Campaign Mastery

It’s not easy being a GM. Not only do you have to create dozens or hundreds of characters for every one PC, but you have to create adventures and encounters that bring those characters to life in an entertaining way for the benefit of the players – all while refereeing a complex simulation of a […]

How do you GM when you have more players than you can handle?

I love a good domino theory, but they aren’t easy to do, never mind to do them well. This article holds the secrets to creating and implementing a string of dominoes that will keep players coming back for more.

It’s almost impossible to prepare descriptions of everywhere. This article offers a way to shortcut and streamline the process so that you need never get caught short again.

You’ve picked an Adventure Seed – it doesn’t matter where it came from. The first step to transforming that seed into an adventure that is everything you want it to be…

The dream sequence can be a powerful weapon for a GM, presenting information the players can’t get, illuminating subtleties of personality, and more.

This article is the result of a confluence of many different vectors, from reading a review in the current issue of KODT of the original “Paranoia” RPG to reading an article at E Pluribus Unum about Twitter mistakenly suspending an account as a purveyor of spam. Setting aside the questions of anti-spam techniques and technologies […]

Every minute spent writing more than you need is time wasted. Write to your target longevity to boost efficiency while avoiding the traps that lurk in the dark for the unwary writer.

I didn’t want to split this article in two. You really need to have read part one before you can get full value from what’s below. So I’m going to assume that you’ve done just that, and don’t need a synopsis to refresh your memory, and just dive straight in… Transitions & Global Emotional Flow […]

Swing Swing Dodge Swing Scurry Duck Scurry Scurry Dodge Kick Swing Leap Swing Parry Swing Duck Swing Scurry Dodge Swing… …it gets a bit dull and repetitive after a while, doesn’t it? Every adventure, every combat, heck, every campaign needs to have its highs and its lows, its frantic periods and its lulls of inactivity. […]

At long last, it’s finished! It’s taken a long time to complete the final article in this set, mostly because I had to keep setting it aside to work on something that would meet the immediate deadline, but here (at last) it is… Introduction to part 4 Not all Priests are the same. In fact, […]

Verisimilitude is critical in a role playing game in order to facilitate the suspension of disbelief and players (and GMs) getting into character instead of viewing events from a meta-perspective. Believability is hard-won at the gaming table and subject to constant attack by game mechanics and real-world distractions like side-conversations. More difficult still is the […]