Chris Perkins, DM Experience

I made reference to the Chris Perkins DM Experience column, although I said that the archives need to be searched at WotC to actually find the articles.  It looks like Scribd has backed up the column, although the formatting leaves a lot to be desired...

https://www.scribd.com/document/294290659/The-Dungeon-Master-Experience-Chris-Perkins

While I obviously don't agree with literally everything Perkins wrote, this is a really good column, it describes quite well the playstyle that I prefer and how to do it well, and it actually has some moments of absolute brilliance here and there.  Even me, and I consider myself a pretty good and experienced GM who's had some really good success in the past and stumbled across a lot of techniques that work well for me.  But there were at least three or four specific techniques that had absolutely not occurred to me here in this half of this column alone.  And even then, when he's describing things that I've kind of learned intuitively how to do, it's always nice to see it spelled out clearly rather than intuitively.  Sometimes the guy who learns all of this skills technically can outperform the one who does it all by intuition if he's learned them very well; and the guy who has both is unstoppable.

Here's a quick summary of the "episodes" covered by the first half of the column.  I'll do another one for the second half at some point.

• Surprise! Epic Goblins! — Go above and below the PCs level; not only to build verisimilitude and tension, but to also give the PCs challenges that they can't easily overcome, as well as opportunities to kick butt.
• Previously in Iomandra... — The quick summary the players need before each session starts; how to maximize.
• I Don't Know What It Means, But I Like It — use ideas as they come to you.  They don't need to be fleshed out to introduce them. You don't have to know where they'll go.  Throw them all out, see which ones the players latch on to, and go with it.
• My Campaign: The TV Series — how to adopt what makes good TV shows entertaining to your D&D campaign.
• Instant Monster — some specifically 4e related advice on how to reskin monster stats and make them up on the fly.  
• Point of Origin — some great advice on how to make player characters immediately latch on to the world as part of chargen.  Highly recommended.
• A Moment in the Sun — how to involve all of your players in the game, and give them all a chance to have the spotlight here and there.
• The Dastardly Duo — villain NPC advice.
• She Eats Babies! — more villain NPC advice
• Best Villain Ever — reader submitted villain NPCs
• Man Down! — when a player leaves the group (i.e. moving away out of state, in this case.)
• Big Map Attack — how to on making digital campaign maps
• Constellation of Madness — advice on being unpredictable as GM and giving challenges that challenge the players at least as much as the characters.
• Post Mortem — player character death and how to make the most of it
• Special Guest Star — a concept on having a guest player, and how to use them effectively to make the thing more fun for everyone.
• Popcorn — advice on using minions
• The Wyrmworn Experiment — working through an involving character arc (secret: it involves much less planning than you think, and no railroading...)
• Magnificent Minions — player submitted minions
• Joy and Sorrow — on the player contract, on mature players, and how to pull things off that challenge them without pissing them off.
• All Talk — on the combat-free session (and when to go ahead and indulge it anyway)
• It's About Time — using time travel to challenge your players (ed. no thanks)
• What's In a Name? — on names and NPCs and what kinds of development activities are actually useful to an under-preparing, wing-it style GM.
• Voice Talent — on modeling NPCs to make them memorable
• Intervention — the player who isn't on the same page as the rest of the group
• Maptism — site maps
• DM's Lib — don't over-prepare.  Don't railroad. If the PCs do something really unexpected, roll with it.
• Epic Fail — on how to turn failure into entertainment for the players anyway. (Hunt: without DMus ex machina to undo their failure, of course.)
• The Villains Fault — more advice on running villains effectively
• T'wit — on pacing and contraction and helping the players stay on track without dragging them to the game.
• Lies My DM Told Me — more great advice on running NPCs
• C'est La Vie — PC death (note: the assumptions are for modern D&D where resurrection magic is relatively commonplace.)
• The Invisible Railroad — it's not as bad as it sounds...
• The Covenant of the Arcs — building campaigns around "story arcs" and NPC motivations rather than hex or site based exploration or module running and railroads
• Setups and Payoffs — general GMing advice.
• Love Letter to Ed Greenwood — not as cringey as it sounds (although Perkins is also Canadian...) More about NPCs, really.
• 3DNPC — effective NPCs.  Echoes some Ray Winninger advice, actually—specifically his Second Rule of Dungeoncraft
• Boo Hoo — on challenging the PCs.  A lot.
• Catapult — on risk taking as players, and how to manage as GM
• Lloyd the Beholder — on humor
• Event Horizon — on session planning
• Behind Every Good DM, Part 1 — player feedback
• Behind Every Good DM, Part 2 — more player feedback
• Riot Acts — on the three act encounter.  Highly recommended.  Brilliant stuff.
• My Campaign Has Issues — on political and social issues that are "real life"
• Player vs. Player — a specific kind of challenge for players.  Recommended too.