Campaign Mastery

It’s not easy making a completely fresh start. This series examines in detail the process of creating a new campaign. What more do you need? You’ve got the basic plot, you’ve got the basic world, you have these organized so as to spread the developmental workload over the life of the campaign, you’re ready to […]

It’s not easy making a completely fresh start. This series examines the process of creating a new campaign in detail. Last time, I went through the development process of taking ideas and some indications of direction and welding them together into a campaign plan. Now it’s time to think about the game world… I am […]

Another filler article, I’m afraid. I’ve made quite a lot of progress but – due to external factors – simply ran out of time. I’ve been saving this one for just such an eventuality… For the purposes of this article, “FRPG” is considered restricted to D&D / Pathfinder and similar systems. I know that’s unrealistic, […]

This question comes from GM Roy, who wrote: “I need some inspiration to create cool names for spell components. I have 5 [scales of rarity = Mike]: Common (flesh, breath, water, dust) Uncommon (earth from a cemetery, humanoid blood) Rare (head of a Medusa, Minotaur’s horn, black dragon blood) very Rare (Essence of the ghost […]

Material Components don’t have to be a dirty word. They can be a rich source of color, flavor, and adventure even while avoiding the excessive paperwork.

It’s been quite a while since I looked at the topic of the one-player campaign, also known as the solo campaign. The last time was back in May of 2010 in an Ask The GMs article, “Ask The GMs: How to GM solo PCs (especially in combat), and because the question was specifically about a […]

The November blog carnival is hosted by Roleplaying tips, and is on the subject of Races and Species. For the second of the two articles I am submitting for the carnival, I thought I would step into left field and look at the question sideways for a bit, as you can tell from the title […]

This month’s Blog Carnival is hosted by my buddy (and ex-partner here at Campaign Mastery) over at Roleplaying tips. The subject is Races and Species and everything that goes with these concepts. This is the first of two articles I have planned and written for the Carnival. How do you create an original alien species? […]

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 […]

There is a pub in Soho that still bears the name, “The John Snow”. It is named for the brave physician who proved that Cholera was spread through drinking water, ending an outbreak in the district. And that sparks a thought: Every place name is – or at least can be – a memorial to […]

Politics is one of those inevitable conditions, like death and taxes, that every GM has to master to some extent because it will make its presence felt in every campaign. There’s always something more to say on the subject. In this article, I’m going to look at the basics of political relations between similarly-scaled entities; […]

There are lots of things that are hard to do, or at least to do well. This article is about two of them, and a Kickstarter project that looks like a serious attempt to do both to a very high standard. Challenge The First The first is low-level adventures. Many GMs find these difficult to […]