Campaign Mastery

I love it when I discover something that GMs should be using and aren’t, because it means that I get to analyze the reasons, and devise solutions to whatever is holding people back – and I learn things and develop tools for my own use in the process. By my count that’s win-win-win-win – and […]

One of the newsletters to which I subscribe offers advice for scriptwriters (“The Story Guy Newsletter”). Occasionally, there’s a nugget that can be adapted to service a TTRPG, it’s well-written, and not too long to read (having said that, I’m about 4 behind). One post that dropped shortly before or just after I moved talked […]

Introduction Last week, Last month, (third time’s the charm): Back in March, I offered a guest article by Franklin Veaux on how memory works, and some of its features and failings. Today, I’m going to follow it up with analysis of how The phenomenon that he describes, which I have named “Fuzzy Plastic Memories,” applies […]

The break / disruption caused by my forced migration has been longer than expected, but at long last I’m back, with a reasonable expectation of being able to resume posting regularly. That disruption hasn’t quite run it’s course, so there may be one or two late / missed posts still to come, but it’s a […]

Although I have outlined this post in the usual manner, something about the structure doesn’t feel quite right, as though at some point, my narrative is going to zig when my plan calls for it to zag. If there appears to be the occasional discontinuity in the discussion, that’s what’s caused it. No AI.-generated content […]

I get asked every now and then how I’m doing, same as everyone else, but there’s a difference since I am officially disabled. I’ve always resisted talking about my physical condition and medical problems in any depth here are Campaign Mastery, though I relented a little in Dice & Life: pt 2. But recently I […]

Preamble Revisit: A long time ago, I rewrote some fairly fundamental parts of Orrorsh, the Horror Realm. While packing, I discovered where it had been filed away. This is not a complete standalone work; you will still need the official supplement to use it. Why, then, should I read it? The reasons are the same […]

Writing and uploading this in advance in hopes of forestalling any disruption. It’s been a while since I did something on characterization; the last such was Four Roads To Characterization, back in late 2022. Hopefully this is a worthy extension of the subject. While packing recently, I discovered first-hand something that I already knew, deep […]

Preamble: A long time ago, I rewrote some fairly fundamental parts of Orrorsh, the Horror Realm, for reasons explained in the text below. While packing, I discovered where it had been filed away (hidden?). This is not a complete standalone work; you will still need the official supplement. Why, then, should I read it? First, […]

Christmas Day falls on a Monday this year – today, in fact! – and so I’m preparing this in advance, in effect doing on Sunday what I would normally do Monday, which means doing on Saturday what I would normally do Sunday, and so on. AND posting a day early as a Christmas Bonus to […]

So, here we are, back again for another serving of 2 more dangerous creatures based on sound. In fact, these are potentially even deadlier than last time’s offerings, the Humming Bee and Hissing Wyrm. First up, there’s the Whisper Willow, the perfect place to catch a quiet nap between adventures. Or not. And then there’s […]

It’s been quite a while since I sat down at the keyboard to write one of these articles without a clear idea in mind of what the subject matter would be – usually from weeks in advance of publication date. When a deadline is looming, that experience can be extremely stressful and unwelcome, but when […]