Tag Archives: cotm
Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month March 2022- Deadlands: Damnation
If you’re hankering for terrific tales from the Weird West and a campaign with more shine than a silver six-shooter… well sir, tip your hat to March’s Campaign of the Month winner — “Deadlands: Damnation.” Designed by Basileus, GM’d by GamingMegaverse, and populated with a posse of award-winning players, it’s the real McCoy. And bully for you, we get to hear from all of ’em!
Gaming Megaverse: I just want to start by saying that the whole site was designed by Basileus! I loved “Outremer,” his previous CotM winning site, and when he offered to design the site as we were planning the game I jumped at the chance to let him go! So this award belongs to him more than myself!
Before we explore the weird and wild west of “Damnation,” we’d love to know a few bits about the folks driving the stagecoach, as it were. Some of your story is in your Obsidian Portal profile, but what else can you tell us about yourself, your award-winning gaming group, and how you got together?
Gaming Megaverse: My bio tells a lot of who I am, so I will address the group. I started playing with some people in this group in 2011 (CraigCoxson, Gaitkeeper, BlkUnicorn) 2012 (MachineGunHarry) and 2015 (Lurch6571). All of the above were regulars in our “A God…Rebuilt” game except Harry, who was an occasional guest. “Rebuilt” was usually friends of friends, but sometimes, such as the case with Lurch, found through ads that we were looking for players. Basileus I met through Obsidian Portal, but other than a guest spot I made in another game this is our first game together. We take pride in our cooperative world building and gaming- most of the enemies in our games come from the players, as well as most of the plots in general. I wouldn’t trade my group for any other- they are my friends as well! We have been online bi-weekly since 2011, and pre-Covid we would get together in person once/year for a marathon 12 hour session- hoping that will come back this year!
You and your players have wagon-loads of experience with different settings and game systems. For the tenderfoot who hasn’t had a chance to play Deadlands yet, what aspects or mechanics do you enjoy most about it?
MachineGunHarry: I like the primitiveness of the setting. You got a pistol in your hand and somehow you’re supposed to take on the impossible darkness. In some cases your character takes a piece of darkness in order to fight the rest. In a way, we all have a bit of anti-heroes in our characters. I have loved tackling the moral questions in our adventures. Will we be the badass banditos that protect the innocent whatever the cost, or will we be the bastions of civility that ushers in a new Era of modern peace. Fortunately, our group is full of both of these. This makes for good role-playing inside the group that keeps me coming back for more. While our drama isn’t on the level of a soap opera, it feels like a page from a Firefly script. And who doesn’t want a second season to Firefly…even if there ain’t a space ship? I love the exploding die mechanic that allows the little guy to have a remote chance of success. I also love the Bennie and Conviction economy. I play a huckster, a card dealing wizard, where a Bennie can be spent to play a metaphysical card game with a Dark higher power to access THEIR list of spells. So, Bennies make my character have more breadth without having to advance very high. But there is a big risk in doing so.
Basileus: Settings adjacent to the real-world like Deadlands or other historical fantasy provide a level of immersive grounding that even the best “pure genre” settings struggle with. It’s very easy to inhabit the perspective of your characters when you can say “oh yeah, we’re in Seattle, I know what that area looks like and I know what my character would want to do on a random Saturday afternoon”. So Deadlands hits the best of all worlds because you have immersive grounding, wild fantastical elements hiding beneath the surface, and a very compelling central aesthetic.
Gaitkeeper: Cowboy campfire ghost stories come to life, pun intended, is my favorite part of Deadlands.
Faeriemage: It is a completely different mentality to play a game, especially a Savage Worlds game, in which there are no races other than Human. It makes you think more about who your character is in an established world, and who they can become.
BlkUnicorn: The ability to help and enhance each other creates a group mentality I like.
What has been the most interesting or challenging moment of the campaign, so far?
MGH: The most interesting moment for me was when we sent Alphie, the 15 year old protégé, on a mission that really could have killed him. We were on a moving train, and decided that the illegal cargo in the last two cars had to be destroyed. We concocted a plan to have Dan, the huckster, do a “deal with the devil” to be able to cast Wall Walker on Alphie. We almost chose Rain, our Indian Scout, due to her better athletics. But we decided that only Alphie had the knowledge to derail the cars once he got there. With Wall Walker he ran along the side of the moving train so the guards up top wouldn’t see him. Once there he deactivated several traps, unhooked the cars, then picked the lock to reenter the unaccessible car. He pulled off some crazy rolls with several acing exploding dice. It was an epic scene. Though we are still having to deal with the repercussions of such a bold move.
Basileus: I think the most interesting parts so far have been seeing the players (try to) coalesce around what their shared priorities and ethics are, such as what to do about prisoners or sympathetic characters that don’t offer a clear mechanical advantage one way or another. This is doubly true since we have characters who come from different walks of life, and we are trying to give voice to different experiences (age, ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, etc…) while being thrown together in a shared battle against supernatural evil.
Lurch6571: Trying to engage in the campaign with a character that is seemingly one minded in his purpose (GM Note- Lurch’s character is very single minded- or at least that is the appearance- his is the first character in one of my games with a secret bio).
Gaitkeeper: Most challenging moment of the campaign has been solving the riddle of the Mourning Fog. (GM Note- Mourning Mist or Fog is caused by an unsolved heinous murder.)
Faeriemage: I’m playing a teenager. Trying to straddle that gap between child and man makes for a lot of story moments where I can easily swap between a childish character and a more mature one, but dealing with how other people (players and NPCs) deal with my nominal child has made me re-evaluate how I can solve a lot of problems. It’s hard to be forceful when someone basically says, “my, aren’t you just so cute.”
What parts of the game do your players enjoy or engage with the most?
MGH: I love the fact that magic is sort of rare. It makes it more special. In fact, you don’t need super powers or magic in Deadlands to be an epic character. Even though in character we don’t always agree and play into those social dilemmas, we work well together when it counts. Our last battle with a coven of witches showed that.
Basileus: Seeing the long-term consequences/impacts of our actions on the wider world is what motivates me as a player, but I think the things that grab my attention most in the moment are the little details of how the presence of the viscerally supernatural changes the world from what we might expect in a historical setting, and then exploring how to deal with that as a player-character. It’s a good way to challenge your own experiences and explore a character’s perspective.
Lurch: It has the be the psychological aspects, mind games, intimidation and /or persuasion
Gaitkeeper: The players seem to engage with investigation the most – whether it’s mundane bank robbers or ghosts haunting Western towns.
Aside from the great aesthetics of your campaign pages, you also have a useful collection of house rules, which includes rewards for good attendance, log-writing, and an MVP award. What house rules have been most successful for you, either in this campaign or others?
Gaming Megaverse: We started with rewards with “A God…Rebuilt,” and have tweaked them through the years to fit the group and the system. The MVP, log, and attendance awards have been staples, and I recommend that everyone does it- it makes a difference in participation!
The campaign’s adventure logs are the heart and highlight of “Damnation,” and very well-written. Each author has a distinct, in-character voice that makes reading the story a real treat. What parts of the logs have you enjoyed the most?
MGH: Well, I love writing. I put on resumes and applications that I write fiction with a group of amateur writers. I love rubbing shoulders with all the other players. Some are brilliant writers, and all are passionate about creating art in the form of a good story.
Basileus: I really like seeing how other players imagine the fleshed out interactions of characters that are not their own – things like little embellishments on what a PC did that really flesh out the characters and provide a view of how other players perceive characters externally.
Gaitkeeper: The logs I enjoy most are the ones that give wildly different points of view of iconic in-game sequences.
Faeriemage: I personally love that they exist.
You’ve been involved with a lot of great projects on Obsidian Portal over the years, including this campaign. Without giving away the plot, what does the future hold for “Damnation?” Do you have any other projects going on right now or coming up soon that we should watch for?
Gaming Megaverse: The players drive my game, so outside of the big bad guy/girl (who I cannot name as they are not sure who it is yet) most of the future is unknown. The group has a delivery of a sealed letter to make that began the game in Silver City, Idaho, and are currently in Seattle- so that is the one future they know. As far as outside projects I just retired and bought a boat with my wife- we are fixing it up to sail from Los Angeles to Hawaii and then to Alaska- you can follow the progress on Instagram @TTRPGSailor.
Your gaming group is an enviable one and includes excellent writers, designers, creators, with the awards to prove it. We would be remiss if we didn’t ask your team for any gaming advice, tips, or tricks that you’d like to share.
MGH: As a player, get involved. Help as much as you can to make the GMs job as easy as possible. Do it as an appreciation for the other players. I find role playing as a way to fill my need to create. GMs, let your players create. It is so rewarding to build something together.
Basileus: Everybody has different strengths. The best you can do is find a strong central “thing” (theme, story element, aesthetic, etc…) that everyone strongly connects to, and then let each member engage with it in a way that they enjoy. Everyone may be doing slightly different things but they’re getting the most out of their own and each other’s efforts.
Lurch: Voice concerns about player style or attitude that seem to cause discord, before it becomes an issue. Be prepared to take a hiatus if the game or group seems to be dragging. Inject new players to keep the viewpoints fresh and the action changing. Change up the campaign or genre to keep players interested. Find a game system that has the right balance between ease and complexity.
Gaitkeeper: Encourage all of the players to create or design parts of every game. Get people invested, and you’ll be surprised how common good design or good writing can be – and they get better with practice!
Faeriemage: Never be afraid, as a GM or Player, to admit that something just isn’t working. Never be afraid of the RetCon. Sure, it might be weird to suddenly have one character change everything on their sheet but their name, but personality means a lot more than some would like to admit.
Well partners, the campfire’s a-gettin’ pretty low and it’s time for us to turn in. We hope you’ve gleaned some learnin’ from these old hands and we hope you get a chance to read some of their stories. If you’ve found a favorite campaign that’s right as rain in your book, well canter on down to the OP forums and nominate them (or yourself) for Campaign of the Month!
Until next time!
Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month February 2022- “Emerald City: Requiem”
There is something green in the heart of Seattle….again! Using the FATE ACCELEARATED Game System, GM HumAnnoyd and his team of players/GMs return to their original 2012 location with an updated system, new members and a brand new OP website in Emerald City: Requiem. What legacy remains in the city after a war between Vampires and Wizards? Are the trolls staying under the bridges? Are vampires still respecting their limits? Will you be the one to give Harry Dresden a call? Read on to get a detailed analysis from the team behind this phoenix of a site.
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 have been playing RPGs since the 70s when I first ran into a D&D group in a friend’s basement. It was love at first sight. Drawing character portraits for all our characters is one of the main reasons I got into art as a kid. I auditioned and was accepted into an amazing fine arts public high school as a result.
From there, I graduated with a BFA in Drawing & Painting from the University of Georgia, and I did the starving artist thing for quite some time, selling 18 more paintings than Van Gogh.
Of course, he only sold one painting. To his brother.
I tired of the art world (and the south to be honest) and took a huge gamble and moved to Seattle.
Here I managed to find a career doing art & animation for video games and educational programs for over a decade. I have since moved into graphic design doing a great deal of freelance work. Outside of gaming, I am an avid Karaoke singer (I have won a few contests & even got a gig with a local band) and I love art, football, reading, comics, and movies.
Tell us about “Emerald City: Requiem” in a nutshell. How did it come to be and how does it differ from your previous award-winning campaign of 2012, “The Emerald City”?
When the original Dresden Files Roleplaying Game came out in 2010, I knew I had to play it. I love the novels and I went online and discovered a local group who wanted to try it. Within 2 weeks of the book’s release just under a dozen strangers met at a friendly local gaming store and began work on creating a campaign. After some debate we decided to set the game in Seattle. We went through the game’s amazing city creation process with each of us picking a neighborhood and populating it with supernatural characters and politics creating a living, breathing city, The Emerald City.
Over the next 7 years we played that game with new players coming and going over time. Our group had as many as 8 and as few as 3 players actively involved at any one time. The game nearly died off as life intruded and many moved out of town. We were down to only two of us left in the group in 2017. That was the same year that the new, streamlined Dresden Files Accelerated came out. We managed to find a pair of new players and decided we should reboot the game for a fresh start.
At first, we were simply going to use a different city but, as a group, decided against that. Instead, we advanced the timeline for the Emerald City campaign several years into the future to just after the major events of Changes, the novel that concludes the War between the Red Court Vampires and White Council of Wizards. That novel fundamentally changed the supernatural world of Dresden and that informed our Requiem for the Emerald City.
We used DFA’s new Faction rules to recreate the Emerald City’s landscape allowing the new players to put their stamp on the game, made completely new PCs with my Warden character being the only hold-over from the previous game. He was a fundamentally different character though. His magic had been stolen by the Un-man, a mystical mana-thief, and he had become a family man.
So, Emerald City: Requiem is a campaign that has different players, player characters, game system and city politics but it is informed by the events from the original Emerald City.
Unfortunately, both those new players moved out town after just a year, leaving the fate of the Emerald City in doubt yet again.
Fortunately, I was able to recruit MalloryLover23 from another game I had been playing and because of Covid we started playing online. This allowed us to recently bring Lanodantheon, one of the founding members, back into the fold even though he no longer lives here in Seattle.
How regularly do you play, and where do you play? Tell us about your current group of players.
We try to play every 2nd and 4th Sunday for the last 12 years. Originally, we used to meet in person (either at my old workplace or in my condo) but Covid changed all of that. We now play online through Roll20 and Discord although we are considering other online options.
Justins and I have been in the group from the beginning with MalloryLover23 joining us several years ago, breathing new life into the campaign. We are all excited that we were recently able to reconnect with Lanodantheon, a founding member, who now joins us online from California.
Both your original game of 2012 and the current game use the Dresden Files RPG system, the more recent campaign opting for “Dresden Files Accelerated”. What is it about DFRPG that keeps your group engaged? Tell us more about the “Accelerated” version.
I think the main reason the campaign has been so long lived is that we spent time creating the city’s background and politics as a group. This gave all the player’s agency in the game and a stake in the stories being told. We also revolve GMs with each of us taking a turn at the reigns creating their own “book”
The main difference between the two games is that DFA has infinitely more room for new and interesting stories because of its loose nature. The narrative is not as constrained by rules which has allowed us to create completely original new characters like Justins’ Golem Lawyer, MalloryLover23’s Guardian of the Seventh Gate and Lanodantheon’s magic stealing Kleptomancer. None of which have ever been seen in any of Jim Butcher’s books. Fate Accelerated can accommodate these unique character concepts even better than the incredibly flexible original DFRPG game.
Tell us a bit about Jim Butcher, the author and his body of work. How much do his novels inspire your games? Do you follow the narrative of the books or do you radically diverge from the original stories?
I will let Brad, who is running the current scenario answer that question
When I run, I always go back to the books to see if there is any existing world information so, I don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The current scenario that I am running (Book 8) only has one bit part character only there for a chapter or two in one book that is vaguely related to it.
Butcher’s writing style has definitely influenced the Adventure Logs when I personally write them. But we are not beholden to the books. We have long accepted that we are never going to line up with the books 100%.
Do you or any of your team actually live in Seattle? Is this important?
Up until the last year we all lived in Seattle. I think this really helps us in the campaign as we can describe a particular street or neighborhood and we all have a familiarity with it.
Looking at your adventure logs, it would seem that you have different GMs reporting on events. Do you actually take turns as GM in your game? If so, what do feel are the benefits/drawbacks of this?
We rotate GMs giving everyone who is interested a chance to craft a story in the campaign. We divide these scenarios into “Books” with each one being a self-contained story that is informed by what has gone before. This is a great setup for us as it allows everyone to have a chance to be a player instead of being forced to be an eternal GM like it is in most games. It also allows us to experience a diversity of scenarios that keeps the game fresh and staves off the dreaded GM burnout.
How much time is usually spent preparing your game sessions? Describe a typical session.
I will let Brad, who is running the current scenario answer that question:
About an hour per session when I am running, but I can always use more. A typical session of prep for me is going over the previous logs, making lists of potential NPCs and encounters the players are likely to run into and locations they are likely to go. I write down my session goals and think about what happens if my players “jump ahead” somehow. I prep locations by looking at Google Maps of places they are likely to go and figure out where set piece moments could be.
But Players never do what you expect. If the players go somewhere I am not expecting, I just roll with it and follow my Improv Training of “Yes, and…”.
The current scenario (book 8) is a magical mystery, and I honestly don’t know how many sessions it is going to take for my players to figure out the main mystery. I would love for it to go for 3+ sessions before they figure it out, but the players could very well figure it out five minutes into Session 2 by making a Sherlock Holmes-worthy deduction or making a wild guess. I am prepared for both.
There are some amazing design aspects in your campaign (e.g. altered images, rain falling on the main page, great hover links, etc.) Who is responsible for this, and what words of advice can you give to aspiring creators on Obsidian Portal, who may not have a design background, but are wanting to improve the look of their sites?
I have been creating and refining the look of the campaign for years now. As a graphic designer, animator and artist, I truly enjoy creating the art and animations for the site. I have done over 150 character portraits and 300+ illustrations for the Adventure Logs over the years. I am constantly changing and growing the site as we progress and have completely redesigned all the art for the site three times now.
When I first started customizing my sites, I had no working knowledge of CSS or HTML and, with the help of the OP community I have since added both to my skill set. This actually helped me to land jobs in the real world.
My advice to anyone getting started with OP is to use the community to help them create the best campaigns possible.
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?
When our group first got together, I had been trying to keep a word document with all the Locations and NPCs we had created. However, it was unwieldy and disorganized not to mention hard for everyone to access and edit. Luckily one of the original members, Manu, suggested Obsidian Portal to compile all the information we had come up with during City Creation.
I fell in love with it immediately and started using it heavily. Obsidian Portal was so easy to use, and I began tinkering with the CSS to make the game look the way I wanted with help from the OP community. That ease of use, helpful community and versatility of OP is what keeps me coming back.
If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most?
Obsidian Portal has been invaluable in organizing our city locations, adventure logs and numerous NPCs. Having access to the locations and NPCs is vital for the GM as they consider their own storylines When we have had to fill in vacancies as people moved on the Adventure Logs have been great for introducing new members to the game. It allows the players to participate more fully in the campaign than I have ever seen in over 30 years of constant gaming. The access that Obsidian Portal gives us is wonderful for empowering everyone who wants to get involved.
What would you say is the biggest highlight of your game so far (please also provide images and links if possible)?
Because we are a rotating GM game, you really need to have a favorite moment as a player, and a favorite moment as a GM. As a GM, I had a building set up for a heist of some important magical documents. One of the players had his character bluff his way into the security room with some prep, disguises, and good RP. As I said goodbye to half my planned challenges, I was mentally applauding the RP and the character elements to get there.
As a player, my character found his hated foe and long-term nemesis, The Patient One, being held and actively drained for power by a monstrous foe. I made the call to free him instead of letting him be a casualty of the greater threat. FATE is such a great engine for tying the personal into the action, and the action into the personal.
Fergus Mac Cormaic’s wedding was a longtime coming. I was able to come back to the campaign just in time to be a part of it and I am glad that I did. We were wondering for a long time, “What could possibly go wrong at that wedding? It is not a question of if but a question of what and how bad.”. We knew we had to play it out.
Going into the Nevernever on a rescue mission was fun as hell and that Hag was deliciously scary.
Reading through the logs from before I returned, my favorite part of the game was when David Clay faced off against The Patient One and almost got dusted. It was a hell of a setup going into the wedding.
As a player on of my favorite moments was when Fergus Mac Cormaic finally decided to come clean about being a changeling to his fiancé’, Anna Maria Avila. Justins was GMing the game at the time, but I had previously roleplayed Anna quite a bit during my last turn at the helm and had really discovered her “voice”. Justins asked me to roleplay Anna as Fergus desperately tried to prove to her that he wasn’t losing his mind. That the supernatural did exist. It was an awkward, funny character moment in the game that I really enjoyed.
As GM my favorite moment was probably when I had a terrorist’s bomb take out a whole building with the PCs in it. Fergus had been separated from David in the blast. He managed to survive along with his rival, Doctor Wotensen, who he bravely rescued despite wanting to leave him behind so badly that he could taste it.
David was able to overcome the collapse of the building as well and managed to shelter Emmie Mercer and get her out alive. It was a fun session that required both players to think quickly to survive under deadly circumstances and it stands out to me because of the unique challenges it presented to them.
Without a doubt, my favourite moment from Emerald City was the infamous hex curse chase. My character had been ambushed and seriously wounded by a ghoul assassin and while being rushed to the local supernatural clinic by my large golem teammate, my character was targeted with a hex curse. Imagine Final Destination meets an on-foot Fast and Furious. Bits of masonry, out-of-control vehicles, suicidal citizens. All these were hurled at us as my partner carried me through the chaos. It ended with me being doused in running water from a demolished fire hydrant (it had been ploughed over by a rogue ambulance that narrowly missed us) to temporarily dissipate the curse until I could be brought to safe and shielded territory. It was just such a wonderful list of compounding disasters that took all our combined ingenuity and luck to avoid. It still makes me chuckle, years later.
Okay, as a returning winner, and also, a previous winner of Campaign of The Year 2020, you must have some shiny “pearls of wisdom” to offer…. Give us your best shot….
I think almost all success I may have managed as a GM has come from keeping an open mind and to listening to what players want. I may not always be successful at doing so. But when I am I find that my players often become more interested in the game because they have agency in what will happen next instead of just being spectators to what the GM dictates. This consensual approach is more satisfying both as a GM and a player and can often surprise the GM of the story as much as he does his players. The Emerald City: Requiem is not just my campaign. It is the campaign of all who took part in its creation and transition from old to the new game and who continue to add to its rich tapestry today. I expect it will continue to grow and change for many years to come.
Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month January 2022- “Lakes of Blood and Ash”
Utilizing the Exalted system, Lakes of Blood and Ash is a sprawling story nearly a decade in the making. Nehebkau and their party explore a rich, living world of political upheaval that threatens to fall apart- literally. Navigating this environment is a delicate balance that emphasizes the importance of discretion and soft skills as much, if not more, than martial merits. Read on for a peek behind the screen into the mind of the Storyteller who watches over it all.
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? Wife and kids? Where can we stalk you on the internet?
A big hello to all the storytellers and writers out there. My name is Chris Rose. I’m a 35 year old science/history teacher, both of said disciplines I use extensively in my storytelling. Married, no kids, my wife is my co-ST and we met gaming online before I moved north to be with her. We are both very dedicated to our craft and talk about the story each night before bed. What odd lives we lead.
In terms of reaching out to me, that’s probably best done on swordofcreation.net where I’m The Gemling Prince or else Discord where I’m Vael, The Gemling Prince#4126.
You use Exalted as a game system- what do you like about it? What would you, or do you, change?
I’ve honestly always struggled with it. I like the world, but I’ve had to rewrite tons of content from mechanics to major canon npcs to work for me. The system has largely drifted towards a more anime power-fantasy style of play reminiscent of Gurren Lagan or DBZ. I prefer to tell my stories in a more Greek Epic or Conan style, gritty and dangerous. I love the setting though and it gives me a lot of material to build my own house with.
It is clear that this campaign has gone on for a while- please tell us about Lakes of Blood and Ash in a nutshell.
Lakes of Blood and Ash is actually a continuation of another story in another Obsidian Portal Campaign of mine, The Silver Princes Awash in Crimson. Across the seven or eight years we’ve told our stories in the same living world. Retired PC’s become npcs, the best npcs, you know their goals and personalities so deeply. The goal is to make a whole living and breathing world, not just a game where the pieces move when the players move the spotlight around, freezing into place as they drift off. It’s ambitious and I’m never satisfied with it, but I view it as my magnum opus that I’ll likely work my whole life on.
The story is told akin to Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time. It pays a lot of attention to sociopolitical issues and the players often find themselves engaged in drama and debate rather than sword and sorcery. The focus is on a group called The Walkers – a group of Luna imbued demigods that seek to offer an alternative to the debt and tattoo binding systems of the Silver Pact.
How often do you play, and where do you play?
We’ve always played weekly for 4-7 hours. We started out on Skype, but when Discord became more popular, we moved there for recruiting purposes and found ourselves way preferring it there. We have our own discord server where we hang out and talk daily, a rarity among such Exalted servers!
How much time do you usually take to prepare for a session?
This actually is a more complex question than one might expect. I work on creating the world more akin to someone running a homebrew game. Creating NPCs and locations for scores of hours in bursts and then putting all of it on the back burner in my mind to enrich it. When it comes to game night, I may have a note card or I may not. Usually, I just wing it because I understand all the npcs well.
How do you know your players, how long have you been gaming with them?
Running the game so long, we have seen a lotta people come and go. There have probably been forty different people move through this game. I’ll just make note of the existing ones and the longest running ones. The only one who’s been through the whole story thus far, four full years in game taken day by day, eight years irl, is my wife. Then there is Bap, who’s been with us for a year and a half. Grad school ties him up a bit but he talks daily even when he can’t play. The third player is Will, who has only been with us for about six months. Everyone was met in an Exalted game first, but a great crew for sure.
I’d also like to credit two others. Heidi/Friti, who may well be back in the game in the future, still in the Discord and just waiting for the stars to align. Then there was Max, who played with us for a long time. He even helped write some locations and was a cool dude.
Keeping players involved is always a struggle, how do you keep them involved?
Well answering this question is going to make me seem a bit of a fiend. I don’t have much trouble keeping people involved. This is because I have an extensive interviewing process before players join the group, and even then, you have to make sure everyone gets along.
I tell people, the intent is to be with a player for 10,000+ hours. You can consider this a relationship or a job. The way we engage with this hobby is not as a distraction, but as artists and creators, with our whole passion. So, those in the game have risen to that call.
You actively use the map markers on your maps- what do you like about them?
I likely have over a hundred map markers. We are always looking at the map and calculating travel times, conducting geomantic surveys, and other such activities. The map and its markers are a great way to keep track of armies and groups on the move and which areas of the map are controlled by which factions and groups of interest via color. Love the map markers and looking forward to every set of new pins that rolls out.
You have a unique log system in your wiki- can you explain how it works?
I suppose I think of my log system as something of a nesting doll. I use images and hyperlink titles to direct readers to areas of interest. Within a category there are further subcategories and these continue to narrow until you are looking at specific people or a manse/fortress. It was a great revelation when I figured out how to put a back button at the end of each article. This allows one to just move to the previous page and navigate much more smoothly through the levels.
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?
I believe I’ve been using Obsidian Portal since its inception. What brought me to the site is in previous RPs as a player, I was never satisfied with the dispensation of information. I liked to delve into the npcs and learn more about the locations. This became a more serious concern when graduating from D&D to the Storyteller systems. In terms of bringing back? I never left, I expect my OP to outlive me and just hope there is someone to inherit it a couple decades out.
What would you say the single biggest highlight from Lakes of Blood and Ash has been so far?
First, I have to say, it’s a sandbox game – so the players take a lot of credit for how things play out. That said, there was this time where the players had purchased their way into the college of Raksi. It cost their mentor, MaHa-Suchi a great deal but the whole of university life was very odd to the players. One of the players could best be thought of as Mowgli from Jungle Book all grown up. He brought several animals into the dorms and then started sleeping on the lawn. This saw him arrested by campus security for a 24-hour lock up. Despite how minor the offense and the sentence, the players hatched a huge plot to bust him out. In the end, they left their friend behind and fled to the hills. We are usually very somber and serious, so these occasional silly and light hearted sessions can be a memorable and a good break for the IC stress meter.
Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GM’ing pearls of wisdom.
This game would have likely ended long ago if not for a firm hand. These days, it seems like most games I read about have the ST as nothing but a facilitator for the players with no agency of their own. It is important, even if it’s hard, for the ST to be firm. This won’t be for everyone, but to run a game similar to this one, it’s important to put the story first and be willing to argue your case in that regard.
A second piece of wisdom. It’s common to hear about session zero, but it is better when you can have a session -3,-2, and -1. If you plan to spend thousands of hours with someone, that’s a huge investment and you want to make sure you are a good fit for your benefit and to respect everyone’s time. Always keep in mind too, your players have made an investment and if you respect that, they’ll be much more likely to take ownership and shoulder the many burdens of a long running story.
Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month October 2021- Hogwarts and the Magic of the Founders
Five years have passed after the second wizarding war, and the dust is just beginning to settle. Hogwarts’ halls are again filled with shouts and laughter from a new generation of young witches and wizards. What new mysteries and dangers lie ahead? Fortunately, Marion_c and her party have decided to find out in our October 2021 COTM: Hogwarts and the Magic of the Founders. Using a system created by the GM and party themselves, the campaign follows a group of plucky new wizards as they navigate love, mysteries, power struggles and piles of homework. Learn more about this awesome system and the people behind it below!
How much time do you usually take to prepare for a session?
I usually take about one hour to prepare for sessions, sometimes two hours if there are a lot of things to research and write (or if I want to create a nice map). I rely a lot on improvisation, and I try to prep situations, not plots. Plus we’re using a fairly permissive homemade system which means creating encounters is very easy and can often be done on the fly.
However between “seasons” (basically school years), I take a lot of time to prep the main story lines and I use it as a guide during the following season. I also have a list of mini adventures and plot hooks that I can use whenever I need, and this allows me to give a lot of freedom to the players. This year we’re doing an exchange in Castelobruxo (Brazilian wizarding school), so I had to take a break to create a whole new school, students, teachers and plot ideas, and to do a bunch of research on South American folklore and history.
How do you know your players, how long have you been gaming with them?
I’ve known them since high school, they were the ones who introduced me to tabletop RPGs and we’ve been close friends since then! We’ve had several short campaigns and one-shots together, but this campaign is by far the longest-running one, and we plan to continue it for a long time (We’re in year 3, and we plan to keep going until year 7, and why not beyond.). We’re all big harry potter fans, and this particular campaign (Hogwarts and the magic of the founders) has been running since august 2017, so a bit more than 4 years. It was my first time GMing so I still have a lot to learn !
Playing together has made us stay in contact and grow closer, and we even went on a Harry Potter trip to London together for the new year in 2019.
Keeping players involved is always a struggle, how do you keep them involved?
When we play IRL it is far easier, players are always more involved and attentive, it can be a bit more challenging for online sessions but we try to keep them fairly short.
I know my players are not fans of combat so we usually keep fights pretty short, and I know that they love riddles, puzzles, mystery, exploration and doing mischief, so I try to include those as much as possible. I also try to have story lines that are compelling for their characters and for them, so session zero was very important.
Outside of sessions, we have many creative outlets inspired from the game, which keep everyone involved in the campaign : drawings, songs, memes, short stories … One of my players is even writing a novel based on an alternative ending to one of our sessions, if things had gone differently. It keeps the fire going and it’s a lot of fun.
I sometimes launch “creative contests” where they can create something based on a prompt and it gives them in game rewards. It’s what started the songs actually.
Your wiki customization looks great, did you do it all yourself?
I did, although it’s basically frankenstein code. I didn’t know HTML or CSS at all, so I tried to learn it as I went along and took bits of code here and there, trying to make them all work together. The OP forums helped a lot, but it was a lot of trial and error (and tearing my hair out during debugging!)
It was also a lot of fun to create buttons and a theme for the campaign.
I love the fact that you put a translate button on your opening/front page- what brought you to do that?
Writing a French campaign on an English-speaking website, I thought it would be nice if we could share it with more people ! I actually got the idea from another French campaign that won the monthly a year before I joined, “Les compagnons d’Ailleurs”.
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?
Since 2018 I think, I was looking for websites to help organize everything and I read about Obsidian Portal (maybe on reddit ? I’m not sure actually).
The website actually went far beyond what I needed, and I was super excited about everything it offered : the wiki, the adventure-logs, the characters, the secret sections, the customization…
It’s pretty easy to use even for a beginner, and I also love that my players can contribute to the content if they want. It helped a lot with organization and remembering things.
When I started it I really needed a personal project, and having fun creating my OP campaign and trying to learn CSS and HTML was really exciting and fulfilling. I don’t have as much time to spend on it now, but luckily my players help.
What would you say the single biggest highlight from Hogwarts has been so far?
I asked my players, here is what they said :
Théo (who plays a young werewolf) : That chaotic full-moon night, when my friends moved heaven and earth to try to restrain me and stop me from being discovered, but I still managed to escape and go on the prowl towards the Hufflepuff dormitory. Luckily I was stopped in extremis.
Lohéna : When we flexed on the Ravenclaws by solving the riddle of their common room, which allowed us to enter while transformed into huge canaries. We had a bit of fun and left abruptly, leaving the students dumbfounded. That’s when we got the “Team Canary” nickname.
Dylan : The night we finally took revenge on Dennis, a huge bully, and managed to break into his common room and frame him for a fire, which got him suspended. And also that time I got cursed and changed sex whenever I went through a door, and decided to use it to start a romance and mess around with other people.
As for me, the highlights are all the ways my players make me laugh, they always manage to say or do something unexpected.I try to write down the funny and dumb things they say, here are a few :
“You must know your enemy to become one”
“The only states of a magical school are ‘in danger’ and ‘soon in danger’ “
“I don’t really blame them for locking me in a cupboard”
“It would be so cool if there were nazis in the school”
“It’s inappropriate to show her your gobstones on the first date”
“When a slytherin tells the truth, do they lose housepoints ?”
“Would it be cultural appropriation to write on a papyrus?”
You say that this system was created specifically for this game, based on a classic D6. Please tell us about it.
We wanted to play a harry potter game but we couldn’t find any official system, and the few online fanmade systems didn’t suit us, so we decided to create one. We thought it wouldn’t take us too long but oh boy were we wrong, even the first draft took us months and we continued to work on it little by little as we played. We made a big update to the system last year, and now we’re finally pretty happy with it, although we still have a few last things to add soon.
We were fairly inexperienced when we decided to create it, and one of the systems we knew pretty well was the D6 system, so that’s the main reason we used it as a base. Trying to create rules for the rest of the universe that were coherent with the books and were still balanced was sometimes quite challenging, but my players all helped. And if something doesn’t work well, we just learn from it and try something new.
When we’re finally happy with the final rulebook, hopefully soon, I’ll try to paint a killer cover and then we’ll print it !
Do you use any other games, movies, books, or other media outside of the Potter world to influence your game?
Yes, definitely books, series, games, scenarios from other RPGs (and the structure of those scenarios) , other RPG systems to try and make our system more interesting, and even harry potter fanfictions for mystery plot ideas (but don’t tell my players!). I also go looking for ideas on reddit, or ask people in my life. I try to get every bit of inspiration I can!
A fun example is that in third year, they found the Wand of Kcajabbaw which is a reference to the Wabbajack in Skyrim. It’s a wand that fires a random weird spell, which usually has hilarious results.
Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GMing pearls of wisdom..
1) For me the main goal is that the players have fun, but don’t forget to have fun too !
Don’t stress, be kind to yourself and take breaks if you feel GM burnout coming.
At the beginning I prepped too much and I was often thinking “Am I good enough, are the players really enjoying themselves ?”. Because of that it was quite stressful and I often had a big dip in energy after each session. It’s much better now, and actually we have begun to end each session by thanking each other, it’s a small thing but it’s really nice.
2) Communication ! Session zero is super important, it allows you to know the expectations of your players, to set yours, and to get to know their characters and their motivations. A lot of issues can be avoided later if these things are discussed first. Also try asking your players for feedback and ideas regularly.
3) Don’t prep too much and be flexible. Try to see what your players enjoy the most and interact with spontaneously.
Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month September 2021- D&D 3.0: Tales from Mystara
Congratulations to Galero and party for winning Campaign of the Month, September 2021! D&D 3.0: Tales of Mystara tells the story of generations of adventures in a world 30 years in the making. Take a look below for a chance to peek into the mind of a talented and experienced GM!
First, 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? Wife and kids? Where can we stalk you on the internet. Let us know if you feel so inclined!
I am from the city of Cabo Rojo, in Puerto Rico. I am a project manager for a local company who implements electronic medical records on Hospitals, among other things. I am married with two kids, one is 25yo and the other 5yo. My wife used to play with us at the game table. The older one is a GM and has his own group. He learned to play as soon as he learned not to put the dice inside his mouth and rolled them for the first time. I love cinema, literature and crafting my own game scenarios and the scenery.
I have been Game Mastering since 1986 when I discovered AD&D and OD&D. I, currently, can be found on Facebook:
My Page: Mario A. Agrait RodríguezGroup Page: Stray Dogs Role Playing Games
Tell us about Tales from Mystara in a nutshell. How did it come to be and how long has the campaign been going on?
In a nutshell: “Tales from Mystara is a series of chronicles about the people who move forward to confront their fears and rise over the rest as heroes or villains (depending on the campaign group). They become the stuff of legends and their names are retold around the campfire of the next adventure group.”
We have been playing on the world of Mystara using the Known World referenced in the OD&D old Boxed Sets since 1986. Back then, before it was named Mystara, I named it Étira and my group and I designed the complete map of the world. Later, the Mystara setting was develop and we continue playing there. I have all the Gazetteers and many modules, and I merged my Étira with Mystara. In the current campaign we have 16 different adventure groups that played or are playing in the same game world with the same DM (me) across 30+ years.
I love storytelling and the interaction with the players to develop a campaign. Our campaigns are design to develop the stories and the characters. As we have been playing on the same world for 30+ years the retired characters of previous campaigns become NPC’s of the world and are part of the background that can interact with characters of newer campaigns.
We use miniatures and crafted scenery to play large battles. I love painting and crafting my own scenery. My players also love miniatures and help my craft.
You’re playing D&D 3.0. What drew you to that version of D&D, and what do you find appealing about it? Do you play any other games?
My group and I used to play OD&D for more than 20 years and then around the year 2002 changed to 3.0. We have adapted some rules from 3.5 and Pathfinder and added our own house rules into the mix. We found the 3.0 system good to customized characters, especially good tools for experience players (some of the members of my group have been playing with me for 30+ years).
We also play, SPACE 1889, d20 Modern, d20 Future, DC Heroes 3rd Edition, Gamma World 4th Edition. I’m the GM on these campaigns. Some of our players are GMs on their own campaigns, playing d20 Modern, D&D 3.0, 3.5 and 5E. I also used to play Star Trek by FASA and Shadowrun 2nd, still have the manuals.
Speaking of playing, where do you play and how often? How did the general worldwide Covid-19 situation force you and your players to adapt?
Normally we play at my house’s basement. We play each Friday from 7pm to 11pm. We also used to play what I call a Marioton (Marathon) for 12 consecutive hours one Saturday every three or four months.
The Covid-19 situation forced us to play on Discord online, using d20 for complicated battles, Dropbox to share files, the OP forum to do Play by Post during the week and finally our Facebook page to keep in touch. Using these tools, we managed to continue playing each Friday regularly from 7pm to 11pm.
How did you get into tabletop gaming?
This is possibly one of the weirdest RPG stories I know:
1. A boy named Eric was into Reading Science Fiction and Fantasy and wanted to play D&D. His mother gave him the Red Box OD&D set as a gift. He didn’t have anyone to play with though.
2. The boy named Eric decided to give the Red Box OD&D set to his neighbor Luis as a gift.
3. Luis took the boxed set to his friends, and they learned to play. Luis didn’t want to be the DM so he gave the Red Box OD&D set as a gift to Ismael.
4. Ismael became the DM and continued playing when he moved to another city to study at the university.
5. Ismael and I meet at the University. We were from different cities. He showed me the game and gave me the Red Box OD&D set as a gift. I then became a DM.
6. I moved to another city and met with a boy named Eric who wanted to play D&D all his life and didn’t have someone to play and he became my friend and one of my players.
7. My friend Eric was the first owner of the Red Box OD&D set I used for playing. See event #1.
You currently have 30 players listed in your campaign. How many players do you typically have each session? Is this a shared world? If so, what advice can you give to other GMs about managing a shared world campaign?
I cannot count how many regular players have been in my gamming group across the years, I say something between 60 and 100. The 30 players on the OP are the ones who joined OP since I started using it back in 2014. I have 10 regular players at this moment.
I sit at my physical (or virtual) table 9 players at a time. My world is share with other GM’s or groups that want to continue playing in the worlds we create. Is also share with the different campaigns I play. I could have one to three campaigns with different players running at the same time in the same world. They could cross paths and we can have special 12-hour gamming sessions for specially complicated adventures and battles merging all the groups. A “Mariothon” has up to 20 players on my basement. We coordinate the event with committees in charge of foodstuffs, cooking, cleaning and even organizing the parking space. Some of the players bring their own sleeping bags and sleep in my house.
Your character log is just massive. Who comes up with all those NPCs?
I have a love of characters and I created many of them, but the Character’s bios also include the players past and present characters. Players are encouraged to create character’s bios for NPCs like their family members and even for companions and familiars, even paladin’s mounts. This is a tool I use that expands the world, and I give them XPS for creating these entries.
I take the time to create each new NPC with at least a link to a place, organization or another character already created, and I also plant some interesting or strange fact on the bio as an adventure seed. With that in mind, no character should be created without being part of the world and with space to automatically expand itself within the campaign.
How much time do you usually spend preparing your game session? Describe a typical session.
The way I prepare my campaigns, each session is built in top of the previous one and oriented to move the campaign forward. I take 5-9 hours each week to prepare a session using that, but I also invest like 4-8 extra hours of creative time per week, adding to the OP material that helps the world grow, entries for future adventures and adventure hooks.
Our typical weekly session starts where the Play by Post ended or after the last weekly session ended. We divide the adventure in scenes and normally I try to have four main events that the players must confront and try to solve. I enjoy keeping a balance between Role Playing, Problem Solving and Combat events, but we also have sessions that are completely of one type. The players have freedom to choose the path they want, and the adventures are based on their decisions, so from time to time there are chunks of the adventure that needs heavy improvisation because of this. When the players take a path that I have not prepared for, that makes me more interested because it helps the world grow and the adventure to have and unexpected turn for me. They don’t know that I didn’t have that info, maybe I have a good bluff face (or so I think). Once the events are solved, and the adventure finished, I try to record the adventure log within the next 48 hours. I also ask them the high points and low points of the adventure and get some feedback.
Who is responsible for the design and content of the site? Do your players get involved in the creative side of the campaign? If not in the design, how would you say they get involved in progressing the storyline?
Mostly is my work as a GM to design the content of the site but I have a massive help from my players. We decide the objectives of a campaign before creating characters and establish the ground rules to achieve those objectives. Based on those accords, we build characters, entries, and adventures.
I give them special XP awards for adding material, but many do extra work for the fun of it and the creative liberty. I have one player that lives on another city far from us and loves to create content to maintain himself into the game as he cannot come to play on weekly basis. Now that we are playing online his contributions are more and he plays weekly.
The players have the option to comment on the adventure log, explore the world using Play by Posts during their downtime, keep logs of their characters, and to comment on the entries in character. All these options modify the content of the OP and their characters can find information during downtime about subplots allowing them to develop their character’s backgrounds and personal story.
For this campaign we worked together to build the Alphatian Empire and each character took one or more kingdoms to focus and work on the information and even to create descriptions of places. It was an expansive task that counted on the collaboration of all of them. Because of this it was a fulfilling result that everyone enjoyed. Once we started playing on that empire, they could find the places and NPCs they helped create and get a feeling of ownership and pride.
What does the future have in store for the brave characters of your crew? Without giving the game away, is there anything you can reveal?
The current campaign started 2016 with level 1 characters and they so far have reached level 20 and above. Now in epic levels, they have travel to a demiplane were a parallel apocalyptic version of Mystara named Taramis is the home of the main enemy of the campaign. They are there to finish him off for better and for worst with no way – yet – to come back to Mystara.
One of my players read this question you asked and answered: “They assume we are brave and not plain stupid.” Referring to the deep trouble they are right now and how the events that happened before took them there.
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?
I read about Obsidian Portal in the EndWorld Forums. I believe I started using OP to its full potential around 2014, but I joined and used it to store information a few years earlier. I was first interested in the wiki style of the entries and the character bios. Then as I was using it more and more the tool became a must have and the center of the campaign’s information. Before that, I used mail lists, file sharing, a weekly bulletin, and a page with a forum to keep the information in post format but OP is a LOT better.
If you had to pick just one thing, what would you say Obsidian Portal helps you with the most?
Only one thing? Is too difficult. OP has helped me so much I cannot begin to count all the things I see as optimal on the page. I think I have to say that the GM Only entries and GM Only boxes inside the entries are the feature I use more, and I that enjoy the most. I can write a complete adventure in one page and link to the characters bios and wiki entries and the adventure is there, hiding like a Mimic, waiting like a landmine for the characters to step on it.
What would you say is the biggest highlight of your game so far?
My players are the biggest highlight of my campaigns, I am very honored to play with them. I think the biggest highlight of my games will be the capacity of surprising the players after all these years. Something that makes them come back for more. Is either that or they have some secret desire to get new psychological scars each week.
Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GMing advice!
Concentrate on the story over the rules, and on the players over the rest. Once you commit to a gamming date, don’t change it, be consistent. Take the time to hear your players ideas and to incorporate them into the world. And take time to rest your mind, by playing other games or by taking vacation time from gaming.
And finally: Keep rolling those dice until the day you die!
Obsidian Portal Campaign of the Month August 2021 – City of Splendors. Dungeon of Madness.
Congratulations to sethwhite and company for winning Campaign of the Month, August 2021, with their dungeon-crawling creation, “City of Splendors. Dungeon of Madness.” Waterdeep and The Yawning Portal may be familiar fare to those among you who enjoy the classics, but take a deeper look and marvel at the treasures and trade-secrets below…
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Your campaign is set in Waterdeep – a city drowning in adventure hooks, plots, and interesting characters. What drew you to a city-based campaign and what are some of the pros/cons about urban adventuring?
The entire premise of this campaign is as a sandbox for urban and dungeon adventure. With the biggest city in the world sitting atop the biggest dungeon in the world, it’s primed for a lifetime of adventure. For the AI, we ran a game of the Lords of Waterdeep board game, with the Undermountain and Skullport expansions. With that one board game, we created an arc of major plots and conspiracies and power brokers of the city and much of the dungeon. I took pictures of where all the agents were, and the Quest and Intrigue cards that were played during each round. That “current clack” is continuing forward as the “meta plot” of the campaign, until it runs into the actions of the players, of course. Then the apple cart gets upended, and we’ll see what happens.
I’ve always been very interested in urban games, with the tangle of intrigue and vying political and economic interests that come with it. I really wanted a sandbox for the players to bite hard on hooks, or swim right past as they wanted, which meant I needed a lot of potential content, and a lot of factions that could get pulled in when the PCs bite. A city like Waterdeep is perfect for that. And I’m standing on a tower of giants as I use their great work to make this little campaign. Waterdeep itself is so rich and so big, with all the work of the great minds at TSR and WotC. Layer on top of that the amazing work at the Forgotten Realms wiki, Candlekeep, and Oakthorne.com, and there’s enough to slot in anything that the PCs are interested in exploring, or everything that’s linked to one of the plot hooks. I’m also using urban planning advice from The Alexandrian extensively in this campaign, as well as referring to other great city modules and settings, such as the City-State of the Invincible Overlord, Lankhmar, Vornheim, Zobeck, Freeport, and Ptolus.
It looks like you’re using a custom blend of Dungeons and Dragons rules and have some experience with some of the older systems. What rules work best for your group and style of play?
For this campaign I switched over to 5e. It reflects well the kitchen sink high fantasy Waterdeep, and is a simple enough rules system for most of my players, but with enough options for the couple of players who want to dig into character building. I’m mostly using the core rules, but I have a few variant rules or house rules. Healing is slower—requiring hit dice to heal; and I am using the treasure as XP from B/X to motivate treasure-hunting in Undermountain.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your players, and your lives outside of game?
We’re a gaming group in Minneapolis, in my home with a group of friends. I run a somewhat open table of players—about ten or so semi-regular players with 5 regular players. Any session has between 3-7 PCs. I’m in graphic arts and advertising, and we have several players who are interested in the arts and music, as well as those who work in data and computers. The core players are Owen, Eric, Dave, Luke, and Sarah. And other less regular players include Hannah, Paige, Steve, Charlie, and Jake.
We started in-person at the beginning of the game about a year and a half ago, and we switched to Roll20 during the pandemic. Games started biweekly, but have become closer to monthly lately as my schedule with work and home projects got in the way.
How did you get into gaming? How did your gaming group find each other?
I started gaming in middle school, in 1990 in a small town near Madison in southern WI. I played a hodge-dodge of D&D Rules Cyclopedia and AD&D with other friends. I played for a few years, and even went to GenCon a couple times when it was in Milwaukee. I stopped for about a decade, and got back into it in 2005 after I moved to Minneapolis. I played in a couple random groups in the twin cities. One of my players, Charlie, was someone I met through D&D at the wizards website. He runs a lot of OSR style games, and I poached some players from his game. The other players include my wife, some friends from design and advertising, and the husband and brother of one of my gamers. There has been some changing of the guard over the last couple years as players start families, or move; most of the regular players now weren’t playing in my game 3 years ago. I feel it’s necessary to run an open table style game because of everyone’s real life commitments, which I’m finding can be a challenge in a mega dungeon.
“City of Splendors” features a mega-dungeon — Undermountain: The Dungeon of the Mad Mage — beneath the streets of Waterdeep. Do you have any advice for GM’s who may want to run a mega-dungeon campaign or have you encountered any challenges while running one?
Underneath the biggest city in the world is the biggest dungeon in the world. I’m using the “Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage” module as the core for setting content. I also am including all previous versions of the dungeon as well: 2e Ruins of Undermountain 1 and II, 3e Expedition to Undermountain, and 4e Halls of Undermountain. And then of course the plots and intrigue from the Lords of Waterdeep. One crucial learning was how to run the mega dungeon, especially with an open table. In the beginning it was all dungeon crawl in Roll20, showing the map and narrating each hall and chamber. But now as they’ve explored more, I’ve opened travel to areas they know in the dungeon as if they were traveling in the city. It’s still dangerous, and they may trigger an encounter, but following a map from the Entry Well to Downshadow is only a little more dangerous than navigating the Dock Ward at night. Things I’m intentionally doing in the dungeon:
Creating active factions that span floors and that have vested interests and goals, and that interact with different factions.
Creating “residential zones” that are safe enough throughout the dungeon, so that I can allow for resting and beginning a session with new players. Some are already built in, like Skullport and Wyllowwood, but I want to make sure there are enough secure areas of potentially allied or neutral factions that can be discovered to allow the game to run efficiently.
I’m also opening the gates and stairs to “jacquay” the dungeon, as the Alexandrian calls it. I want to make sure that the PCs and factions are moving between floors to make the place a living, breathing community.
I’m also trying to seed dangerous areas with clues that they PCs are out of their depth. I have a gate from level 1 to level 10, and I plan to put a recently destroyed stone golem right in the entryway if they go through the gate, so they can have a clue about the level of threats there.
I’m also attempting to include other adventuring companies, or the remains of them, as well as monsters and faction members. I think dead creatures or even bloody handprints or trails are a great way to develop the recent history of the dungeon and introduce new factions. I also think prisoners of factions work really well for this, and to dangle plot hooks.
Your campaign pages on Obsidian Portal are very well organized, cross-referenced, and tagged, and your wiki is a very useful reference tool. Has this been helpful when managing the complexities of Waterdeep?
This has been essential for my game. In a city of over a million people, hundreds of locations, and dozens of factions, it’s helpful to have a way to drop some tweet-sized common knowledge on the page. I’m using Obsidian Portal as much of my campaign journal, and create a location, NPC, or faction with a small snippet of common knowledge, and then use the GM secrets to flesh out the plots, deeper lore, and secret connections to other elements of the campaign. I am also using the various secret societies and factions like the Harpers, Knights of the Shield, Monsters, etc, so the Secrets section is particularly valuable. The wiki looks different for different players, and it allows my player who secretly belongs to a spy group to have contacts and know things the other players don’t know.
What highlights of the campaign have your players enjoyed, so far?
I have a wide range of play styles in my group. The bard is really interested in making a name for himself in the city and is performing at top venues. He just booked a gig at the Amnian Embassy, which the party knows has old Shadow Thieves smuggling tunnels currently being used by the Xanathar Guild to smuggle slaves down to Skullport. We’ll see how that plays out when the Fey Day concert series happens. Another player is very invested in Forgotten Realms lore, and enjoys all the canon Easter eggs that pop up from time to time. He’s a sun elf, and so I try to tie in the old lore of Aelinthaldaar into the game with relevant plot hooks. Another player is a haughty spoiled noble, so interactions between noble families is becoming important, and is a focus when she plays. The party has just unlocked the second level of Undermountain, and are entering the Goblin Bazaar. I plan to really make that place over the top, and expand on what’s been done to make it a fun and vibrant place with weird stuff for sale, zany characters, and of course ridiculous goblin carnival games.
What part of the story are you most proud of? Or, what was the most enjoyable moment for you as the GM?
I wasn’t as familiar with Forgotten Realms lore before starting this game, so it was enjoyable to really dig into the lore, and come up with obscure characters from the early game. It’s also fun to play around with iconic characters, so I’m trying to work in the many Mary Sues (good and evil) of the Forgotten Realms in a way that doesn’t steal the thunder from the PCs.
You have lots of great extras throughout the campaign — a very detailed adventure map, house rules, guides to deities and factions, and a place for rumors and public notices. The campaign calendar is especially cool. What elements have been the most useful for your gaming group and which ones are the most fun to create?
The maps and campaign calendar have been essential to the game’s organization. I am only planning it about a month ahead of the PCs, but it allows me to mark all the major festivals to create color and plot hooks, and also to mark down when different events are slotted to happen as the Game unfolds. It’s not all on Obsidian Portal yet; a lot is still in my notes on my mac, but it’s something that I’ve enjoyed putting together. I also think the factions all need to be firmed up so I can link to them and connect them together in the plot spiderweb the PCs are navigating. I don’t have them all fleshed out yet, because there are so many layers of street gangs, crime syndicates, scheming nobles and guilds, power-hungry mages, and of course the disparate churches and cults and orders.
A lot has been written over the years about this particular setting. Do you prefer to draw your adventures from published source material, make up your own stories, or do a bit of both?
In this campaign, I’m trying to use the published sources as much as I can. I have a few players that know a lot of Realms lore (more than I do likely), and I don’t want to ruin the fun of the rich lore. I also think it’s a great way to spark ideas and to create stories and plots. There is so much that’s been done in this city, and it’s really cool to have such interesting characters and locations to draw from. The Xanathar, Mirt, Artor Morlin, Halaster Blackcloak, the Masked Lords, etc are all such fun and exciting characters to play around with. I’m also adding my own characters into the setting too of course, and even taking ideas or factions from other sources.
Can you give us any hints about the future of the campaign without giving too much away? Or, do you have other, upcoming projects?
The future of the campaign really lies in the hands of the players. I know what the major factions in the city and dungeon are trying to do, and yes there are apocalypses planned if no one intervenes. The city may collapse into Undermountian if the Melairshield finally fails, or the Dark Army of the Night may recover the thread of the Shadow Weave from the Knot and plunge Waterdeep into the Plane of Shadow, or an avatar of Ghaunadaur may be summoned from the Pit, or Halaster Blackcloak may send a mechagolem into the city above to wreak havoc. Or the Amcathras may corner the market on ice wine. Lots of plots big and small, and we’ll see what the PCs grab onto and if they themselves become the movers and shakers of the City or the Dungeon, or both.
As far as other projects, I’ve been working on my Velnswood campaign. I started it a few years back, but it wasn’t quite ready. The idea of that one is a fantasy 13th century game set in the Baltics during the Northern Crusades. It’s a fascinating time and place where the Teutonic Knights are crusading against both the pagan viking-like Baltic warriors and the Russian princes, and the Holy Roman Emperor is branded an antichrist by the Pope, all while the Mongols are sweeping through Poland and Hungary to the south. This would be a OSR game, and it would dive deep into brutal scorched earth warfare, and religion with all the Christian schisms, sects, heresies, and pagan pantheons. I think there’s a lot of potential for an interesting sword and sorcery game set on the frontier between Latin Christendom and Eastern Christendom, with the last pagan nation between, in that time between the Dark Ages and the High Middle Ages.
Finally, Obsidian Portal always loves to ask if you have any advice or clever tricks to share, as a GM, a site-designer, or as a gamer in general.
I would recommend a campaign calendar tool as part of the wiki so that it’s easier to build a campaign calendar. I don’t know how many other people would use it, but it was nice to create something like that for my campaign, and it would be neat to have a more seamless add-in.
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And with that, we must shut the tavern doors for the night. Many thanks to sethwhite and the “City of Splendors” gaming group for sharing their work and insights with us. We hope you’ll do a little exploring of your own and draw inspiration from the work within this fine campaign. Until next month – Happy Gaming!
