Blog Archives

Making Mounts More Momentous

The Overlooked Advantages of the Riding Animal

Most game systems relegate mounts into a kind of travel buff – treating them essentially like vehicles that boost overland speed. Other mechanics grant combat stats and carrying capacities, but mounts can be more than that. A clever GM can make it worthwhile to drop some hard-earned cash at the stable and add some interest into any scene that includes such pragmatic pets.

Weekly Update – April 24, 2019

Hey there OP, just checking in with a quick update on the goings on around the Portal. Things might seem a bit quiet, but that just means everyone is hard at work – which is certainly a good thing.

So let’s jump into it, shall we?

Randomizer Retrofit

Every GM has the occasional need of a random table for something – the contents of a treasure chest, the files on a Megacorporate server, or the embarrassing medical condition that you give to a character whose player keeps skipping game.  But what happens when you find a great set of tables, but they don’t fit your genre? For a good tool kit, we retrofit!

Enter Sandland

Sand is an underutilized terrain feature in games. Sand is dynamic and versatile, for both GM’s and players, and it can transform a generic encounter into a shifting, swirling event full of complications and advanced tactics. Plus, it’s a beautiful backdrop for epic adventures, and has been since the dawn of storytelling. So, grit your teeth, dust off your sandals, and let’s comb the beaches for some game-changing ideas about sand.

Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month April 2019 – First Blight

“Rumors say there’s trouble brewing within the Tevinter Imperium”; “I’ve heard tell of increased patrols by their military”; “Well I heard there’s whole tracks of land gone barren!” – if only they’d known then what we know now; that this was the beginning of the First Blight – April’s Campaign of the Month! If you love Dragon Age as much as we do, then this is an adventure you don’t want to miss! So join us as we interview jaythegreenling and find out more about this awesome campaign.

Weekly Update – April 11, 2019

Hey OPers. This has been a pretty tame week overall, with most heads down and working on things a bit longer term in scope. That said, I still have a few things to toss out there, so let’s get at it.