Campaign Mastery

Despite many articles in development, today I’m choosing to scratch a pure fantasy-gaming itch that’s been growing for a while. Specifically, I’m going to look at how I go about creating a village for an RPG. There are some aspects of the process I employ that I’ve never seen written up anywhere else – whether […]

How many types of dinosaurs were there? And how can a theoretical examination of the question be applied to RPG games? This is going to be one of the more unusual posts here at Campaign Mastery. For a start, it’s full of maths, and for another it’s about real science (at least at first). But […]

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; […]

Pulp Rules for Healing, and how & why Pathfinder & 3.x GMs should consider adapting them to their games.

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 […]

This is part 3 of a series presenting the various House Rules that have been introduced into the Pulp Campaign that I co-GM. Today I’m presenting everyman skill rules that were developed for the campaign, and long overdue, too. Although designed for a Pulp Campaign built with the Hero System, the principles apply to almost […]

Following the publication last week of the rules on Windchill and other weather-based environmental effects, I was asked a very profound question by Rob, one of several GMs that I associate with on Twitter: Any tips on the drama side, Mike? My players have always felt a bit meh about weather – deadly but dull […]

This is part 2 of a series presenting the various House Rules that have been introduced into the Pulp Campaign that I co-GM. Today I’m presenting some cold, heat, wind-chill, and altitude tables that were developed for the campaign in preparation for a midwinter race against time in the Frozen Wilds of Western Canada. Although […]

I was half-listening to the commentary from the Tour De France a few moments ago (as I write the first draft of this opening paragraph), and I misheard something. No great surprise there, that happens all the time when you’re only half-listening. But what I thought I heard gave me a great idea for a […]

A few weeks ago, I described my processes for creating Partial NPCs, a methodology that determined how much NPC definition was needed for that NPCs role in an adventure, in Creating Partial NPCs To Speed Game Prep. This was described as essential know-how for the article that I was originally going to write and publish […]

Part 2 of the article trilogy looks at concepts within an RPG, how they relate to the campaign themes, and throws in some free game content as a bonus.

The Perils, pitfalls, and potential benefits of using an RPG to write a fantasy novel.