Campaign Mastery

Running a campaign is a lot easier if there’s a clear process that maximizes opportunities for success and avoids the worst traps and pitfalls. Campaign Mastery has again been recognized as one of the top 20 blogs devoted to the subject of RPGs. Given the caliber of the opposition, I consider this to be a […]

This post details a more tactical combat system for D&D and similar rules systems than the standard one. At the heart of the system lies not d20 or 3d6, but a standard deck of 52 cards. The core concept of the mechanism came to me when I was shuffling cards for a game of patience […]

This was originally going to be one monster post containing three locations that I have devised recently for different campaigns. I quickly realized that this was too ambitious, so this will be a trilogy of articles, one every 2 weeks. This is an idea that hints at deeper connections in the game world, metaphysical relationships […]

I was thinking about the perception of time and how that doesn’t match up with the mechanism of time-keeping in the standard initiative systems in games. I mean, it’s certainly possible to design additional mechanics to take these variations into account, and reinvigorate a system that has become predictable. More interesting AND more realistic at […]

0. Fundamentals (repeated for all posts:) — The Sixes System is a minimalist game system suitable for any and all genres. — It has been used in my Dr Who campaign since September 2014, which has just come to a successful conclusion. — Characters are constructed using a point-buy methodology with NPCs generatable using die rolls […]

I’ve always had problems with traps in D&D. Some of these problems have their origins all the way back in AD&D, others are more recent in origin. Rules changes with the different editions have solved or mitigated some of my concerns while creating whole new headaches to take their place. I have solutions to these […]

This is an article inspired by a bus stop. As I got off the bus at my stop the other day, I briefly contemplated the fact that I had two different routes to choose between. I always choose one over the other as being faster than the alternative, despite having to wait for a ‘walk’ […]

For the record, none of the PCs in the Star Wars campaign is named Fluke. But the pun was irresistible. When we started playing Star Wars: Edge Of The Empire, we got the initiative system all wrong. What’s supposed to happen is that each PC and NPC / NPC-Group rolls initiative to create a set […]