Campaign Mastery

There is no standardized, consistent, approach to how long it should take to do things in an RPG. It’s time that changed. A strongly-related question is how long is a skill roll good for, before a new roll is required. I was musing about what to write for this week’s post when I saw something […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

I love it when I discover something that GMs should be using and aren’t, because it means that I get to analyze the reasons, and devise solutions to whatever is holding people back – and I learn things and develop tools for my own use in the process. By my count that’s win-win-win-win – and […]

One of the newsletters to which I subscribe offers advice for scriptwriters (“The Story Guy Newsletter”). Occasionally, there’s a nugget that can be adapted to service a TTRPG, it’s well-written, and not too long to read (having said that, I’m about 4 behind). One post that dropped shortly before or just after I moved talked […]

Introduction Last week, Last month, (third time’s the charm): Back in March, I offered a guest article by Franklin Veaux on how memory works, and some of its features and failings. Today, I’m going to follow it up with analysis of how The phenomenon that he describes, which I have named “Fuzzy Plastic Memories,” applies […]

Christmas Day falls on a Monday this year – today, in fact! – and so I’m preparing this in advance, in effect doing on Sunday what I would normally do Monday, which means doing on Saturday what I would normally do Sunday, and so on. AND posting a day early as a Christmas Bonus to […]