Campaign Mastery

I was recently invited to review the Morgalad Starter Book by John McNabb, available through DrivethruRPG. Publication of Morgalad is the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign which, like the result, is an interesting mixture of flawed ambition and success. The initial attempt at funding Morgalad sought to raise $20,000 and was a dismal failure; […]

I originally intended to present the Tavern Generator that I promised on Monday as today’s post, but it will take longer than I initially thought. Probably one more day of designing the tables and two days to format them – largely because what I am offering is far more robust and advanced than the basic […]

Why should the pace of gameplay be held hostage by combat mechanics? Anything else we can take or leave – we can assume success on any skill roll and get straight to the results. But combat? No – not unless we hand victories to the players on a platter. In part one of this series, […]

While merging all the tactical and attack mechanics into a single die roll, as described in part one, can greatly speed combat, there’s no reason to stop there. The next part of the combat sequence involves doing damage and may also require recording any losses of characteristics used in the attack if the system tracks […]

On any number of occasions, I’ve referred to using a Cinematic combat style instead of the “full treatment”, but I’ve never gone into detail of how I go about that. I’ve explained why, but never how. (just in case, I’ll recap “why” as we go along). I’ve always resisted doing so because I felt that […]

A ‘Game Physics’ can shape plots, be revealed and extended by plots, but its greatest impact is usually more subtle and cumulative, and only experienced at a Campaign Level, where it can serve as a binding influence that ties disparate plots into a unified whole. Game Systems in service of plot This section was originally […]

In this series, I’ve been looking into the subject of Game Physics. Part one examined what a ‘game physics’ is, and what one can be used for. Part two focused in on one particular application, the generation and validation of House Rules. In this third part, the subject is the relationship between Game Physics and […]

As you can see from the title, this is part 2 of a series looking at the underlying principles and applications of Game Physics. The first part looked at exactly what the term meant, and found that it needed quite a lot of definition because it could be used to mean any of several different […]

“Game Physics” is a term that not enough GMs take the time to think about in depth. Physics is about isolating a single variable and measurable quantity, then altering that variable while observing the measurable quantity to shed light on the relationship between the two – then trying to explain the results in such a […]

It’s not easy making a completely fresh start. This series examines the process of creating a new campaign in detail, a process that is approaching its conclusion. Campaign Structure There isn’t much of a structural nature left undone, or so it must seem – and, truthfully, the bulk of the work is done. But there […]

I’m in the process of answering a question from GM Roy, who wrote: “I need some inspiration to create cool names for spell components. I have 5 [scales of rarity = Mike]: Common (flesh, breath, water, dust) Uncommon (earth from a cemetery, humanoid blood) Rare (head of a Medusa, Minotaur’s horn, black dragon blood) very […]

This question comes from GM Roy, who wrote: “I need some inspiration to create cool names for spell components. I have 5 [scales of rarity = Mike]: Common (flesh, breath, water, dust) Uncommon (earth from a cemetery, humanoid blood) Rare (head of a Medusa, Minotaur’s horn, black dragon blood) very Rare (Essence of the ghost […]