An Interview With The Hellrider: Part 3: What are the Hellriders & the End of the Hellriders.

Sorry for the long delay, I’ve been caught up in real life again: Moving across the province, packing to move again to go back to university and the (fortunately friendly) end of a romantic relationship. Anyway, en[...]
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Garhelm – The Map

This is Garhelm: If you want a better look, trying downloading the PDF: linkYep, as you can tell from the scan, I banged it out on some old notebook paper.  I make no claims to be a cartographer, so I have no clue i[...]
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Garhelm – The Blood of the Einherjar

I had hoped that allowing any race to freely multi-class with Barbarian would encourage hearty PCs (see the "Classes" section of this post link).  However, it pushed players to take a level of Barbarian at first le[...]
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Garhelm – More Setting-Specific Rules

I’ve been digging through my old files (both paper and electronic) and have realized at some point I revised my initial rule-set.  Both of the Garhelm campaigns were played over four years ago (egad, time flies),[...]
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An Interview With The Hellrider. Part 2: The Formation of the Hellriders

“You still here? Wanna hear more? Well why the fuck not? Buy me another drink and I’ll ramble a bit more. So most of us were originally ex-bikers, but a few like me were picked up for useful skills. I could f[...]
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Dark Sun Heats Up

We are fortunate enough to have received copies of the Dark Sun Campaign Setting and the Dark Sun Creature Catalog today, and as usual we'd love to share anything and everything that we can with you guys! Earlier today I[...]
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Garhelm – Setting-Specific Rules

Here are the setting-specific rules I provided to the players.  This is kind of a hodge-podge listing and isn’t in any particular order.  I’ve added a few editorial comments about things that did or did no[...]
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Pulling That Lever: The Selection Of Leaders In RPG Societies

Okay, so for the first time since we started this online magazine/blog, one of us has missed getting a post up. Johnn struck problems with his planned post at the last possible moment, and then tried to rewrite it but mi[...]
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Garhelm – The Background

I distributed this background to my players to set the tone of the campaign.  When creating this back-story, I had three goals in mind:  Work in all the stuff I love (e.g., Norse mythology, Fraz-Urb’ Luu, etc[...]
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Garhelm – My Homebrew Campaign Setting

My next few posts will detail a campaign setting I created a few years back for D&D 3.5.  I named the world “Garhelm.”  Why?  Because it sounded cool.  (To this day, I’m waiting for someone [...]
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An Interview With The Hellrider. Part 1: Demons Ate the Goddamn World.

“Alright, listen up as I don’t wanna have to say this mor’n once. I’m sick of tell’n every yokel and farmer I run across to piss off so I figure I’ll tell you once and be done with it.[...]
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Eureka! – Some inspiring notions

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 amatuer cooks [...]
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The Critical Threshold: A brief debate on the Merits of Extreme Results

This is not the post that I expected to make this week. I simply ran out of time and could not finish either the article I had intended to post this week [about time travel] or the one for next week [the long-awaited fo[...]
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What do you look for in a game setting?

Hi all… I’ve been pondering putting aside my dreams of an independent roleplaying game in favor of doing what I love to do most, which is world and adventure design. So as I ponder such thoughts, I wonderR[...]
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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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Saragasso of Dungeons

There is a place in the multiverse that steals bits from other dimensions. A building here, a castle there, a cave system from other there.  These all get mashed together in  lightless universe, and covered with the di[...]
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The Pursuit Of Perfection, Part 4 of 5: Evolving The Campaign

In the first part of this article, which is only the first installement of a series, I discussed the delivery of uniqueness in an RPG campaign, and derived a definition of doing so to perfection that was achievable in m[...]
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The Pursuit Of Perfection, Part 3 of 5: Laying A Campaign Foundation

In the first part of this article, which is itself just the first installement of a series of articles, I discussed the execution and delivery of uniqueness in an RPG campaign, and derived a definition of doing so ̶[...]
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The Pursuit Of Perfection, Part 2 of 5: A Perfect Vision Through A Glass, Darkly

In the first part of this article, which itself is the first installement of a series of articles, I discussed the execution and delivery of uniqueness in an RPG campaign, and derived a definition of doing so to perfect[...]
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The Pursuit Of Perfection, Part 1 of 5: Don’t Compromise With Mediocrity

Confessions Of A Fan: A partisan review The 7 seasons of The West Wing emerged a couple of years ago from a packed field of contenders to become my all-time favorite TV series. Early in its life, it wasn’t even a [...]
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Shattered Future: Part I: The Northern Tribes

There was a time when gods walked the earth. They lived in great temples of glass and metal and ruled over man from on high. All was good, everyone had food and clean water and warm beds. The gods taught us magic, and ga[...]
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Ask The GMs: Essential Game Master Skills

What are the essential skills of a GM? Loz is a frequent contributor to the comments here at CM. So when he submitted a question to Ask The GMs, we were inclined to pay close attention. Here’s what he had to [...]
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The Frozen Lands: A Science-Fiction Campaign Premise

I often come up with ideas for new campaigns. Some of these are rubbish and discarded almost immediatly; some get saved, stored up for when I might need them; but most often they just get thrown away because I have no ho[...]
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Scenario Sequencing: Structuring Campaign Flow

In a previous blog, I’ve written about my Superhero campaign currently facing a big finish (A Grand Conclusion: thinking about a big finish). This post will be a sequel of sorts, because any big finish naturally in[...]
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Relatively Uncertain: Taking Control of Game Physics

Every campaign needs a game physics, whether the GM knows it or not. And, in fact, they all have one, whether it’s specified or not, and whether the GM knows that or not, as well. Boy, that was a short article! Now[...]
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Setting the Game in Your Location

I am not sure if this is a common occurrence among role-players or not, but a group that I played in high school set many of the games in our town. For obvious reasons, this does not work as well for Dungeons & Drag[...]
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Bringing on the next generation, Part Two: Gamemaster Mentors

In many respects, it’s easier being a player than a GM. Since the player determines the personality of the character, as well as what the character says and does, there is in fact no ‘right way’ or [...]
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The Ascended Conflict in my Riddleport Campaign

While I’m using Golarion as the world for my upcoming Pathfinder campaign, I’m making changes to the powers-that-be in a move that is the ultimate change in top-down planning. Spoiler warning: players in my c[...]
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Using “real” life in your games.

Thanks to Ken at The Rusty Battleaxe and his kick-ass d30 Random Blog Topic Table, this post will deal with three real life locations that I use in my Mutant Future campaign.  First, let me say how much I [...]
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Dark Shadows – Focussing On Alignment, Part 5 of 5

This post is the end of a long road! It started with a guest article by Garry Stahl, The Conundrum Of Alignment. Parts two and three highlighted what I believe to be the causes of the problems Garry identified, and prov[...]
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Campaign Timeline, Part 2 – The Second Apocalypse

During the last session my players learned quite a bit about the history of the alien invasion, and in particular the events that led to the current Mutant Future that they know and love. April 20th, 2010 - January 7th, [...]
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Ask The GMs: PC Choices and Consequences

How can you make the players feel like their actions have an impact on the world? Sometimes, the simplest questions have the most complicated or profound answers. So it was with some trepidation that we’ve ap[...]
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Ask The GMs: Giving Players The Power To Choose Their Own Adventures

How do you create a campaign that gives the players absolute freedom but still leaves the GM in control? Recently, Campaign Mastery was asked, Is it possible to create a truly player-choice driven campaign (within [...]
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Friday Links for October 9, 2009 (a day early)

Hi all! I’m going to be gone tomorrow, so I thought I’d post my Friday Links a day early. Yes, it might warp the time-space continuum, but oh well. No worse than the large hadron collider. Unique Tavern En[...]
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Getting People to Contribute

When I first set about writing The Kyngdoms Campaign Setting one of the things I hoped would arise would be the input of others – to build a small community of people who shared an enjoyment of the setting and who [...]
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Mine Fiction For Campaign Qualities

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 [...]
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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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Great City Player’s Guide

0one Games have announced they will be releasing The Great City Player’s Guide for (not surprisingly) their Great City Campaign Setting. They will be releasing versions for both OGL 3.5 and Pathfinder. So far IR[...]
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My Biggest Mistakes: Defying Expectations in the Zenith-3 Campaign

Some expectations are made to be confounded if it’s at all possible. If someone expects a dull and boring campaign, that’s one you don’t want to live up to. If someone expects to get favourable treatme[...]
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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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My Biggest Mistakes: Information Overload in the Zenith-3 Campaign

As you should know by now if you’re a regular visitor here – and with 2 new articles every week, why aren’t you, if you’re not!? – this month’s blog carnival is on the subject of mist[...]
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My Biggest Mistakes: A slip of the tongue

We all make mistakes. Some are trivial – I mean, who really cares if that critter did d6+1 damage and not d6+2? But I’m talking about bigger mistakes, the kind that matter. I’ve got five of them, and a[...]
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Coinage in Fumanor: Windows into a campaign background

In a previous blog, I discussed converting prices from “…and a 10-Foot Pole” from I.C.E. and mentioned a number of campaign-related issues and background elements from “Fumanor: The Last DeityR[...]
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Pillars Of Architecture: Some Thoughts On The Construction Of Cities

I recently had the need to design a Drow Outpost for my Shards Of Divinity campaign, and in the process, I made a few mental notes concerning how I go about designing cities, and population centres in general, that I tho[...]
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D&D’s 2010 Campaign Setting

Wizards of the Coast has said that every year they will support a different campaign setting, and they have recently announced the setting for 2010. I don't play 4E for many reasons but I was interested to see what sett[...]
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Return of #Twitterville

Tomorrow sees the long awaited returned of #Twitterville. The creative writing exercise that is rapidly turning into a fully blown fantasy campaign world. It was put on hold back in May, just as it was hitting its stride[...]
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How Much Is That Warhorse In The Window? – Pricing Of Goods in D&D

It doesn’t take much more than a quick flip through the pages of “…And A 10-foot Pole” to realise that it’s an extensively-researched volume. Aside from breaking history into twelve periods [...]
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Breaking The Bank: controlling treasure in D&D

Many monsters come with treasure in D&D. Taken at face value, these can quickly overwhelm a campaign. I thought I would run through a few measures that the GM can use to control how much hard currency the party gets [...]
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Campaign Timeline part 1

The default setting for Mutant Future is that society collapsed in the future. This means that when the ruins of past civilizations are explored, high-tech items like laser guns and advanced robotics can be found. The f[...]
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Tuesday Twitters: What Do You Want in a Campaign Setting?

What do you find important in a campaign setting? NOTE: A repost of yesterday's Monday Musings.[...]
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