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Odyssey: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Campaign Management
Whether you're an old hand or are new to game mastering, you'll find a wealth of tips and techniques you can put to immediate use in Odyssey: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Campaign Management. Odyssey is jam-packed with in-depth advice on starting, managing, and ending campaigns, including tips on structuring stories and making your campaign thrive, examples of good and bad campaign management, and advice on actively managing every element of your campaign. Odyssey's award-winning authors bring unique perspectives to the topic of campaign management. Phil is a project manager and wrote Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Session Prep. Walt is an improvisational game master with years of experience in the tabletop RPG industry. Both write for the award-winning game mastering blog Gnome Stew. To our knowledge, Odyssey is the first system-neutral book solely dedicated to the art of managing campaigns.
192 pages, ebook
First published July 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
March 14, 2019
I have mixed emotions about the book.
On one hand, the authors make a structured attempt (and I like structure in books like this) to cover all aspects of campaign management. And some of the chapters really contain good ideas (in that respect, I like the first half of the book a lot better than the second). On the other hand, we also find a lot of statements that are plain obvious (in that respect, I didn't really gain anything from the chapters about ending a campaign).
And then there's one personal thing: The book kept reminding me of why I sometimes hate to be a GM. This is dramatically exemplified by the final recommendation of the whole text: when the campaign is successfully finished, the GM should throw a party for the players. And I found myself almost shouting: WHY? If the players happen to have this perfect GM as described in the book, they should bloody well throw a party for HIM!
Why am I telling you this? Because the "party for the players" idea wraps up the mentality that is behind the whole book: It takes the approach that EVERYTHING happening in the group is purely the GMs responsibility and should be managed by him/her. Which is indeed the reality in many groups, but shouldn't be.
When reading the book (especially the sections about "people management"), I repeatedly found myself thinking: "I am playing with adults, I shouldn't have to do this." And then I thought of all the occasions where these situations actually occured, and of course people were NOT behaving like adults, and nobody but the GM would feel obliged to do anything about it. But that doesn't make it right.
Thus, I would have appreciated an approach where delegation of responsibilities is also part of the management. Here, parts of the book felt like "What else could the GM do so the players don't have to do anything for the game?" And that was increasingly getting on my nerves and reduced my enjoyment of an otherwise nice treatment of the topic.
On one hand, the authors make a structured attempt (and I like structure in books like this) to cover all aspects of campaign management. And some of the chapters really contain good ideas (in that respect, I like the first half of the book a lot better than the second). On the other hand, we also find a lot of statements that are plain obvious (in that respect, I didn't really gain anything from the chapters about ending a campaign).
And then there's one personal thing: The book kept reminding me of why I sometimes hate to be a GM. This is dramatically exemplified by the final recommendation of the whole text: when the campaign is successfully finished, the GM should throw a party for the players. And I found myself almost shouting: WHY? If the players happen to have this perfect GM as described in the book, they should bloody well throw a party for HIM!
Why am I telling you this? Because the "party for the players" idea wraps up the mentality that is behind the whole book: It takes the approach that EVERYTHING happening in the group is purely the GMs responsibility and should be managed by him/her. Which is indeed the reality in many groups, but shouldn't be.
When reading the book (especially the sections about "people management"), I repeatedly found myself thinking: "I am playing with adults, I shouldn't have to do this." And then I thought of all the occasions where these situations actually occured, and of course people were NOT behaving like adults, and nobody but the GM would feel obliged to do anything about it. But that doesn't make it right.
Thus, I would have appreciated an approach where delegation of responsibilities is also part of the management. Here, parts of the book felt like "What else could the GM do so the players don't have to do anything for the game?" And that was increasingly getting on my nerves and reduced my enjoyment of an otherwise nice treatment of the topic.
July 2, 2018
I really liked this book.
It crystalized and broke down into easy-to-use chunks a lot of the things experienced GMs do anyway while addressing some of the key blind spots we face. It's a wonderful system-agnostic, genre-agnostic, tone-agnostic reference volume and is well worth the time to read for new and experienced GMs alike.
It crystalized and broke down into easy-to-use chunks a lot of the things experienced GMs do anyway while addressing some of the key blind spots we face. It's a wonderful system-agnostic, genre-agnostic, tone-agnostic reference volume and is well worth the time to read for new and experienced GMs alike.
April 21, 2019
Like the other books from the same publisher I find this book padded with a lot of common sense filler. I guess if you are brand new to GMing it could be helpful but not so much for me. I did appreciate the nod to inclusivity by having the art showing the GM in a wheelchair.
August 1, 2019
A smart and insightful look into how to run more than just a single session for any game master in any game. I especially liked the fictional group's antics which are sprinkled throughout the book as it gives the book much more life.
November 6, 2017
Excellent, practical advice from experience GMs on how to start, manage and end campaigns.
My main issue with it is that I will probably not be able to remember it all.
My main issue with it is that I will probably not be able to remember it all.
March 25, 2018
Good, solid GM advice for managing long campaigns (and decent advice for general project management).
March 12, 2025
Bazı insanlara faydalı olabilecek bilgiler barındırıyor ama o kadar fazla sağduyuyla da çıkarımlanabilecek şeyden bahsediyor ki samanlıkta iğne aramak gerekiyor.
February 3, 2017
מומלץ למנחי משחקי תפקידים. זה ספר שאליו בטח אחזור לפני כל קמפיין חדש מעכשיו.
April 5, 2014
A very informative book about how to manage campaigns to maintain their interest, manage player expectations, keep the stories interesting, etc. The author applies project management concepts to campaign management in a way that is interesting and accessible to people who know nothing about project management (like me). It's like the book says: "GM run sessions, but manage campaigns" and there's a lot going on that doesn't happen at the game table. Why do campaigns die a slow death? How to properly end a campaign that isn't working in a way that doesn't frustrate players? How to keep things going? How to properly assess and deal with the most common pitfalls during campaigns (total party kills, players leaving, new players joining, etc.)
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and even if you are an experienced GM (like me), there's something new here even if most of it is common sense applied to gaming. Recommended.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and even if you are an experienced GM (like me), there's something new here even if most of it is common sense applied to gaming. Recommended.
August 5, 2014
A solid overview of the challenges of running an ongoing TTRPG campaign and how to tackle them. Some chapters had more actionable content and ideas than others. I absorbed as many of the ideas as I could on my first read through and expect that I'll go back and reference specific chapters as they come up when I run my next TTRPG campaign.
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December 30, 2013Good book. It's make me think about my game. I'll probably start changing the way I manage my games. Most notably the inclusion of the campaign framework and social contract amongst the players. This book had a lot of well thought out concepts and is going to require a reread.
September 7, 2013
This is a great book for intermediate gamemasters. I really liked the examples of good campaign management vs. bad campaign management.
April 3, 2014
Well written but just a little dry and if I'm honest hard going. It's full of great stuff but I didn't get a lot of enjoyment from reading it as it felt like it had become a chore.
February 14, 2015
Easy to read, well organized and full of useful tips and advice. I would recommend this book to anyone running or wanting to run a game.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews