If you are a GM you will frequently find yourself in need of quality allies and enemies for your campaign and find yourself pressed for time. Any old NPC will often not do. You want someone with a full conceptions and some history.

"There is something about the outside of a horse...that is good for the inside of a man."

Winston Churchill

I have to admit I HATE the number of casual magic items that appear in the average fantasy game, D20 being the worst. The amount of magic is being reinforced by the rules and the treasure chart. They are just 'power ups' of the video game nature. They don't add anything to the game except requiring bigger and badder bad guys.

A fight scene should be more than just rolling dice and counting numbers. It should be a chance for you to roleplay.

After reading a MoonHunter campaign write up, Captain Penguin Says, 'THIS IS MADNESS! MADNESS!
So…..Comprehensive….Making…Penguin’s….brain…...dissolve..

Say, MoonHunter, have any packs to give to a character to make them actually roleplay instead of just dictating their character's actions? The majority of my players just do this.

ME:'You see a grizzled old knight with a scar over his face. He walks up to you and greets you with an ancient Cardomian salute, though he is unfamiliar to your eye.'
THEM:'I say 'Hi.'
ME:'That's it?'
THEM:'Yes. Now, I walk around him and open the door.'
ME:'But, but, he's an important story character!'
THEM:'F**k the story! I want gold and XP, dammit!'
ME:'I hate you more than you'll ever know.'

Action sequences in movies are fast, furious, and over all to fast. They are exciting moments that most gamers are looking forward to. Yet combat in most games is slow, ponderous, and takes up much game time. Gamers tend to blame the game systems. It is not the System, it is the group.

This one of many articles I am posting up about game design. It explains some of the minimum requirements for a product to be produced or even be 'good'. This is also useful for posts as well.

A healer of great power and kindness, she is rumored to even be able to heal the dead, if you can find her.

On one of the adventurers' many journeys through the lands, they one day enter a very strange village surrounded by a palisade. Therein all villagers seem to be sleeping, their hair long and flowing and their nails ever growing. Snow has settled on the land and the few found outdoors are covered in a thin layer of powdery white snow. Nothing can be done to awaken these mysterious sleepers and there seems to be no escaping this village either.

Then the night falls...

The nobleman's daughter must be escorted from place to place, but her addiction may make the journey far harder than it need be..,

When my first born came into the world, my gaming life skidded to a halt. However, in a strange way, my gaming life continued.

I am not a normal fantasy GM. If a player is delving through a dark tomb searching for loot in my campaign, he is probably on a fruitless quest. I dislike the dungeon crawl. I have since the earliest years of DnD. I mean where in Tolkein did they really crawl through a dungeon or other tomb/ place of mystery?

The world is full of different measurement systems. Some are old, some new, some obvious, some obscure. Each one is important enough to some group of people to be codified and passed down through the years. These are the ones that might be useful for gamers.

All Agera work with a base-8 system (though of course, in GMing, for simplicity, I don't). Accordingly, the Mysian system of measuring is based on 8s. From dolon to dolmelphion, the system is fairly straightforward, but, traditionally, after dolmelphion, it becomes a touch more complicated.

Hathalfar holds the writhing troll down with his gloved fist and sword. The beast squirms at the touch of metal. 'How far is Kolm?' he demands for the third time. 'I said! A long way away,' replies the troll.

The measurements on Arth center around The Emperor and the Imperium. The Imperium imposes certain standards upon its subjects to make communication and trade between areas easier. Some of the most important was how much each coin was worth (and its basic size), the common language (imperial-low and high), and a system of measures.

Systems of measurement might not sound like the most interesting of things, but they can be used to good effect in a role play campaign. There are three main ways I can think of: 1) Adding colour; 2) Culture shock and 3) Archaic systems.

'When I was ten-and-eight years old, I went south to the land of Emhutz, which is near the Holy Land, and I went before the wisest of all God's creatures but the Prophet, Najaug, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-wise, who in this time did dwell there, and him I asked five-score questions.'
-The Subeya, 'First Song: Going Before the Prophet'

In the vast Sun-Ocean lies spots of perfect green. The Ankorillian Islands. The 'Jewels of the Blue'.
The natives there are strange and wild looking.
Here is the only existing work on how they live, their customs, beliefs and rituals.