Campaign Mastery

Over the weekend, Campaign Mastery was described by the very flattering term, “one of the best Treasure Troves for a DM”. Aside from feeling very chuffed at the compliment, my mind immediately started to think about Treasure Troves. This article is the result. The Map So, how do you find a treasure trove? The two […]

This article was prompted by last Saturday’s play in my Zenith-3 (superheroes) game, but I use the techniques in all my campaigns. But I want to start by quoting a question that I answered over the weekend on Quora, because it’s also relevant. When running an AD&D game, what do you do to really make […]

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 Genesis Of An Article A little more than two weeks ago, as I write this, I had an unusual dream (a known side-effect of some of my medications) in which I wrote two articles for Campaign Mastery. When I awoke, I remembered them, and immediately made the appropriate notes. In the dream, one had […]

Pocket dimensions have been an important element of my superhero campaign for decades. Over that span of time, the understanding of their origins and properties have evolved in richness and complexity. Pocket dimensions were also much-sought-after magic items in my Fumanor campaigns, in the form of Bags Of Holding. And so I applied the conceptual […]

This started off as a simple idea for a quick little article. It grew….. How rulers gain their offices should be reflected in the society around them. Think about that for a moment. How rulers gain their offices should also be reflected in the personality and capabilities of the ruler, either at the time of […]

Over the Christmas break, and for some weeks prior, I read “First Contact” by Ben Bova and Byron Preiss, and three or four times in the course of doing so, I found myself mentally yelling at the page, “that makes no sense”. There are some logical errors in the assumptions upon which SETI is founded, […]

Today I want to share a simple technique for elevating your narrative text. It requires you to follow just two rules: Ignore the sense of sight for as long as possible. Don’t use a noun or a verb unless you have already described the object using rule 1. Sounds too simple, doesn’t it? But let’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, […]

This is something of an unusual article. As many of you know, I got my start submitting guest articles for Roleplaying Tips, and eventually co-founded Campaign Mastery with the writer/editor/publisher of that email newsletter, Johnn Four. A recent article was about “How To Think Like An Alien” – Johnn no longer numbers the issues in […]

How do you design your dungeons? For me, the only technique worth contemplating is the Narrative Approach, in which the dungeon’s location and structure derive from the adventure in which they are to be found, and the encounter content and similar details derive from the location, structure, and adventure. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But, as […]

I’ve been reading a fascinating book lately: “The Biology Of Human Survival” by Claude A Piantadosi, M.D. This relatively hard-to-find book from Oxford University Press deals with the biological processes by which humans react to various conditions, and hence the hazards posed by those conditions, in a way that is both technically accurate and yet […]