Blog Archives
Become an Obsidian Portal Emissary
With convention season in full swing, it’s the perfect time to let the rest of the gaming community know about how great Obsidian Portal is. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), we’re not a huge mega-corporation that can afford to set up exhibits and hire booth babes to represent us everywhere. Instead, we’re going to rely on you, our awesome users, to get the word out. We want you to represent Obsidian Portal at your favorite conventions as an official Obsidian Portal Emissary.
Bringing illumination to the savages
First things first: we’re not asking you to stand on a corner handing out fliers. Instead, we just want you to go to your favorite conventions and meetups and play games like you always do. If there’s a good time during the game to mention Obsidian Portal, then by all means please do so. Hand out some fliers and stickers to the other people at your table. Tell them to check out the site. That’s it!
We don’t need a hardline sneaky salesforce. As most of you know, it doesn’t take a lot of convincing to get someone to like Obsidian Portal. Basically, once you give it a try, you’re hooked. The hardest part is letting people know that we actually exist. That’s where the Emissaries come in.
As an Emissary, we’ll send you a small kit with some stickers, fliers, and one of our snazzy t-shirts. Plus, you’ll also receive our deepest thanks and a free 3-month Ascendant upgrade. Toss the fliers and stickers into your gaming bag on the way to the con and you’re ready.
Obsidian Portal Needs You!
If you’re going to a convention, meetup, or anywhere gamers hang out, and you’re interested in representing Obsidian Portal as an Emissary, send me an email at [email protected]. Let me know your Obsidian Portal username, what conventions you’re going to, and when. We’re going to start small, with only a handful of Emissaries. If things go well, we’ll step it up. So, even if you don’t get selected at first, we may come back to you once we get the hang of it and are ready to ramp up.
Update: Full Up for GenCon
We’ve got plenty of people for GenCon, so we’re going to close that off for now. However, if there’s a small or local con in your area in the next month or two, we’d still like to get you hooked up.
Tuesdays with Nicole: PANORAMA-RAMA
I know I usually start these off with some extra fluff, but this week’s entry is so awesome, lets just get right to it.
See? What did I say? Awesome! Ok so two more things.
- Interested in having your content showcased by Nicole? Leave a comment here, or message calabacita with a link and a brief message on why you think she should sketch it!
- Nicole and her art are being featured at Gamma Ray Games in Seattle on July 8th from 6 pm to 10 pm. Dan will be there, and so will Nicole. Stop on by and say hello!
Free System Friday Hi/Lo Heroes
Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Free System Friday! Yes Free System Friday, able to leap over an entire week in a single bound. Bringing truth, justice, and free RPG systems to an eager public. Today’s offering is Hi/Lo Heroes by Jeff Moore.
Hi/Lo Heroes is a role playing game set in a city of costumed heroes… Hi/Lo is a reference to the game system and its die roll mechanic. In the Hi/Lo RPG, players roll 2 dice and read the value of either the HIGH die (hi) or the LOW die (lo) depending on upon their skill or power.
Zamph! Pow! Fop! Grab some friends, grab the rules, and play Hi/Lo Heroes today!
Email Notification Tweaks
We’ve been tweaking the email notifications a bit in response to user feedback, and I thought I’d just give a quick rundown of how it works. It’s changed a bit, so people may be confused.
Push not Pull
What differentiates our system a little from traditional forums is that we have a push model, not a pull model. In other words, the author/originator of an update gets to choose who will be notified, rather than people having to request to be notified.
Why did we go this route? On a traditional large-scale forum, there may be thousands of users, so it’s impractical to allow someone to spam them all with updates. By contrast, an Obsidian Portal campaign is a tightly cohesive group that often requires that everyone be up-to-speed on the latest info. Therefore, it makes sense to allow someone to dash off an update and have it sent to everyone else in the group, or a subset if they choose.
I didn’t get the email!
The biggest complaint we got is that people kept forgetting to check the boxes to send the updates. Most of these complaints were combined with a request to be able to subscribe to updates. In essence, they wanted the pull model in addition to the push.
I held out as long as I could, but it was affecting enough people that I had to do something. In response, we added the ability to subscribe to notifications in your user profile. It’s sort of an all-or-nothing setting, but from what we were hearing that’s what people wanted. The frequency of updates was low enough that people would rather be hit with everything rather than miss something important. This matched up well with my own experiences.
Settings on your profile
Bringing it together
Last night we pushed a new tweak that brings the push and pull together. Now, when you select in your profile to receive all notifications, this simply means that the notification box next to your name is automatically checked when someone is making an edit. If they do nothing, you’ll receive an update. However, if they want a little more control, they can un-check your name and choose to skip the notification.
Hopefully this will solve all sides of the issue: You can choose to be automatically notified, yet authors/editors can choose to disable this for individual edits if it doesn’t make sense.
As always, we’re open to suggestions for improvement. If there’s another system that does this better or cooler, let me know and I’ll definitely take a look.
Free System Friday: Free RPG Day Eve!
Put the gauntlets up by the chimney with care, because it’s FREE RPG DAY EVE! In this, the very specialest of Free System Fridays, we’re not giving you one. We’re telling you how to get over a dozen tomorrow!
- Go to http://www.freerpgday.com/.
- Look over the list of companies giving away the glorious gaming goodness.
- Then go here: http://www.freerpgday.com/stores.htm.
- Find a store close to you that’s participating.
- Profit
Enjoy, and Good Gaming!
New System Thursday: Dresden Files RPG
It’s Thursday! On Thursday we add a new system to our list of over 150+ supported RPG systems. This week, it’s the system on everyone’s mind. It’s the Dresden Files RPG!
The world is getting weirder. Darker every single day. Things are spinning around faster and faster, and threatening to go completely awry. Falcons and falconers. The center cannot hold.
But in my corner of the country, I’m trying to nail things down. … I don’t want to live in a world where the strong rule and the weak cower. I’d rather make a place where things are a little quieter. Where trolls stay the hell under their bridges, and where elves don’t come swooping out to snatch children from their cradles. Where vampires respect the limits, and where the faeries mind their p’s and q’s.
My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by it at your own risk. When things get strange, when what goes bump in the night flicks on the lights, when no one else can help you, give me a call. I’m in the book.
— Harry Dresden in Jim Butcher’s Storm Front
This system isn’t even out yet! So why are we featuring it this week? Simple. Did you know that if you Preorder any of the two core books, you’ll get the matching PDF imediately? It’s true! So what are you waiting for? Grab some friends, get the PDF from Evil Hat Productions, and make a Dresden Files RPG campaign now!
