Campaign Mastery

Last time around, James Senecal posed a double-question. Because it was the easier of the two, and I was flying solo, I chose the easier question for ATGMs #27. But now it’s time to bite the bullet… How can you have substantial time pass within a campaign? “If death is to have a consequence, if […]

When you strike plotting trouble, a fresh angle can pay unexpected dividends. This article relates to the way in which plotting problems in an upcoming adventure were resolved. If some of the details seem a little vague, it’s because I don’t want to reveal those details before we play it. I’m going to try and […]

This article grew out of discussions between Johnn and myself concerning the Q&A in issue #300 of Roleplaying Tips. Johnn happened to mention that he was currently running a campaign based on published modules, and I was interested in comparing the approaches to handling them to best effect in terms of the difference to a […]

Ian Gray contributed to this article. Anniversaries have a way of reminding you of the promises on which you have yet to deliver, and so does the start of a New Year. “Ask The GMs” is one of the cornerstones of what got Campaign Mastery to it’s 5th anniversary. It’s now 2014 and for two […]

There are a number of valuable lessons for any RPG that can be observed in the looking at how Terry Pratchett achieved the success of the Discworld series of novels. Introduce the Key Concepts Early In the first entry in the series, he introduced the Discworld itself, established its basic physical and conceptual parameters, and […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it in public, I’ll never get it done in time… This was supposed to be just two chapters, but at the last minute I broke the first into two smaller, more digestible, chunks. ************************************************************************************************* Clan Wars XVI: Faith & Politics “It […]

Novels and RPGs have one thing in common – you have to describe a whole boatload of locations every time you play. As a result, every GM learns the basics of doing so very quickly. Unfortunately, once they achieve a level of minimal proficiency, most GMs never give this aspect of their craft a second […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it in public, I’ll never get it done in time! A number of interruptions today have left me with only two (rather longish) chapters complete. Since some future chapters have to follow each other very closely, this forces me into a […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… I’m trying a slight change in layout this week, formatting the text more closely to that of a book than the usual web format. Let me know if you think it’s an […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… For those who read the player-redacted version of The Ages Of Existence (presented in Inventing & Reinventing Races in D&D: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 3), it should […]

I’ve got so much campaign prep to get done that if I don’t do it here, I’ll never get it done in time… This is the material that in the original plan (as revised a couple of weeks ago), would have been posted last week. Chapter 59’s content would have appeared as Chapter 55. And […]

A well-crafted campaign – or video game, novel, TV Show, movie, or short story – is composed of multiple layers acting in harmony and in concert. This is a simple point that is often overlooked, especially by novices or those focusing too intensively on a single medium, and not looking at the wider world around […]