Campaign Mastery

Sub-stories are akin to small anecdotes of a dramatic nature that can add interest, depth, color, and backstory to encounters. What’s not to like? I’ve started writing this article at least half-a-dozen times over the years, but it’s always fallen apart on me before I got to the interesting parts, simply because it’s been so […]

Although I have outlined this post in the usual manner, something about the structure doesn’t feel quite right, as though at some point, my narrative is going to zig when my plan calls for it to zag. If there appears to be the occasional discontinuity in the discussion, that’s what’s caused it. No AI.-generated content […]

I get asked every now and then how I’m doing, same as everyone else, but there’s a difference since I am officially disabled. I’ve always resisted talking about my physical condition and medical problems in any depth here are Campaign Mastery, though I relented a little in Dice & Life: pt 2. But recently I […]

It’s been quite a while since I sat down at the keyboard to write one of these articles without a clear idea in mind of what the subject matter would be – usually from weeks in advance of publication date. When a deadline is looming, that experience can be extremely stressful and unwelcome, but when […]

Now Updated! – Scroll to the bottom of the page (past the table of contents) for the additional content if you’ve already read the main article. I usually write the bulk of these articles on Monday and publish them at Midnight that night or just a little after. The Monday juts past has all sorts […]

As usual, I’m going to get right down to business. While I’ll try to have this post function as a standalone, You’ll get a lot more out of it if you have already read Chapter 8.1, Chapter 8.2, and Chapter 8.3 before continuing. The Digital Age, Fifth Period 2010s-2020: The decade of fallout The most […]

As usual in this series, I’ve decided to just push on from where we left off, without the preambles and without a synopsis. You should read Chapter 8.1 before starting this continuation of the article to get the most out of it. But you can dive right in if you want to – at your […]

For the first time since I started it, when I went to draft the penultimate(?) parts of the Economics in RPGs series today, I found myself unsure of how best to structure the post. While I have total confidence that, given enough time, I would have found a satisfactory sequence to bring out the key […]

I’ve clearly decided to push on and get this trilogy of posts out of the way before interrupting the series for another break. As usual, because this is a direct continuation of what’s already been posted, I’m going to skip the usual preamble, so make sure that you have read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 […]

Because this is literally the second half of the article I posted last week, I’ll forego all the usual introductory bits and pieces and dive straight in from where I left off. Industrial Economics III: War & Depression Many of the economic influences that defined the era came together in the First World War, and […]

This is not the article that I intended to post today (that’s still somewhere in the pipeline). Real-world events have overtaken my planning and this post is in response to those events. Some of the language may be provocative or even incendiary; I make no apologies for that – this is a subject that has […]

I hadn’t intended to publish another math-heavy article so soon, but when the muse strikes you have to follow it… To be a top-class GM, you need to have an almost instinctive understanding of probability. Such understanding rarely comes naturally; you have to work at it, exploring different ways of looking at odds and outcomes. […]