Tag Archives: campaign of the month

1
Feb

Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month February 2024: Cyberpunk 2077 Fate Accelerated

Welcome to a futuristic world where corporations control everything from their skyscraper fortresses, enforcing their rule with armies of Cyborg assassins. Gape in wonder as the player characters track down a Combat Cabb in Dog Town, using cyberenhancement and cutting edge technology in HumAnnoyd’s latest High Tech site, Cyberpunk 2077 Fate Accelerated!

You are no newcomer to this forum, having won several times before. Some people may know you already, but for those who don’t, how would you like to introduce yourself? Anything new going on?

I am an artist, designer and animator who has made a living in video games, tech, education, and marketing. Inspired by Tolkien and Star Wars I started playing RPGs in the late 70s with the Holmes Edition of D&D and ran my first game using Traveller’s “little black books”. In the 80s I picked up Cyberpunk 2013 and ran a seven-year campaign using it and CP2020. This year has been trying due to an intense battle with cancer, but it looks like I am on the mend and may just beat it yet.

What new approaches did you take when designing your site for this new game? Did you adapt old templates or start with an “empty page”?

This website was a little different than my others. During the pandemic I was put on furlough, so I started working on writing rules for a Fate Accelerated version of the video game based on the Dresden Files Accelerated rules. To prevent losing my mind in boredom and to keep my design skills sharp I decided to lay it out in InDesign, using an aesthetic inspired by the amazing artists of the video game. I built the OP Site after that, trying to recreate that aesthetic online.

Are your players new, or have you stuck with players who have been with you in previous games? How often do you play? What are your sessions like?

My roommate and his cousin both expressed interest in playing CP2077A and have little experience with RPGs and none with Cyberpunk. We have played the first two sessions in person but, due to busy schedules will be using Discord and Roll20 going forward.
The sessions have been quite fun so far, with both of my players being creative and clever. I cannot wait to see how the campaign develops as they gain more confidence and experience! We also have a couple of people who may join the game soon.

You are obviously a big fan of the Fate Accelerated Game. What do you like most about it, and in what ways does Cyberpunk 2077 differ from Emerald City: Requiem, which won Campaign of the Year in 2022?

I think the primary difference is that DFA is a full game with rules out of the box. I had to write and create rules for the CP2077A game which required a lot of picking and choosing from Fate’s vast tool sets and games as well as innovating my own ideas. The Emerald City is also set in a city that the players all participated in creating while Cyberpunk is the creation of Mike Pondsmith and the amazing team at CD Projekt Red. What I love about Fate Accelerated is that is such an easy system to hack and for new players to grasp. It also gives players agency to flourish narratively and with much more freedom compared to many other RPGs.

Your choice of artwork throughout the site is great, but it looks like you manipulate each image to give it your own particular flavour. Can you share how you go about this, and what sort of tools you use in your “touch up” palette.

The images are all taken from a mix of screenshots from the video game and photographs blended in a long and involved process in Photoshop that I have been honing for over a decade now. I use an arcane mix of smart objects, filters, actions, blending modes, layer styles with some painting for the final touches that results in massive file sizes of 3 Gigs or more. I am constantly changing and adapting my process as I learn new things.

Tell us a bit about the Cyberpunk world. Boostergangs, techies, outriders, Maelstrom gangers, roadwarriors! How do your cyberenhanced players interact with these characters? Where are they heading?

My players are involved with the 6th Street Gang whose leader just died under mysterious circumstances. The heir apparent of the gang asked them to quietly track down one of his missing friends who went missing along with his expensive Combat Cabb™ in Dog Town, the walled-off combat zone on the edge of Night City that is run like a fiefdom by an ex-soldier who betrayed his masters. The PCs have managed to use some impressive cybernetic implants to infiltrate a business and track down the Cab’s GPS signal to a garage held by the hated Scavs gang. I cannot wait to see how they will carry out the contract and the repercussions that will arise from their actions.

Do you get help from your players in adding to the site content? Or do you do most of the “heavy lifting”?

For now, I am doing all the writing and art and creating for the game. I am hoping that, as my players become more adept at the game, they will help with that “burden”.

You have obviously been with Obsidian Portal for some years. In recent years, many gaming platforms have come onto the scene. What keeps you “sticking with” Obsidian Portal.

I love Obsidian Portal’s ease of use and adaptability with CSS. I am constantly pushing myself to do something new and better with my sites and OP has always risen to that challenge for me. I also enjoy the community who are all a great help when I run into a snag with CSS or provide feedback on a design choice.


If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most?

Organization. Having written my own rules for this game OP has proved invaluable for keeping them organized and easy to access for my players. As the game develops there will be more and more NPCs to track and that is so easy using OP.


What would you say is the biggest highlight of your new game so far (please also provide images and links if possible)?

I think the best part of the game so far is when my players started realizing how much freedom they had in the game. They were wanting to infiltrate the Combat Cabb™ garage and came up with a good plan to do so with little to no prompting from me. The infiltrator had to improvise and role-play a fair amount to make it all work and my players did so despite having had little experience with RPGs in the past.

Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month?

I strive to always stay flexible enough to be able to react nimbly to my players’ choices and plans while at the same time providing enough narrative structure to keep the story interesting and fun for us all. It is a very delicate balance that benefits from trying to never say “no” to my players. This gives the players a greater sense of ownership of the game and agency to be truly creative. I admit that I sometimes struggle with it when I get too attached to certain ideas or storylines, but it is always my goal.
END

2
Oct

Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month October 2023: Thieves & Kings

Well met and welcome to Argoth, the land of Thieves & Kings — our October Campaign of the Month winner! GM Robling is no stranger to our crown of conquerors, and adds to his accolades with some of the best world-building and writing you’ll read this side of the City of Bright Sails. Thieves & Kings has been many years in the making and promises to take adventurers from humble inns to fey courts to powerful portals into the realms beyond understanding. Warm your worn hands by the common room fire and listen to our tale…

What’s new in your life since your Campaign of the Month win in 2014 for “Battletech (Farscape): The New Breed”?

Practically nothing, though, fundamentally, COVID changed all our lives, neh?

“Thieves & Kings” has many chapters and hundreds of gaming sessions spanning seven years of real time. We know it would be impossible to sum up everything, but could you give us an overview of the story, so far?

Overview, hmmmm. It started with six players, each representing a character, who had been fostered for their youth to various clans across the realm of Shem, being informed their adopted father had died and left them his farm. They gathered and discussed matters, and were immediately involved in an assassination, and fled the town of Hexwater a few steps in front of the local law. Over the next few months, they established themselves in the region of Thornkeep, and discovered the local mystery around a troll invasion, the local fey creatures, and mistakenly (?) began hunting a former fey hag as their chief enemy. As the years progressed, they began to acquire divine powers and discovered that their former enemy “Blackmaw” wasn’t so bad, really, and that she was fighting someone who was far worse, “The Great Hunger”, her former lover. At present, the survivors have decided they wish to embrace these offers of divine power, and are sorting-out how to achieve true divinity as a Demi-God. But their enemy, The Great Hunger and his followers, know them and work to unravel their plans as they unravel his.

The continent of Argoth and the world of Kethira as a whole is extensively catalogued in your wiki — it’s a veritable library of information that has been built up since your school days. And the character section is absolutely full of people and stories. What were your favorite bits to write and what parts of the site do you find most useful?

It’s extensive because of the years of effort both I and my players have placed into it. The efforts of today’s campaign reflect in the campaigns to come, and that forms a very wide amount of information that never makes the WIKI or Portal files, but exists, nonetheless. The ability of the Obsidian Portal website allows a wide disbursement of information, including bios, stats and even connects them to items and other characters, because each has their own story to tell and share. I’ve found if you approach each NPC as a real person, and treat their reactions as real and honest from *their* point-of-view, it enriches the encounters with the players, and then influences future encounters.

At the end of the wiki for “Thieves & Kings” there is a section on customized rules for the campaign — many adapted from various supplements and systems and modified to fit your needs. The Rulership and Thieves’ Guild Operation rules were especially interesting. How have these worked out for you and your players during the game?

I established each for the players to read and decide which version they wished to implement for various campaign management operations. Most were discarded, as the group slipped away from large-scale management of armies and realms, and decided to concentrate on small, close-knit organizations of their own, dealing with dozens of people, rather than hundreds. The “Thieves’ Guild” operations remain important, as one of the players has worked to establish their control over the underworld of Mornhaven, and allows us to abstract that aspect of the game enough to concentrate more on the role-play and combat. Which was kinda the point of them, really.

According to your Obsidian Portal bio, you have tried out many game systems and have a lot of experience with a variety of settings and game mechanics. From your perspective, what are the advantages and disadvantages of 5th Edition D&D compared to other games? Was shifting Argoth from other editions into 5th Ed. a challenge? Are there any plans to convert it into other systems in the future, if needed?

The advantage of 5th edition, I feel, is that it remains very robust in sliding back and forth between combat and role-playing, and allows exploration to be easily adapted to the encounters. If you compare it to early editions, it allows a great deal of mobility and movement to combat, which allows players to shine, rather than simply two characters beating on each other, whittling away HP as they go (*Cough Cough* 2nd Edition *Cough*). Pathfinder is nice, but too dependent on Prestige classes and Feats determining each encounter, whereas 5th Ed allows simpler math and makes the combat flow swiftly. I don’t think we’ll be transitioning into D&D One anytime soon, if ever, and the recent “home rules” introduced by Larian Studios “Baldur’s Gate 3” are intriguing and show how simple rules changes can make a difference in playstyle and encounters, and bears scrutiny.

The Adventure Logs for “Thieves & Kings” feature a clever format — a quotation, an inspiring image, and a video link to help set the mood. Are these atmospheric touches selected prior to a game session or afterward? Do you find that reinforcing the moods or themes during gameplay to be important or is it better to let the players create their own impressions?

I have found my players don’t typically pay much attention to them, until suddenly in the middle of an encounter they remember the title of the episode, or the picture, or the video, and it all falls into place in their minds. That’s the point of it, really, to hint a little and to provide some real physicality at a key part of the episode. Sometimes, however, they ignore it completely, and go out into left field, and the title proves irrelevant, as they choose to follow a new line of investigation from what they said they wanted to at the end of the last session. But that’s okay, because, ultimately the Players have the power, and choose where they want to go and what they want to accomplish. I simply provide options.

As to mood, I’ve found sometimes that you can lead the players to the encounter,and set the mood, but if they’re not into it, they won’t care. Sometimes they just want to chew gum and fight, and they forgot their gum.

What have been your favorite moments in the campaign, so far?

The sudden realization that one of the main characters, Blackmaw, wasn’t really so bad after all. She’s unabashedly NE, but they have accepted her as an ally, because she doesn’t see them as rivals, and sometimes they prove to be useful pawns to play. Her reveal of her love for her monstrous children to the party was especially precious, and one of the players said it was the highlight of the campaign to her. “Blackmaw” is my favorite NPC of all time.

Also the moment they were confronted with the knowledge there were actually seven children raised by their father, and they had another “sister”. At that point, they realized that the place they had been investigating was called “The Hall of Seven”; and they realized a truth they had known for months, but never clued into. Later, she swindled them to acquire a magical artifact with them, and during that reveal, they realized they’d been utterly taken advantage of, and never trusted anyone for a long time afterwards. They really didn’t like or trust her for a long time, though now they are openly working with her. “Skazzy” is a favored NPC this campaign.

Without giving too much away, what hints can you give us about the plans (if there are any) for the conclusion of the tales of “Thieves & Kings”? Or is this the kind of adventure that might go on for as long as possible?

The players know the ultimate goal of the campaign is to achieve demi-godhood, and the defeat of The Great Hunger. Only a couple of levels away from that, they understand their goal, and know that their characters are going to become demigods in the campaigns to come, so they have a vested interest in achieving this goal. Back when they gained their first “Divine Level”, they established the path of their cult, and its worship, and now it’s all about following-up with this to achieve their proclaimed status. We just started talking about what the next campaign might be…

During your first interview with Obsidian Portal for your prior Campaign of the Month win, you wisely advised GM’s to avoid being adversarial and to “Be the storyteller, and make the players the focus of the campaign.” In the years between then and now, what other insights have you gleaned regarding the craft of game-mastering, writing, and world-building?

Don’t plan too much. While I run an open-world campaign format, and for the most part, the players are quite willing to stay close to home. They really have so much to explore closeby, that they don’t *need* to travel much. Just have a couple of adventures handy that you know well and can adapt on the fly, and apply, whenever the players decide to “go rogue”. And they will go rogue on you in an open-world format. Otherwise keep plenty of notes so you can allow them to explore the world around them, and forge their own destiny. If you have notes from previous campaigns handy, they can travel over lands from previous campaigns, and realize what their previous characters have done, and how much effect their actions have at the moment and reaching into the future.

If you want the Players to travel, provide them with the means; Teleport Circles and Flying Boats (Spelljammer), or even just normal boats, allow them to travel extensively and explore across the worlds you design, and let them explore other genres of gaming, such as Oriental Adventures, Fallen Empire ruins and even isolated rocks in space at need, and give them a tie to the campaign world that they will treasure and love. In this campaign, they adore their flying ship, the “Emerald Angel”, improved their ability to get across the map quickly, rather than slogging across mountains for weeks, they can travel across the planet in days, or reach the markets at Mornhevan in a couple hours, rather than a couple days, making them able to concentrate on the task at hand, rather than the means to get there.

Otherwise, my campaign advice remains the same, keep it open-world, keep copious notes, and let the Players explore themselves as they explore your world, and they will develop the stories you will replay and talk about for decades.

Thus concludes our tale of Thieves & Kings, for now. Our thanks to Robling and his Players, once again, for sharing their creative might. Go forth now, fellow adventurers, with this edict: find us more worthy campaigns upon which to cast our eyes, so that our circle of judges may bring you fresh insights and inspirations. Bring your treasured discoveries to the forums, here.

2
Sep

Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month September 2023: Arcanearth

Do you enjoy Dark Fantasy? You will love this month’s CotM- Arcanearth! Great evil and selfless good, Magic, Angels and Fallen Angels. Religions play a big part of the world as well! This D&D 5E game has seen epic battles against ancient Dragons, Overlords, and giant frogs! The world itself has seen Ages of Angels, Dragons, Magic, Ice, and Rebirth! Come explore this rich world created by Omegabase and crew!

1. Tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? Where can we stalk you on the internet? What do you do aside from gaming?

Not much of a social media presence beyond OP. Live and work out of Austin texas. Father of 2 earning a living from IT consulting.

2. You made your home page your main artery to get information on your campaign- Why did you pick that approach? It is quite unique.

Didn’t see the need for another menu, convenient to have most info one click away.

3. You run D&D 5E- What do you like about it? Are there any things you dislike about it?

In most ways it’s the best edition of d&d. I did tone down the ‘easy mode’ aspect by eliminating hit dice for healing on short rests, limited healing on long rests, and allowing only one death save. This certainly contributed to the only 2 pc fatalities. Probably would use a different system next time around, like PF2, or integrate rules from other systems, like PF2. Also might consider an OSR system like the forthcoming Shadowdark.

4. You added Rogue Modrons as a race- what do you like about them, and how important are they to your campaign?

This came about from a short mini campaign where the players took a break from their main characters and assumed the personas of favorite henchman. These sessions don’t appear as separate logs but are mentioned in session 74 when one of the henchmen, who subsequently became a PC for a new player, revisited a key location from the mini campaign.
The player of Hoxton chose a modron he liberated from the plane of mechanus in session 63. Rogue modron seemed the obvious choice as this player has a thing for bots…played the robot Strelok in the last half of the gamma world campaign.

5. You have a very detailed world origin story, as well as a focus on angels and religion, for your game. How important are these to your characters?

Settings as such generally don’t have much utility to players and that holds true here as well. However the setting is indispensable to integrating the pc’s into the world events and related adventures when running an epic scale world-shaking superhero campaign such as this one. Ultimately the players will appreciate being part of a living world and adventures thereof.

6. How regularly do you play?

On hiatus currently, 2-3 sessions monthly when playing. Sessions average 3-4 hours in length.

7. How long has your group played together? How long have you been running Arcanearth?

Most of this group has played together since the 80’s. Most also played the last 50 or so sessions of gamma world 2754. Arcanearth started dec 2017. One player has the distinction of appearing in almost the entirety of both gw2754 and arcanearth (Grek/Strelok/Finch/Hoxton).


8. You won CotM all the way back in 2016 for Gamma World 2754- what keeps you coming back to Obsidian Portal?

Familiarity and lack of any worthwhile alternative. It’s a great place to organize and document your rpg campaign. A friend is starting a shadowrun 4e game soon, maybe we’ll throw that up on OP as well.

9. If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most? Do your players get involved on the wiki too?

PCs use OP for character sheets and backstories. The searchable database helps a lot for finding old npcs and events from past sessions. The character pages are the single most useful feature for both players and GMs.

10. Where do you draw inspiration from when preparing your game?

This setting is from fall from heaven 2, a total conversion mod for civilization 4. The epic scope of the macro game is inspired by the FFH2 setting and the fantasy works of Michael Moorcock. On the micro scale, you may discern the influence of Jack Vance. See the sessions about a certain ‘Green Pearl’.

11. How much time do you usually take to prepare for a session?

On average across all sessions, not counting the original world wiki creation, probably as much time to prepare as to play (3.5 hours). The wiki and world building, hundreds of hours over the course of years.

12. What would you say has been the best moment your table has had thus far in your game?

For me, the green pearl sequence. For the pcs, possibly the waking of the sleeping god Danalin and defeat of the Overlords, or more recently, the close battle with the ancient red dragon Acheron.

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

Don’t be afraid to feature a few challenges where it is uncertain or even unlikely the pcs can win outright. Have an out if/when they lose, that leads to more interesting possibilities rather than simply a TPK. Epic foes filled with hubris typically want more from pcs than merely their deaths. Such as their services, use as bargaining chips, information, entertainment, conversion to the cause, experimentation, torture, or simply groveling submission. All of which provide ample scope for a dramatic comeback. Players (and GMs!) enjoy nothing more than hard-won triumph snatched from the jaws of defeat.

Victor
“Age just a number, one and one and one. We stronger than number. Next year I’ll be younger”
Li Na

 Thank you to the community for making this campaign of the month possible! That’s all for now, join us on our next adventure October 1st, and don’t forget to nominate your favorite campaigns for our next Campaign of the Month!

1
Aug

Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month August 2023: Theophagie

This month we take a step back in time, joining GM AshleyMcdniel and party in their campaign, Theophagie. Set in the Iron Age, Theophagie explores a world impacted by an event known as the Theophage, where the majority of the male Greek Deities were killed, leaving large power vacuums and spawning the creation of matriarchal societies throughout Greece and Gaul. Here the Gods and aren’t just concepts- but real beings that walk the earth and see fit to involve themselves in mortal affairs. Join us in talking with GM AshleyMcdniel as he shares his insight, tips and tricks!

First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do aside from gaming? Alter Egos? Life partners? Family? Where can we interact with you on the internet?

My name is Ashley (He/Him) and I live in San Antonio, Texas. Besides table top RPGs I also play Magic and Battle Tech. I also enjoy swimming, fishing and target shooting. I live with the love of my life Charlie (they/them.) If you wanted to chat about gamming you can PM me on Discord at scarecrow#2992

Tell us a little bit about the setting of your game. What made you choose our own world for the game?

Theophagie is an anachronistic game set in Europe. It is a way to explore the myths and legends of several cultures and ask see how they interact. A friend of mine name Josh found obsidian portal and introduced me. I feel in love and have been using it ever since.

Tell us a little about why you chose Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition for your game system. How do you feel this system supports the type of game you are running?

I have a lot of fond memories of DND 3.5. However, it is not without flaws. I looked at it as a place to start and made a huge amount of home brew to change the flavor of the game. DND 3.5 has a huge amount of very high-power class and feat combinations. I wanted to have a more dangerous, high risk feel so I made all new class progression, level progression and an array of feats that allowed for that. Then I used my player base to provide feedback so they had input and buy in to the world and its development.

Let’s talk about the visualization of your campaign. What made you choose this design (color schemes, banners, dividers, etc.)?

The design really started with the picture of the trireme on the home page. The red, white and black made the picture pop. Then we just stuck with that.

You chose to share your design with the community and release the CSS code. It was so important to you that you placed a link to it on the home page of your campaign. You also give credit to the artist whose images you used by linking to their work. Why was this important to you?

The code part is easy. If someone wanted to know I did something they can just look. Now for the art. So, I have quite a few friends who are artists and work on commission. Now the first campaign in the setting was run in Gaul that was under Greek influence. I was looking around the internet for pictures of gods and found a wonderful picture of Hera and loved the style. I tracked down the artist and looked at the rest of what they had done and fell in love. I found their contact info on Deviant art. Turns out they live in France. Messaged them on FB and paid them to use it. They up to that point had just done it for fun and told me they had never been paid like that before so that made me feel pretty good. Since then, they have even published a book and are selling it on Amazon.

You have given a great deal of thought to the integration between your game system and your settings. Tell us a little about this integration (for instance, classes are limited by location).

Well, I wanted each nation to be an opportunity for a different flavor. So, the way the magic classes work in Egypt, Britain and Greece are all different. This also means that each God has a different type of connection to their disciples. I felt it was natural for Druids to be native to Britan and Bards to be native to Scandanavia. After doing some expansion and talking with my players we all collaboratively figured out what classes belong where and leaned into the mystisim from that area for insperation.

Tell us about your change log in the wiki page. Why do you keep it and why is it public?

The players wanted to be kept up to date about additions and the feature was a useful way to do that.

Tell us about the Adventure Log. You seem to have run several games in this setting already. How does that work? Do you play several games at the same time? Or one after the other?

The first game was centered around Gaul. After that Campaign was over one of the PC’s had died. One of the players Josh very much wanted to run a game in the setting so he took the second adventure. It was a sailing adventure in which we took the body from Marseille to Delphi so we could get the gods to resurrect them.

Tell us about the way you arrange your characters. I see characters have few tags with names. How do you keep track of the NPCs? How do you know the context under which each NPC was created?

The NPCs are any person have the opportunity of meeting along the way. Most are reoccurring unless they die (which is also a tag.) Most of time I will tag a location with the person and then the person at the location on the wiki. Below is an example.

Then on the other side of the link is also a reference to the person.

How do the players contribute to the world design, if at all?

They do a lot. You can the best designed world but if the players do not feel like they have agency in it they are not going to have as much buy in. They are able to interact with the world any way they want. As an example, we are currently playing in Carpathia which is the setting of werewolves and vampires. A count was a little to cruel and evil for their liking so they defeated him and took over responsibility of the area. This is also reflected in the wiki.

If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most?

Consistency. It allows me to organize my thoughts and present the world in a consistent way.

What would you say is the biggest highlight of your game so far (please also provide images and links if possible)?

So, Mike was playing his first character in our first campaign JAQULEENE GRAVOIS. They had been a charisma-based character and a talker. They went to go get an item out of the ruins of Notre Dame. They kicked open the door and started to make a speech to intimidate them. There were a number of skeleton archers on the other side of the door which are both immune to being intimidated and also immediately only shot at him because they had been the only person they could see. One of them rolled a crit, we rolled a location dice which landed on head and they took more damage than they had HP. They also failed a con check and immediately died. That single choice set up the path for us to have a second campaign but also what we planned to do. It also hit home that the game could be very lethal during combat if you are not careful.

Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month?

Request feedback. At the end of every game, I ask the same questions for every player. Likes and Dislikes. Long-term and short-term goals. In addition, we vote for MVP and the winner gets a little extra XP. It is a way to celebrate each other when we role play well.

 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!

1
Apr

Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month April 2023: Torg Rise of the Storm Knights

This month we enter the fascinating world of TORG, with the Savage Worlds system, where six brave adventurers cross worlds in their quest to defend the multiverse. GM Elvathadrin will take us through his game, Torg Rise of the Storm Knights and tell us a little about the process he has with his players to bring their stories to life.

First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do aside from gaming? Alter Egos? Life partners? Family? Where can we interact with you on the internet? 

I am from New Jersey, lived here my whole life, don’t really have much of an online presence even though I am on the Obsidian Portal Discord. Outside of gaming, I enjoy hanging out with my friends watching movies. I also paint miniatures and when I can play miniature based games like Warhammer 40K and Xwing, I also play World of Warcraft, and Star Wars the Old Republic/this is the game I also RP most evenings in, and have for quite a few years.

Let’s talk about the visualization of your campaign. Did you make the animated banner yourself? And the video? What made you decide to place this video on your campaign’s landing page? Why did you decide to explain about your campaign in such a way? Are you the person speaking in the video? 

The Banner was created by one of my good friends who’s also a player in my game. To be honest I found the video on YouTube, and why did I put it on the Landing page because after watching it I found it explained the universe of TORG perfectly, in an easy to understand and concise manner. I am not the person speaking in the video.

Is the narrator in the video meant to be the same person quoted in the description on the landing page? 

The narrator in the video is not mean to be the same person quoted on the landing page, the man quoted on the page is an unknown individual that saw the initial events with his own eyes and lived the tell his tale.

I noticed that there was over a year’s time gap between your original start date in July 2021, and the next adventure entry in January 2023. What was the cause of this gap? 

This is an easy question to answer, I started to work on the website a good year plus before the game we were playing ended, and I knew I had a lot of information I wanted to impart to my players, and knew it was going to take time to put it up and make it easy to read.

I see that you are using the Savage Worlds system. Can you please talk about what made you choose this system? How does the system support the campaign design and your game style? 

I chose Savage Worlds because I was talking to a few of my friends about wanting to run a TORG game as I love the universe but not a fan of the system it uses, so they brought up Savage Worlds. The system in question is designed to be extremely malleable, and since TORG’s universe requires the ability to meld multiple of genres and make them fit with each other, Savage Worlds was perfect as it already did that so it made things easy to fit everything together without one overpowering the others. Savage Worlds had already put out different books that where all designed to work together from the beginning so it made it that much easier.

You seem to be integrating many characters from movies, tv, etc. Can you tell us a little about how you bring these characters to life? Do you study them from their respective franchises? Do you try to imitate their mannerism/voice?

Most of the characters I use are from TV shows and or games that I and most of my friends have already watched so they already know these characters, I do try to keep them in character and how they react and or help the group with their expertise in relationship to the universe itself.

At no point do I try to imitate their mannerisms or voices as I know I would never be able to do them justice.

How do the players contribute to the world design, if at all? 

My players helped me with ideas for some of the new COSMS I have introduced into my universe that are not in base TORG, the ones they helped with where The Galactic Empire, The Big Heat, The Holy Roman Empire, Middle Westeros and The Main.

I see that you have a very detailed wiki section. How helpful is the Wiki for your players? 

From what my players have told me it is extremely helpful, as it is referenced at least once most sessions, especially when they go into a new COSMs, the maps I created have also been extremely helpful to give my players an idea of where they are.

Can you please tell us why you choose to open each adventure log with a “wild cards” section which seems to include all the PCs? What is its meaning? 

The reason I include the PC names is similar to the reason a TV show has credits, to remind the reader who the characters are in each session and if anyone new reads any Adventure log they know who was involved.

If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most? 

Obsidian Portal helps with keeping all the information in one place and helps make it easy to find, if it wasn’t for the site I would never have been able to run this game.

What would you say is the biggest highlight of your game so far? 

That is not the easiest of questions, but if I have to choose one, I would say the group was going after a Forest Dragon in Aysle the Fantasy COSM, the dragon preferred to hang out under water, so David the mad scientist of the group decided to create primitive depth charges. The idea was to drop them from the Quinjet.

While he was creating them, he created three by the way, the first and third where created without a hitch, unknown to anyone, David made a not so minor mistake on the second depth charge. When they went to use them, the first dropped fine and hit the water as it was supposed to, as they were getting ready to get the second in place the jostling caused it to explode prematurely while still inside the Quinjet, causing the jet to take a nose dive forcing Astoron to re-right the jet before it crashed, unfortunately he disconnected and completely froze forcing Ellistrae to quickly jump into action and right the jet. David the one that created the depth charge took the quick action to jump on the charge hoping to contain the blast, he succeeded in containing the blast not the concussive force that caused the jet to take a nose dive.

Okay, as a last question, we always ask for the GM’s “pearls of wisdom”. What GM insights can you offer the community this month? 

I am still a fairly new GM, as I have only GMd four games, so most of my wisdom comes from that, I would say for those afraid to GM for the first time, don’t be afraid, because you will make mistakes, you will stumble as a GM, not everything you do is going to work, your players are going to throw monkey wrenches in your plans, from my experience, let them.. This is a collaborative effort, if your players come up with an off the wall idea, let them do it. It will make the game that much more fun and memorable.

Always remember you are the story teller, and it’s supposed to be fun for everyone, keep a light hand, don’t be heavy handed with your rulings.

In the end as a GM always learn from your mistakes, because no matter how many games you run, you are still going to make them.


 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!

2
Mar

Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month March 2023: Ulea

Welcome to Ulea, a high level DnD 5 campaign where the stakes are high and the enemies are strong! Hordes of undead- check. Powerful covens- got them. Runic symbols and mysticism- in spades. Necromancers- of course! Black dragon- definitely! Ulea is non-stop, advanced characters, non-stop action for 2 groups to battle, and battle they definitely do! GM nicholas_charles_ allen has set challenge after challenge up before his players- and we sat him down to learn more about what makes him- and this awesome campaign- tick.

Tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? Where can we stalk you on the internet? What do you do aside from gaming?

I’m originally from New York, but have lived all over – spent a lot of time in New Orleans and now live in Virginia. I don’t maintain much of an online presence – this campaign page is probably where I post most outside of school. Outside of gaming, I’ve got a wife, three kids, and two dogs, spend a lot of time on work and school. I like to run, lift weights, and cook. Outside of TTRPGs, my wife and I do play a lot of boardgames.


You run D&D 5E- What do you like about it? Are there any things you dislike about it?

Truthfully I began running 5e because it seemed to have the lowest barrier to getting people to pick up and start playing. Running these campaigns was a return to the hobby after a few years off for life-related stuff, and I didn’t want to spend too much time going over rules, and wanted players to pick up and play quickly as well. 5e has such a huge presence and so many resources and videos for players to watch that it was a great place to start.

After playing for a few years, it’s probably not the best fit anymore. Encounter building (especially for high-level parties) has become kind of a pain, and I’ve found myself homebrewing lots and lots of stuff to keep things interesting for myself and the party. One campaign will transition to Pathfinder 2e next month, and we haven’t decided where the other will go – possible Free League’s Forbidden Lands. The campaigns will still be set in my homebrew world (heavily inspired / cribbed / ripped-off from all my favorite pieces of media).

How regularly do you play?

Right now we play once a week – I have one campaign that meets every other Sunday and the other one that meets alternate Sundays.

How did your group meet, and how long have you been together? You have a group of 11- how do you manage such a large group?

I actually run two separate campaigns – so not all players in one, although there is some overlap. One campaign has 7 players and the other has 6. Although their campaigns are not directly connected, the things that one party does in one has consequences in the game world (Ulea), and so can affect the other campaign – it’s been very fun!

We met in lots of different ways – a number of people are friends from college, people I met at work or in the military, and some are people that I met online through reddit when I first moved to the area a decade ago when I was first trying to find people for a game. We’ve all become very close. Through all through all the years we’ve all ended up moving a part, so the groups are spread out all over the country and we play almost entirely through roll20.

If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most? Do your players get involved on the wiki too?

Keeping the adventure log is huge for me to keep everything straight in my head across all the campaigns; it also helps me to emphasis plot points or clues that players may have glossed over during the session so that we can stay on track, and leaves a great story to read through when the campaign wraps up. The players also use it all the time to look up places and NPCs.

The players don’t help with the wiki – but I think that’s something I should probably start doing! I do have my players write journals after each session from their character’s prospective. If they do, they get re-rolls to use in the next session. It helps me to understand what plot points they are following, what ones they don’t care about, what things are important to their character, and to find new hooks and motivators for the characters.

Where do you draw inspiration from when preparing your game?

The largest is the books I’m reading (I would say that the Malazan series has probably been the single biggest influence on the way I set up campaigns now, but also lots of other fantasy and Scifi helps to inspire me including the Black Company, A Land Fit for Heroes, the Fifth Season, Between Two Fires, The Forever War, HP Lovecraft). I don’t get much time to play video games anymore, but I have always pulled inspiration from there – especially when trying to put together unique combat encounters. I listen to a lot of metal; crust, sludge, death, black, etc… I pull a lot of inspiration from the imagery and just overall fucking radness of it.

Metal and TTRPGs have pretty much gone hand-in-hand for me for the last twenty-five years. I also crib quite a bit from pre-written campaigns and adventures – Paizo writes really great stuff, but there are so many wonderful third party publishers out there who can really put together something great. I like to take these as starting points and then adapt to my world, my players, and what I think is fun. I think that’s really the great part about this hobby – it all goes back to a bunch of friends sitting around a table sharing a borrowed players handbook, a shitty set of dice, and trying to re-imagine the Wheel of Time or Elric of Melnibone or the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant – but different.

How much time do you usually take to prepare for a session?

Usually about 30 minutes or so – I tend to do a lot of work up front before the campaign starts; collecting maps, art, etc. Usually getting a skeleton that goes pretty far out so that I can just hang stuff on it. Every three or four months I will spend a few hours building things out and adjusting the skeleton based on what has been going on. I used to be a chronic over-preparer, but I found that most of what you do ends up living in you head and never making it to the table – and the PCs rarely do what you expect them to do anyway, right?

Aside from DnD I’m sure you have played other systems too, what are some others you enjoy?

Yes! I have played a lot – Call of Cthulhu has been a favorite of mine that I have been running for just as long, although almost all lots of one-shots (some day I will run Masks of Nyarlothotep, though..) I used to play and run a lot of Pathfinder 1e games, as well as the FFG Star Wars / Genesys system. In the last few years, I’ve been able to get in some one-shots of the Aliens RPG and Mork Borg as well. Someday I’d like to get a Blades in the Dark game going – or at least play in one.

What would you say has been the best moment your table has had thus far in your game?

Wow, there have been a lot… one that stands out was a stealth mission where the party had to go into the brothel, find a patron (a member of an occupying army) who had information that they needed, get that information and leave the guard alive, and unsuspecting. There was lots of planning and great roll playing and some absolutely improbably dice-rolling (natural 1s and natural 20s abound) that ended up with several people dead and a brothel in flames. Another was a party finally slaying an ancient black dragon that had harangued them for months – first driving the party off, then escaping to it’s lair after a rematch, and finally being slain in it’s lair with nearly the entire party being unconscious… it was a close one.

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

Read! Look at different systems, different adventures – you can always pull something cool into your game to challenge your players and to keep you from getting burnt out. It’s ok to write lots of stuff that the players might not find out about – or will only find out through exposition. Don’t worry about having to find a place to get all your ideas out on the table, just let the game go. If you think it’s fun to world-build, do it! Plus, if the players don’t use it, you have ready made encounters and adventures you can drop into your next campaign, or fill with stronger baddies to be used later in the one you’re in now. You have to have fun, too!

I think especially today as TTRPGs are kind of hitting a mainstream stride again (and with the surge of popularity of actual plays and twitch streams and the like) there is a lot of pressure on GMs to create epic, sprawling worlds with extremely tight storytelling and endless unique and engaging NPC so that players can kind of just show up and roll dice. Just relax and have fun – let players guide the story with what they are interested in and build from there. The fasted way to burn out is thinking you have to have everything 100 percent perfect and 100 percent prepared for every outcome.

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!

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