Category Archives: Campaigns

One-Shot Characters in Ongoing Campaigns

One of my favorite tropes in media is the individual face-offs between antagonistic teams. That is, I love it when the good guys meet the bad guys, and the good guys have a genius magician but the bad guys also … Continue reading

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Serious Stories and Emotional Taxes

It takes a lot for me to drop a story early. I’ve struggled enough with pacing and storytelling to know how important a good beginning, middle, and end are to any narrative, and I feel like I can’t effectively judge … Continue reading

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Wish

Some years ago, when I frequented the Wizards D&D message boards, there was a user whose signature said something to the effect of “the spiked chain exists to find the DMs brave enough to ban Core material”. That is, the … Continue reading

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Campaign Report – Monsters

The monsters for this campaign were weird. When I started in 4E, I wanted to make as many creatures as possible on my own. I didn’t trust the official monsters to be able to do all the things I needed, … Continue reading

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Campaign Report – King Thistle

Dungeons and items are important to a Zelda campaign, but they aren’t enough. A D&D game with dungeons is just a typical D&D game, and even one with a Hookshot is a typical D&D game with an allusion. But if … Continue reading

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Campaign Report – Feelies

Zelda games are about items, second only to dungeons. Without a vast inventory contained inside improbably spacious pants, a Zelda game is more like Mario, where you use a limited, static set of options to deal with ever-expanding problems. So … Continue reading

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Campaign Report – Zelda Maps 2

The Zelda campaign ended during August. Normally I’d do a postmortem of sorts to explain what the campaign was, what went right, what went wrong, and where we go from here. But I don’t think I can compress the lessons … Continue reading

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Law A – Campaign Songs

I’ve talked about how I use music to help me flesh out story and character dies, but I haven’t shared what those ideas are. I think even my players don’t know a lot of the songs behind the campaigns unless … Continue reading

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Eight Arms Setting Map

I haven’t done absolutely nothing over the last month while the A to Z Challenge was going. I’ve gotten started on some articles that will post at various times, including a few about the Zelda campaign that will post when … Continue reading

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In Which We Attempt Mass Combat with Charisma

I think mass combat is one of those things everybody tries eventually. Large armies clashing, siege engines firing, monsters rampaging through ranks of soldiers, it all feels right in the context of medieval fantasy. But mass combat is also a … Continue reading

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