Campaign Mastery

One of the best pieces of writing/direction that I’ve ever seen in a TV production takes place in a later episode of the series, in season 6 or perhaps 7, and it’s something that has made an indelible mark apon my awareness and handling of the passage of time in my campaigns. The Scene One […]

Drow are soon to make their appearance in my Riddleport campaign. They are part of The Great Game being played out in the background as the characters struggle for fame and power in the pirate city. To help me GM the dark elves I created the following tables and references. Maybe they would be useful […]

Last post I covered 2010 and how I fared against my plans and intentions. This week, I lay out my goals for 2011. Gamer Lifestyle has a good pair of posts of setting goals for 2011 you might want to check out. Goal #1: Hit every scheduled Campaign Mastery post My blogging schedule will probably […]

Today I go over my 2010 goals to see how I graded. In part two, in an upcoming post, I talk about my 2011 goals and let you know what kind of posts and products you’ll see from me next year. I believe goals make you more effective, whether you are aiming to improve your […]

You can win a set of the dice that appear in this blog post. Details at the end. Thanks for Q-Workshop for supplying dice to give away! A gamer recently mentioned a disappointing lack of detail when his GM handed out a “pouch of gems.” The player wanted more flavour. It is difficult detailing every […]

This week I thought I would describe a tool that I came up with to help me create quick and easy NPCs, called The Ubercharacter Wimp, or TUW. Three into TUW The concept is really simple: in a document of some kind, I list the highest and lowest PC scores for each of the stats, […]

Great names are critical for immersion. Name an NPC Bob and you set a bad tone for any serious campaign. However, even the best GMs get stumped occasionally on generating great names. Following are links to several online names resources, lists and generators. Before diving into the links though, I have a naming tip for […]

The Premise Archetypes for RPGs are usually defined either by the psychology of the character or the abilities of the character, but other classifications systems are possible. These can yield a different perspective, which can be invaluable. This series’ approach is based not so much on what the characters could do as a team, but […]

The Premise Everything that I’ve ever read on the subject has defined archetypes for RPGs either in terms of the psychology of the character or the abilities of the character, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But there are other classifications that are possible, and these yield a different perspective that can be invaluable. This […]

iAnnotate is fast becoming my most-used in-game iPad RPG app. It not only reads PDFs, but it lets you edit them too. And this is where it becomes a killer GMing app for me, which I will soon explain. Thanks to Tom Ganz for pointing this app out in his comment on good gaming apps […]

Roleplaying Tips reader Zerfinity sent me a campaign survey he used to build his new group. A friend once told me the best finishes have great starts. So it is with great campaigns, and one key is getting a group of like-minded, enthusiastic people around you each game night. Zerfinity’s survey offers a great tool […]

Reader Yong Kyosunim sent in one of his plot planning documents. This was in response to Campaign Mastery’s recent post on plot flowcharts. Check it out: You can download the plot flowchart in better quality as PDF if preferred. Yong created the chart using Excel. Thanks very much for sending this in, Yong!