Campaign Mastery

A book on the structures and natures of different governments within our world got me to thinking anew about perhaps the most seminal creation within the background of the Hero System – U.N.T.I.L. Specifically, thinking about who the organization is; how they fit into the policies, principles and charter of the United Nations; what’s wrong […]

March 2011’s RPG Blog Carnival covered Life and Death in RPG. Full XP to everyone who participated with insightful and inspirational articles, and thanks for your contributions. Readers, you are in for a treat as you have many articles to choose from this month. I encourage you to read through them and make life and […]

The city power base series picks up again this week with thoughts about something you will not find in real life, but which affects fantasy cities in a huge way: levels. Think about it – most fantasy RPG systems offer class levels that create huge disparities between those who have them and those who do […]

In the introduction last week I covered the goal of this series, which is to use the idea of power bases – where do fantasy governments, government officials and factions get power and influence? – to make your cities interesting places to adventure. Each part in this series will cover two or three power bases […]

The topic of city government causes GMs big yawns. Other than picking a government type, you find it a difficult city element to make interesting for game sessions, adventures and city design. However, it is an important part of urban environments that should not be ignored. And it does not have to be a difficult […]

Great names are critical for immersion. Name an NPC Bob and you set a bad tone for any serious campaign. However, even the best GMs get stumped occasionally on generating great names. Following are links to several online names resources, lists and generators. Before diving into the links though, I have a naming tip for […]

I’m interrupting my series on Psionics to bring you this timely post on sports and nation-building… As I write this, the local TV host is replaying highlights from the opening ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Since Johnn is Canadian and I am Australian, both Commonwealth countries, we find our respective nationalities on opposing sides. […]

In the first part of this article, which is only the first installement of a series, I discussed the delivery of uniqueness in an RPG campaign, and derived a definition of doing so to perfection that was achievable in more than a hypothetical sense, that was actually a practical goal: “Perfection in an RPG is […]

In the first part of this article, which is itself just the first installement of a series of articles, I discussed the execution and delivery of uniqueness in an RPG campaign, and derived a definition of doing so “to perfection” that was achievable in more than a hypothetical sense – that was actually a practical […]

In the first part of this article, which itself is the first installement of a series of articles, I discussed the execution and delivery of uniqueness in an RPG campaign, and derived a definition of doing so to perfection that was achievable in more than a hypothetical sense, that was actually a practical goal: “Perfection […]

With a big holiday imminent, today’s post is themed on how to create adventure-filled holidays for your campaigns. It’s one thing to have a date picked in your game world calendar, and another to have a holiday become a living, interactive game element that helps you do some of the legwork for session planning and […]

In part one of this 5-part examination, we presented a guest article by Garry Stahl, “The Conundrum Of Alignment”. In Part two, “A Neccessary Evil?”, I discussed the justification for alignment being part of the rules, looked at the historical precedent for oversimplified moral arguements, and concluded that the real problem with alignment was misuse […]