Campaign Mastery

Style without substance is a soap bubble, all surface glitz and no depth – and just as fragile. Substance without style is utilitarian and contains no room for fun. For anything – including RPGs – to succeed, you need something of both. I once saw an interview with a comedy TV writer – I forget […]

All players expect to be thrown into the deep end from time to time by the GM, with no idea of how to solve the conundrum that confronts them. Most commonly, this results from characters not having the skills that would solve the problem via the most straightforward course. Instead, the character has to take […]

The February 2019 Blog Carnival is being hosted by Sea Of Stars, with the subject of Making Magic Wondrous. This wasn’t an easy subject, because I’ve already done so much in this area regarding magic items of various types. I suspect others may have found it so, too, because entries are thin on the ground […]

I’m writing and uploading this week’s article in advance because right in the middle of the time when I’m supposed to be writing, I have a medical treatment scheduled. This article isn’t my first choice to fill the breach – I planned to present something on politics within RPG settings- but it bogged down, mostly […]

  There’s a long tradition of TV shows doing Christmas episodes. These are Christmas themed in some way, often by having the action occur over the holiday period, and if necessary are out-of-continuity or even non-canonical. This has led to an equivalent pattern occurring in some RPG Campaigns. Christmas adventures are often much harder to […]

Anarchy. Chaos. Flexibility. Uncertainty. Control. Challenge. Unpredictability. All of these words can be used to describe the influence of Randomness within an RPG. Every GM uses randomness in all seven of these ways, the relative significance being the primary variant. But why do RPGs contain a random element? Randomness in RPGs derives from two sources, […]

There’s a show that I like to watch now and then on a local Free-To-Air lifestyle channel called “Rescue My Renovation”. It appeals because it not only explains what was done wrongly but the correct way that it should have been done, and why. This presents practical information that I’ve found useful from time to […]

Last week’s post was (technically*) the 1000th here at Campaign Mastery. Appropriately for such a number, it dealt with big-picture abstractions and the fundamental principle upon which the blog is founded – having more fun at the gaming table. That make’s this post (again, technically*) the 1001st – a number that itself both the seeds […]

I know a number of former GMs who gave up the job. Some of them reverted to being players, some of them occasionally still dabble in the big chair, and some were so traumatized by the experience that they gave up RPGs entirely. There are always three parts to the equation that dictates a GM’s […]

The GM puts a problem in front of the PCs – a couple of thugs extorting the locals. The players come up with a plan to solve the problem which works perfectly. The public shower the PCs with rewards and gratification. Sounds pretty boring to me. Where’s the challenge? Where’s the adventure? Roadblocks, Tripwires, Deceptions, […]

You learn something new every day, and today’s example was a small factoid: IQs are increasing so rapidly that the average person today would have scored an IQ of 130 a century ago, qualifying as “gifted”. Projecting Forwards Since the average back then was defined as a score of 100, that’s a rise of 3 […]

I was reflecting on the process that I use to design NPCs for my campaigns, the other day, and I don’t think that I’ve ever described it here at Campaign Mastery, let alone explained it. That simply won’t do. There are a number of considerations that go into the design of an NPC, and I […]