Campaign Mastery

Today I want to share a simple and fast way that makes planning easier. I was going through old gaming papers recently and came across a partially crafted plot flowchart. This would be a short plot in Myste Cryk, a home-base type campaign that ran 2005-2006. As the blog carnival for September covers preparation, I […]

I’ve written on this topic before, but only as part of a larger subject. But I recently had occasion to expand the EL-CR chart that I created for my own use, and decided to share it with our readers – and have written this Blog Post to explain what it is and how I use […]

William Wiese asks the GMs, “I’ve been trying to think of different ways to implement puzzles into the game and to find some that are not riddles.” Johnn’s answer: Puzzles are tricky beasts, William. And thanks for the question; it’s a good one. Tricky bit #1 My tips below will assume your group is ok […]

I took the picture to the right last night just before we ate them. They came from the first garden I’ve had in about a decade, and the first garden veggies we’ve grown since moving to Edmonton. A minor theme in my Riddleport campaign is handling most of the creation ourselves, as a group. The […]

Wise words for game masters. Authors are advised to always show, never tell. So too it is with gameplay, where more fun comes from playing things out than listening to a GM drone on. Next time you are about to start a monologue, stop and put the game back in player hands. Do this by […]

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. Filling out a team roster is often a case of players selecting from a chinese menu – “let’s see, we need a fighter, a mage, a rogue, […]

There is a cooking show in Australia (it actually started in the UK, and a US version was recently announced) called Masterchef Australia. The goal of the series is to identify and winnow through the best amateur cooks in the country until they are left with the one best cook of the bunch, who gets […]

A friend I once gamed with was awesome at celebrating gaming. He made sessions into special events. He had props. He talked about games in a special way, like a sports fan does about when their team won the championship that year. He celebrated the details and told stories about special session moments. It was […]

Bryan Howard recently submitted this tip to Roleplaying Tips: Former PCs as NPCs The best and easiest way to have great NPCs is to inject your old characters. The fighter who settled down and opened a tavern, school or guild. The cleric who built his own temple. Another way is to use former player characters […]

In 2008 I implemented the Getting Things Done system (GTD) for organizing my RPG campaign’s emails, ideas and to do items. It worked so well that I now use it for every campaign, and I think you should consider it as well. Here is my version of GTD for managing and organizing my campaign. Gather […]

In part one of this 5-part examination, we presented a guest article by Garry Stahl, “The Conundrum Of Alignment”. In Part two, “A Neccessary Evil?”, I discussed the justification for alignment being part of the rules, looked at the historical precedent for oversimplified moral arguements, and concluded that the real problem with alignment was misuse […]

Campaign Qualities Are Like Feats For Game Worlds I’m flipping through FantasyCraft, a new d20 OGL RPG from Crafty Games. The first place I always go to in such books is the game master section. And amongst the 80 pages or so that brim with great tips and advice in FantasyCraft, I home in on […]