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Campaign of the Month February 2026: Mystara

It’s a deadly world when you are a band of adventurers entering frozen caves in search of the Tree of Life. Traps, tunnels, caves, frozen snow, monsters, chambers and violent terror.  Learn how one group handles these dangers as we discuss the February 2026 Campaign of the Month, Mystara, with Game Master Tandamar.

First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen.  Where are you from?  What do you do aside from gaming?  Alter Egos?  Life partners?  Family?  Where can we interact with you on the internet?   

Not much to tell, I live in Idaho but have lived many places over the years, I play bass guitar aside from gaming.

Tell us a bit about Mystara, the world where your player characters live out their lives, carving out their story.  It seems quite large, and also seems to incorporate many regions.  Do the party travel much, or do they stick to certain regions.

We use the original Gazetteers for Mystara, mostly by the book but I have some of my own lore added.

Your campaign is a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.  What version are you using and what guided your choice in this?

As it says on the homepage we use BECMI with a few house rules, been playing it since 83 but started playing D&D in 81.

Tell us about your players and your typical gaming sessions.  How often do you play?  Online?  Tabletop?  Who does what in any typical session?

I am a forever DM, we play every Sunday and have for around 10 years, players come and go but we have a few who have been there from the beginning.  We use Discord for voice and Tabletop Simulator for visual.

There seem to be quite a few Non Player Characters set up in the campaign, and many of these seem to be dead.  Is your campaign particularly dangerous, or are there any other reasons?

BECMI is deadly as written, some are players who had to leave the game.  Others are just dead PCs.  I keep them on there as a record of our past.

Your campaign has many maps in the Maps section – more than can be found on most Obsidian Portal sites.  How important are these to your campaign?

Maps are important to any campaign.

Who writes the adventure logs for your campaign, and how important are they to the flow of the campaign?  The more recent ones have a nice image detailing treasure gained?  Whose idea was this?  Do you aim to continue the trend?

I started writing the logs but one of our players has taken that role.  Yes, we intend to keep the logs going as they are.

You have chosen to use the Items section in your campaign and yet only have a few items listed so far.  Do you intend to expand on this.  How useful do you feel it is for your players.

Yes, we will add more items as we see fit.  The player writing the current logs does these as well.  We have only just started using it so its usefulness has yet to be determined.

Have you or your players had any favourite moments in the campaign so far?  What have been the most exciting encounters, discoveries, etc.?

“Leading Imperial Legions in battle” Matt

“Yeah, when we were in Castle Mistimere and got stuck with no way out, until we ran into Bargle where we thought we had him.”  Bryan

One of my players PC was bitten in half by a young black dragon, we still talk about it.

How far in advance do you plan your campaign?  Is it a basic outline or are events all well defined?  Without giving the game away to your players, are there any future events you are particularly looking forward to?  You can be as cryptic as you need to be.

I have things outlined but I didn’t go too detailed.  The current game is on the brink of a war with the players playing a role in how it will end.

Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”.  What GM insights can you offer the community this month?

I don’t give advice usually, but everyone has their own idea on how to run a game, but the best I can give is what I have learned from the 45+ years of playing, don’t plant too far ahead, player will always find ways to screw up your plans, not intentionally, but you will find they will have ideas you as a DM never thought of.  Learn to improvise ana always have a plan B and C.

Thank you to the community for making this campaign of the month possible! That’s all for now, join us on our next adventure March 1st, and don’t forget to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!

Campaign of the Month October 2025: Mike Brock’s Mummy’s Mask Campaign

Delve deep into the land of Osirion following an intrepid group of adventurers called The Desert Guardians as they discover hidden treasures in the Tomb of Akhentepi in this Pathfinder Adventure perpetuated by GM coastiemike and his team of table top role players as they explore Mike Brock’s Mummy’s Mask Campaign.

First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen.  Where are you from?  What do you do aside from gaming?  Alter Egos?  Life partners?  Family?  Where can we interact with you on the internet?   

I have been playing some iteration of RPGs since 1976 with my first ever GMing experience in 1982 when I ran one player through a short Star Frontiers campaign.  I really delved into GMing D&D/AD&D in 1985 while in high school.

I have also been lucky enough to work in the gaming industry when I oversaw the organized play program for Paizo from 2011-2015 with some help from a ton of amazing volunteers from around the world, many who I am still lucky enough to call friends.

I am originally in Georgia though work has moved us various times to Seattle, New Orleans, Reno, NV, and back to Georgia. I also spent time in Indianapolis, San Francisco, Connecticut and Miami when I was in the Coast Guard.

Aside from table top gaming, I paint 28mm minis for my campaign, as well as at the request of my players to match their PCs.  I have a pretty extensive Reaper Master Paints collection and have a dedicated paint workspace.  I also enjoy hunting, backpacking, and traveling.

My wife and I have been together for 22 years and have two awesome children and three amazing grandchildren.  

I don’t have a big on-line presence but I am occasionally on facebook.

How would you describe your Campaign in a nutshell.  Tell us a bit about the adventure group known as The Desert Guardians and their adventures in the Osirian city of Wati.

How long has your campaign been running and what made you choose Pathfinder as your gaming system?  Are you using Pathfinder Version 1 or Version 2?

We started this campaign in February of 2024.  We are using Pathfinder 1^st Edition.  When Paizo had it’s Dragon and Dungeon Magazine publishing ended, they created Pathfinder.  I had renewed my subscription to both magazines for three years and was offered to change it to the adventure path subscription. I absolutely loved D&D 3.5 and the progression to Pathfinder 1e was a no brainer.  We have stuck with it every since and have not considered switching to second edition as everyone seems to be having fun with PF1.

Please tell us something about your average gaming sessions.  How often do you play?  Online or Tabletop?  What is your gaming group like?

We are currently on a bi-weekly schedule, playing every other Wed night from 7-11 pm in our basement game room.  This is on alternate weeks of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path I am running for seven other players.  We play in person, around the table and it is an absolute blast.

Our players for Mummy’s Mask range in age from 18 to early 60s.  We have a few players who have been playing for 30-40 years, a few players with 5-10 years, and three players that this is their first tabletop experience.  This Mummy’s Mask AP is composed of four men and three ladies, a complete different experience from the Rise of the Runelords game with five women and two men.

All of my players take a keen interest in the game, providing character backgrounds that I like to weave into the storyline, and make their choices have real consequences in game.

Where have you drawn your inspiration from in creating the campaign?  Is it an existing Adventure Path?  If so, how have you added or amended it?  What other sources have been useful to you in setting up an Ancient Egyptian campaign?

It is an existing adventure path.  I have amended it by tying Legacy of Fire events into it from when we ran that AP 15 years ago.  Also, Mummy’s Mask is the jumpstart for an even longer campaign that will take the party into Planescape and mythic levels. I watched a good bit of History Channel and National Geographic documentaries, as well as documentaries on several ancient cultures on YouTube for inspiration and making the campaign world come to life. 

Most of the campaign seems to be centred around adventures in the Necropolis – in particular, the Tomb of Akentepi.  Give us an idea of some of the treasures and horrors encountered by your adventuring group, The Desert Guardians, in this hallowed place.

Book 1 of the AP centered around exploring the Necropolis.  The Tomb of Akentepi was one of three assignments the party received in the lottery to explore.  They lost one companion, a nagaji bard by the name of Serantis (and played by the same player who is running Corin now), to a Graven Guardian while exploring the Sanctum of the Erudite Eye found inside the Necropolis.  After exploring the Necropolis in book 1, they then moved into book 2 and the auction of items found by their group, as well as another 15-20 other adventuring groups.  During that auction, all hell broke loose with an undead uprising.  The party has finally tracked down the source of the undead uprising and now have entered book 3 of the AP in the Grand Library of Tephu where they are researching the artifact that caused the undead uprising and its origins. 

You have an extensive range of Adventure Logs, and it seems like you have good input from some of the players in your campaign.  How much do your team get involved in this and other aspects of the Campaign?

I award players who keep a journal a 10% bonus to XPs for the game sessions they write an in character journal entry.  Some of the players love writing their entries; others don’t enjoy journal keeping. I never force someone to write a character journal as it can be a lot of work btu like to reward players who take the time to do so.  My GM entries are more from a narrator stance.  Reading in-character journals of what they experienced helps me remember key events I may have forgotten, while also helping formulate ideas to better craft a character’s background and experiences to the overarching storyline of the AP. 

You can find both Zalina’s and Sidero’s character journals in the Wiki on our website.

Without divulging any major plots, what is your plan for the future of your central characters?

While in the Tomb of Akentepi, the Desert Guardians discovered a magical tapestry that serves as a direct portal to the River Styx as best as they can figure out.  They aren’t quite brave enough (or powerful enough) to enter just yet and have kept it a secret from all but themselves. They also haven’t divulged this info to Corin, knowing he may attempt to enter the portal to get back home back to Faerun.  Also within the past month, Zalina learned her younger sister had been kidnapped, and her parents (from Legacy of Fire AP) sent her a letter advising Zalina they were traveling to Sigil as that was the last known location they could find any information on their missing younger daughter.  Signs are pointing to, once the Desert Guardians put to bed the threat the Mummy’s Mask has presented, they may work their way towards Sigil, especially if Zalina hasn’t received any kind of update in months. By this time, we should be around 17^th-18^th level and looking towards a mythic level, Planescape campaign.

What would you say are the most useful tools available on Obsidian Portal, both in terms of Campaign Design and in terms of active playing?

The calendar is extremely helpful as it gives a full year of game days so everyone can make sure to keep their game nights free.  It is rare that we don’t have all seven players at a game as all players are invested.  The Wiki is also very helpful. Not only does it allow me to record experience points and treasure by game session to keep a running log, but it also allows us to keep a bestiary of creatures they have encountered in their adventures so they can harken back to the previous encounter for any future encounters.  The same applies to traps faced and overcome, though this is a more useful tool of the Rise of the Runelords group.  I can also use the Wiki to put general info on cities the Guardians explore so it is easy reference for players at the table.

Near the beginning of your campaign, there is mention of a rival adventure group, The Scorched Hand.  How much interaction has there been between your players and this group?  Did you plan this rival group from the beginning, and what benefits have there been to the campaign in keeping this rivalry alive?  Would you recommend the “rival group” notion to general campaign design?

The Scorched Hand was a rival adventuring group that was one of the other groups in the lottery to explore the recently opened Necropolis (at the Pharoah’s decree).  The party was assigned a location of special interest to the Scorched Hand. After the Guardians refused to relent to giving it up at the request of Velriana Hypaxes, leader of the Scorched Hand, it eventually came to a head when the Scorched Hand entered and took over the location and hired mercenaries to aid them in keeping it.  After a fierce battle, all of the mercenaries and half of the Scorched Hand were defeated.  The other two members of the Scorched Hand were released (though I suspect they may hold a grudge and the Guardians may see them again in the future).

The Scorched Hand was written into the AP from the beginning.  The party letting two of their members go after the confrontation has allowed me to write the two NPCs into the adventure later in the AP and we shall see how they end up resurfacing.  I would recommend it in some campaigns if it fits.  In other games, it doesn’t make sense to add a rival group.  It just depends on the background of the campaign and how the GM plans to interweave the two groups and their goals together.

Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”.  What GM insights can you offer the community this month?

I always ask for backgrounds of characters, regardless of how detailed or how little is provided.  It allows me to tie in character backgrounds into the storyline in interesting and weird ways.  When a background nugget pops up during a game, it really grabs a player’s attention and keeps them invested in the campaign.  As a recent example, through two full books and the start of a third, Sidero has had no contact with his homeland of Jalmeray or seen much in the way of goods being sold in marketplaces from his homeland.  In our last game, he saw in the crowded bazaar in Tephu, a former competitor in the grandest of martial arts competitions held in Jalmeray.  This left a quandary about whether to split the party so he could converse with the NPC or stay with the group. He ultimately decided splitting the party was a bad idea, especially in a new city.  Now, Sidero will have the thought in the back of his mind, why was that NPC here so far from home and what might he learn from that NPC.

Investing character backgrounds is always hugely important.  Not only does it pay dividends in making an interesting side story that runs parallel to the main story arch, it also gives investment into the campaign by the players and they will not want to miss a game in case their background makes an appearance.

Another pearl I like to keep in mind when running games is making sure I keep notes on loose ends that I can tie back into the storyline later in the campaign. It almost always catches the PCs off guard but I always see smiles on faces when they see their actions, or inactions, are still alive and well (or undead in some cases). They know their actions in game have consequences across the life of the campaign. 

A third pearl, I never try to tell a player no when they come up with a good idea.  Even if the DC will be tough to make, I let them at least try.  If they succeed, it is my responsibility as a GM to make sure they didn’t waste their action on something I was going to say no to all along.  Again, if it is a dumb decision, the party knows it will come back to haunt them in a future game.  But I have awesome players who don’t take advantage of the situation.

A fourth pearl, I respect my player’s time.  If they are going to be gracious enough to spend four hours every other week at my house investing themselves in my campaign, I am going to do everything possible to give them the best possible experience.   I am going to put the work in to provide the best possible experience, including maps and minis, sound effect sand background music (we have Bose surround sound installed in the game room), and visual aids and player handouts.  If the players are going to trust me to run a game, I am going to do everything in my power to make every experience memorable.  I also like to thank my players with small gifts.  They bring food and snacks and a good time to my house every other week.  At Christmas, I gifted each a custom wooden dice box with a set of dice that fit the theme of their character.  At our one year anniversary, I had artwork commissioned of their characters per their descriptions to hang on the wall of our tavern we play in.  Always appreciate your players and let them know that you value their time and investment. 

Finally, we welcome all players regardless of experience level.  In our tavern, we have a leather-bound guest book.  After a player plays one game in our tavern, they can sign the guest book in character.  This gives a running reminder over the years of the different players we have been blessed to play with. This also sets it up so if a player has a friend or family member in town for the week, we always have an extra seat at the table for the guest to play that week’s game with us.  It helps us grow the hobby and make friends who we will hopefully game with again sometime.  Always welcome guest players when you can. It will enrich your gaming experience.

Thank you to the community for making this campaign of the month possible! That’s all for now, join us on our next adventure November 2nd, and don’t forget to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!

OBSIDIAN PORTAL CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR 2023!

WINNERS FOR 2023:
First Place: Elvathadrin with Torg: Rise of the Storm Knights
Runner Up: Lord_Sam with Esomor Prime

It’s that time of year again- you guessed it, it’s Obsidian Portal’s Campaign of the Year 2023! It’s the ultimate showdown between some of the best of the best Obsidian Portal has to offer: The winners of our Campaign of the Month 2023! Voting is open to anyone who wishes to contribute- be sure to keep an eye out on the OP Community Forums, the OP BLOG, Facebook and Twitter for more information!

We have some great prizes in store for both the first place winner and our first runner up! In addition to winning Free Ascendant membership time, this year we have some AMAZING prizes generously donated from some of the best in the industry, including Paizo, Frog God Games, Limitless Adventures, Crit Academy and Mongoose Publishing!

FIRST PRIZE includes:

– Digital copies of both Starfinder and Pathfinder Second Edition Beginner Boxes and/or Core Rulebooks from Paizo,

– Physical copies of Traveller Core Rulebook and the Paranoia Core Book from Mongoose Publishing,

– Digital copies of Limitless Encounters 1, Limitless NPCs 1 and Limitless Monsters 1 from Limitless Adventures,

– A gift certificate worth $200 to select any digital items in store from Frog God Games, 

– Physical copies of Bountiful Bounties and Aelx’s Bombastic Oddities from Crit Academy, 

– 1 Year Ascendant Membership from Obsidian Portal

RUNNER UP PRIZE includes:

– A gift certificate worth $100 to select any digital items in store from Frog God Games

– 1 Year Ascendant Membership from Obsidian Portal

A huge thank you to our sponsors for this years prizes!:

Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month April 2023: Torg Rise of the Storm Knights

This month we enter the fascinating world of TORG, with the Savage Worlds system, where six brave adventurers cross worlds in their quest to defend the multiverse. GM Elvathadrin will take us through his game, Torg Rise of the Storm Knights and tell us a little about the process he has with his players to bring their stories to life.

First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do aside from gaming? Alter Egos? Life partners? Family? Where can we interact with you on the internet? 

I am from New Jersey, lived here my whole life, don’t really have much of an online presence even though I am on the Obsidian Portal Discord. Outside of gaming, I enjoy hanging out with my friends watching movies. I also paint miniatures and when I can play miniature based games like Warhammer 40K and Xwing, I also play World of Warcraft, and Star Wars the Old Republic/this is the game I also RP most evenings in, and have for quite a few years.

Let’s talk about the visualization of your campaign. Did you make the animated banner yourself? And the video? What made you decide to place this video on your campaign’s landing page? Why did you decide to explain about your campaign in such a way? Are you the person speaking in the video? 

The Banner was created by one of my good friends who’s also a player in my game. To be honest I found the video on YouTube, and why did I put it on the Landing page because after watching it I found it explained the universe of TORG perfectly, in an easy to understand and concise manner. I am not the person speaking in the video.

Is the narrator in the video meant to be the same person quoted in the description on the landing page? 

The narrator in the video is not mean to be the same person quoted on the landing page, the man quoted on the page is an unknown individual that saw the initial events with his own eyes and lived the tell his tale.

I noticed that there was over a year’s time gap between your original start date in July 2021, and the next adventure entry in January 2023. What was the cause of this gap? 

This is an easy question to answer, I started to work on the website a good year plus before the game we were playing ended, and I knew I had a lot of information I wanted to impart to my players, and knew it was going to take time to put it up and make it easy to read.

I see that you are using the Savage Worlds system. Can you please talk about what made you choose this system? How does the system support the campaign design and your game style? 

I chose Savage Worlds because I was talking to a few of my friends about wanting to run a TORG game as I love the universe but not a fan of the system it uses, so they brought up Savage Worlds. The system in question is designed to be extremely malleable, and since TORG’s universe requires the ability to meld multiple of genres and make them fit with each other, Savage Worlds was perfect as it already did that so it made things easy to fit everything together without one overpowering the others. Savage Worlds had already put out different books that where all designed to work together from the beginning so it made it that much easier.

You seem to be integrating many characters from movies, tv, etc. Can you tell us a little about how you bring these characters to life? Do you study them from their respective franchises? Do you try to imitate their mannerism/voice?

Most of the characters I use are from TV shows and or games that I and most of my friends have already watched so they already know these characters, I do try to keep them in character and how they react and or help the group with their expertise in relationship to the universe itself.

At no point do I try to imitate their mannerisms or voices as I know I would never be able to do them justice.

How do the players contribute to the world design, if at all? 

My players helped me with ideas for some of the new COSMS I have introduced into my universe that are not in base TORG, the ones they helped with where The Galactic Empire, The Big Heat, The Holy Roman Empire, Middle Westeros and The Main.

I see that you have a very detailed wiki section. How helpful is the Wiki for your players? 

From what my players have told me it is extremely helpful, as it is referenced at least once most sessions, especially when they go into a new COSMs, the maps I created have also been extremely helpful to give my players an idea of where they are.

Can you please tell us why you choose to open each adventure log with a “wild cards” section which seems to include all the PCs? What is its meaning? 

The reason I include the PC names is similar to the reason a TV show has credits, to remind the reader who the characters are in each session and if anyone new reads any Adventure log they know who was involved.

If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most? 

Obsidian Portal helps with keeping all the information in one place and helps make it easy to find, if it wasn’t for the site I would never have been able to run this game.

What would you say is the biggest highlight of your game so far? 

That is not the easiest of questions, but if I have to choose one, I would say the group was going after a Forest Dragon in Aysle the Fantasy COSM, the dragon preferred to hang out under water, so David the mad scientist of the group decided to create primitive depth charges. The idea was to drop them from the Quinjet.

While he was creating them, he created three by the way, the first and third where created without a hitch, unknown to anyone, David made a not so minor mistake on the second depth charge. When they went to use them, the first dropped fine and hit the water as it was supposed to, as they were getting ready to get the second in place the jostling caused it to explode prematurely while still inside the Quinjet, causing the jet to take a nose dive forcing Astoron to re-right the jet before it crashed, unfortunately he disconnected and completely froze forcing Ellistrae to quickly jump into action and right the jet. David the one that created the depth charge took the quick action to jump on the charge hoping to contain the blast, he succeeded in containing the blast not the concussive force that caused the jet to take a nose dive.

Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month? 

I am still a fairly new GM, as I have only GMd four games, so most of my wisdom comes from that, I would say for those afraid to GM for the first time, don’t be afraid, because you will make mistakes, you will stumble as a GM, not everything you do is going to work, your players are going to throw monkey wrenches in your plans, from my experience, let them.. This is a collaborative effort, if your players come up with an off the wall idea, let them do it. It will make the game that much more fun and memorable.

Always remember you are the story teller, and it’s supposed to be fun for everyone, keep a light hand, don’t be heavy handed with your rulings.

In the end as a GM always learn from your mistakes, because no matter how many games you run, you are still going to make them.

 That’s all for this month folks! Don’t forget to head on over the the OP forums to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!

Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month March 2023: Ulea

Welcome to Ulea, a high level DnD 5 campaign where the stakes are high and the enemies are strong! Hordes of undead- check. Powerful covens- got them. Runic symbols and mysticism- in spades. Necromancers- of course! Black dragon- definitely! Ulea is non-stop, advanced characters, non-stop action for 2 groups to battle, and battle they definitely do! GM nicholas_charles_ allen has set challenge after challenge up before his players- and we sat him down to learn more about what makes him- and this awesome campaign- tick.

Tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? Where can we stalk you on the internet? What do you do aside from gaming?

I’m originally from New York, but have lived all over – spent a lot of time in New Orleans and now live in Virginia. I don’t maintain much of an online presence – this campaign page is probably where I post most outside of school. Outside of gaming, I’ve got a wife, three kids, and two dogs, spend a lot of time on work and school. I like to run, lift weights, and cook. Outside of TTRPGs, my wife and I do play a lot of boardgames.

You run D&D 5E- What do you like about it? Are there any things you dislike about it?

Truthfully I began running 5e because it seemed to have the lowest barrier to getting people to pick up and start playing. Running these campaigns was a return to the hobby after a few years off for life-related stuff, and I didn’t want to spend too much time going over rules, and wanted players to pick up and play quickly as well. 5e has such a huge presence and so many resources and videos for players to watch that it was a great place to start.

After playing for a few years, it’s probably not the best fit anymore. Encounter building (especially for high-level parties) has become kind of a pain, and I’ve found myself homebrewing lots and lots of stuff to keep things interesting for myself and the party. One campaign will transition to Pathfinder 2e next month, and we haven’t decided where the other will go – possible Free League’s Forbidden Lands. The campaigns will still be set in my homebrew world (heavily inspired / cribbed / ripped-off from all my favorite pieces of media).

How regularly do you play?

Right now we play once a week – I have one campaign that meets every other Sunday and the other one that meets alternate Sundays.

How did your group meet, and how long have you been together? You have a group of 11- how do you manage such a large group?

I actually run two separate campaigns – so not all players in one, although there is some overlap. One campaign has 7 players and the other has 6. Although their campaigns are not directly connected, the things that one party does in one has consequences in the game world (Ulea), and so can affect the other campaign – it’s been very fun!

We met in lots of different ways – a number of people are friends from college, people I met at work or in the military, and some are people that I met online through reddit when I first moved to the area a decade ago when I was first trying to find people for a game. We’ve all become very close. Through all through all the years we’ve all ended up moving a part, so the groups are spread out all over the country and we play almost entirely through roll20.

If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most? Do your players get involved on the wiki too?

Keeping the adventure log is huge for me to keep everything straight in my head across all the campaigns; it also helps me to emphasis plot points or clues that players may have glossed over during the session so that we can stay on track, and leaves a great story to read through when the campaign wraps up. The players also use it all the time to look up places and NPCs.

The players don’t help with the wiki – but I think that’s something I should probably start doing! I do have my players write journals after each session from their character’s prospective. If they do, they get re-rolls to use in the next session. It helps me to understand what plot points they are following, what ones they don’t care about, what things are important to their character, and to find new hooks and motivators for the characters.

Where do you draw inspiration from when preparing your game?

The largest is the books I’m reading (I would say that the Malazan series has probably been the single biggest influence on the way I set up campaigns now, but also lots of other fantasy and Scifi helps to inspire me including the Black Company, A Land Fit for Heroes, the Fifth Season, Between Two Fires, The Forever War, HP Lovecraft). I don’t get much time to play video games anymore, but I have always pulled inspiration from there – especially when trying to put together unique combat encounters. I listen to a lot of metal; crust, sludge, death, black, etc… I pull a lot of inspiration from the imagery and just overall fucking radness of it.

Metal and TTRPGs have pretty much gone hand-in-hand for me for the last twenty-five years. I also crib quite a bit from pre-written campaigns and adventures – Paizo writes really great stuff, but there are so many wonderful third party publishers out there who can really put together something great. I like to take these as starting points and then adapt to my world, my players, and what I think is fun. I think that’s really the great part about this hobby – it all goes back to a bunch of friends sitting around a table sharing a borrowed players handbook, a shitty set of dice, and trying to re-imagine the Wheel of Time or Elric of Melnibone or the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant – but different.

How much time do you usually take to prepare for a session?

Usually about 30 minutes or so – I tend to do a lot of work up front before the campaign starts; collecting maps, art, etc. Usually getting a skeleton that goes pretty far out so that I can just hang stuff on it. Every three or four months I will spend a few hours building things out and adjusting the skeleton based on what has been going on. I used to be a chronic over-preparer, but I found that most of what you do ends up living in you head and never making it to the table – and the PCs rarely do what you expect them to do anyway, right?

Aside from DnD I’m sure you have played other systems too, what are some others you enjoy?

Yes! I have played a lot – Call of Cthulhu has been a favorite of mine that I have been running for just as long, although almost all lots of one-shots (some day I will run Masks of Nyarlothotep, though..) I used to play and run a lot of Pathfinder 1e games, as well as the FFG Star Wars / Genesys system. In the last few years, I’ve been able to get in some one-shots of the Aliens RPG and Mork Borg as well. Someday I’d like to get a Blades in the Dark game going – or at least play in one.

What would you say has been the best moment your table has had thus far in your game?

Wow, there have been a lot… one that stands out was a stealth mission where the party had to go into the brothel, find a patron (a member of an occupying army) who had information that they needed, get that information and leave the guard alive, and unsuspecting. There was lots of planning and great roll playing and some absolutely improbably dice-rolling (natural 1s and natural 20s abound) that ended up with several people dead and a brothel in flames. Another was a party finally slaying an ancient black dragon that had harangued them for months – first driving the party off, then escaping to it’s lair after a rematch, and finally being slain in it’s lair with nearly the entire party being unconscious… it was a close one.

Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GMing pearls of wisdom…

Read! Look at different systems, different adventures – you can always pull something cool into your game to challenge your players and to keep you from getting burnt out. It’s ok to write lots of stuff that the players might not find out about – or will only find out through exposition. Don’t worry about having to find a place to get all your ideas out on the table, just let the game go. If you think it’s fun to world-build, do it! Plus, if the players don’t use it, you have ready made encounters and adventures you can drop into your next campaign, or fill with stronger baddies to be used later in the one you’re in now. You have to have fun, too!

I think especially today as TTRPGs are kind of hitting a mainstream stride again (and with the surge of popularity of actual plays and twitch streams and the like) there is a lot of pressure on GMs to create epic, sprawling worlds with extremely tight storytelling and endless unique and engaging NPC so that players can kind of just show up and roll dice. Just relax and have fun – let players guide the story with what they are interested in and build from there. The fasted way to burn out is thinking you have to have everything 100 percent perfect and 100 percent prepared for every outcome.

That’s all for this month folks! Don’t forget to head on over the the OP forums to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!

Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month November 2022: The Curse of the Crimson Throne

“Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten.” Thus, will you read as you enter the kingdom of this Pathfinder campaign set in the frontier land of Varisia. The inns are plentiful, the adventurers bold. GM Mogo‘s frontier city of Korvosa is both resplendent and magnificent, but a dark secret hovers over its royal bloodline, with many of the citizens whispering in hushed tones of what they have come to call The Curse of the Crimson Throne.

First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do aside from gaming?

Mogo: Well I’m Mogo and I’m from Indianapolis, IN I’ve been GMing for 16 years now, outside of gaming I do IT work for clinical research. I’ve been playing tabletop rpgs since I was 12 and in college I slowly became the forever GM for my friends. I don’t mind the title or role, I love weaving stories together and ensuring everyone is having fun.

Tell us about your version of “Curse of the Crimson Throne”. The Campaign is a well-known Pathfinder Adventure Path, but how much does your campaign stick to the structure of the book and how much is your own home brew? Also, what made you choose a Pathfinder campaign in the first place?

Mogo: That’s the great thing about Pathfinder 1e’s campaigns, there’s a lot of space to expand and fill in with your own content. For the overall plot/story I’m probably around 70/30 on keeping to the books and my own material with where we are now (Book 2). That’s going to be subject to change depending on the decisions and actions of my players. I figure that by the end it’ll be around 50/50 – a lot of being additions to the story but I do have a few BIG changes planned for the plot.

I’ve been running Pathfinder 1e since its beta days and my friends I are all still in love with the system. I’ve run and am running several other campaigns but Crimson Throne has always been on my list to run. It’s definitely one of the best ever published by Paizo, it gives you such a rich setting that can be made to feel so alive.

How regularly do you play, and where do you play? Tell us about your current group of players.

Mogo: We play once a month in person at my place. I’ve basically turned it into a nerd’s dream space for gaming within my size and budget limits. Our sessions are usually around 7 to 8 hours with a break for dinner – often times we pitch in and/or get some sort of meal that fits the theme setting of the current session. Recently they were at a cattle ranch and one my amazing players fixed a giant barbecue feast!

Speaking of my players I have four regular members and two who drop in when they can:

Sarcy plays Dagi and Taice – they’re our group’s resident artist. All of the original art on our site is their work; they’ve also helped me with making props, maps, and painted miniatures. This is their first ttrpg and they’ve really gone all out using it as a creative outlet, even as far as making amazing themed meals for several sessions.

Konquerer plays Estha and Jaier – he’s probably our most experienced player and has been my best friend since grade school, he’s been one of most prodigious writers and has been creating an amazing amount of short story content to fill in the background of our world.

Rob plays Aventus “Pip” Thorne, and Darby Goodbrew – Rob is the king of puns and bad jokes. His writings and roleplay are often a trap for me as at times they’re powerful and compelling then suddenly blindside with a joke that can leave the whole table laughing.

Jake plays Volturio Sura and Floriano Bellucci – I sometimes suspect he thinks he’s the hero of the story. (I’m kidding! …mostly) He’s also contributed write ups for the story and his penchant for accents (good and bad) crack us up and keep us immersed in the story.

There is a lot of great artwork in your campaign. Although some of it seems to be drawn from lore on the internet, much of it seems to be original. Who is responsible for this and how integral is this original artwork to your campaign?

Mogo: There is a lot of internet inspired lore but all of the original art is from our resident artist Sarcy. Their art draws us all deeper into the game and gives it a feeling of being alive/real that’s hard to fully put into words. Any art you see in the adventure logs from them and are considered part of the official canon for how our world looks. Their comics are drawn straight from the shenanigans of our group (often using the actual facial expressions of the players as guides for how to draw their characters.) In addition to the “canon art” they also make a lot of funny/meme humor art for us – I think at this point there’s over a hundred pieces. We’re lucky to have them in our group. (They’re open for commission as well if people are interested: [email protected])

Your campaign seems very much focused on the trading city of Korvosa and the wiki shows great detail of this. There is a particularly wide range of Inns, Taverns and Shops described. How important are these in your roleplaying? Do you have any great “tavern tales” or “role play moments” to share with us?

Mogo: Oh lord, where to start? The Inns and Taverns and Shopping in Korvosa come up quite a bit. I’ve tried to make Korvosa as “alive” as possible instead of just a flat background. The players are all currently residents of Tenna’s though one of the best tavern tales happened at a place called Bard’s End. There is an adventure log of it on our portal but to tell it in short I had let them all know at the start of the game that they should probably think up a name for there group as word is going to get around the city about their exploits.

If they didn’t want a name to be given to them by one of the newpapers they best think of it themselves. They had been debating for over a year with no clear decision when one of them took it into his own hands. Rob/Pip took advantage of an award ceremony following a jousting contest he had won to announce to the world that that they are the Wyldcats. We’re three or four games down the road from it and I don’t think anyone has forgiven him for it though the laughs and jokes about it are flying back and forth – no hard feelings in the real world but in game I think he’s lucky they didn’t lock him in a trunk for it.

Sarcy: Probably Dagi’s best tavern tale was winning a city wide drinking contest against a duergar black smith at Bard’s End during the end of our infamous “festival episode”.

Jake: One that really stands out to me is at the start of book 2 when the party escorted Trinia out of town to safety – something about a group of friends on a long roadtrip together in the form of a wagon ride, lots of idle time spent chatting, playing cards games in the back, trading off between driving the cart, hanging out in back and bonding really paints a vivid picture. The fact that to some (Volturio in particular!) it’s a super fun roadtrip vacation and to others (Pip especially!) it’s a cloak-and-dagger smuggling of Korvosa’s Most Wanted in direct defiance of the law of the city really adds depth and dimension to the experience. Sarcy’s comic really sums it up well!

Who is responsible for your campaign WIKI design? Can you share any useful “design tips” with other OP members?

Mogo: I build and maintain the wiki; I spent about two months before our game started building the obsidian portal website. The forums and various guides were a huge help, the community overall was fantastic in providing support and advice on building everything – I’m still learning new tricks all the time. Tags and hyperlinks are super useful. The biggest help for a GM has been the ability to have a GM secret for each entry as well as whispers for when I want to secretly share something out to a specific player or if they want to give me a little bit of secret intel.

Some of the other great tricks for me have been the ability to embed images, pdf’s, and expanding drop downs of information. Check out my front page and house rules sections for some of my favorite organizations:

Main Page
House Rules

Something else we really like even if the edges are rough is the items tab, it’s been super useful!

The Adventure Logs in your campaign are very rich and very varied, and all seem to have good involvement from your players. How important are the Adventure Logs to your campaign?

Mogo: The Adventure Logs were actually the entire reason we started using Obsidian Portal. We wanted a shared space where I could prep everything and to which everyone could add their own notes/content. They’re absolutely vital, I use the GM sections to write out my notes pre and post-game, we go back to check on previous events and I love that I can set them to GM only and use them to plan ahead. They’re a life saver for a GM with a knack for frying hard drives and/or losing his notes.

There is also some great Art and Cartoon work in the Adventure Logs? Who does this? How much time is spent on it? Both the art and the writing seem like great fun, do you discuss it in during your gaming sessions?

Mogo: Like I said all the original art is from Sarcy – have I mentioned lately how amazing they are? The art comes up all the time in games as reference, commentary or sometimes all of us just fanboying over it. We’ve been known to group text each other when Sarcy posts something new.

How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?

Mogo: I’ve been using Obsidian Portal for about 5 years now. I first learned of the site through a couple friends after a fiasco with One Drive and a dead laptop lead to a massive loss in content I’d been writing for multiple campaigns. This site is such a fantastic mashup of a blog and wiki data base for games which can be used as heavily or lightly as you like. It’s been a life saver for me in helping me keep track of logs for games and keeping all my notes together and linked to each other with tags and hyperlinks. As the world’s unluckiest gm when it comes to hard drives you’ve no idea how grateful I am for it. I have four campaigns on here as well as a space I’ve made just for one-shot modules.

If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most?

Mogo: For me, the biggest thing is keeping my notes in organized and in one place. As a forever gm who’s always running at least three campaigns at once it’s been a life saver.

Sarcy: As a player my favorite part about having OP is having a place to put my Character information, we can do Adventure logs, secrets, planning of our own, and having reference to SO MANY things in the campaign for whenever the creative mood strikes is amazing, all in one well organized place.

Jake: My favorite feature of the OP site is with the adventure logs – there each of the players and DM can add the vignettes, background stories, details of things we don’t necessarily see during the sessions and so on. When the game only takes place once per month, having someone in the group post something every week or so really helps keep the game fresh and interesting to where everybody’s super excited once it’s time to get back to the table.

What would you say is the biggest highlight of your game so far?

Mogo: Do I have to pick just one? I think the thing I’m proudest of is my in world newsletters that I write up, post, and print out for my players. They always insist on starting the game by having Jake read them aloud in character. But the biggest highlight for me has got to be Sarcy’s poster they made to commemorate our 1 year of gaming together. It’s not often the GM gets to be in the artwork and depicted how he sees himself.

Newsletter Link!

Sarcy: There has been so many! I absolutely have a couple favorite sessions but what I really enjoy are moments when I get sucked into the story and forget I’m just rolling dice at the table. There was a session where Dagi’s love interest was threatened and the panic and blind rage I felt was really a testament to Mogo’s story telling. The second time was the panic and fear when the big bad from Dagi’s past came back as a ghoul and nearly did her in. I visibly paled when I saw the pawn go out on the table.

Jake: The daily ritual where the group settles around the breakfast table and Volturio reads out the two newspapers while they all hold their breath with dread or excitement to see what kind of shenanigans ended up with good exposure, bad exposure or if they managed to skirt beneath the radar. One thing particularly strong about this campaign taking place mostly in the same city is that we get to see direct consequences of the things the party does – relationships with NPCs build and grow out into depth and nuance you don’t normally get with adventures that just go from set point to set point and just return to a home base briefly between books.

Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month?

Mogo: I’ll pass on the best lesson I ever learned from the GM’s who taught me:

“Make the players feel like they’re the heroes of the story.”

It’s such a simple thing but it can often be overlooked.

Remember as the GM your biggest responsibility is to ensure everyone at your table (including you) is having fun. We’re playing that’s the whole point. Sure you can write up gut wrenching emotional scenes, create horrible, enraging villains but at the end of all of it the point of this whole hobby is to have fun. Check in with your players and with yourself now and then to make sure it is, you’ll thank yourselves later.

That’s all for this month folks! Don’t forget to head on over the the OP forums to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!

We’d like to give a shout out to member Sulaco, whose wiki and creative style inspired this Campaign of The Month!