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Jan

Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month January 2023: Fake News, Real Adventure

Reporters from the Sharn Inquisitive again outfoxed the untalented hacks of the self-proclaimed “premier news source of Khorvaire” to bring our readers exclusive coverage of the biggest story since the end of the Last War. Working tirelessly, our intrepid beat reporters delved deep into the seedy underbelly of the post-war tension to bring you the most shocking and sensational story ever covered in these illustrious pages. Braving the wrath of unethical guards, crooked bureaucrats, and corrupt nobles, our courageous sleuths uncovered a web of deceit and fraud the likes of which has never been seen before. So settle in, renew your subscriptions, and hold on for the ride of your lifetime!” Strap in for Fake News, Real Adventure with DM DSMfive and crew, a wild ride in this D&D game set in the world of Ebberon on the continent of Khorvaire following The Last War.

Thanks for taking the time to answer a couple of questions for us. Tell us a little about the people behind the logs? What’s your group like, how did you all start playing together, and what drew you to Dungeons & Dragons?

We’ve been playing together for a long time now, after getting together in 2003 via an online “looking for game” website (I don’t even remember the name of the site anymore).  There have been a few losses and additions to the group over time, but the same five for many years now. It’s a pretty eclectic group with several IT folks who work in different environments, a health care provider, and an educator.  We wander through different game systems, although most of us started with D&D (some over 35 years ago!) and it always draws us back.  Eberron has been one of my favorite setting, and I’m always pulled back to the wonderful mix of noire intrigue, high fantasy and murkiness of good vs evil that is inherent in the world.

As you’ve been on Obsidian Portal for a while, what is your favorite feature for helping to manage your campaign?

As a (very) amateur creative writing enthusiast, I was initially drawn to just having a place to tell stories, keep them organized, and allow the rest of the group to contribute and play off each others’ creations.  More recently, I have been loving the ability to have Secrets linked to specific players, that allows intrigue to be accessed seamlessly.  It fits extremely well with the Noire aspects of Eberron and while outside readers wouldn’t be able to tell, there is a lot of intrigue going on behind the scenes thanks to the Player Secrets feature.  Once the campaign is concluded, the Secrets can merge with the main Adventure Logs to make the story more obvious.

How often do you play and how do you generally do so?

Juggling five busy schedules is often a challenge, although we are mostly successful in gaming every Friday night.  We’re lucky that most of us GM at least occasionally, and we can switch off to lighten the prep load.  FNRA has been on a hiatus for the past while because of new challenges in my work schedule, but we’re hoping to get back to intermittent play soon.  Being picked as CotM has provided significant inspiration for moving the restart forward, so there will likely be new material fairly soon.

Pre-pandemic we were very old-school in our gaming: chairs around a table in the basement with maps, minis and snacks.  That quickly transitioned to Roll20 when the first lockdowns started and we have been gaming remotely since then.  There have been intermittent discussions of returning to in-person gaming, but the convenience of online, combined with complications from small children (read: tiny bags of mostly germs) and having a health care professional who works with seniors, have kept the decision from being finalized easily.

What are the main inspirations for your game? 

Originally, it was the release of the Rising from the Last War sourcebook for 5th Edition that drove my desire to revisit the Eberron setting.  I threw together a number of ideas to pitch to the group and have them decide, because there were too many stories that I was excited to try and couldn’t decide on which to pursue.  Once the consensus pointed to the newspaper reporter theme, RftLW was the base for developing the idea and creating ideas for journalism-related adventures.  Some of the crazier aspects of the real-life political situation south of the border provided the inspiration for the Fake News theme, and changing the Sharn Inquisitive into a tabloid rag fits well into our group’s often irreverent sense of humour.

Can you discuss your approach to worldbuilding in your campaign?

The group is often the starting point for my worldbuilding, and I find it very difficult to plan anything plot-wise until I know what everyone is going to be playing.  When the foppish noble Fulton hit the table, he wasn’t initially related to the Brelish Prime Minister, but he inspired an entire planned plotline of political intrigue, terrorist, and family discord.  Most of my worldbuilding happens after the characters exist, when I spend long drives free associating how their backstories could overlap and mesh in unexpected ways that (I hope) will excite the players.  During play, I usually end up making stuff up on the fly, see what grabs their attention, and then run with it.  The entire relationship between Lester and Lilliana came about because of a throw-away scene that was meant to be focused on the team’s rivalry with another reporter, but when Lester’s player kept returning to his interactions with the gnome, an entire new plotline was born.

Swapping to your beautiful site for a moment, where did you come up with the style design you have?

After we decided on the journalist theme, I really wanted the site to feel like an early 20th century newspaper.  Since cgregory is very active helping people out with CSS on the OB forums, I had a fantastic resource to figure out how to get a layout that felt right without disrupting navigation too much.  The hardest part has been finding headings for the newspaper “Sections” that didn’t feel too forced.  Because I don’t invest as much time planning the campaign plots until I know what characters are going to be present, I ended up having plenty of time early on to invest in the layout, which greatly increased my enthusiasm.  I also had a lot of help from my teenage daughter who has fantastic sense of style and seems drawn to “old stuff” and had some great suggestions for layout.  She also created the “conspiracy board” that the group found, which has proven to also be a font of plot ideas and player inspiration.

I love your adventure logs, do you create them yourself, or do you share the load in recording your narrative?

All of our campaigns end up being a group effort, as we seem to have a lot of aspiring writers.  I write the main plot narrative posts either right after the game, or first thing in the morning to make sure it is fresh.  It is mostly for my own use, because I like to include call-backs or resurrect hanging plot-threads, but struggle to remember details if it isn’t recorded somewhere.  Everyone contributes in-character stories, and often the initial documents end up edited by different players, usually for comical purposes.

Back to your game, can you share an example of a particularly memorable moment from your campaign?

The opening session of our game managed to both set a fantastic tone for the campaign and keep us in stitches throughout.  One of our group was unable to attend and while I wanted to get things started, I also didn’t want to have a meaningful start to the story while missing a key character.  Thus, we ended up completely ad-libbing the story of Fulton being asked to come to the Tain Gala, shopping for appropriate clothing and finally tormenting multiple co-workers and Sharn nobility at the biggest social event in the city.  It was all unscripted, involved very little die-rolling, and generated a great deal of laughter.  My particular favorite was Lester’s use of the Artificer’s Magical Tinkering ability to embarrass their rival Carric by making him smell like a full baby’s diaper.

Let’s round this out with one of our favorite questions for our featured GMs! If you had a secret sauce for running a great game, what would be the most important ingredients?

My best games have always come about when I structure stories and plots around elements that the players have already shown interest.  Focusing the plots on the elements they put in their backstories, allowing them to surprise me with their choices, and rolling their ideas into the narrative keeps it fresh and fun, making it easier to expend the huge effort it can take to run a game.

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!

Award Winning!

Gold ENnie for Best Website 09'-11'


Silver ENnie for Best Website, Best Podcast 2012-2013
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