Campaign Mastery

I’ve been thinking about Influences, Styles, Trends and Oscillations. It started when I was thinking about Nostalgia and the “death” of Disco and its subsequent morphing into “Electronic Dance Music” in the very early 80s. All fads and styles have a natural lifetime; the length varies, but at the conclusion, they are clearly recognized as […]

I’m not sure how I’ll go when it comes time to upload this article; my internet connection (and telephone) are giving me a lot of trouble at the moment. If I have to, I’ll hit an internet cafe tomorrow. I’m always looking for ways to sneak campaign background and historical information into my adventures so […]

In November 2016,. Campaign Mastery hosted the Blog Carnival with the subject being Everyday Lives. Today I have a new technique for integrating the everyday lives of your PCs into the campaign that is virtually effortless, has virtually zero impact on game-play, and yet makes the life of the PC affected more substantially real. Where […]

Sometimes, you want to hit your players with a problem that can be solved only with action of the most violent kind. In D&D, a monster that presents a kill-or-be-killed situation; in a superhero game, a violent threat that has to be stopped before innocents are harmed. But it’s never a good idea to do […]

For the last few weeks I’ve been (occasionally) reading a board-game development blog/newsletter – Brandon the Game Dev for anyone who might be interested – at the invitation of a relatively new twitter contact, @brandongamedev. This week’s post was about playtesting; in it, Brandon wrote, Since people can do unexpected and strange things with your […]

There is a principle of script-writing and fiction writing that says that if you want to grab the audience’s attention, you should start the story in the middle. Perhaps the ultimate expression of this principle is the James Bond teaser. I’m not sure if it’s the case with the most recent movies – I’m not […]

There are two different visions of a typical winter’s day. If altitude and latitude permit, you have your snowy day with bitter winds and flurries and whiteouts and snow getting down your back; if not, then cold and wet with howling winds and driving rain that sheets horizontally and in which the only cover is […]

It’s easy to fall into the trap of having a singular arch-enemy in a campaign. If anything happens to that enemy, it can leave the GM casting around for a direction. What’s more, having one central villain who is responsible for all that ails the world (and his flunkies, of course) is inherently a harder […]

So you’ve come up with a great character for your game and want to gain maximum value for your creativity? No problem. TV has been doing that in one-hour dramas for decades. There are two paths to follow: the Good Guy path, and the Bad Guy Path. The ‘Good Guy Path’ is all about establishing […]

I’ve seen all sorts of ways to ignite your creativity, nudging your mental capacities into a completely different orbit to their usual. I’ve even offered a few, myself, here at Campaign Mastery, that work best when you have some idea of what it is that you’re trying to create. They don’t work that well, however, […]

“Lessons From The West Wing” is a series of occasional articles inspired by the Television Series. I have several of these tucked away in development, and every now and then, prompted by watching the series for the umpteenth time or by relevant world events, I will dust one off and put it out there. I […]

The examination of the consequences to a community being located close to the center of administrative, political, and economic power that is a national capital continues. To recap: So far, I have looked at: Proximity To Power Proximity To Authority Proximity To News Access To Communications Proximity To Trade Proximity To Opportunity Proximity To Fashion […]