Campaign Mastery

The last installment of The Great Character Giveaway features another villain from my Zenith-3 campaign, who could easily be adapted for Science Fiction or Cyberpunk use. It would take a bit more work to convert to a D&D/Pathfinder application, but the results – a living flesh Golem held together with healing potions – would be […]

This is the second-last article in the great character giveaway of 2016. Today I present a pair of more traditional supervillains whose main interest lies in the way the character’s abilities are structured to make them exceptionally effective. These won’t translate as well as some of the past offerings into other genres, I’m afraid, but […]

Oh boy, does this character have a conceptual history. It started with needing another villain for the Paranormal War (which I told readers about in the last installment of Pieces Of Creation) and being short of time. So I took a villain from one of the many supplements I had for the Hero System who […]

Continuing the great character giveaway, here is an interesting (and nasty) villain from the Zenith-3 campaign, which can be easily adapted for use in a wide range of genres. He may not have quite the same impact in any world in which the PCs do not seek to avoid the death and suffering of others, […]

The Impossible Mission It doesn’t matter how skilled you are in your use of descriptive language and extraordinary narrative if you don’t know what it is that you are supposed to be describing. It follows that GMs need to construct and maintain a mental image of their world as it exists at any given moment […]

Season’s Greetings! Welcome to Campaign Mastery’s Great Character Giveaway, and Merry Christmas! This article is (hopefully) going to be posted a few seconds into Christmas Day (my time) so it seemed only appropriate that it contain a Christmas Gift. In fact, it’s the first of such gifts that are going to be coming your way […]

A collision of thoughts: the origins of this article The other day, I was searching through past articles looking for a particular reference for a cross-link when I found myself re-reading my article contrasting literary processes and writing for games (The Challenge Of Writing Adventures for RPGs), and – as happens to me from time […]

This article is the result of some recent work that was done for the next adventure, “Boom Town”, in the Pulp Campaign that I co-referee, “The Adventurer’s Club”. Players in that campaign don’t have to worry, I’m not going to give away anything that will damage the game! How big is a LOT of money […]

Welcome to the final part of Campaign Mastery’s major contribution to the November 2015 Blog Carnival. The theme this time around is the Unexpected, and this series is all about taking something that is usually assumed to be basic and reliable – portals and gates – and throwing some unexpected surprises into the mix… To […]

Welcome to the Blog Carnival Host Page for November 2015! In the coming month it is once again Campaign Mastery’s turn to host the Blog Carnival (if you’re quick, you can still catch the tail end of the October Blog Carnival about creepy things coming to town over at Of Dice And Dragons). This time […]

In part one of this series, six tables (and one set of subtables) defined the physical properties of a tavern (no guest accommodations) or inn (with guest accommodations), plus – because the modifiers needed were at hand – the meals provided by the kitchens. (This is an era when “restaurants” (i.e. locations for the sole […]

The Palomino and Fox and other establishments: Mike’s Fantasy Tavern Generator Pt 1 Preface As part of the series on Beginner GMs, I promised a Fantasy Tavern Generator after showing how you could start with one Tavern and ring in variation after variation as needed. This is a little more complex than the example provided […]