Blog Archives
New System Thursday, 1/28/2010
It’s that time of the week again, Adventurers! It’s Thursday and that means that we’re adding a new system to our list of over 100 supported table-top RPG game systems and settings. This week, it’s another twofer, as we’re adding Warhammer Fantasy 3E and Palladium Fantasy to the list!
Warhammer Fantasy 3E
From Fantasy Flight Games comes the third edition of an RPG classic.
A new age is beginning. The winds of magic blow strongly, and the Old World’s two moons shine brightly in the night sky. Storms appear out of nowhere, and the land is rife with conflict. From the north descend savage groups of chaos marauders, men dedicated to the four Ruinous Powers of Chaos. They are seen side by side with degenerate beastmen and profane daemons. Their raids are striking further and further south, yet they are only the scouting forces.Within, the lands of the Empire are besieged by Orcs and members of hidden cults. The Orcs delight in battle, and are laying waste to all they can find. The enemy within is rising up and striking vicious blows that mankind is unprepared to face. War is coming on all sides.
What side of the battle will you be on? What dark truths will you unwittingly bring to the peace-starved people of this wartorn world? Make a Warhammer Fantasy 3E campaign now!
Palladium Fantasy
Speaking of classics, from Palladium Books comes the excitement of Palladium Fantasy!
The Palladium World is one of epic fantasy. A world torn in conflict with the non-human barbaric races, creatures of magic and supernatural forces.
Non-Human playing characters provide a host of unusual creatures as regular characters. They include the feared changeling who can assume the shape and appearance of any humanoid. The giant races of troll, ogre and wolfen. The small and agile goblin, kobold, gnome and the mighty dwarf, as well as elf, human, and dozens of “optional” creatures found in both the Palladium RPG and Monsters & Animals.
The skill system embellishes characters with knowledge and abilities that make him or her more than a simple fighter or mage.
Combat is realistic, with strikes, parries, dodges and considerations for shields and armour. Yet it remains extremely quick and playable.
An Experience System in which characters are rewarded for acts of ingenuity, ideas, cunning, discretion, trickery and bravery. Not hack and slash.
Magic: Over 300 spells, plus elemental magic, circles, symbols and runes are yours to command. The most original forms of magic found only in the Palladium RPG are the Diabolist and Summoner. The Diabolist casts no spells, instead he uses the nearly forgotten magic of wards (mystic symbols) and circles of power. The Summoner too, is versed in the mystic arts of magic circle making, but his is a far more dangerous and often malevolent power, for he dares to summon and command creatures of magic.
The wizard, warlock, priest and other more traditional characters also break away from their more common game molds, with a vast array of spells and abilities that make them truly unique.
Come see why they call it the Rifts of the Fantasy RPG genre. Make a Palladium Fantasy campaign now!
Long Day at the Salt Mines
In case anyone is curious about what it’s like to run a website, I submit today’s adventures as evidence…
I awoke this morning to an inbox full of 500 errors. Apparently, sometime during the night something went bonkers on the server and now people were seeing errors whenever they tried to view their profile.
Some quick digging showed that it was related to an SQL query that pieces together the recent updates for your friends. I managed to fix the query, but the underlying problem was…nobody had any friends! Either OP had gone through a massive hate-fest where everyone unfriended each other in a mass exodus, or something was wrong. I knew it was going to be a rough morning. I called Ryan, and luckily he was available to help. So, we both got to work.
We quickly narrowed it down to two possibilities: a bug, or an intruder. The worst case scenario was that we had an intruder on the server who thought it was funny to unfriend everyone. This isn’t standard operating procedure for hackers, but who knows what goes through the minds of those jerkos. But, we take security seriously and decided we needed to be absolutely sure. So, while Ryan combed the code looking for a bug (the most likely scenario), I started looking through server access logs to see if our server had been compromised.
Surprisingly enough, someone had been trying to break in. More accurately, an automated brute force login script was running against one of our servers. We have a program to defend against this, but it had apparently crashed silently the day before. Someone had spent 24 hours trying to break in. I was 99% sure they didn’t succeed, but coupled with the data loss it was extra suspicious.
Luckily, while I was trying to gather more evidence, Ryan found the actual bug that caused the problem. We could breathe easy knowing no one had made it into the system. All our problems were due to my own incompetence. Still, while we were down in the guts, it made sense to tighten the security a little. Web security is a long scale with your grandma’s unprotected AOL account on one end, and your bank’s ultra-secure website at the other. We’re proud to place ourselves much closer to the bank than grandma. We use SSL to encrypt your login credentials, and we also use salted hashing to disguise your password in our database. So, even if someone did manage to break in and steal our database, they would never be able to get your password. (Note: This is why we can never send you your password: We don’t actually know it!) Plus, we try to keep our server very secure so a break-in is practically impossible.
We updated some of our security procedures and put in place some practices we’d been meaning to do for a while. The end result is that we spent about 6 hours each making tweaks and adjustments and you, the user, will probably never see any difference. That thought always depresses me a little, but I’d rather it be like this than have to send out a massive email explaining that we were sloppy and someone stole or deleted all your data.
Finally, as I’m writing all this (11:30 PM, Eastern), Ryan is restoring all the deleted friend data. We keep offsite backups of all your data, just for cases like this. Being prepared for a worst case scenario is part of our strategy.
Not exactly an average day: Responding to lots of “It’s broken!” emails (which are very helpful, by the way, so keep sending them), sifting through server logs looking for the boogey man, fixing bugs, tightening security, and finally restoring data. I’ll probably get to bed around 12:45 tonight after verifying that everything is running smoothly. Things are usually quieter, but we’ve had days that were crazier.
I hope you enjoyed this glance behind the curtain. We love working on OP, and that’s why we’re here banging away on it late into the night. I just hope everyone out there loves using it as much as we love working on it.
The Core Mechanic Interviews Us
Dan and I got interviewed by The Core Mechanic. If you’re curious about how Obsidian Portal got started or who runs it behind the scenes, it’s definitely a good read. We’ll try to monitor the comments, but if you have followup questions the best way to reach us is via Twitter or Facebook.
Swords & Wizardry Interview
Last week while researching Mythmere Games’ Swords & Wizardry game system, we had a unique opportunity to interview the system’s primary creator, Matt Finch, as well as the creator of the Swords & Wizardry Quick Start book, Michael Shorten. Give the interview a read and then if you like, you can make a Swords & Wizardry campaign right now! Let’s get right into it.
OBSIDIAN PORTAL: Is Swords & Wizardry your idea?
MATT: Yes.
MICHAEL (On the subject of the Quick Start book): Yes, it was. It was inspired by some things I was reading on the Internet and hearing from people – that Game Refereeing an old school game was hard, and that it was difficult for someone to play, as well as a desire to have a book that could be used to demo how much fun old school gaming can be.
OBSIDIAN PORTAL: Who all has worked on it?
MATT: A huge number of people too numerous to name individually. Rob Ragas and Verhaden worked on layout, Chad Thorson and Jeff Preston are the two artists with the most illustrations in the books. Pete Mullen’s cover art pretty much electrified the whole old-school community. As (Michael) mentioned, the credits are:
Contributors: Marv Breig, Jason Cone, Allen T.
Grohe, Jr., and Jerry Mapes
Cover Art: Pete Mullen
Editing: James Maliszewski, Rob Ragas, and Jesse Rothacher
Interior Art: Edward M. Kann, Pete Mullen, Jeff Preston, Michael
Shorten, and Chad Thorson
Layout: Rob Ragas (first printing) and Jesse Rothacher (second printing)
Additional proofreading and suggestions: Jim Bobb, Eric Norred, and
the Swords & Wizardry forum
With special thanks to: The Knights and Knaves Alehouse
Keep in mind, too, that there are two versions of S&W – the Core Rules (includes OD&D supplements like Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, etc), and the WhiteBox version which replicates the pre-supplement version of OD&D – there are some rules that were changed in the supplements. Lots of people assisted with the WhiteBox version as well.
MICHAEL (On the subject of the Quick Start book): I was the primary author, although I had help from all of the crew in the Three Headed Monster gaming cooperative (http://thmgames.blogspot.com/). The cover was done by award-winning Mark Allen, the rear cover was by Paul (bliss_infinite) Fini of IndieOnlyComics and the interior art was donated by John Adams of Brave Halfling Publishing.
OBSIDIAN PORTAL: Where did you get the notion to make it?
MATT: I’d already done a similar project, OSRIC, for First Edition. Many players of the original edition wanted to see it covered, especially since the books for 0e now cost about $200 for a set, and the pdfs cannot be obtained legally.
MICHAEL (On the subject of the Quick Start book): There were certain iconic modules back in the day, B1 In Search of the Unknown and B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, that had a great deal of guidance and gameplay assistance. Most of the retroclones were already rules-light, but I thought it would be very helpful to have a book to help people new to old school gaming and Swords & Wizardry. It would also be nice to have something that could be used to teach beginners how to play RPGs.
OBSIDIAN PORTAL: In what ways is S&W different from DnD?
MATT: From 0e, very little is different – they are designed to be playable even when some players are using one book and some using the other. The major differences are for legal reasons; the largest of these are that S&W uses a single saving throw category (instead of having different categories of saving throws) and has a different way of assigning bonuses to xp based on attribute scores. Now, if you’re asking how it differs from 4e D&D … there’s virtually nothing in common other than the basic concepts.
MICHAEL (On the subject of the Quick Start book):
Well, Swords & Wizardry is a “retroclone” of the original 1974 Dungeons & Dragons plus some of the mechanics and rules from the first supplement Greyhawk. A retroclone is meant to be as close to the original, but the designer may introduce differences.
S&W is very close to OD&D, with the big exception of a single Saving Throw value (versus multiple saving throw types from OD&D) and the concept of Ascending Armor Class (where higher is better, OD&D had Descending AC, where lower is better). The rules are laid out in a more logical fashion and better organized. S&W tends to focus on the “dungeoneering” aspect where OD&D had a bit more about wilderness adventuring and stronghold building.
OBSIDIAN PORTAL: Is this your first venture into creating game systems?
MATT: Other than OSRIC, yes.
MICHAEL (On the subject of the Quick Start book): It was my first published venture yes. I had never designed anything for a specific audience. I’ve tinkered with other game systems and made changes, but this was more “from scratch” in taking S&W and spinning it down to it’s bare essence and creating and adventure that could teach as well as be fun.
OBSIDIAN PORTAL: What do you want players and DMs to get out of your system?
MATT: Fun, of course! And a chance to play the oldest version of the game without shelling out $200+ for the books or using illegal pdfs.
MICHAEL (On the subject of the Quick Start book): I hope they get to have the same fun that I have when I play Swords & Wizardry. It’s a wide open, “imagine the hell out of it” game and in the chargen and dungeon, I try to foster that approach. I also hope that GMs get a sense of how they can manage the game, make rulings and still have fun without feeling like they are bound by rules or mechanics.
OBSIDIAN PORTAL: Looking back on the creative process, what things would you have done differently?
MATT: I’m pretty happy with how it has all turned out. We have gotten fantastic artwork and lots of fan support. Lots of people have heard about the game, we’re in distribution to brick-and-mortar game stores … it’s all good.
MICHAEL (On the subject of the Quick Start book): I don’t think there’s anything I would have done differently – aside maybe try to make a buck or two more! The Quick Start was downloaded over 1,500 times from July through December of 2009.
OBSIDIAN PORTAL: What aspect of your system are you the most proud of?
MATT: I can’t take credit for the system. That’s Gary Gygax, not me.
MICHAEL (On the subject of the Quick Start book): I think the impact that it’s had. I know that a very popular 4e blogger (ChattyDM) had a great time running the Quick Start and getting the feel and joy of an original D&D style game. I’ve heard from people who have introduced their kids to RPGs using it and have heard from people who have used it as a springboard to learning Swords & Wizardry. That’s really cool and humbling. To me, sharing the love and knowing that people are having fun from something I wrote is just the best karma I could have hoped for.
Free System Friday, 1/22/2010
It’s Free System Friday! Are you tired of your current table-top rpg system? Try a new one for free! Today’s system is Forgotten Futures: The Scientific Romance Role Playing Game. Now with Revised and Updated rules!
New System Thursday, 1/21/2010
It’s that time of the week again, Adventurers! It’s Thursday and that means that we’re adding a new system to our list of over 100 supported table-top RPG game systems and settings. We slacked a bit last week due to the character changes we put in place, so this week we’re adding two! And here they are in no particular order:
Changeling: The Lost
From the twisted minds of White Wolf Publishing, the creators of hit games Exalted, Werewolf: The Forsaken, and the cult classic Vampire: THe Masquerade comes Changeling: The Lost.
The protagonists of this modern fairy tale are the changelings, or as they often call themselves, the Lost. Stolen away from their human lives as children or adults, they spent what seemed like years or even centuries in Faerie, chattel to beautiful but inhuman lords and ladies. Fed on faerie food and drink, they gradually became more fae themselves, their bodies shifting slightly to reflect their roles. Some, however, managed to escape. Holding on to their memories of home, they found their way through the winding thorns of the Hedge, the barrier between the mortal world and time-twisted Faerie.
Will you face the dangers of the Hedge and try to return to the mortal world? Or will you give yourself to the strange powers of Faerie in a bid for power? Make a Changeling: The Lost campaign right now!
Swords & Wizardry
In a throwback to oldschool gaming, Mythmere Games presents Swords & Wizardry.
The Swords & Wizardry project builds and supports free-form roleplaying games. That is to say, games where “light” rules create a framework instead of trying to cover every detail, every rule, and every situation. The Swords & Wizardry game “clones” the original rules of the fantasy roleplaying game that started it all back in 1974, when it was published by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. We also support two games we didn’t write: OSRIC and Goblinoid Games’ Labyrinth Lord. OSRIC is a clone of the game’s 1978 “First Edition,” and Labyrinth Lord is a clone of the game’s 1981 “Basic” Edition. All these game rules are rewritten and reorganized to be easier to learn and play.
We featured the Swords & Wizardry Quick Start book by Ye Olde Games in last week’s Free System Friday. Be sure to grab a copy of it, and then you can make a Swords & Wizardry campaign right now!
