Let’s Have A Good Clean Fight…

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 ha[...]
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The Anatomy Of Evil: What Makes a Good Villain?

I’ve been watching some of my old Stargate: SG1 episodes during the last week, and (as often happens) some of the commentary (in the season 9 extras) sparked an interesting question. The discussion was about the r[...]
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Minions on the Table

Monsters can lose a battle before it begins if they have bad tactical positions. This is even truer with minions. Even if we assume, narratively, that your minions have no way to know they’re little competition for the[...]
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Minions of Differing Flavors

Just like the epicure needs new and exciting experiences, numerous DMs among us need new ways to mix it up with minions. This is especially true if you feel your minions disappear too quickly to be interesting or seem to[...]
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A Monkey Wrench In The Deus-Ex-Machina: Limiting Divine Power

This article deals in subjects that are sensitive issues to a lot of people. Everything contained within is written from a roleplaying context and no judgements are intended regarding the validity of any individual pers[...]
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Break Down The Door – 5 Encounter Seeds

In my article about how to be a confident game master, I mentioned I have encounter seeds ready during games that I categorise as break down the door. Campaign Mastery reader Will asked to see what these were, so here th[...]
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We All Have Our Roles To Play: A Functional Perspective on Personality Archetypes, Part 1

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 playe[...]
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The Recycle Bin – Essentials: Shell Creatures

Last time I gave a bunch of rules for Shell Creatures, which had a bunch of mechanics to mirror the Stagger system of Final Fantasy 13. It was a bit complicated, which in my defense was because I was trying to mimic som[...]
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Minions Are Spice

A minion is a tiny onion used for flavor, especially in soups. That’s what my father told me when I was a kid. Even then, though, the D&D game had imparted enough for me to see the lie and the humor. In fact, if an[...]
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Opportuntity Actions: Tarrasque Workshop #2 – Retooling

We’ve explored the concept of playing the Tarrasque at its proper size. Now it’s time to play with it’s stat block. People know the Tarrasque; they know it’s capabilities, its strengths and weakne[...]
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The Recycle Bin – Shell Creatures

I’m not a very original person.  Creative, possibly, but not original.  I took to heart what my 12th grade English teacher Virginia Olga Wortinski told me all those years ago, “Little ones, there are no new[...]
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Mailbag 8—All By Myself, Part 5

This final piece is all about the competition for your solos—the players and their characters. You design encounters to challenge those others at your game table, so almost all of this series has really been about them[...]
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Mailbag 7–All By Myself, Part 4

DMing a solo is at least as rewarding as running encounters with more monsters. It can be even more satisfying, since a solo can and should evoke strong reactions from players as it deals out destruction. But running a s[...]
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A Slippery Slope: Level Adjustments Under The Microscope

There are times when an Ask-The-GM’s question doesn’t inspire one of us, or is too attached to the mechanics of one specific game system, or doesn’t have enough depth to justify a full blog post, or ha[...]
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Ask The GMs: The Momentum Of The Inevitable

Should there ever be something that is too big or has too much momentum for the PCs to be able to stop? In the discussion following a previous Ask The GMs, (Giving Players The Power To Choose), James Carter asked th[...]
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The Characterisation Puzzle: The First Decision

If you’ve been following this series from the beginning, then you are now equipped with three new techniques for character development, all of which are useful when for some reason you’re struggling to find [...]
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The Characterisation Puzzle: The Window Shopping Technique

New techniques for getting under a character’s skin don’t come along every day; the techniques described earlier in this series have been my standard weapons for such tasks for the last two decades. So, when[...]
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The Characterisation Puzzle: The Inversion Principle

The second technique of character development that I call apon when stumped for ideas is something that I call The Inversion Principle. Some parts of this I had worked out many years ago, but it was when I read an inter[...]
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The Characterisation Puzzle: The Thumbnail Method

This is technique number 1 for getting inside your character’s heads. It’s something I was taught in a Graphic Design course that I completed back in 1992 – so here we are 18 years later, and it’[...]
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The Characterisation Puzzle: When personalities are hard to find

Developing a characterisation is like a jigsaw puzzle. You solve the bit around the edges first – the most obvious characteristics – and then try and fill in the middle a bit at a time until the whole pictur[...]
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Paint On A Canvas: A Personality Metaphor

Tony Scott, in the interviews that accompany “Beverly Hills Cop II” states (while discussing the casting of Brigitte Nielson for that movie) that his background is in painting, and that casting is like putti[...]
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A Grand Conclusion: Thinking about a big finish

I know I’ve written about this before (An Epic Confusion, Or How To Stage A Blockbuster Finish), but I’ve been thinking some more about big finishes to campaigns, prompted by the fact that my superhero campai[...]
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Create the Perfect Turn and Results Will Take Care of Themselves

I like games and I enjoy competing. Years ago, after getting riled up during one too many board games, I realized my competitive emotions were ruining the fun for me and others at the game table. I reflected for quite aw[...]
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Ask The GMs: When players make themselves immune, remember that “Resistance Is Futile”

How do you handle PCs who seem to be immune to magic? A recent inquiry in Ask The GMs asked us, Hi! I’ve just started an AD&D campaign where the all the PCs have got really good saving throws. Less than 5[...]
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My Biggest Mistakes: Magneto’s Maze – My B.A. Felton Moment

There came a time when I had to move out of the city (where my players were), and back to the small town in which I had grown up, for financial reasons. That would spell the end of most campaigns, but I had willing play[...]
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Ask The GMs: Going Beyond The Rules

How do you extrapolate from existing rules to cover new situations? Recently, Campaign Mastery was asked, If a giant has rapid shot can he throw 2 rocks in a full round action? (d&d 3.5) This sparked some debat[...]
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Ask The GMs: In it for the long haul

How can a campaign last for decades, and what does such longevity imply? A question recently asked us, I remember Mike mentioning his decades-long superhero game a few times, and am currently planning my next campa[...]
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Types Of Combat Hazards – Traps

Traps in some game systems are standalone elements. However, I consider them a hazard if they factor into a combat in any way. Encounters without combat that just have traps in them I would consider hazardous for your he[...]
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Types Of Combat Hazards – Environment

The first type of hazard we talked about was Terrain. Another variety of combat hazard is environmental. What are the physical surroundings like? Are there any interesting global effects in place? My definition of enviro[...]
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Types Of Combat Hazards – Terrain

There are many kinds of combat hazards, such as giant bubbles that trap combatants who bump into them, or a narrow band of strong wind that pushes combatants around. GMs often do not have enough variety in their hazard s[...]
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Hazards of Combat: What is a combat hazard?

Throw hazards into your combats to make fights more interesting, regardless of game systm or genre. Dungeons and Dragons, for example, has always promoted dungeon masters using traps and difficult terrain, though in the [...]
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The Gold Standard: Mike’s Top Twenty 3.x Supplements (part 5)

Part 1 of this blog post listed nine general supplements. Parts 2, 3, and 4 added three planar supplements, four supplements about magic, and four supplements about game settings and gaming environments. That makes a ful[...]
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The Nimble Mind: Making Skills Matter in RPGs

Someone once asked me why D&D bothers to include skills at all. After all, the GM generally tells the players anything they really need to know (rather than seeing all his hard work in preparing the game crash and b[...]
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The Gold Standard: Mike’s Top Twenty 3.x Supplements (part 1)

In the comments to a recent blogpost (”The More Things Change: An essay on the future of RPGs”) that I wrote, Johnn suggested that he’d like to see a list of my top twenty D&D supplements. It wasn&#[...]
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Hating 4E? Give it one more crack…

A post-session report on making some rather dreastic changes to the core 4E game, a description of those changes, and the positive results.[...]
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Ask The GMs: An Epic Confusion, or how to stage a blockbuster finish

How much, if at all, should the final villain of a long running campaign pull his punches? My campaign boss [villain] is a high level wizard with access to epic spells, and my party just made 20th level. They are o[...]
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Ask The GMs: The right to be heard

How do you ensure that every player gets a fair share of the attention when one of them has a dominant personality? Sometimes it can be hard to determine exactly what the problem is when someone asks for advice. Whe[...]
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4E Bringing You Down? Try This!

A few weeks ago I posted my problems with 4E, and many readers educated me on how to deal with my flagging interest in the system. I've compiled their wisdom here. Extra special thanks to Kimble, Anarchangel, Swordgleam,[...]
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Experience Points: Fools Rush In…

Welcome back once again to Experience Points, the column that follows the fortunes of my weekly D#38;D campaign Dark Legacy.  This week found our heroes exploring a part of the Seven Bridges Valley unfamiliar to them in[...]
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Experience Points: Fey Eye for the Shadar-kai

Welcome to this week’s installment of Experience Points, the column that follows the ins and outs of my weekly Dungeons #38; Dragons campaign, Dark Legacy.    Before we begin let me elaborate on this week’s title.[...]
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Ask The GMs: Pacing Your Campaign

How do you pace a campaign? How do you know if you’re giving too much or too little in experience and treasure? And how do you get the PCs to explore more than the local area? Hello Johnn and Mike, I have bee[...]
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“This Means War!”: Making huge armies practical (Part 5 of 6)

This is part five of an article on how to referee a war in an rpg. Not one that happens in some distant country, or a neighbouring city, but up close and personal - so close that the PCs can touch it. And not some small [...]
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“This Means War!”: Making huge armies practical (Part 6 of 6)

This is the final part of a 6-part article on how to referee a war in an rpg. Not one that happens in some distant country, or a neighbouring city, but up close and personal - so close that the PCs can touch it. And not [...]
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“This Means War!”: Making huge armies practical (Part 3 of 6)

This is part three of an article on how to referee a war in an rpg. Not one that happens in some distant country, or a neighbouring city, but up close and personal - so close that the PCs can touch it. And not some small[...]
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“This Means War!”: Making huge armies practical (Part 4 of 6)

This is part four of an article on how to referee a war in an rpg. Not one that happens in some distant country, or a neighbouring city, but up close and personal - so close that the PCs can touch it. And not some small [...]
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“This Means War!”: Making huge armies practical (Part 1 of 6)

The subject of this month’s blog carnival is War. As part of that canival, I present an article on how to referee a war in an rpg. Not one that happens in some distant country, or a neighbouring city, but up close [...]
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“This Means War!”: Making huge armies practical (Part 2 of 6)

This is part two of an article on how to referee a war in an rpg. Not one that happens in some distant country, or a neighbouring city, but up close and personal - so close that the PCs can touch it. And not some small s[...]
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The Bonechewer, a Disgusting CR 15 Aberration, Free to Download

Hey all, it's been a bit, but please enjoy the newest U20 critter, the Bonechewer. I think you'll enjoy running this guy. Also, know that there are four (or more) 3.5E critters being captured for the [...]
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Building The Perfect Beast: A DD 3.5 online monster generator

Recently, Campaign Mastery recieved a comment to one of our blogs informing us of an online monster/NPC generator available at Dingle Games. While the comment was not approved as it was unrelated to the post in question,[...]
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The Flói Af Loft Ryk Bolti (conclusion)

This is page 3 of Mike’s submission to the February Blog Carnival, “Map and Monster”. Pages 1 and 2 can be found here and here, respectively. Within The Flói Af Loft Finally, the characters have reached the floor[...]
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