Campaign Mastery

This morning (as I write this) I was chasing down a vague notion about an emotional “color wheel” that wouldn’t quite come together. While pondering it, I realized that GMs sometimes think that they can end adventures on just about any emotional note that seems appropriate to the circumstances, and that I had never seen […]

There are times when we all have to make a fresh start. This series is going to examine the process in detail. The table of contents was in the introduction (part 0). In Phase 2, short-term measures were used to buy time while doing some fairly tedious work in performing the last rites over large […]

A brief recap: This is the final part in a detailed reexamination of singe-player campaigns. If you want to see the full Table Of Contents, it was included in Part One (though it has definitely been updated since that was published). So far, we’ve looked at the effects on combat, characters, roleplay, and how those […]

There are times when we all have to make a fresh start. This series is going to examine the process in detail. The table of contents was in part 0. While there are always going to be things that you will want to bring forward from your previous game, there will be a lot of […]

A brief recap: This is the third part in a detailed reexamination of singe-player campaigns. If you want to see the full Table Of Contents, it was included in Part One. In today’s article, I am going to look at how Plots and Play change in a single-player game. Let’s dive right in… Heading Due […]

There are times when we all have to make a fresh start. This series is going to examine the process in detail. Finding Inspiration You need to start with an idea. While this might be an original concept, many people derive inspiration from existing sources. Depending on what that source is, the idea may be […]

A brief recap: Quite some time back, in an Ask-The-GMs, I discussed singe-player campaigns in what seemed at the time like quite a lot of detail. After recently starting a Dr Who single-player campaign, I decided to review that article to see if there was anything more to be said. It turned out that there […]

There are times when we all have to make a fresh start. Creatively – and GMing is a creative aspect of the broader RPG hobby – a change of scene may be needed. Enthusiasm may have waned. The old campaign may have ended. One or more key players may have dropped out and you want […]

Excitement. Buzz. Anticipation. Enthusiasm. How best to create these for a new campaign? This question comes from BlueNinja, who wrote: “I have an idea for a campaign, that follows off the plot of a popular CRPG [Computer RPG — Mike] (set a few centuries later, of course, so that the PCs don’t have to compete […]

I originally came up with this as an adventure outline for the Adventurer’s Club campaign, but it quickly became far too big and too complicated for that. Rather than throw it away, I have recast it as the outline of a standalone Pulp Campaign. The overall premise is The PCs time travel into the bodies […]

I was watching a documentary the other week. (I know, it seems like I watch a lot of TV. I actually watch less than it might seem, but I’ve gotten a number of articles out of what TV I do watch.) Anyway, the subject in this case was the investigation of the crash of a […]

Today’s question comes from all the way back in June 2010 – I’m sorry it’s taken so long to answer it! The question comes from Brett, who wrote: “I am an extremely new DM, but I have played for 7 years now. I am looking to put my players in conflict with Drow. At one […]