7
Oct

Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month October 2020 – Freedomverse

The night’s sky is illuminated with a signal from a specialized searchlight; a lair telephone rings with an urgent call from local authorities; a cry for help shatters the relative quiet of the once peaceful city. Evil stirs, and villains threaten the citizens of Freedomverse – October’s Campaign of the Month! Don your tights, hold onto your cape, and step forth to save the day (one game session at a time of course) with Ahpook, the mastermind behind this organized play campaign!

So let’s get this thing started! Congratulations on winning Campaign of the Month!

AhpookHello and thank you for giving us this opportunity to reach out! We are all quite excited. I would be curious what drew us to your attention, and what you folks think about what we are doing. Also, if it’s permitted to share in the blog, here is a link to our discord server where people can come say hi and be part of the fun in the Freedomverse. Thanks again!

You have a whole lot of players, well over 100, in this game! How did that come to pass? How do you manage all of this group?

Well we are a little different since The Freedomverse isn’t just a regular campaign in the traditional sense. We are actually a fully functioning Organized Play world similar to Pathfinder Society or other OP groups out there. This makes for many GM’s telling their own unique stories in our shared universe, with players having multiple characters going from story to story, campaign to campaign…just like a comic book label with their own various titles and characters.

Please tell us more about the person behind the GM screen. What do you do aside from gaming? Alter Ego’s?

As I mentioned, our GM team is comprised of a number of individuals all with different tastes, styles, and ideas for stories, and from literally all over the world. Personally, my background is primarily in theatre, education, social work, and community development, with a focus on arts-centered communities.

https://db4sgowjqfwig.cloudfront.net/campaigns/208374/assets/1047897/max__1_.jpg?1582306017

I note that your campaign uses the Mutants and Masterminds game system. Why did you choose this system? What does it excel at, and what house rules – if any – have you implemented?

Mutants and masterminds is the original D20-based superhero game, and although in its 3rd edition, it has stood the test of time since 2002 for a reason, and that’s because it’s that good. The system itself is very simple, only using a single D20. But the real strength of MnM is its flexibility. It is very difficult to strike a decent balance in super hero games, given the hugely wide range of ability and power. MnM allows you to make nearly any concept at any level of power you can conceive, within reason. As for house rules, we mainly employ ones that are meant to facilitate the fact that we are a shared gaming world with many different GMs and players. We pare down or limit the more problematic combinations that really slow things down or make games difficult for the GM in the moment. Other than that, it’s mostly common sense house rules that most seasoned MnM players would recommend (looking at you bathroom mentalists!)

Tell us about Freedomverse in a nutshell. How did it come to be and how long has the campaign been going on?

The Freedomverse emerged out of our Freedom City discord server which was founded back in February of 2018. Man what a crazy ride its been! I actually founded Freedom City after realizing that MnM didn’t have any major server on discord like most of the other big games out there. I actually created it in the hopes of finding maybe a dozen or so people to play with, over 1600 people and 3 years later…here we are! After awhile it became clear that people wanted to do more than just discuss the rules and share character builds. They wanted to play. So The Freedomverse was born!

https://db4sgowjqfwig.cloudfront.net/campaigns/208374/assets/998692/11b3e23e98474c3f2320e685ff5dd03c.jpg?1566651234

Your campaign has a tremendous amount of adventure logs – how does that work logistically with so many GMs? Do you reward people for doing logs?

Each GM is encouraged to fill out an adventure log for each game, even if brief. In addition to creating our history, it helps for bookkeeping on various levels. There’s no reward per se, but at the conclusion of each session we also reward our GM’s for each game they run with a power point, which is what the players earn each game, that they can add to any of their own characters as an incentive and thanks for running games

What does the future have in store for the characters in the Freedomverse? Without giving the game away, is there anything you can surmise……?

There are so many exciting plots and stories going in The Freedomverse. We support one shots, linked stories, and even full campaigns, of which there have been several, and are several going on right now. Green Ronin, who publishes MnM, is putting out a huge amount of new adventure content right now too, so we are having fun running and trying it all as it comes out.

https://db4sgowjqfwig.cloudfront.net/campaigns/208374/assets/929297/Steelheart.jpg?1545603881

How long have you known your players and how long has your group been together? How long has your game been going on and how often do you play?

Many of the GM’s and players have been with us from the beginning back three years ago, but we are always getting new players, and people stepping up to try GMing all the time. Right now I think we average at least one game a day every day of the week, sometimes quite a bit more. We run traditional games on Roll20, but we also have a vibrant and active PBP community.

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

As a GM you have a very important role at the table. You are more than the rules arbiter and storyteller. You also set the tone in terms of respecting each other and making sure it’s a positive experience. Always make sure each of your players feels heard and included. Always make sure everyone feels safe to be who they are and to express themselves. And make sure everyone has fun, including yourself!

And with that, it’s time to get back to the old secret identity. The villains have all been vanquished and the world once again saved. We thank you for taking the time to read this feature, and hope that you enjoyed it immensely. We highly recommend you add Freedomverse to your favorites list, and check out our past featured campaigns for more fantastic stories. Finally, be sure to nominate all the great campaigns that you know of or find so that they can be featured here!

Award Winning!

Gold ENnie for Best Website 09'-11'


Silver ENnie for Best Website, Best Podcast 2012-2013
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