Campaign Mastery

Another filler post, I’m afraid – the next part of the New Beginnings series is turning out larger than I expected! I intended to get an early start on it yesterday, but thought of an article for later this week and started putting thoughts down on electronic “paper”, and totally lost track of time. Have […]

I was incredibly tired after Co-GMing on Saturday – while the game session went well, this was only the second time that I have GM’d since undertaking a regime to control my blood sugar after the recent Diabetes diagnosis, and it took a lot more out of me than I expected. In fact, I ended […]

The subject of today’s article emerged during a twitter discussion between John Kahane (@jkahane1), Joe Kushner (@JoeGKushner), and myself (@gamewriterMike) on Twitter last week. The conversation started when I mentioned to John that I had just started a mystery plotline in my Zenith-3 (superhero) campaign, and that special effort was going to be needed to make […]

This morning (as I write this) I was chasing down a vague notion about an emotional “color wheel” that wouldn’t quite come together. While pondering it, I realized that GMs sometimes think that they can end adventures on just about any emotional note that seems appropriate to the circumstances, and that I had never seen […]

The Twists haven’t stopped yet! This month’s Blog Carnival, hosted by Campaign Mastery, isn’t finished yet!. The subject is still “With A Twist” and it covers anything about Surprises, the Unexpected, etc. I started with an article on the rules interpretation of Surprise, and followed that with a two-part article looking at types of Plot […]

A Message from the Writer/Publisher: As I write, a hostage situation continues to unfold in Sydney, as it has for almost 15 hours, capturing world attention for all the worst reasons. For those who may be concerned, I am completely fine. But I must share my contempt for those who have attempted to politicize events […]

With A Twist Campaign Mastery is hosting this month’s Blog Carnival. The subject I’ve chosen is “With A Twist” and anything about Surprises, the Unexpected, Plot Twists, etc, is fair game. The Carnival started with an article on the rules interpretation of Surprise, and last week I posted the first part of this exploration of […]

With A Twist So it’s Blog Carnival time again, and (as I explained last week) this time around, Campaign Mastery is hosting. The Subject is “With A Twist” which means anything about Surprises, the Unexpected, Plot Twists, etc, is fair game. I kicked the month off with an article on Surprise, and this time around […]

I originally came up with this as an adventure outline for the Adventurer’s Club campaign, but it quickly became far too big and too complicated for that. Rather than throw it away, I have recast it as the outline of a standalone Pulp Campaign. The overall premise is The PCs time travel into the bodies […]

This month’s Blog Carnival is hosted by my buddy (and ex-partner here at Campaign Mastery) over at Roleplaying tips. The subject is Races and Species and everything that goes with these concepts. This is the first of two articles I have planned and written for the Carnival. How do you create an original alien species? […]

When you’re designing a battle for an FRP adventure, how do you make it different from every such battle that you’ve had in the past? How do you make it more interesting than a mere dice-rolling exercise? It’s even more difficult than it sounds. I have a novel solution to offer to these problems, but […]

In January, I wrote an article called The Hierarchy Of Deceit: How and when to lie to your players. There’s one type of deception that was poorly covered in the original article, though it was hinted at in the subsequent article on deceptions that are meant to be penetrated, I See It But I Don’t […]