Less theory. More things you can use at your next table.
Session preparation, campaign management, NPCs, locations, notes, scheduling and all the small emergencies that begin five minutes before the game.
Choose a topic or begin with the first guide. You do not need to read them in order.
Your first campaign does not need an encyclopedia
It needs an idea, a group and the first situation the players can interfere with. This path takes you from an empty page to a finished first session.
What do you need before the next session?
New Game Masters
Clear answers to the questions nobody should be afraid to ask.
Session preparation
Ideas, structure and material you can actually use at the table.
Session preparationHow to prepare a one-shot that ends in one evening
A one-shot fits into four hours when you hand players ready-made characters, open in the middle of the situation instead of in a tavern, build the middle from a few interchangeable scenes rather than one fixed path, and aim everything at a single clear decision at the end. The rest is cutting.
The Talehaven team · 9 min read
Session preparationHow to run a mystery without hiding the solution too well
Use the three-clue rule: for every conclusion the players need to reach, plant at least three independent clues pointing at it. Then a missed roll, an ignored NPC or an unsearched room costs you nothing, because two other paths still lead to the truth.
The Talehaven team · 9 min read
Running the gameWhat to do when players ignore the entire prepared plot
You do not have to throw anything away. What you actually prepared is not a scene in one location, it is a situation: characters who want something and a threat with a deadline. That travels. Take the same conflict and drop it where the party went, and let the ignored threat grow in the background as a consequence.
The Talehaven team · 6 min readCampaign management
Long-running threads, consequences and returning to a story after many weeks.
Campaign managementHow to organise a campaign after twenty sessions
Do not rewrite the campaign. Make one index: open threads (what is unresolved and who is owed what), recurring NPCs (who they are and what they last did), and party promises (what they swore and what follows from it). Cross off the threads that died on their own, and draw the connections on a board once so you can see the whole tangle at a glance.
The Talehaven team · 8 min read
Campaign managementHow to return to a campaign after a long break
Do not recap everything. A day before the game, send a five-line note. Open the session with three or four beats of "previously on" and a scene already in motion. Remind each player what their character wanted, not what happened in session twelve.
The Talehaven team · 7 min readNPCs and characters
Goals, secrets, relationships and quick improvisation when someone needs a name.
Worldbuilding and locations
Places with character, inhabitants and a reason for the party to return.
Notes and organisation
How to write less, find things faster and keep the important details from disappearing.
Groups and scheduling
Session zero, absences, calendars and the ancient challenge of gathering five people on one evening.
Groups and schedulingHow to run a session zero
A session zero is a meeting where the whole group agrees on the campaign’s tone and genre, the boundaries for what belongs at the table, character concepts that fit a single party, and expectations around attendance and scheduling. You are not building the plot, you are agreeing on the rules you will play by.
The Talehaven team · 8 min read
Running a groupHow to schedule a session when everyone is busy
Do not ask "when can everyone play". Offer two or three specific dates and ask people to mark availability. Set a standing rhythm (say, every other Sunday) and treat the slot as the default rather than something to renegotiate each time.
The Talehaven team · 4 min readVideo guides built around real campaign preparation
No presentations about presentations. We take one part of a campaign and build it from the first idea to something ready for the table.
Explore all video guidesPut any of this into practice
Talehaven keeps your campaign, NPCs, maps, notes and session dates in one place, so the advice above takes minutes instead of an evening.