Campaign Mastery

Some mistakes you (hopefully) only make once; the mistakes that I’ve blogged about so far as part of this month’s carnival fall into that category. But some mistakes are bound to recur by their nature, and it is just as important to know how to recover from those. These mistakes might derive from a flawed […]

How do you extrapolate from existing rules to cover new situations? Recently, Campaign Mastery was asked, If a giant has rapid shot can he throw 2 rocks in a full round action? (d&d 3.5) This sparked some debate over whether Campaign Mastery should answer rules questions of this sort; we aim to deal with big-picture […]

In a previous blog, I discussed converting prices from “…and a 10-Foot Pole” from I.C.E. and mentioned a number of campaign-related issues and background elements from “Fumanor: The Last Deity” that complicated the discussion, which I promised to tell everyone about at another time. Since it’s a good example of how to take a rules […]

It doesn’t take much more than a quick flip through the pages of “…And A 10-foot Pole” to realise that it’s an extensively-researched volume. Aside from breaking history into twelve periods covering everything from the stone age (prior to 9000 BC) to the information age (1980+), it divides commodities into standardised categories and gives prices […]

Someone once asked me why D&D bothers to include skills at all. After all, the GM generally tells the players anything they really need to know (rather than seeing all his hard work in preparing the game crash and burn); and even if he doesn’t, players can always take a twenty. After further discussion, this […]

This isn’t the blog post that I intended to make this week; unfortunately, I’ve been struck down by the ‘flu and had no time to get anything finished except for something that I’ve been able to recycle from my house rules for the various D&D campaigns that I run. That’s also why I’m posting a […]

The Roleplay of Prestige Classes My games normally enforce the roleplay (non-game-mechanics) requirements for Prestige Classes (and, where relevant, feats and level progressions). It’s not enough for the character (PC or NPC) to simply meet the prerequisites, they usually have to DO something. Pages 204-205 of DMG II, in discussing the design of new prestige […]

Introduction I recently reformulated the way I calculate experience in my D&D 3.5 campaign. [Actually, what happened was that my computer’s power supply failed and I had nothing better to do with my time for a few hours. But anyway…] It took about a page and a half of 4 x 5½-inch notepaper, and consisted […]

RPGs use rules, usually relating to dice rolls and modifiers, to simulate the world around the PCs, resolve character actions, and provide an interface between the game mechanics and the simulated environment. But this is not the only approach that can be used, and there are times when alternatives should be considered by the GM. […]

This is part five of this six-part series. Parts 1 and 2 discussed the fundamental concepts needed to simulate a unit of 100 soldiers. Parts 3 and 4 described a step-by-step procedure for conducting battles between two armies. But if the PCs are mere bystanders, there is not a lot of point to it all. […]

This is the final installment of this 6-part series. Parts 1 and 2 discussed the fundamental concepts needed to simulate a unit of 100 soldiers. Parts 3 and 4 described a step-by-step procedure for conducting battles between two armies, and Part 5 described how to integrate the PCs into the war action. This final part […]

Part 1 and Part 2 of this six part series discussed the fundamental concepts needed to simulate a unit of 100 soldiers. Part 3 begins applying the theory… Part 3: Playing At War: The War Round Having turned each unit of 100 men into, effectively, a single creature, and simplifed the combat mechanics down to […]