Campaign Mastery

52+ techniques to vastly increase the scope of what you can depict on your battlemaps.

How do you choose a location? Where do events transpire? What considerations should you take into account, and what is the process and the chain of logic that gives the best answers most rapidly? These are questions that Blair and I will have to tackle repeatedly tomorrow, as I write this, because our next pulp […]

We all suffer from the occasional bout of writer’s block. This series started with the premise that different types of content meant different kinds of writer’s block, and needed different solutions to the problem. The immediate success of listing so many different solutions while outlining the article showed the validity of the approach; so far, […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time…    A triple-sized serving of the Orcs and Elves series today, to make up for missing last week, and to wrap up the Clan Wars plotline.    I explained what had occurred […]

Translation blocks are a type of writer’s block which occurs when moving from one level or layer of the story that you’re telling to the next.

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… It’s all been leading to this! Although there are a few more chapters to come, this is the climax of the Clan Wars plotline, which in many ways is the climax of […]

In part one of this series, I identified several primary types of writer’s block. All but two have been dealt with; this article examines solutions to those remaining primary types: Dialogue Blocks, when you have a conversation to write but have no idea what the participants will say, or what they are saying seems wrong, […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it publicly, I’ll never get it done in time! Only one chapter this time, but it’s a biggie… ************************************************************************************************* Clan Wars XIX: The Hidden Dragon Beneath the granite facade of one particular mountain range lies a heart pockmarked by limestone caverns. […]

A real-life example of solving a plot problem for an RPG.

There are four more primary types of Writer’s Block that I identified in part one of this series, and this article is going to tackle two more of them, and offer 17 solutions to those specific varieties of problem. The types of Writer’s Block to be dealt with in this article are:- Action Block, when […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it in public, I’ll never get it done in time… This was supposed to be just two chapters, but at the last minute I broke the first into two smaller, more digestible, chunks. ************************************************************************************************* Clan Wars XVI: Faith & Politics “It […]

Novels and RPGs have one thing in common – you have to describe a whole boatload of locations every time you play. As a result, every GM learns the basics of doing so very quickly. Unfortunately, once they achieve a level of minimal proficiency, most GMs never give this aspect of their craft a second […]