Posts Tagged ‘Tools & Techniques’

Introducing The Sixes System: A Minimalist Universal RPG

This entry is part 1 of 9 in the series The Sixes System

0. Preface I’ve been thinking about writing this article – and the rest of this series – for a while now. You may be wondering, what is The Sixes System? It’s a slight refinement of the sophisticated but minimalist game system that I’ve been using for my Dr Who: Lovecraft’s Legacies campaign for about 3 […]

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Would all Deities please take One Step Forward?

When a deity shows up in your game, how do you make sure the PCs – and more important, the players – know what they are dealing with? How do they recognize that the being that stands before them is something more than mortal? Of course, sometimes it’s obvious that the creature before them isn’t […]

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Sparkle and Clink: Objective-Oriented Loot Placement

Some History It used to be so simple, back when I first started GMing AD&D. Each monster had a treasure type, and each treasure type had a table (or sequence of tables) that you rolled on, and a set of rolls on that table determined what treasure would be found in the vicinity. Room, Inhabitant, […]

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Jan 2020 Blog Carnival: Some Thoughts On Random Encounters

Maximilian Hart puts out a daily newsletter with a short thought and some links to resources that may be of value to D&D GMs called Dungeon Master Daily (subscribe and read some more about this resource here. Of course, some of those links and resources have a broader applicability, which is the main reason I […]

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In The Beginning: Prologs Part 1

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Prologues In RPGs

I’ve been re-reading my Knights Of The Dinner Table collection lately, and eventually reached the issue in which Brian discusses just how bad it can be for the players when the GM starts his adventure by putting a prophecy in the heads of the players. What happens, according to this character in the comics, is […]

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An Excess Of Character: Faster NPCs

I was watching a time-shifted repeat of “My Cousin Vinny” the other day. I’ve written of this movie before – some 3 1/2 years ago, in Review Roundup: Three Products Of Interest – and of the impact of the profanity used by several of the principle cast members in their roles. To quote from that […]

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The Olympian Perspective: Personal Opinions, Fake News, and the GM

Attribution This article was primarily inspired by a story published by SBS, one of Australia’s TV Channels, on their website, who in turn was republishing it from The Conversation, another website, under a Creative Commons license. Read the SBS story, Read the Original story by Julian Matthews, a Research Officer from the Cognition Neurology Lab […]

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Giving PCs Choice And Having Your Plot, Too

A slightly shorter article than usual, this time around, because my available writing time has been compromised by some medical tests ordered by my cardiologist. I’ve had to squeeze in as much writing as possible in advance – so this article was written on Sunday, biting into my weekend to find the necessary time. (Update, […]

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Things Easier With Pixels, Things Not

I don’t have many pet peeves – technology that suddenly stops working without explanation, or won’t do what you tell it to in a timely fashion are two of the biggies. Computer Gamers and Game Companies describing what they do as “Gaming” as though all other forms of game-playing were irrelevant is another. Computer Gaming […]

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Further Thoughts On Exotic Creations

This is a post in three parts, all gathered together right here for your convenience. You see, I was very rushed for time when completing last week’s article on exotic creatures for TTRPGs, and almost immediately, afterthoughts started coming to me – things that would have been added if I’d had a few more hours. […]

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Skin, Sinew, and Bone: (re-)Imagining Fantastic Creatures

Of late, I’ve had to create fantastic creatures for several of my campaigns, and despite the clear and obvious differences between the game systems employed, I found myself struck by a number of similarities in the process employed. When I tried to articulate those similarities for an article here at Campaign Mastery, it refused to […]

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Anatomy Of A Save

During play this Saturday past, I had reason to dissect a Save. The entire process took only a few seconds at the time, thoughts following one on another so quickly that there was barely enough time to get a fleeting impression of one before it was chased out by the next. I was helped in […]

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