Campaign Mastery

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 […]

Because the last part of the Economics in RPGs Series ran to three parts, I’ve decided to throw in an extra non-series article before continuing with it next week. Fortunately, I had an idea on tap. The Holistic NPC “Holistic” essentially means ‘complete’. The term derives from Holism, which is a philosophic notion that focusing […]

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 […]

This is literally the second part of the article I posted last week, so I’ll forego all the usual preamble bits and pieces, just as I did the last time this happened, diving straight in from where I left off – well, almost. Writing like this sometimes has strange confluences and coincidences, and in this […]

“Show, don’t tell” is a common maxim when it comes to literary entertainments, and something that has been gleefully expropriated as good advice for other media. That includes TV, Movies, and, of course, Roleplaying Games. I was thinking about that during the last week, and noting how much easier it was for the other two […]

The subject today is Approximations and Guesstimations in RPGs. I’ve got a number of article ideas in various stages of development, intended to break up the series on Economics in RPGs. When the time comes to select between them, one of the key parameters that has to be assessed is how long the article will […]

A Status Update It can be readily observed that this is not part 3 of the ongoing series on Economics in RPGs that I’ve been publishing for the last couple of weeks. Right up until the last moment, I was uncertain as to whether or not to continue with that series this week, but two […]

There are three facts about a character that can be considered definitive of what sort of person they are, diagnostic of what sort of mistakes they will make, and instrumental in defining what sorts of adventures will consume their attention. These are not the whole sum of the substance of the character or his personality, […]

I was thinking about the perception of time and how that doesn’t match up with the mechanism of time-keeping in the standard initiative systems in games. I mean, it’s certainly possible to design additional mechanics to take these variations into account, and reinvigorate a system that has become predictable. More interesting AND more realistic at […]

In any game with Deities or Religions (and that’s almost all RPGs), the questions that dog real religions need to have answers that are plausible, whether we as real people believe them or not. The more interventionist the Deities are, the more this needs to be true, because there is greater capacity for the priests […]

It’s happened to all of us – we receive some paperwork that is important, do whatever we have to do with it, and then put it away for the next time we need it. And then, when the time comes, can’t remember exactly where it is – or it isn’t where we thought it was. […]

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but there are some creature types that automatically get tagged as the villains as soon as they appear. This is true in D&D, in Pathfinder, in a superhero game, a pulp / horror game – you name it. These are ‘the obvious villains’ and today’s article is all […]