scheduled programme for this late-breaking development: I spent so much time developing the infrastructure and notes apon which the next chapters of the […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… Chapters 47 to 51 were in outline note form when I started. Oh, and for those wondering how I’m tracking with my rough outline, and the estimates made at the start of […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… ************************************************************************************************* Chapter 44 was already in first-draft form, but Chapters 45 and 46 were only a very rough outline and needed considerable expansion to achieve first-draft status. I feel it necessary to […]

Our special effects gurus get better all the time, and at the same time, their product becomes more affordable with improving technology, making it more ubiquitous in entertainments. I first wrote about the impact of this phenomenon back in 2009, when I asked Are Special Effects Killing Hollywood?, a question which shed a new light […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… ************************************************************************************************* I got asked the other day why I don’t take a break from this series to post something else. It’s a valid question, and deserves an answer. There are two reasons; […]