Campaign Mastery

Material Components don’t have to be a dirty word. They can be a rich source of color, flavor, and adventure even while avoiding the excessive paperwork.

A brief recap: This is the final part in a detailed reexamination of singe-player campaigns. If you want to see the full Table Of Contents, it was included in Part One (though it has definitely been updated since that was published). So far, we’ve looked at the effects on combat, characters, roleplay, and how those […]

A brief recap: This is the third part in a detailed reexamination of singe-player campaigns. If you want to see the full Table Of Contents, it was included in Part One. In today’s article, I am going to look at how Plots and Play change in a single-player game. Let’s dive right in… Heading Due […]

A brief recap: Quite some time back, in an Ask-The-GMs, I discussed singe-player campaigns in what seemed at the time like quite a lot of detail. After recently starting a Dr Who single-player campaign, I decided to review that article to see if there was anything more to be said. It turned out that there […]

It’s been quite a while since I looked at the topic of the one-player campaign, also known as the solo campaign. The last time was back in May of 2010 in an Ask The GMs article, “Ask The GMs: How to GM solo PCs (especially in combat), and because the question was specifically about a […]

This was originally intended to be part of my recent article, Pieces Of Everyday Randomness, but it quickly grew to dominate everything else in that article. So I’ve extracted, edited, and enhanced it into this stand-alone piece. Some people are really opposed to the concept of Random Encounter Tables, aka Wilderness encounters, aka Wandering Monster […]

November 2014 The November Blog Carnival hosted by Roleplaying Tips, is winding up – there are just a few days left to post your articles on the subjects of Aliens and Races. December 2014 That also means that its time for me to gear up for the December Carnival, because I’ve put Campaign Mastery’s hand […]

I was watching a documentary the other week. (I know, it seems like I watch a lot of TV. I actually watch less than it might seem, but I’ve gotten a number of articles out of what TV I do watch.) Anyway, the subject in this case was the investigation of the crash of a […]

Tomorrow (as I write this), as usual on the final Friday of the month, I will be deep into prep for the next session of the Adventurer’s Club campaign. Unlike the usual situation, this won’t be final prep – we usually play that campaign on the first Saturday of the month. This article will look […]

I’m going to do something a bit unusual for Campaign Mastery today, and talk about one character and one TV show in depth. Specifically, as you should be able to tell from the title, I’m going to talk about Doctor Who, the iconic British sci-fi series that has just celebrated it’s 50th Anniversary and which […]

Cliffhangers are a wonderful way to end a gaming session because they end play at a moment of high drama that leaves the players anxious to get back to the gaming table, and that tend to be fairly memorable because of the drama. You can think of them as milestones within the adventure. The primary […]

Pulp Rules for Healing, and how & why Pathfinder & 3.x GMs should consider adapting them to their games.