News
Introducing: Social Publishing!
March 08, 2010 18:07
Hail Adventurers!
Do you wish that you could alert your friends, followers, and players to your important Obsidian Portal campaign updates? WISH GRANTED!
- Create new campaign
- Create new Adventure Log post
- Create new Wiki page
- Log into your Obsidian Portal campaign
- Click on My Profile
- Click on Edit My Account
- Scroll down to Third Party Signin
- Click on the Facebook button and follow the instructions to allow Facebook updates
- Click on the Twitter button and follow the instructions to allow Twitter updates
When you’re creating a new campaign, Adventure Log, or Wiki page, scroll down to the bottom and just above the create button, you’ll see Social Publishing. Click on that, choose either Facebook or Twitter, or both, and then click create. Simple as that!
Four new updates!
March 01, 2010 18:37
Hail Adventurers!
We’ve worked through the weekend to bring you four new updates to our beloved Obsidian Portal. Here’s the tl;dr version:
1) Co-GM Functionality -Ascendant Members Only!
2) Improved Notification System -Ascendant Members Only!
3) Changing your Username
4) 15 day free trial for new Ascendant Memberships!
Read all about the changes on our blog here!
New Survey!
February 17, 2010 16:33
Hail Adventurers!
Just a quick note to tell you all that we’ve got a brand new survey that we’d like you to look at! This one is all about syndicating user updates. It’s really important that we get feedback on this one, so let us know what you think by filling out the survey now!
Good Gaming,
AutumnsChild(dan)
It's Free System Friday!
February 12, 2010 16:43
You might not know this, but every Friday we set out to find a free RPG system or setting for you, our adventurous users! So. Are you tired of your current RPG system? Try a new one for free! Today’s setting comes to us from designer Will Hopkins and it’s called City of Rain, City of Darkness.Imagine a city where it never stops raining, airships rule the skies, and desperate citizens fight for survival. The wealthy build higher and higher into the sky, seeking to escape the damp while they leave to the darkness the laborers on which industry thrives. Technology and industry march on through the shadows and the downpour, and every citizen must make a living somehow. Welcome to City of Rain, City of Darkness…Grab some friends, grab the setting notes, grab some rules, and make a new campaign today!
Vote on our next big site update!
February 02, 2010 17:51
We’re racking our brains trying to figure out which update to tackle next… They’re all important and we’re going to get to all of them, but we need to know which ones should be done sooner rather than later. What better way to get this choice information than from the minds and fingertips of our very own users!
So please, take a moment, to take the survey, won’t you?
A look beyond the portal
January 27, 2010 18:46
Ever wonder what goes on at the Obsidian Portal offices? Or where we think the industry is going? Or what new things we’re excited about? How we feel about competition? Or just how crazy AutumnsChild(dan) really is? Well then, good news! The Core Mechanic interviewed us this week! Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this awesome interview! If you’re curious about how Obsidian Portal got started or who runs it behind the scenes, it’s definitely a good read.
A new blog, Character changes, and more!
January 15, 2010 18:31
Hail Adventurers!
We have some very exciting, very late breaking news for you on this beautiful Friday afternoon.
1) We have a blog! Eventually it will be integrated here into the front page and it will make life around the office so much easier and updates ever so much more frequent. Huzzah’s all around.
2) The character changes have gone live! We talk about them here and what effects those changes might have on our beloved user base. Please read on and share your questions or comments with us!
3) We have a new forum moderator! Hailing from the frozen tundra that is Orlando Florida, Taloff is a consummate gamer and legendary forum lurker. Drop him a message, or stop by on the forums to say hi!
That’s all for now, tune in next time to see what excitement we can drudge up from the depths of the Obsidian Portal!
2009 Featured Campaign
December 31, 2009 23:17
But first!
We’d like to take a moment and recognize the featured campaign of 2008, The Nemedian Chronicles DMed by Flatscan. Flatscan’s campaign held a place of honor on or front page for about 6 months, and if we didn’t recognize it in some official fashion… let’s just say that the consensus around the office tells us that no one wants their head on a pike just yet. So congrats to Flatscan and please don’t hurt us!
With that out of the way, let’s go to the chart:
Wow, Pursuit of Destiny wins it by a mile! Congrats to cwGabe and his players.
We’re hiring some of the finest dwarven prize-smiths free t-shirts can buy to craft awards worthy of these two campaigns. Look to this space in the coming weeks for more info on that! Let’s all have a big hand once again for all the monthly featured campaigns of 2009.- June: Chronicles of the Amber Wolfe by DM Palandar
- July: The Dragon Hunter Cronicles by DM Geech
- August: Horn of the North by DM Wolfhound
- September: Beyond the Mountains of Madness by DM Aethan
- October: Tales of the Black Forest by DM Jason
- November: Pursuit of Destiny by DM cwGabe
- December: Silent Winter by DM Jennifer
Vote today, Follow today!
December 15, 2009 08:11
Hail Adventurers,
We have some important updates to share.
-
Come and vote in the first ever Obsidian Portal Featured Campaign of the Year awards! The winner will receive our undying praise, adoration, and a little something nice to put over the mantle place. The polls are open till midnight (EST) December 31st, 2009. Click here to be whisked away to our mechanical voting automation. Here are your contenders:
- June: Chronicles of the Amber Wolfe by DM Palandar
- July: The Dragon Hunter Cronicles by DM Geech
- August: Horn of the North by DM Wolfhound
- September: Beyond the Mountains of Madness by DM Aethan
- October: Tales of the Black Forest by DM Jason
- November: Pursuit of Destiny by DM cwGabe
- December: Silent Winter by DM Jennifer
Be a part of this historic event, and vote today.
- Are you following Obsidian Portal on Twitter? Well then you know all about the 12 Obsidian days of Christmas right? You know, the 12 Obsidian days of Christmas give away! We’ll be handing out 1 prize a day via twitter until Christmas day. Follow us today, and maybe you’ll win tomorrow.
AutumnsChild(dan)
And on the 13th Obsidian Day ... Alea Tools!
December 25, 2009 00:08
Merry Christmas from Obsidian Portal and Alea Tools!
Merry Christmas to all, and to one a great prize! We’ll be handing out a fabulous Christmas gift to one lucky twitter follower today between the noon and 4pm EST!
To Enter, all you need to do is follow us on twitter (@ObsidianPortal) and add our twibbon (found here) to your icon. We’ll pick one winner at random from that subset of followers!
And now it’s time for the glorious unveiling of the Obsidian Christmas 2009 gift. This year’s gift to one lucky follower is…
The One-Inch Ultimate Neo Game Master Pack from Alea Tools!
Alea is known world round for their patented magnetic game markers, and we’re giving away 100 of them! Monster bloodied? There’s a marker for that. Ongoing poison damage? There’s a marker for that. Being electrocuted while frozen in a block of ice and falling into a volcano that’s falling into a black hole? There’s a marker for that too.
Alea Tools are easy to setup, a blast to use, and they pack that much needed visual pop you can’t find in other products. Best of all, the The One-Inch Ultimate Neo Game Master Pack comes from one of the best, most customer minded companies we’ve had the pleasure of knowing.
December News flash!
December 01, 2009 05:11
Hail Adventurers,
- Media Uploading & Integration This highly requested feature is finally available! For free users, you’ll get 2 MB of storage space. For Ascendent Members, you’ll get 1 GB! It’s limited to image uploading for now, but who knows what the future brings!
- Obsidian Holiday T-shirt Giveaway! For the entire month of December, everyone who purchases or upgrades to a 12 month Ascendant membership will get a free Obsidian T-shirt!
Tell your friends!
Free T-Shirts, Charity, and Being Thankful
November 23, 2009 19:47
Hail, Adventurer!
Here it is, almost the end of November, and we have so much news we just had to make an update! So, here they are, coming at you in no particular order.
1) Did you read this month’s copy of the newsletter? If you did, not only did you learn some invaluable information, but you also learned of our AMAZING THANKSGIVING T-SHIRT GIVEAWAY. What’s all this, you ask? Well, by becoming a fan of Obsidian Portal on Facebook, you enter yourself in the drawing! On Thanksgiving day, I’ll pick three fans at random, and those three fans will get one of our exclusive, impossible-to-find, one-of-a-kind t-shirts! I’m wearing one right now, it’s very nice. So what are you waiting for? Become a fan today!
2) You know, with all this talk about Thanksgiving, it’s time to really think about what we’re thankful for. We’re thankful for a lot of things, but the consensus around the Obsidian Portal offices is that the top two things we’re thankful for would be our health and our hobby. We would be remiss if we did not do something to help those in need of both. That’s why we’re jumping on the Child’s Play bandwagon.
Over the last few years, Child’s Play has donated over 5 million dollars from gamers just like you to kids in need. If you can make a donation, great! You can donate cash directly through PayPal, or you can select a hospital from their map, and buy items on that hospital’s Amazon Wishlist. But that’s not all. Every year, on December 8th, Child’s Play has a charity dinner here in Seattle with a silent auction. This year, we’re throwing in something special for the silent auction. Introducing, the +1 Obsidian Portal Chest of Wonders!
Before you is the +1 Obsidian Portal Chest of Wonders. It has everything you and your party will ever need for a lifetime of Tabletop adventure! It contains the following items.
1) A deck of item cards good for any fantasy RPG system
2) 25 blue clay poker chips
3) A dice bag
4) 2 pounds of dice
5) An initiative tracker
6) 4 wet-erase markers
7) A large wet-erase battle matt with hex on one side and squares on the other
8) A fancy 1, 3, and 5 minute hour glass set
9) Orange crystal shard counters
10)Savage Worlds Explorers Edition Core Rule book
11)Mouse Guard Roleplaying Game Core Rule book
12)A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: Adventures In The Seven Kingdoms Core Rule book
13)Star Wars Saga Edition Roleplaying Game Core Rule book
14)Serenity Roleplaying Game Core Rule book
15)Exalted, Second Edition Core Rule book
16)GURPS, Fourth Edition Core Rule book
17)Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition Player’s Handbook (previously owned, and signed by me)
18)Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition Monster Manual (previously owned, and signed by me)
19)Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide (previously owned, and signed by me)
20)Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition DM’s Screen signed by the late co-creator of D&D, Dave Arneson
21)6 Obsidian Portal T-Shirts (one for the whole party)
22)Five 1 year Ascendant memberships to Obsidian Portal
23)1 Lifetime Ascendant Membership to Obsidian Portal
MSRP: $850.00(US)
I’ll be attending this year’s dinner, and I’ll be taking some exclusive video that you’ll see right here on the main page in 2 weeks!
Good Gaming,
AutumnsChild(dan)Changes, Contests, and the Baying of Hounds
November 08, 2009 20:32
There’s no doubt about it, it’s fall. The orange leaves on the ground, the shorter days, and the winds of change are blowing. More to the point, the Obsidian Portal team is making some changes. No no, wait, come back! Good changes, these changes are good! Are you back? Ok, where was I? Ah yes, changes. Some of you might know me as That-guy-who-writes-the-featured-campaign-articles, Dan, or Autumnschild. But now you’ll all know me as a part of the Obsidian Portal team. I wanted to take a moment to tell you all that while it’s getting colder outside, Obsidian Portal is just warming up. We’ve got a lot of great things planned for the rest of this year and some fantastic things planned for next year!
Contest: Come On Feel The Love!
We’re thrilled to bring you Obsidian Portal every day, and judging by the email and comments we get from you everyday, you’re thrilled we’re here too. Lets all take a moment and bask in the thrill of it all. Yay! What’s that? You’re more thrilled than words can describe? Well gosh! Ok, here’s the plan. Make a drawing in some basic drawing application (like MS Paint) detailing how you use Obsidian Portal, or how happy it makes you, and then email it to me. 30 days from now I’ll judge them and the drawing that best conveys the thrill of using Obsidian Portal will win its artist a free month of Ascendant account status, and all the privileges it brings!
Another change you’ll notice comes in the form of decreased load times. Micah and Ryan really knocked it out of the park on that one. In what used to take tens of seconds, now takes less than tens of seconds! I am not a programmer, but I am told that shorter load times are good, yes? And how about a round of applause for keeping the servers up while Obsidian Portal was being hammered by visitors flooding in from Penny Arcade, eh? It’s clear that they’re dedicated to providing the ultimate online campaign management platform.
The other change you’re likely to notice will be changes to the Obsidian Portal home page. Starting this week we’re adding useful campaign tips from some of the best RPG bloggers in the business. We’re also rearranging some things, like the monthly Featured Campaign, to make them more prominent and easier for you to find. Also on our to do list; more frequent updates! Watch this space, as it will be updated at least twice a month, so keep your eyes peeled.
And finally, to further tantalize you, there’s word around camp of changes being made to dramatically increase the amount of storage space available to our Ascendant users! But I’ve said too much! Even now, I can hear bloodhounds baying in the night. I must go.
So long, friend!
Exclusive Obsidian Portal T-Shirt Giveaway at GenCon
August 09, 2009 05:18
We’re going to be making our rounds at GenCon this year! Micah is going to be playing in multiple games as well as handing out a limited set of exclusive Obsidian Portal T-Shirts. Thursday afternoon we will announce the place and time to find Micah and grab your shirt. We’ll post the announcement via Twitter and Facebook, so make sure to follow us and keep an eye on your Twitter feed or Facebook stream for the announcement!
Interview with cwgabe
November 02, 2009 01:42
While Pursuit of Destiny is cwgabe’s first campaign, he’s done a great job of avoiding the pitfalls that new DMs fall into with unfortunate frequency. Part of this is no doubt due to his familiarity with his players, and the bravado with which he has taken to table-top games in general. The other part is probably due to input from Tycho, a man who sometimes wears a cape and sings softly to himself about everworms, deepcrows, and other fouler things. That is to say Tycho is an established DM.
Anyway, Pursuit of Destiny. If you’ve been following cwgabe’s campaign on Penny Arcade, then you probably know all about the fiery free fall session, the laser light and mirror session, and the MMORPG inspired rep grinding session. But have you ever wondered what the characters had to say about their adventures? Worry not friend, as the Adventure Log is there to deliver.
Reading through the adventure log, you’ll marvel at the heartfelt letters of the strange metal man known as 148. You’ll laugh at the bloodthirsty antics of the gnoll known as Gnasc. You’ll wonder at the unfeigned righteousness of Benadrix, Dragonborn paladin of Kord. You’ll delight in the self discovery of Cellence. And you will duck from the +1 Deathstalker Javelin hurled by Marrek Lagonn for delighting in Cellence.
That’s all well and good, but who are the other people who inhabit this world? The NPC Tracker knows all! Check it, does your campaign have an Aunt Nonnie? Cwgabe’s does, and she looks creepy as hell. Everyone should have a creepy Aunt Nonnie. Certainly, we are left to ask “What delights are coming in future sessions?” Ah friend, that would be telling. Some things can only be revealed with time. But what will you do while waiting? Why not read this Obsidian Portal exclusive interview!
Interview with Gabe
Obsidian Portal: How much of the campaign is original content developed by you and your players?
cwgabe: My players just hit level 14 and so far I’d say about 80% of the campaign has been stuff that I developed. I’ve pulled a lot of inspiration from books and video games though and Tycho has helped a lot.
OP: We heard that you’ve done artwork for a Wizards of the Coast product, do you know when it’ll be released?
cwgabe: I did the cover for the upcoming Player’s Strategy Guide. I’m not sure about the release date but I posted part of the cover on PA a while ago.
OP: If you could change one thing about the 4th edition of D&D, what would it be?
cwgabe: Honestly I can’t think of anything. I am not familiar with any other editions of the game since I just recently started playing. As someone totally new to D&D I have been more than happy with 4th edition.
OP: Where do you get your inspiration for your great props and session ideas?
cwgabe: I’d say the majority of my ideas come from video games. Things like the laser/mirror encounter and the kill quests are right out of games.
OP: How well do you know your players?
cwgabe: I’ve been friends with all my players for years. We’ve all been playing games together for a long time but never D&D. I was actually nervous about suggesting it to them but they all really took to the game.
OP: What kind of challenges are you faced with in your campaign?
cwgabe: I’d say the hardest thing for me as a DM is making sure I keep everyone at the table interested. I have players who love number crunching and min maxing. I have players that love RP opportunities and skill challenges. Some of them just want combat. My goal each night I run a game is to give all of them something fun.
OP: What aspects of your campaign are you really proud of?
cwgabe: I’d say the overarching story is my favorite part of our campaign. The basic hook (which my players only just discovered) is that their planet is actually a giant prison for Tiamat. She is literally chained up inside the world and each of these chains is connected to a different head of Tiamat and then to one of the continents on the world. The hook of our campaign is that forces are at work trying to break each of these bonds and release her. My players just stopped a plot to release the Red Head of Tiamat and now they are struggling to defeat the Blue Head.
Boosh. That is the sound of your mind being blown. A solid concept, to be sure. Who knows, maybe Wizards of the Coast will show interest in this and we’ll see a Pursuit of Destiny WotC campaign guide ($29.99us/$39.99ca) in the near future. We’d like to extend our thanks to cwgabe, his players, and everyone at Penny Arcade for not only being such awesome people, but for being gamers in the truest sense of the word. For the outstanding efforts of cwgabe and his players, individuals who have gone to great lengths to bring their game to life and make it more than the sum of its parts, we will forever laud them in the immortal halls of the Obsidian Portal.
—Interview conducted by autumnschild
Do you know of a DM or a campaign that deserves the spotlight? Let us know in the Featured Campaign Submissions Forum!
Finding a Game Has Never Been Easier
June 26, 2009 15:45
Obsidian Portal has teamed up with Pen & Paper Games, the premier player matching site for tabletop RPGs to provide the ultimate in player matching!
This partnership, termed The Lonely Gamer Network, means that participating Obsidian Portal campaigns are now part of the Pen & Paper Games search results, and likewise, Pen & Paper Games searching is available directly from inside Obsidian Portal. For gamers searching for each other, the pool of prospects just got a lot bigger.
To make sure your campaigns are included, there are a few simple steps to follow. All settings are availble on the Edit Settings screen for your campaigns.
- Your campaign must be set to Public
- Your campaign must be set to Looking for Players
- Your campaign must be set to Publish
If you follow those 3 steps for each of your campaigns, then your campaign will be included in the P&PG search results, and you’ll have new players contacting you in no time!
But wait, there’s more! Obsidian Portal has also made it possible for GMs to instantly search for prospective players on Pen & Paper Games. At the bottom of the Manage Members screen you’ll find a button to Find Me Some Players Clicking here will bring up a map of your area showing all the lonely gamers who need a game to play in.
If your game needs another player or two, or you just need to find another group period, it’s never been easier.
Level Up Your D&D 4E Campaign with DungeonMastering.com's Tools
April 16, 2009 03:10
Obsidian Portal amd Dungeon Mastering have teamed up to offer you a better way to plan and organize your D&D 4th edition campaign wikis. One of the best new features in the latest edition of Dungeons and Dragons is the compact, easy-to-read monster stat block. Now, you can create, save, and manage your own monster stat blocks on Dungeon Mastering’s Monster Card Tool (http://tools.dungeonmastering.com) and export the cards to your Obsidian Portal campaign wiki.
Here’s an example of a wiki already using this great tool:
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/avatars/wikis/training-grounds
Learn how to use the tools in 2 minutes!
http://tools.dungeonmastering.com/pages/tutorial-get-started
Running D&D games with a laptop is becoming the norm. I have now been using Dungeon Mastering’s Monster Card Tool for 5 months and along with a campaign wiki (from Obsidian Portal) it made my games much easier to run. I hope you enjoy the tools.
-Yax, DungeonMastering.com
Roll the Bones
March 09, 2009 02:43
Take a look at the top right of the menu, right next to the search bar, and you’ll see two lonely dice. Go ahead, give them a click. We’ve added a nice and simple javascript dice roller so you can add a little randomness where you need it. We’re not moving toward a full-featured online game table (plenty of those already), but we thought it might help with planning or when you’re stuck deciding how much treasure to give out.
A big thanks to the people at jsdice.com for writing a great little javascript widget and making it open source!
To stay up to date on all our announcements, make sure to subscribe to our twitter feed.
You wanted a forum, you got it!
February 09, 2009 04:05
If you look at your campaigns, you’ll notice a bright, shiny new ‘Forum’ tab staring back at you. I doubt anyone really needs an explanation of what it’s for, but I’ll give one anyway.
The forum allows you to stay in touch with your group without muddling up your wiki or adventure log. OOC conversations, scheduling issues, even deciding what toppings for pizza are all fair game for the forum. Plus, instant email notification means you can be sure that all your fellow gamers are getting your message. Need to cancel at the last minute? Post a note in the forum and you’re good to go.
The forum is a premium only feature, so if your GM hasn’t upgraded to a premium subscription, you’re missing out. Remember, only the GM needs to upgrade, and then the forum is enabled for everyone in the campaign.
To stay up to date on all our announcements, make sure to subscribe to our twitter feed.
Maintenance at 10:00 Eastern, Feb 08
February 08, 2009 17:03
We’ll be bringing the site down for maintenance and updates tonight (Sunday) at 10:00 Eastern. It should only take about an hour or so.
If we’re lucky, there will be a brand new feature ready to use after that!
To stay up to date on all our announcements, make sure to subscribe to our twitter feed.
Welcome Penny Arcaders!
January 23, 2009 18:47
A hearty welcome to all the new folks finding us via Penny Arcade! Things were a little dicey at first, but we’ve beefed up our hardware and are all good to go now.
In any case, we’re glad to have you here!
New Design Reviewed on Wired's Geekdad
January 21, 2009 16:40
Our new design was reviewed on Wired’s Geekdad blog. It’s short and sweet, so go take a look. Like the review? Give it a digg!
New Year, New Look
January 06, 2009 04:50
Just in time for the new year, Obsidian Portal has a brand new look. After listening to user feedback, we took what was good and mercilessly slashed what wasn’t. The end result is a great new design that better showcases all the great campaigns created by the game masters and players out there.
Our main goal with the redesign was to give more space and more focus to each individual campaign. We’ve tweaked color schemes, reworked the sidebars, optimized navigation, and increased the screen space for the campaign pages. The end result is less clutter and more focus. Every campaign simply looks fantastic.
This change is sure to stir up some strong feelings, and we want to hear them. So, come to the forums and let it all out.
Want to stay up to date on the latest developments? Follow us on twitter, facebook, or myspace!
Tag! You're it!
November 10, 2008 03:41
We’ve done a major overhaul on the tagging interface to make it more prominent. We wanted to make it as easy as possible to tag your characters, items, and wiki pages.
Free tagging (ie. “folksonomies”) was made popular by sites like Delicious. It allows you to assign your own categories to things, rather than being forced to choose from a list. Here at Obsidian Portal, we think that free tagging is definitely the way to go for organizing your wiki pages and NPCs. That’s why we’ve updated our interface to make tagging more prominent.
Try tagging each of your locations with “Place” and each of your NPCs with the town or area they’re from, like “Rivendale” or “Mordor” Then, when one of your players asks you for the name of the Prince of Mordor six months from now, you can quickly filter to only NPCs from that area. See if you can find other tags that make sense for your campaign.
If you have any thoughts or questions (or manage to find a bug!) please let us know in the forums!
Your Campaign, Your Homepage
October 09, 2008 03:51
A quick glance at your campaign, and you will see that things have changed quite a bit. Instead of going directly to the Adventure Log, each campaign now has a custom homepage.
Each campaign homepage is simply a special wiki page. That means you can link to other wiki pages, Adventure Log posts, characters, and items just like you’re used to. Further, you have access to the full Textile/HTML formatting, allowing you to customize like crazy. Combined with a custom campaign banner, you can truly personalize your campaign and make it your own.
To convert all the existing campaigns, we’ve moved the campaign description text from the right sidebar into the campaign homepage. However, it would be a good idea to check in on your campaigns and make sure that everything looks right. An inviting homepage will be the best way to draw people into your world.
Also you can now follow us on Twitter with @obsidianportal!
I give up...we're a wiki site
September 29, 2008 03:11
When I first started Obsidian Portal, I imagined a blogging site with some wiki functionality. That’s why the Adventure Log was always featured prominently as the home page. However, watching what others have done and reading the reviews on other sites, I’ve come to understand that others see this as a wiki site with blogging functionality.
So, rather than fighting the current and trying to enforce my views on others, I’ve decided to go with the flow and try to restructure navigation to be more friendly to a wiki-centric environment.
To help make things more wiki centric, we’ve made the main wiki page the campaign homepage, instead of the Adventure Log. This will allow campaigns to design the perfect landing page for their campaign. In addition, we’re going to remove the cramped description sidebar and leave it up to the individual campaigns to input this information on their main wiki page.
All in all, this will enable much more customization and creativity for each campaign’s first impression, while only slightly burying the Adventure Logs. Of course, there will certainly be people who feel strongly about this change, and I invite everyone to discuss it in the forums.
Your Campaign, Your Banner
September 22, 2008 02:40
Starting today, you can now upload your own banner image to display at the top of your campaign!
Many campaigns have already been doing this ( Weight of Rubies, Mass Effect: Blackwell, and many others) by top posting an Adventure Log post, but it was a sub-optimal solution. First of all, you had to upload your image somewhere else, then you had to monkey with it a little to get it to show up correctly.
Now we’ve made it dead simple. Just upload your banner image and you’re done. Of course, it’s still up to you to get yourself a cool banner. If you’re Photoshop illiterate like me, let me suggest contacting the nice people at AvatarArt. If they can’t make you a cool graphic, then it can’t be done.
On a different note, Obsidian Portal was recently featured on Wired’s GeekDad blog. Michael Harrison put together an excellent screencast on how to manage your campaign world with Obsidian Portal. We’d just like to say thanks for the publicity and helping us get the word out!
As always, if you have any thoughts or questions, don’t hesitate to speak out in the forums.
Updates to the wikis
September 11, 2008 04:03
We’ve made some updates to the wiki URLs, in an effort to make things a little simpler on our end, plus a little faster for you. All the old URLs should work fine, and you should see very little difference, except a little bit of a speed boost.
If you experience any problems with editing or saving your wiki pages, be sure to let us know in the forums.
Also, we’ve added a snazzy little OpenID helper on the login page. You can choose one of 12 different providers and the little widget will help you put together your OpenID URL. If you haven’t yet signed up for one, I highly recommend it. It takes less than a minute and will instantly open doors for you on thousands of websites.
Obsidian Portal joins the OpenID Revolution
August 11, 2008 03:32
It’s been in the back of our minds for a long time, and we’ve finally set aside the time to make it happen. Starting today, you can register and log in on Obsidian Portal using your very own OpenID!
For those who are scratching their heads right now, OpenID is a wonderfully convenient way of logging into thousands of your favorite websites without the hassle of remembering dozens of usernames and passwords. With an OpenID, you just remember one set of credentials and can get in anywhere you see the OpenID logo ( 
).
Best of all, many of you already have OpenIDs and don’t even know it. If you have a MySpace, AOL/AIM, Yahoo, LiveJournal, or Flickr account (among many others) then you’re in the club. To find the right provider for you, check out the OpenID provider listing.
If you’re already an Obsidian Portal member, you can add your OpenID on your account edit screen. For our brand new visitors, just use your OpenID to log in and you’ll be up and running in no time!
Always room for more maps!
August 04, 2008 03:06
Many people have been having problems uploading maps, so we put in a long weekend and made several updates to the map processing. Uploads should be much faster, and (fingers-crossed) things should be smoother overall.
If you do happen to get an error on upload, we’ve updated the error reporting so that in many cases you’ll get better feedback. If it makes no sense, copy and paste the error message into an email and send it to us at support@obsidianportal.com We’re determined to stamp out these map upload bugs!
On a complete tangent, when you get a chance, head on over to the ENnies voting booth and vote for our good friend Yax from Dungeon Mastering!
Server Problems
August 01, 2008 19:23
Over the past 24 hours you may have noticed the down for maintenance page on Obsidian Portal. Unfortunately we’ve been experience both web server issues and had a database crash as well…
The bad news is that we had to restore our database from a backup that was last taken on July 31 at 11:00 PM Eastern Time. That means we have data loss period or approximately 12 hours from between July 31 at 11:00 PM Eastern through Aug 1 at 11:00 AM Eastern Time.
The good news is that we’re back up and running now and should be solid and that we’re actively working to restore as much missing information in that 12 hour window as possible. If we do successfully retrieve this information, we will be contacting each person individually. We are also looking into steps to prevent such a large window between backups in the future.
As always, thanks for using the site and feel free to contact us or discuss in the forums :)
Cheaper Subscriptions and The Big Map
July 29, 2008 01:57
Update Note: For all the new people, you can sign up and use the site for free. If you want some extra features (more maps, no ads, etc.), you can upgrade to a paying subscription. The site is perfectly usable without paying, although we sure do appreciate our paying subscribers!
First of all, we’ve reduced our subscription prices for long term subscribers. Some have complained that our prices were too high, so we’ve added some extra subscription options to help save money. Simply sign up for a longer term and save a chunk of change, up to $20 at the yearly level. To subscribe (or upgrade your current subscription) just login, go to your profile page, and click on the Account tab. Choose whichever option you want and you’re set!
Next up, there are a lot of lonely players looking for a campaign to join. To help out with this, we have added The Big Map! This map shows the location of all the campaigns on Obsidian Portal that have supplied address info. Zoom in on your city to find ones in your area. Plus, check the “looking for players” box at the bottom and you can specifically limit your search to only campaigns that have open spots. Find one near you and send a private message to the GM. In no time you’ll be rolling the dice.
On the other hand, if you’re a GM and need some players, be sure to check the “looking for players” box on the campaign edit screen and add an address for your game.
The full URL to the map is: http://www.obsidianportal.com/map Pass it along to anyone who is looking for a game to join.
We’ve got a lot of irons in the fire right now, and we’re hoping to deliver some pretty cool features in the coming weeks and months. I don’t want to jinx it by saying too much too soon, but it’s an exciting time! Keep checking back to see what’s new.
A word from our sponsors (we have some now!)
June 30, 2008 02:40
Wow, it’s been a long weekend of writing code! We’ve deployed several features recently, including quick link-lookups for NPCs and wiki pages when you’re editing a wiki page. This makes it much, much easier to link to your NPCs and other pages. Rather than hunting for the right text, just select the NPC or page you want and paste the text that appears.
Next, we’ve added tags to wiki pages and adventure log posts. The idea is to make it easier for GMs to organize their wikis into logical units. You’re free to create your own tags and organize your wiki as you choose. Hopefully, some best practices will emerge and we can single out some of the better ways to organize things.
After that, we’ve worked on some incremental improvements to searching. We’re making it faster and better, plus there are plans to consolidate everything (characters, campaigns, you-name-it) under a single master search interface. We’re not there yet, but we’re making progress.
Finally, and most excitingly, we have secured sponsorship for the featured campaigns! Now, instead of simply getting a pat on the back, you’ll get a pat on the back plus some schwag! We got our first shipment of books in the mail last week, and we’re eager to send them right back out to all of you. We’ll be announcing the first winner within a day or two, so keep watching the featured campaign block! Think yours deserves the top spot? Then let us know!
We're still here
May 27, 2008 01:41
This is just a quick update to let everyone that we’re still here. Ryan and I have been sucked into our real jobs and haven’t had much time to work on the site. Still, we’re here and listening, so keep posting.
In the meantime, we’ve made a few updates, like fixing a bug with comments and a bug with the NPC tags. These were reported in the forums, which is the best way to alert us to problems or new features you’d like to see.
Also, we’re bringing back the Featured Campaign! It’s been a long time since we’ve updated, and there are a lot of great campaigns out there, so we’re promising to work harder to make sure that everyone gets their time in the limelight.
Like we said last time, make sure you join our facebook group and friend us on myspace!
Updates galore
April 18, 2008 04:06
There have been numerous updates over the past two weeks, we just never got around to mentioning them in the news until now.
First and foremost are the “Latest Updates” displays you’ll see everywhere. We now track and display much of the activity going on for the site. We’re still tweaking to find the right mixture of updates. Most of the updates have associated RSS feeds, and eventually they all will. Now, it’s very easy to keep track of what’s going on with your friends and your favorite campaigns.
Second, we’ve added a WYSIWYG editor to many of the fields (like wiki and adventure log entries) that has nice formatting controls (buttons and such) to help you make everything look clean and neat. Edit your profile and select the WYSIWYG editor box. WARNING!! This should be a campaign-wide decision since it works terribly if some of your players use it and some don’t. Read more in the forums.
Third, we’ve added campaign-wide comments. Often, you want to discuss the campaign as a whole, rather than a particular adventure log entry. Now, simply click on the comments tab, and speak your mind. We’re looking for a better way to integrate this, but we wanted to get it rolled out ASAP.
Fourth, we’ve added a special tag you can insert into your Adventure Log posts to make them automatically shrink to a teaser for the main blog view, with a link to the full post. Learn how to do it from the forum post.
Fifth, we’ve updated the search engine so hopefully the search will run much faster and have better search results.
Sixth, we’ve updated the layout for your friends page to be a little cleaner (profile layout updates coming soon).
Finally, for all the techies, we have started supporting microformats, specifically hCard and XFN. For the non-techies, don’t worry about it too much. At this stage, it’s mostly just a neat toy to play with.
Also, in an effort to keep the Obsidian Portal community connected even more we’ve created both a Facebook Group as well as a MySpace Profile. They’re pretty basic right now, but will be getting major updates of the next couple of weeks.
There are a lot of great campaigns out there, so keep the updates coming. Oh,and don’t forget to link to your campaign from your other sites (and forum sigs)!
What a gorgeous avatar you have
March 24, 2008 02:39
Obsidian Portal has teamed up with AvatarArt to provide custom artwork for your campaign. It’s a win-win-win situation: you get great imagery (and a discount), AvatarArt gets more customers, and Obsidian Portal gets a commission to help us keep the site running.
If you’re interested (and you will be once you see the quality), check out the AvatarArt details page. The sooner you act, the sooner your character steps out of the shadows of your imagination and appears in full color for all to see.
Update 2008-03-26: We’ve had reports that some of the contact e-mails are being blocked by spam filters. So, if you request to be contacted, make sure to keep an eye on your spam folder.
Whoa, what happened?
March 15, 2008 12:08
As you can no doubt tell, we’ve had some big changes recently. We’ve opened up the layout a bit to allow more space, added some new design elements, and even managed to stick in subscriptions. Heck, we even brought back the search feature, just to add to the mix.
Since we’re trying to do like 10 things at once (which, I’ll admit, is usually a bad idea), there are bound to be a few hiccups. Please be patient and let us know when and how things go wrong.
Also, the site might experience some slowness now that search is back. We’ve tried to reconfigure the search service to be less of a hog, but we have yet to see if it works in live mode. We will be watching it closely and tweaking it to be nicer as we go along.
Updates Postponed
March 15, 2008 05:53
We tried to roll out some new features last night, but found a few crippling bugs that didn’t show up until we moved the code to the live server. We’ve pulled the new changes out until we can figure out what the problems are. It shouldn’t be more than a couple days until we’re ready. Thanks for being patient!
Big changes to the wikis! README!
March 15, 2008 05:53
We’ve just rolled out a really giant change to the wikis. Instead of having separates wikis for the GM and players, we have merged both wikis into one. Each page has two sections, public and GM-only. The public section is viewable by anyone and can be edited by any campaign member. By contrast, the GM-only section can only be seen or edited by the GM. In addition, the GM can set an entire page as GM-only and that will make it completely invisible to the rest of the world.
As part of the process, all of the data from each GM wiki page has been moved to the party wiki. In most cases, each page is transferred directly by creating a new, GM-only page in the party wiki. However, in the case where a page already exists with the same name (such as the Main Page), then the GM wiki page data is copied into the GM-only section on the corresponding page in the player wiki. All your wiki links will still work like you expect.
If you have any questions or comments about the change, please comment on the thread in the forums. If you experience any problems, report them immediately!
Comments...finally!
March 15, 2008 05:53
We finally got around to adding comments to the adventure log posts. It’s a crucial feedback feature to let you, the author, know what people think about your stuff. Of course, the most important feedback any of us gets is the response from the others in our actual gaming group, but it’s good to hear from the RPG community as a whole, too.
GM’s and players have the final say over all comments and can freely delete any comments left on their posts. So, be civil, or don’t be surprised if your comments just mysteriously disappear.
On a side note, we also tidied up the wiki page list view to separate Adventure Log posts from simple wiki pages. This was suggested by AvatarArt in the forums. As always, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so keep the suggestions coming!
A little more speed
March 15, 2008 05:53
We just made some more changes that will hopefully speed things up. There were a few hiccups while getting it running, so I apologize to anyone that got caught in the middle of the update. It worked great on our test machine, but went crazy on the live machine.
Everything is working now, and it should be much faster than before.
A thousand gamers can't all be wrong
March 15, 2008 05:53
This past week we signed up our 1000th user. It’s been almost a year since we first started accepting signups, and things are really humming along. We’ve managed to slowly but steadily add new features, all the while trying to improve and enhance the features we already offer.
We’d like to thank all of you for giving us the benefit of the doubt. The site would be an empty shell without all the great campaigns and material people are putting up. So, if you all keep updating your campaigns, we’ll keep working on the site!
P.S. We also just added “next” and “previous” links on the adventure logs. As usual, the idea came straight from the forums.
Silent Winter with Interview
December 01, 2009 17:51
Silent Winter uses a homebrew system that Jennifer designed to coincide with the Dragon Age: Origins video game. Looking through the campaign wiki, you’ll find a cornucopia of information on everything from character creation to combat to items… to just about every conceivable game rule.
Jennifer and her players don’t play at a table, but play over the internet.
Looking through the Adventure Log, it’s easy to see that solid role-playing does not necessarily require face time or even an officially licensed set of rules, but it does require a sense of camaraderie, a desire for shared storytelling, and a love of the game. We asked Jennifer some questions about Silent Winter, and she was kind enough to let us share them and her responses with you.
Interview with Jennifer
Obsidian Portal: How much of the campaign/system is original content developed by you and your players?Jennifer: The system is all original content, but the setting is based on the setting of the Dragon Age game by Bioware, so the most remote background material is derived from the lore that Bioware has published. The people and places in the game are mostly original, though.
Obsidian Portal: You did your own artwork; can you tell us more about it?
Jennifer: I use Adobe Illustrator to draw the portraits and other artwork, as I’m studying for an art degree and this is fun practice for me.
Obsidian Portal: How open is your party to your home-brew rules, and will you switch to the official rules when they come out?
Jennifer: At the moment, we don’t plan to switch to the official rules as this would be a huge change in the scale of the game—only levels 1-5 are going to be released right away through the official rules. There was some discussion early on when I suggested using homebrew rules, as we started out wanting to try the official rules, but for the most part the group is content to tolerate the homebrew system if not thrilled with it.
Obsidian Portal: Where do you get your inspiration the story?
Jennifer: The story is actually VERY roughly based on the Mordant’s Need novels (The Mirror of her Dreams and A Man Rides Through) by Stephen R. Donaldson and a short campaign I ran a few years ago. Since Dragon Age and the Mordant’s Need novels are both dark fantasy set in quasi-medieval kingdoms, they are actually well-suited to each other. However, the basis is pretty loose as I originally ran this in D&D using D&D monsters instead of the largely human enemies from the novels.
Obsidian Portal: How well do you know your players?
Jennifer: I know some of the players quite well, and others not so much—a long-time friend and my brother joined up with some strangers from the Dragon Age discussion boards over on the Bioware site to try this game out. I had more potential players than I could really handle, though, but the group that remains is really solid and I’m friends with all of them now.
Obsidian Portal: What kinds of challenges are you faced with in your campaign?
Jennifer: I think the greatest challenge, for me, is maintaining my interest and determination to see the game to its conclusion in the face of new projects that crop up. Maintaining a consistent high level of effort is difficult when you have other things going on. However, my group has been really good about putting forward their own contributions, so I think this will work.
Obsidian Portal: What aspects of your campaign are you really proud of?
Jennifer: I’m proudest of the level of intra-party role-playing that goes on. Sometimes it can be a bit difficult for me to keep up when everyone takes my ideas and runs with them, but I’d rather have that than a bunch of characters who are little more than lists of numbers and who treat the world like their own personal toybox.
So there you have it, a great story, original art, and a brand new system all in one campaign. We love homebrew and garage game systems, and we can’t wait to give this one a try! If you’re interested in trying this rule set out for yourself, grab some players and get to it! For the considerable efforts of Jennifer and her players, we welcome them into the immortal halls of the Obsidian Portal.
Denizens of the Nentir Vale
December 31, 2009 20:06
What first drew our attention for this campaign was the homepage layout. It’s crisp, simple layout makes for easy navigation of the entire campaign. Each of the three modules are broken down by which adventurers were present, what adventures they had, and the whole thing is topped off with a link to the world map complete with linked pushpins.
Then there was their very fun and very lively Adventure log which is full of entries, art, poems, comics, photographs, and in character storytelling. Here tales are woven of true heroes as they strugle to become the paragons of their time. It was enough to keep us enthralled for hours! But when we found out that they published their own campaign companion guide, well that sealed their fate as January’s Featured Campaign.
We had an opportunity to interview the current DM, Zplayer and the previous DM, Gorthmog just the other day. Here’s what they have to say about their work on the Denizens of the Nentir Vale.
Obsidian Portal: Ok, before we get much farther, I have to hear about how you published your Obsidian Portal campaign as an actual book. Was it easy? Was it expensive? (Link to their campaign companion guide here.)
Gorthmog: Publishing the book on Lulu was a blast. I made each Adventure Log be a separate chapter, and I just copied the text and the comments straight in from Obsidian Portal. I did have to do a lot of cleanup so it didn’t look too much like a web page. For an example of how the comments turned out, look at page 34 of the preview. Also, I decided to go with a black & white interior, since Lulu is so expensive for color. I gave the book to my players as a surprise, and they were really happy. I would definitely recommend Lulu.
Obsidian Portal: How much of the campaign/system is original content developed by you and your players?
Zplayer: I’m just starting as the 4th DM of the ongoing adventure Denizens of the Nentir Vale, a D&D 4th edition campaign. We’ve played just a little original content with heavy inspiration from Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrinth. Our current adventure, Temple of the Serpent, is drawn from D&D Insider material and more original content.
Obsidian Portal: Where do you get your inspiration for Denizens of the Nentir Vale?
Zplayer: The inspiration for Temple of the Serpent came from
Obsidian Portal: How well do you know your players?
Zplayer: We’ve been playing together for 18 months, so we know each other pretty well. I have known two of the players for years. But, with now 4 different DMs and several players having different characters, the overall dynamic can still be surprising. The players do a great job making their characters come to life, and that can result in some surprising adventures and creative, entertaining sessions.
Obsidian Portal: What kinds challenges are you faced with in your campaign?
Zplayer: The most challenging aspect is managing table time and online time. We are five folks with full schedules.
Obsidian Portal: What aspects of your campaign are you really proud of?
Zplayer: I am extremely pleased with how well the group works together to solve problems and overcome challenges. Whether it is a tactical issue or a puzzle to be solved, everyone contributes. I am also really happy with the amount of effort we put into the posts. We take turns doing the write-up after each session. It is always a real pleasure to see what “really happened”!
Interviewing such a passionate group of gamers really gets us excited for things to come in 2010! Clearly we can all expect to see great things come from the Denizens of the Nentir Vale, the latest Adventurers to join the heroes of old in the immortal halls of the Obsidian Portal.
DonnerundSturm
February 01, 2010 17:25
DM Meister has been playing table-top RPGs with the same group of friends for over 15 years. Over the years they’ve had many fantastic adventures, and Donner und Sturm is their greatest adventure yet.From what we can gather, Donner und Sturm sounds like a hybrid between Cannonball Run, Ben Hur, and the Lord of the Rings. Each entry of the Adventure Log reads like a travel log broken down by daily activities. The Characters tab reveals a world full of interesting people from all over the continent of Aventuria, one of the primary locations for the Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye) table-top RPG system.
The Wiki pages are full of trivia and interesting tidbits about Aventuria, the system of Das Schwarze Auge, and the characters inhabiting this world. Donner und Sturm also has a map of the ‘racetrack’ a 2000 kilometer run through the fantastic wilds of Aventuria. And then there’s the youtube videos! All this campaign is missing is the custom action figures. We had the opportunity to interview Meister about his campaign, and he had some very interesting things to share about it. Lets read on.
Interview with DM Meister
Obsidian Portal: How much of the campaign/system is original content developed by you and your players?Meister: The “Adventure Log”, the movies (youtube) and some of the Wiki-pages are original created by me and my group. The texts about the cities (Baburin, Fasar) are mostly from www.wiki-aventurica.de, the official DSA-Wiki. I only added some parts and pictures from the internet. The tables, including the system of rules, are from the official “rule-book”, but also amplified by my own ideas.
Obsidian Portal: Your campaign has many youtube videos, can you tell us about those?
Meister: The movies are spoken by myself. They including information about the Quest. The pictures are from the internet, showing mostly the campaign-cover.
Obsidian Portal: Where do you get your inspiration the story?
Meister: There are storybooks in troops, but the most ideas came from movies and series like Lord of the Rings, Merlin, Legend of the Seeker and other fantasy stories. I also often read fantasy books and afterwards I have a new idea for a good quest.
But you get the most ideas while you’re playing the game. And this is why I love to play role-playing-games: As a GM you always have to improvise!
Obsidian Portal: How well do you know your players?
Meister: The players of my two role-playing-groups are my best friends. I know most of them since I began playing this game, more than 15 years ago.
Obsidian Portal: What kinds challenges are you faced with in your campaign?
Meister: The mainquest is a horserace by chariot over 2000 kilometre. Its a big part of the quest to fight against the other chariotdrivers or find some friends by the members. There are some unholy, demonish opponents, who are using there might to manipulate the race – of course, the characters have to stop them. In the end there is a great finish, because the characters (winner of the race) have to resurrect an old hero to fight against one of the most powerful demons in this world.
Obsidian Portal: What aspects of your campaign are you really proud of?
Meister: I think I can be proud of my whole campaign, but especially of the “Wiki”, because I’ve spend much time to create a well-arranged overview about the game.
We’d like to thank Meister and his players for bringing Das Schwarze Auge to our attention through their campaign, and for putting so much effort into their campaign here on Obsidian Portal, a truly international community of gamers. It’s good to know that when the chips are down and someone needs to race an angry demon to save the world, we’ll always have a handful of people ready for the job.
forgotten-realms-the-savage-north
March 01, 2010 07:04
It’s March! That means a number of exciting things, but first and foremost for you, dear Adventure, it means that there’s a new Featured Campaign! As you know, we feature a new Obsidian Portal campaign every month. We do this so you can see some of the best table-top campaigns the internet has to offer. And this month, we have something very special for you this month.
This month’s Featured Campaign is DMed by Rodney Thompson, RPG Developer at Wizards of the Coast. Rodney was the Lead Designer for the Star Wars: Saga Edition RPG and he’s currently the Lead Developer of the upcoming Dark Sun 4th Edition setting. And his Obsidian Portal campaign, Forgotten Realms: The Savage North, is awesome. Rodney was kind enough to let us interview him about his work at Wizards of the Coast, and his campaign.
Obsidian Portal: So we hear that you work at Wizards of the Coast. Can you tell us more about what it is you do there?
-What are your responsibilities?
-What cool stuff are you working on now?
-If you could change any aspect of the current edition of D&D, what would it be?
Rodney: My job title at Wizards is technically RPG Developer, but I’m a man of many hats. While my primary responsibility is to be a Developer on D&D, I’ve also spent the last few years as the lead designer and developer on the Star Wars RPG.
As for recent projects, my biggest projects coming out in 2010 are the Dark Sun Campaign Setting, which I was the lead developer for, and the D&D Essentials line, which I co-designed. I was also the lead designer on the Monster Vault.
It’s tough to say what I’d change right off the top of my head, because any change has a lot of repercussions once made. I’ll say that we’ve got some exciting new stuff coming up in the Essentials that really are going to surprise (and, I hope, delight) people. I think if I was going to make one change to my 4E campaign, it would probably be to change the way magic items interact with character math. Basically, I like my magic items to be a little more special icing on the cake, and a little less of a required part of the character needed to succeed. That said, we’ve made some headway down that path with DMG2 and we go even further in Dark Sun, so that’s one change that’s coming about.
Obsidian Portal: Where do you get your inspiration for your games?
Rodney: I tend to be a very classic fantasy/classic D&D style of gamer. That said, my current campaign is heavily inspired by Western films—not necessarily in their environment or visual aesthetics, but definitely in terms of the story. My campaign plays on a lot of classic Western themes—lawlessness vs. civilization, dangerous men on a dangerous frontier, authority figures who are little to no help at all, etc.
Obsidian Portal: How much time per week do you spend getting ready for a game session?
Rodney: I tend to prep one adventure at a time, and each adventure I design covers about 1 level’s worth of play. I usually do a few hours of up-front prep before I start the adventure, and then over the course of the three or four weeks it takes to run I usually do about an hour of prep every Sunday night before I run on Mondays. On top of that, I’d say I put about an hour a week into things like maintaining the Obsidian Portal wiki for the campaign, sketching out custom magic items and other rewards, and generally brainstorming the direction that the campaign is headed in.
Obsidian Portal: So your campaign is called Forgotten Realms: The Savage North. Can you tell us about its world, its inhabitants, the PCs, and the overall story?
Rodney: I’m running the campaign in the Forgotten Realms of 4th Edition, but in the North, mostly in Icewind Dale and the lands north of the Spine of the World mountains. Since the 4E Campaign Setting didn’t really touch on that area much, I’m pretty much filling in the gaps using my 2nd Edition FR materials. When I was in college I ran a pretty expansive 2E campaign in the North, and I’m using all of my old materials as a basis, but updating things to the new timeline.
The great thing about the North is that it’s very much the frontier, and there’s a lot of fertile ground for thrusting the heroes into a position of influence right away. There’s less intervention from higher powers there, and plus I’ve always liked the sort of frigid, snow-covered lands as a backdrop for D&D.
The main antagonists of the campaign’s heroic tier were a group of bandits called the Blackhands, known for their distinctive black gloves. More than just outlaws, the Blackhands were pretty much controlling the entire North through fear and intimidation, and were found in most of the Ten Towns “protecting” the inhabitants from harm. When the heroes arrived, they started liberating Icewind Dale from the clutches of the Blackhands, and at the conclusion of the heroic tier they finally discovered the secret citadel used by the Blackhand leaders, laid siege to it, defeated the white dragon Aurelion that had been aiding the Blackhands, and discovered that the Blackhand’s leader had secretly been dead for years. As we enter the paragon tier, the players have discovered that some githyanki had been manipulating the Blackhands all along, and were clearly involved in some kind of plot that seems to encompass not only the North but also the Nine Hells, Baldur’s Gate, the prison-city of Wheloon, Zakhara (yeah, that’s right, I’m including Al-Qadim material in the campaign), and Myth Drannor.
Towards the end of the heroic tier, the heroes started to realize that they were not just brought together randomly, but that they all have some connection to the greater scheme of things. Zereb-Khan (a genasi swordmage, played by Logan Bonner) discovered that an old apprentice of his former master was once a Blackhand lieutenant who served time in Wheloon with Sardon (a genasi warlord, played by Chris Tulach). This apprentice and Sardon were members of the Seven of Wheloon, a group of criminals who escaped from the prison-city after being broken out by drow of the Shadowstep clan. Malkyr (a drow rogue, played by Mike Mearls) is a member of this clan, but wasn’t involved in the breakout. Theren (a half-elf warlock, played by Derek Guder) discovered that his father was murdered by this old apprentice; Theren’s father was also once an instructor at Blackstaff Tower, who set Harold Glimmerswick (a human wizard, played by Greg Bilsland) on a hunt for a mysterious substance known as godsblood. They all recently discovered that the aforementioned apprentice was turned into a seeker of godsblood by the Order of Blue Fire, who apparently have plans to do the same to Sardon. As you can tell, there are a lot of connections between the heroes’ backstories that have come to light over the course of the campaign.
Obsidian Portal: How closely do you stick to the Forgotten Realms canon?
Rodney: I like to use the FR setting as a backdrop, but not as a metaplot. The story I’m telling is definitely my own. As I mentioned before, I’m using a lot of 2E reference materials for my game, so it’s kind of a hodgepodge of the 2E Realms with 4E Realms overlays. In general, I’ve used the 4E Campaign Guide as a jumping off point, and occasionally circle back around to pick up things from time to time, but it’s very much my own story.
Obsidian Portal: We hear that many of your players are also game designers. Do you have to grapple with them for control of your game world, or do they typically let you DM as you see fit?
Rodney: I’m usually pretty flexible about letting my players define the campaign world anyways, so there’s no grappling. If anything, I try and encourage them to take ownership of the setting. For example, Chris Tulach completely made up the whole concept of a group of escapees called the Seven from Wheloon, and I took that and ran with it, tying it into the character histories of other characters. I find that letting my players be creative like that keeps them engaged, and whether or not they are game designers.
Obsidian Portal: How much of the campaign world is original content developed by you and your players?
Rodney: Almost all of it. While I use canon FR locations for most things, every single NPC and storyline is completely of my own making. The only exception is that I inserted the Scepter Tower of Spellgarde adventure into the game at one point, but customized it heavily.
Obsidian Portal: Where do you get your inspiration for your story?
Rodney: The heroic tier, at least, is heaviliy influenced by Westerns. The Blackhands are sort of a cross between the Zhentarim and the Cowboys from Tombstone or Calveras’ men from The Magnificent Seven. Going into the paragon tier, I’m easing back on the Western themes, and leaning more toward classic D&D adventuring. It’s tougher to do the Western-inspired stories at paragon tier, so for that I’m drawing a lot upon the design work I did for the upcoming Plane Above sourcebook, as well as the Al-Qadim campaign setting. I feel like the campaign may head to Zakhara at some point, but up until then the players will be spending a lot of time in Baldur’s Gate, if I had my guess. We’ll have some urban adventures, and then go from there to Zakhara, or possibly to the Underdark or to the Astral Sea, depending on how the campaign develops.
Obsidian Portal: Where does your game group typically play?
Rodney: We have played in numerous places thus far, but we currently play in conference rooms at Wizards of the Coast. The office has some really nice rooms with big white boards, large tables, and comfortable seating that I like to take advantage of. Some rooms even have speaker systems, so I can connect my iPod to it and play background music during the game.
Obsidian Portal: How well do you know your players?
Rodney: I’d say we’re all pretty good friends. I currently work or have worked with four of the players, and the others are either close friends or have come in from other campaigns. We hang out outside of the game, and of course I see several of my players around the office on a daily basis.
Obsidian Portal: What kinds of challenges are you faced with in your campaign?
Rodney: It’s definitely had its ups and downs. I originally started the campaign as a more casual, beer-and-pretzels kind of game. While we were having fun, we weren’t making much progress, and I was itching to run a game that was more fast-paced and plot-heavy. So, late last year I started implementing a series of changes to make sure we played more regularly and got more gaming in. Since then, the game has really picked up momentum. In fact, I started a series of blog articles on the Wizards Community site called Campaign Repairman to chronicle the process of me turning my game around. I figure a lot of DMs probably have some of the same problems that I have faced, and could benefit from some advice on how to make changes and salvage a lackluster campaign.
We’ve also lost a couple of players due to real-life obligations, and so we’ve had some challenges in introducing new players, but so far the core group has remained engaged.
Obsidian Portal: What aspects of your campaign are you really proud of?
Rodney: I’m really excited about how well the game has turned around after slowing down from time to time. I was worried that the campaign was going to fall apart at a certain point, but things look to have turned around. I’m also very proud of the capstone adventure I ran to get the players from 10th level to 11th level. It was an all-day adventure that played out over the course of about 8 hours. It was a blast, and I hope I can top it in the future. Maybe for the 20th level adventure…
Rodney has dedicated his career to his love of gaming. His Obsidian Portal campaign is a living testament to his cause. For the dedication exhibited by Rodney and his players to keeping table-top RPGs alive and well, we welcome them with open arms into the immortals halls of the Obsidian Portal.
