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First off, feel free to tell us about the person(s) behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do both aside from gaming? Wife and kids? Where can we stalk you on the internet, that sort of thing!
My name is John and I'm from Toledo, OH. I'm thirty four years old, and I'm a gamer in just about every sense of the word. I work in the telecommunication industry. When I'm not gaming or working I'm generally spending time with my wife and/or two daughters. As for the stalking bit, I'm basically the only Abersade on the internet so if you want to chat just let me know.
So…tell us about the Rise of the Durnskald, Dax, and the Story
Rise of the Durnskald is the first campaign (of three) of the Wrath of the Fallen Goddess story line, chronicling the introduction of the Durnskald race from the fabled continent to the east and Xax, their goddess of corruption and disease. Durnskald society is strictly class based and is split between three main groups, the Champions of A'ki, the Fateweavers, and the common folk. In the first few sessions Summer (a woman with a strange appearance and odd powers) was introduced, the party escorted her to the capital city and after many sessions and much strife found out that she is in fact one of the Durnskald.
Interestingly, she exhibits none of the corruption that is typical to the Durnkald. This fact and further research led the party to the conclusion that the Durnskald are a race of people that have been twisted by the corrupting influence of A'ki and Xax. The party has mixed feelings in regards to the Durnskald possibly being redeemed in some fashion should this corruption be removed. To complicate things even more the party has been both hunted and assisted by Whisper Mayfevr, the Prophetess of A'ki and the head of the Fateweaver caste. Some of the party is sympathetic to Whisper while others are extremely wary of her.
Meanwhile a whole different scenario has been unfolding on the floating continent known as Crinoa. The Tsochar (a race of parasitic mind controlling worms) have been left to infest the countryside while The Consulate (the governing body of Crinoa) is locked in a civil war with the agents of The Institution, a group of rebels being lead by Dax Orbidal (ex-Grand Arbiter of The Consulate), the Mechromancer (head of the Crinoan warforged) and Linden Windborn (the last member of the old Crinoan nobility).
Things have been heating up in the Elemental Kingdom of Old Organith as well, the adventurers have made several new potential enemies and allies. They've befriended a massive manticore and his tribe of kobolds, they've slain a lesser avatar of Jubilex, covered up the evidence of an Aboleth's influence, and accidentally let loose an obsidian shard breathing dracolich whose intentions are entirely unknown. Next up? Yuan-ti vampires!
On top of all of that is the rumor that the Barrier of Souls is powered by some sort of foul and aberrant magic stemming from the Far Realm. The Barrier of Souls is the only thing keeping the last bastion of civilization on Galavan from succumbing to the horrors from the Plane of Shadow and the Far Realm so this presents a rather large problem. House Eltrus and the Chapter of Everlasting Growth are in control of the Barrier but won't go into details on how the Barrier is maintained; some of the other Houses have begun calling their loyalty into question.
You have been playing this game for a while now- what is the most memorable thing that happened for you, the GM? What is the most memorable to your players?
We actually just passed the two year mark. A lot of memorable things have happened but I think the event that had the largest impact would be when the entire party died and found themselves in Arborea. There had been a combat with a Druid who had a rather unique ability, he could assume the form of a large pile of sand (like a sand mummy). Not realizing this, the party scooped the sand that was the druid and his belongings into their Bag of Holding.
This was problematic because the druid had his own extra-dimensional storage item, a portable hole. The party didn't survive the ensuing explosion. Once in Arborea they managed to strike a deal with Bacchus, in return for agreeing to help seed his religion on their home plane he would restore them to life. The players took the deal and were resurrected.
There was one other "catch" though. Bacchus couldn't restore them to life in the exact same state that they had been in due to their home plane being so corrupted. Instead they were resurrected as if they had come from an alternate reality where the corruption wasn't present.
This lead to a new problem, they weren't the exact same people that they had been prior to dying. Scars were erased (in one case removing a flaw that a player had taken), memories were different, and they were brought back in the exact same spot that they had died in which meant that they found little bits of themselves scattered around the woods. It was a very interesting session.
All of this was made even better by the fact that they all chose to get resurrected again once they made it back to civilization. This created a duplicate of each character (since the original version of each character wasn't what was resurrected by Bacchus). As the GM I had a blast as the players played through the very confused conversations between the duplicate characters, each voicing both halves of their respective conversations. It was complicated and would have resulted in a whole second party being created if it weren't for the fact that one of the characters couldn't live with there being two of herself and killed one of them off after they came to an agreement about which one should continue living.
I see you had a player death- how did that go?
We've had a few deaths but the most game-changing was when our Killoren monk died while in the affected area of a Plaguestone. In our setting, Plaguestones are lesser artifacts created as portable fonts of negative energy. Larger Plaguestones tend to reanimate those that die in their vicinity. Our monk died (he would say that this was because he lacked discipline) and was immediately resurrected as a Necropolitan. He quite enjoys the special perks of his undead body and I'm actually uncertain if he'll ever pursue resurrection at this point.
You have players do journals- how do you motivate them to do so?
My players don't complain but that's likely due to the fact that they earn Roleplaying Points for each journal entry that they write. In our game the journal entries are important because they really serve as what people would generally think of as adventure logs, since after the first few sessions I changed up how I was doing the logs to include mainly information that the players wouldn't have. This allowed me to include backstory, lore, and conversations from characters that the players couldn't have witnessed.
The Roleplaying Points that they earn for writing the journals can be used to buy all sorts of abilities for their characters, it's similar to Player Rewards, Karma, or Prestige Points on a basic level although it's evolved a bit now that we've been using it for roughly a year.
You are playing D&D- what edition? What do you like about it? What don't you like? Are you considering changing editions, and if so, why (or why not)?
We play 3.5 with several house rules. I take issue with the limitations that 3.0 and 3.5 placed on characters from alternate races so I've come up with my own system for balancing things out. I feel that 3.5 offers the most robust class, skills, and feat choices; the rules basically cover everything that's likely to come up and many things that aren't. With 3.5 you can basically make any kind of character you want (GM willing, of course) and the rules are likely already there to support it. That does have a drawback though as it can take a significant amount of time to locate a rule if it's for an uncommon circumstance. Still, it beats dealing with Thac0.
I won't be changing systems for this game but from the time I've spent with fifth edition it looks promising.
Who does the wiki?
I handle the wiki nearly exclusively.
What inspires your game play?
I pull inspiration from all sorts of things really. The setting itself started off based loosely on a campaign I played in almost twenty years ago. Since then I've pulled elements from other games I've played and books I've read, molding the setting into what it is now. I was creating a page for this very topic on our wiki sometime last year as a sort of "behind the scene" thing when I realized how heavily influenced the setting was by Final Fantasy 6 and the other RPGs from the Super Nintendo glory days. Physics theories involving multiple dimensions plays a large part in the plot line and history too. Warhammer 40k, the older World of Darkness stuff, and the Legend of Zelda have all influenced things too as well.
How do you know your players, how long have you been gaming with them?
The original core of our group consists of myself and three players; my wife and two of my friends from work. As a group we've been gaming together for around nine years now. Roughly four years ago we took on another member from work who has stuck around for multiple campaigns. Our other two players are new to the group having started playing with us for this campaign.
I can't say enough good things about my players, honestly. I can trust that they can break the rules but also that they know where the line is and they are patient with me when I have to adjust rules and situations to match what we refer to as "D&D Physics". All of them are dedicated gamers who understand not only the rules of the game but also how their characters work so things run really smoothly for the most part. They are also very good at knowing when and when not to be silly, which is something I've had issues with before. I'm really lucky to have them.
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?
I've used Obsidian Portal for five and a half years now spanning two games as the GM and one as a player. The linkable wiki is what convinced me to try it out and I've been hooked ever since. One of my favorite features is the ability to customize the CSS, having a cohesive theme really helps set the right tone.
Who has helped you on OP in designing your site/CSS/Advice?
Many GM's have helped me immensely along the way, although I'm not sure many of them actually know it. Specifically Adoraith who helped me get the CSS started by having a great starting point to tweak from (I "borrowed" so heavily from his CSS at first that I've left a comment in my own thanking him there too), and Jotaro1313 (a web developer whom I used to work with) who was really helpful when I would get stuck on certain problems. There are many more people I'd like to give a shout-out to (in no particular order): Basileus, BBPlainwell, Onsilius, Arsheesh, Killervp, SkidAce, Thorvaldr, Billy_Blackerby, Saethone, Ketherian, the ever-inspiring ChainsawXIV, Bortas, Alex_Redeye, Maesenko, GuyKilmore, Twiggyleaf, Jerry, and literally everyone else who ever answered one of my questions on the forums. They've all been amazingly helpful.
Lastly, any Pearls of Wisdom for using OP? For a DM?
Learn to customize your site's CSS, then do so. A few months ago I decided to disable all of my CSS just to see what the site would look like, it was completely unrecognizable. The changes I make to the CSS never really seem like anything that big: a different color of font here, a drop shadow there, it all seems so small. Turning it off made me realize just how much of a difference I was making. This was further reinforced when I needed to reference some history and lore from the previous game that I used Obsidian Portal for, The Book of Destruction. I wasn't an Ascendant member when I initially created it and never really bothered with the CSS once I switched to Ascendant. As a result that site is ugly and poorly laid out, I never want to go back to that.
I look at it this way and this really applies to both GM'ing and using Obsidian Portal: If you are going to bother doing it at all then you should put the effort in. Go Ascendant and build your world to the best of your potential.
And there you have it; that's all for this month. Be sure to check back soon and find out what March has in store.]]>
We know the post is a little bit overdue but we're getting things back on track here and what better way than to get a big announcement out of the way. There were a ton of great campaigns in 2014 and running this every year it seems to get harder and harder to pick just one campaign to root for!
Before we get to the big drumroll though I need to let everyone know about some changes to the Campaign of the Year prize. This year, we're going to be giving our winner a $75 Amazon gift card. Yes it's a little less bombastic than a trophy filled with dice, but it's sure as heck going to go alot further and allow the winner to score some awesome gaming schwag!
So, let's get back on track here. There were a ton of great games up for the prize this year, but I'm pleased to announce that with over 40% of the vote, the winner is…Regnum! So be sure to stop by AZ_Rune's game and say congrats next time you get a chance!
Stay tuned for the next few campaign of the month for February and March of 2015, they will arrive soon on the blog here! Until then, game on!]]>
It's that time again! Start casting your votes for who should win the title of Campaign of the Year for 2014. Our winner will not only receive the prestige of the title itself, but a gilded trophy filled with dice!
Need to jog your memory? Check out the quick links below or just hit up the blog archives and do some research. Then be sure to cast your vote at the bottom of the post here. Good luck!
Please take note that below the default choice goes to January, this unfortunately is by design of our form software. Please pay close attention and nominate the right campaign before you click submit.
If the form below isn't working, you can visit the voting page directly.]]>
First off, feel free to tell us about the person(s) behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do both aside from gaming? Wife and kids? Where can we stalk you on the internet, that sort of thing!
My name is Stephen Pool, I'm 24. I'm originally from Washington but I've lived in Moscow, Idaho for nearly seven years now. Because people get uppity when you don't pay bills, I work as a research economist and occasionally continue my work as a graduate student at the University of Idaho. I predominantly do local area impact analysis work with a local professor, though I occasionally do cost/benefit analysis work for engineering firms or other businesses. As you can tell, my work makes for extremely interesting small talk. No wife or kids, though I have a husky that whines like a baby if she doesn't get a share of my dinner. I don't really have any sort of internet presence, aside from a few of my studies circulating out on the internet.
Skies of Glass is decidedly a collaborative effort, so it wouldn't be right to go on without at least briefly introducing my players. We have Cayden, our lesser angel inquisitor, who's currently in college studying computer science and does programing work for a local engineering firm. Ned, our shapeshifter wild mage, is currently in college studying wildlife resources and regularly works as our party chef. Finally, we have Reikhardt, our leonin paladin, who is a published fantasy author and works as a professional copy editor.
So…tell us about Skies of Glass in a nutshell
Skies of Glass started as something of a thought experiment a few years back. I'd just gotten back into a Pathfinder game after something of a break and was in a game that, while fun, had a distinctly "railroaded" feel to it. It got me thinking, "What if I made a world, instead of making a story?" That sort of freeform world seemed like it would be a dream for an advocate of Player Agency (the ability for a player able to control their own in-game destiny), and it seemed like it could be a mess of fun if done right. But, I needed the right system and setting to make it work.
I decided to dust off an old Magic: The Gathering Tabletop RPG I'd started working on years ago. The system was designed to bring Pathfinder's core mechanics together with Magic's Multiverse setting, giving me a rich assortment of worlds, races, and stories to draw from. The game itself runs much like D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder, but with a variant that allowed magic to be accessible to all players, rather than just a few specific classes. The five pools of magic replaced class spell lists, mana points replaced the old spells per day/spells known rules, and all classes now have at least a small amount of magic available to them.
With the mechanics for Skies of Glass in hand, I set to my first major goal – creating a free-form world that could surprise even me. After establishing the world of Creed and its major continents, nations, organizations, and the major players in the world, I set to creating a system of "controlled chaos" to help guide the story my players and I were making in occasionally unexpected directions. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of work done upfront to get the system running. I had to develop extensive reserves of major NPCs, unique items, and fantastic locations, create entire folders full of story seeds, mystical events, and, more importantly, hunt down the best random generators I could find for the secondary details in the world. I even adopted some excellent hex travel and random encounter mechanics to help keep travel and even day-to-day life in a city interesting and unpredictable.
When I started our game just a few months later, we ran a couple sessions of the party as children, touching on events in their lives as they aged, and ran their final tests before graduation. After giving them a few connections in the world, I set them free to do whatever they wanted to and set to work guiding the story they developed. Reikhardt, talking about our game, said "It's the first and only tabletop game I've ever played that felt completely open-ended and packed full of stuff to do at the same time. Sure, I've played homebrew settings before or homemade modules that moved from one place in the world or worlds to the next, but none with the unbridled freedom found in Skies of Glass. We're not just getting a 'hero' label slapped on us and pointed at the local marauding dragon. We're in a living, breathing world and taking our place in it." Cayden and Ned, the verbose fellows that they are, followed with a quick "Ditto." Love these guys.
What do you enjoy most about D&D?
As a GM, my favorite thing about D&D 3.5, and Pathfinder specifically, is just how easy it is for me to build within the system. Skies of Glass has more than 30 base races, many of which are races fans of Magic: The Gathering should find familiar – flamekin, kitsune, leonine, loxodon, and viashino, just to name a few. We also have swaths of new materials, new items (over 200 unique items and counting), and a totally unique enchantment mechanic. Between the race creation guidelines developed for Pathfinder and the item creation guidelines developed in D&D 3.5, we have some excellent source material to work with. More importantly, it lets my players build within our world. It's far from perfect, but it works within a certain margin of error, and I've found that a system that lets me and my players all design content for our game to be absolutely invaluable.
Regarding tabletop role-playing games as a whole, our group really enjoys them for two major reasons: cooperative storytelling and immersive role-play. As Reikhardt puts it, "It combines my love of writing with my love of theatre — the wonderful improv dialogue you get when good friends get together to tell a story is priceless, whether we're invading a necromancer's fortress, relaxing at some hot springs, or having a crisis of faith and being supported by your friends."
How regularly do you play, and where do you play? (If you play online, do you use any certain tools to accomplish your gaming such as Google hangouts, roll20, etc.)
We aim to play every Sunday, right here in my living room, though school crunch and family demands occasionally mean we skip a weekend here or there. North Idaho has this nasty habit of getting cold in the winter (shocking, I know) and giving us some pretty icy roads. So, during the winter, we usually call a hiatus until travel improves. During these downtimes we usually run short, vignette-styled games with what fraction of our group can still get together. These short story games allow us to explore other places and other times on Creed, letting us develop the world from a different angle without spoiling anything for the main game.
Who puts all of your wiki together?
By and large, I do the leonin's share of work on the wiki. The world and its people, the mechanics and items – I either created or assembled most of that. I also write up the occasional message, report, newsletter, or vision my players receive using the Adventure Logs. However, since I'm usually putting up multiple new pages a week, I rely on my players to edit pages for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and occasionally fact-check to keep our wiki internally consistent.
Spells are the one part of the wiki we all really chip in for. Since magic is such a huge part of Skies of Glass and is much more accessible than in a normal Pathfinder game world, we wanted to carefully curate the list of spells we allowed. So, we'll all sit down from time to time and burn through huge swaths of 3.5 and Pathfinder material to find spells we like, or edit them until we like them. We also take time to build new spells as needed, bonus points if we can base it off an existing Magic: The Gathering card. So far we have more than 1,200 spells approved for our game, with more being added from time to time.
Where do you draw inspiration from when preparing your game?
Skies of Glass is set in the Magic: The Gathering universe, so unsurprisingly some of the stories and characters call back to that origin. A lot of the monsters I use in the game are my own interpretations of MTG creatures, and a number of spells, items, or other mystical elements in the world come from that same source. Calling it incidental fanfiction probably wouldn't be unfair, though I prefer to think of it as an elaborate love letter to Wizards of the Coast.
Beyond that, I find I draw quite a lot of inspiration from real-world stories and events. My players have interacted with the inspirational byproduct of many a Grimm Fairy Tale and more than a few fables and legends. Our communal experience with story elements from games such as the Legend of Zelda, Chrono Trigger, Dark Souls, and even Monster Hunter have invariably influenced our game. Fortunately, we work aspects of famous and more highbrow stories such as Don Quixote, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the likes of Monty Python into our world to class up the joint.
How much time do you usually take to prepare for a session?
For most sessions I prepare fairly little, letting the events of the day develop naturally. Our system of "controlled chaos" forces me to regularly react to unexpected circumstances. I can make some predictions given how well I know both my players and my NPCs, but even then, every session to date has surprised me in one way or another. Most of the preparation for a session honestly takes the form of forum discussions about things like new spells or magic items, what Ned's cooking for our next game, or any downtime events between games.
Music is one of the few things I find myself regularly working on between sessions. Since the beginning, music selection has been an integral part of our efforts to create proper tone and mood for Skies of Glass. Towns each have their own unique theme music, even some enemies and events have dedicated songs. We've all spent a chunk of time building a great library of music with more than 3,000 songs specifically for our game, and I try to add at least a few new songs to that list every week. As Cayden notes, "Music has helped our campaign feel so much more alive. It can help you feel the emotion of a scene, or foreshadow a sudden shift to something more somber and serious. The right music can absolutely make or break a scene – bringing you closer to your characters, creating a truly immersive experience."
However, I do occasionally get the chance to run a good old fashioned, multi-session dungeon romp, and those usually end up taking a few days of free time to build. I still utilize randomization as much as I can, but I enjoy taking the opportunity to build bizarre environments, puzzling challenges, and some really cinematic battles. Similarly, I love the opportunity to build unique and thematic rewards for these adventures.
Aside from D&D I'm sure you have played other systems too, what are some others you enjoy?
Over the years I've predominantly played in and run D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder games. I've played a small amount of D&D 4th edition but wasn't terribly thrilled with it. However, Wizards' most recent system looks very promising — it feels like they've gone in a much stronger and more flavor-rich direction with 5th edition. Unfortunately, aside from devouring the books, my only real exposure to it has been watching the incredibly fun Temple of the Lava Bears podcast done by Loading Ready Run — hopefully I'll get a chance to poke at those mechanics myself at some point. It's very possible we'll end up incorporating elements of 5th edition into Skies of Glass at some point; goodness knows my players have already been suggesting possible additions.
Other than that, my players and I have explored a handful of other systems – GURPs, Exalted, Shadowrun, Fading Suns, and a very unique homebrew system based on the Fallout games, just to name a few. Not too long ago, we began playing a Mage: The Ascension game, the only other game we're actively running at the moment. First game I personally have played in the World of Darkness and I'm certainly finding it a unique setting to explore.
How do you know your players, how long have you been gaming with them?
Reikhardt and I have been good friends since 2008. We were both in the same dorm and we ended up getting to know each other at one of the first few tabletop games I was ever in, one he ended up taking over and running for nearly a year in fact. He and I have been in probably a dozen-odd games since then, playing with a handful of other local players over the years. I finally met Cayden and Ned when I joined a game Reikhardt was running in 2012 and the lot of us have been close friends ever since. We've all got our strengths and weaknesses, checks and balances against each others' quirks, so gaming together has been a real joy over the years.
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?
I've been using Obsidian Portal since late 2009…and wow that seems like a long time ago. I'd been playing D&D 3.5 for around a year and a half at that point and decided it was about time I tried creating my own game. I was looking at running a retelling of the adventures of The Weatherlight, but I was concerned that the depth of the Magic: The Gathering universe might be a problem for my players unfamiliar with the setting. When I found Obsidian Portal, I realized I'd found a medium I could use to easily record and share world histories, racial traits, and political bullshit – the small details that I felt were absolutely vital for the story I wanted to tell.
Now that the Reforging has been live for a little while now, what are your favorite parts?
The improved search function, without a doubt, was my group's favorite addition. Skies of Glass has more than 1,300 pages in the wiki and it's pretty easy to lose things in that jungle.
What's been the biggest highlight of Skies of Glass so far?
When I asked my party to pick a "best moment" for me to write about, I wasn't really surprised they all had the same answer, it was my personal choice as well. It was late last December and, through a set of unexpected circumstances, our paladin, Reikhardt, was dying. Having been knocked unconscious by the arctic breath of a rimefire dragon, he was freezing to death and slowly turning into a leonin-shaped block of ice. The party had teleported just outside the elven capital after fleeing the attacking dragons. But even as the guards were rushing to the academy to find a mage who could possibly undo the transformation, the players realized their friend didn't have nearly that kind of time. Our wild mage, Ned, decided to use a powerful Object of Legend (what other settings would call an Artifact) that was bound to him and managed to save the paladin's life.
Heading into the city, the adventurers decided to take some time off and enjoyed a day of excessive relaxation – at least, until midnight. Right as the town clock began to chime, a fae ally of theirs (a rarity in Creed) appeared in their room and told them, in no uncertain terms, that they were being hunted. A great enemy of the elves, the Fairy Queen, had been watching the city that day and noticed the presence of the legendary object – an object she greatly desired, as she believed it would be key in setting her and her children free from their Faewoods prison. She would be coming for it, with an army of fae at her back, and she would stop at no cruelty to have it, and the wild mage it was bound to, be hers.
What began as a completely random encounter — a thread into a minor story the adventurers could choose to pursue — became something completely game-changing that I never would have seen coming. Ned, having been right at the heart of the situation, perhaps says it best. "The natural chaos of the setting created a scenario straight out of left field, and the reaction was something I think every gamer wishes they could take part in. Watching our paladin cry out in frustration, powerless to protect his childhood friend, our inquisitor trying to logic out our options while working to calm everyone else, all while I got to immerse myself into my character's mind as he was crippled by his fear of what forces would soon engulf him. It was an incredible experience, some of the most intense and emotional roleplay I've ever experienced and an amazing bonding experience for our group."
Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GM'ing pearls of wisdom.
I think there are really four "key" elements to any truly great table-top game: make your players care about their world, make your players feel like they can engage with your NPCs, make your players care about the events transpiring around them, and make your players feel like they can affect those events in at least some recognizable fashion. I don't think any of those are anywhere near an original thought, but I've seen a lot of GMs overlook those core fundamentals. A handful of well-developed NPCs that your players love to interact with and a strong feeling of Player Agency are the real seeds of a great adventure.
Beyond that, I'd encourage other GMs who desire a cohesive and friendly party to spend time developing early-on reasons the characters would want to stick together and care about one another. Skies of Glass spent our entire first session with the characters as young children, becoming friends, and growing together. When you have a party that rallies together through thick and thin, not for wealth or power, but because they're friends and really love each other — that resonates in a very powerful way.
That's all for now everybody, keep those CotM suggestions flowing straight to my inbox! Until next time, game excellently with one another!]]>
First off, feel free to tell us about the person(s) behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do both aside from gaming? Wife and kids? Where can we stalk you on the internet, that sort of thing!
Hi, Obsidian Portal! My friends and I are thrilled to have our site featured, so thanks for having us. My name is Dr. Heinrik Peitrson, and what I'm about to tell you is little known and less understand but could shake the foundations of this universe and the next. Ok, that's not entirely or partially true. I'm 39, and I advise IT organizations on financial modeling and service costing (I think). It comes with a paycheck, so it qualifies as a living which is nice. What I'd really like to do is get paid millions of dollars to DM for someone rich (please msg me if you're filthy rich and this sounds like a relationship you'd like to pursue, I'm totally worth it).
I don't have an internet profile, but you can find traces of me as A.A. Salati, my pseudonym for writing Shadowrun adventures. I published a few for CGL and did editing work on a pile of others. Some are still available on http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/. None have moved me closer to being a millionaire GM. I offered to edit Bruce Heard's Calidar setting, but he turned me down. As a result, his book included three typos and two sentences with confusing structure. Why, Bruce? Why?!?
I have a wife and twin girls who spend part of their year in Japan and the rest of it putting up with me in Cary, North Carolina. Kusai ojisan dayo! (I'm a stinky, old man.) We have a robotic toilet and don't wear shoes in the house. No pets, because dogs don't handle their own poop, and cats touch theirs. The mixing of these worlds and floors where shoes cannot be worn would destroy everything we hold dear.
We play piano, and I go to the gym daily to justify drinking beer every night. I like grilling meat and rice balls, and I started playing basic D&D around '81 with my neighborhood friend's dad DMing. I was five or six and couldn't believe someone let me have a mace and let me smash orcs with it! How awesome is that? I've never lost that excitement for gaming all these years.
So…tell us about Karameikos in a nutshell
Karameikos started around thirteen years ago. I had played a LOT of D&D and was looking for a new angle to try. My favorite thing about RPG's is that you can change the world you're in. That is such a cool game concept to me! There is no video game in existence that can go as far as an RPG campaign in letting a player live out their fantasies. So I wanted to create a campaign where my players knew this game was for the long haul. If they ever had a grand dream they wanted to play out, this would be their opportunity. Next, I needed a setting, but I knew I didn't have the time to create one from scratch. I wanted to spend my time writing adventures. I loved the gazetteers of Mystara, the Basic D&D world. They had plenty of politics, npcs, adventure hooks, and 5,000 years of history. All my players had adventured there before, so it was a good start for a shared reality.
Finally, I needed a new angle, something challenging, something that would turn the game upside down. My first player had never played a wizard. His dream was to become the greatest, so I started him at Level 0 and changed the timeline. He began as a poor, orphan scribe in an alternate timeline where great adventurers went back in time two centuries before to destroy a great artifact that held power over all magic. Mystara was changed into a world where the arcane was despised, where arcaners were burned at the stake, and clerics had great influence. How's that for a challenge?
That's how the campaign started. After ten years, the party was with great sacrifice able to travel back in time to convince the great adventurers not to destroy the artifact, thus restoring the true timeline where arcane magic could be pursued openly. That is also when the Karameikos campaign became the Glantri campaign (Glantri is a magocracy they moved to. It didn't exist in the alternate timeline.), and DM D started running a side by side campaign in Karameikos. You'll see this in our Session Logs. The session titles all start with Karameikos: or Glantri: and note who DM'ed.
What do you enjoy most about Pathfinder?
I had no idea what Pathfinder was. It didn't say "D&D" in it, so I wasn't interested. We were playing 3.x (3.0 and 3.5 with some Basic D&D stuff and house rules thrown in). We had no idea why there was a 3.0 and 3.5 for that matter. When 4th edition came out, we were disappointed. MMOGs were copies of some of the aspects of tabletop RPGs, and 4th seemed like a tabletop copy of an MMOG. That in itself is fine, and MMOGs are fun, but 4e looked nothing like the D&D we loved, so we never considered it. We kept playing 3.x for a while. Years later I finally read the Pathfinder book and felt like I had found the real 4th edition of D&D. We swtiched soon after and have been playing it since.
What I like about Pathfinder is that it's still the core mechanics of the original D&D with the same classes. On top of that, you get the customizability of feats! This lets players differentiate fighter from fighter and wizard from wizard. You can easily play any style of class you can envision. I really appreciate that freedom, and my campaigns are about freedom, the freedom to play out their fantasies. Pathfinder is a good fit for us and will be for some time.
How regularly do you play, and where do you play? (If you play online, do you use any certain tools to accomplish your gaming such as Google hangouts, roll20, etc.)
We're all stinky, old men with families and jobs and not as much time as we'd like to play, so we probably average once every two to three weeks. Of course we're not all old and stinky. One of our players' young brother-in-law is half our age. We got him hooked early and now he and a friend make up half the party. We play in China and Korea and Cary, North Carolina. How's that for the internet age! Our favorite is playing at my house in NC. There's no substitute for sitting at the table together, eating snacks, and staying up too late, and I have a private game room where the kids won't bother us (yeah, right ). However, young Salhadin is stationed in South Korea, his friend Hakim keeps going to China to study, and the rest of us resign ourselves to online play more often than not.
Online is pretty good actually. We couldn't get together in person as often as we'd like to play, so it's a huge enabler. We use Google Hangouts plus Roll20 for map sharing, image sharing, private DM messaging, and dice rolls. Google Hangouts gives us voice and video, and the quality is high. You can see each other clearly, so it's almost like being at the table in front of someone. Roll20 can be tricky getting the scale right on maps, but all around it does everything we need it to. I can show pictures of npcs, ask private things of the players and have them respond without anyone knowing what happened, it handles initiative, and the dice rolling is adequate. All of this, and it's free, too. All you need is a good connection.
Who puts all of your wiki together?
I created the structure and basic content of our wiki. I repurposed the Session Logs to be placeholders for links to the Players' Logs. I do the front page stories and intro pages, but I am proud to say the players handle the content of Karameikos! The beasts, the orders, the logs, and the players' spaces are all done by my players. They've added lots of valuable content, and it really takes a load off me so I don't have to take notes and do so many updates. I'm particularly proud of our logs. Most OP sites use the adventure logs for just that, however, I use them to advertise the next adventure. For instance, if we're going to play on January 3rd, I'll throw up a Session Log post with a teaser image, some bullets on what may happen, and preparation tasks for the players. After the session, I flesh out the bullet points like chapters describing what we just played. Then I leave it to the players to write a log in their player log area and link to it from the Session Log. When these eventually get added, their DM can go back in time and read the different players' perspectives on what happened. Players in return can earn Karma, points to aid them in the short or long term.
Where do you draw inspiration from when preparing your game?
The Basic D&D gazetteers are a big help in giving me a well fleshed out setting, especially The Principalities of Glantri. I have to give that a mention. All of my adventures, however, are written from scratch. I haven't used a module in ages. I have two fallbacks that I rely on. First, I have the dreams of my players who are aware they can accomplish big things, things that can change the world if they try hard. Seeing them move the plot on their own is rewarding. Feeding them adventures that enable them can write themselves. The wizard Thaljun for example wanted to rise through the ranks of nobles in the wizard run Principalities, so I ran adventures while he attended the Great School of Magic where he would meet other nobles and political figures and let them play out. My second fallback when nothing else is happening is asking myself, what would I love to do?!? What would I think is awesome fun? Raiding a lich prince's tower with all unique magic traps? Exploring a forgotten tower and crypt with all unique and ancient monsters? How about raising an army to defend a new domain against all political odds? Uncover a great secret of magic few have ever grasped? Yeah!
How much time do you usually take to prepare for a session?
The time it takes to prep for a session can vary from a month of writing and pontificating to a few minutes spent here and there thinking about the campaign while I drive to work, while drinking a coffee on a weekend morning, or while I'm falling asleep at night. A classic dungeon crawl type of adventure takes a certain amount of time. That's part of the fun of DMing. I can explore the fantasy we're sharing in my mind to see where it may lead. It's indulgent escapism, but I think that's what many rpg gamers dig. For my last one, I used a tutorial on classic blue D&D map reproduction and Gimp 2 to create a cavern and dungeon area beneath a tower atop a craggy hill. That one took me a few weeks to get right, but it was a ton of fun loading that map on Roll20 and letting players explore it. It was a real retro night seeing that classic blue!
I use a few different methods to record what I write. If I come up with a cool idea while I'm out, I'll email myself the details from my phone or record it on my mobile OneNote app which updates on all devices via Microsoft Live or SkyDrive or whatever they call it now. If I'm on my work laptop or a computer, I'll use OneNote. If at home on the couch having a coffee, there's no substitute for my Miguel Ruis notebook and a G-2 gel roller pen. Whatever gets written or recorded is eventually printed or torn out and added to my secret notebook of thirteen years of activity for posterity. It also goes on OP in the form of the players' logs.
Aside from Pathfinder I'm sure you have played other systems too, what are some others you enjoy?
I started on D&D, then a little MERP (Middle-Earth Role Playing, basically GURP light) and AD&D, OAD&D, Shadowrun1-5, AD&D2-3-3.x, oh and the old Top Secret, too. I used to love some OAD&D (Oriental Adventures). I turned the pages in that book so many times, almost all the pages broke loose. They're all still there and in order though. My wife is Japanese, and she is flabbergasted every time I name off all the individual pieces of armor that make up a full suit of Yoroi style armor. "How do you know all those? I don't even know that!" I try to explain to her what a Korobokuru is (dwarf), but she doesn't buy it. "I've never heard that word before. What's that?" and I'm like, "Uh, they're dwarves, honey, and they love naginata (bladed spears), but they cap out at level twelve as Samurai, assuming of course they can find a human clan that accepts them despite their dirtiness. For serious yo. What do they teach you in school these days?" Nowadays, I only have time for Pathfinder.
How do you know your players, how long have you been gaming with them?
Thaljun and Elias were already friends when I met them at NC State University in '94(?). We met playing Netrek in a computer lab. That was one of the first multiplayer online games. Killer game by the way. Then we played a MUD (that's the first MMORPG) called Genesis (which is still around and going strong today). When we discovered each other's secret love for D&D, we started playing that as well, also. Eventually, our young brother-in-law and his friends grew old enough to play, and generation two joined the campaign as well. I guess that makes twenty years of gaming together now. I'm fortunate to have friends like that.
Keeping players involved is always a struggle, your Karma system seems like a great way to facilitate that. How does it wind up working in practice?
It was slow to start, but once my players saw the Karma rewards start to be used, it took off! I count we have played 222 sessions in this campaign, and we have logs from most of them by multiple players! Karma can be accumulated and used for bonuses to dice rolls during play and other special effects like winning initiative. It can also be permanently burned to gain stat increases, skill bonuses, bonus feats (some of which are unique and only attained via Karma), avoid death (once per refresh), and even a bonus Level Up! That's actually happened twice so far which is impressive considering you need 20 points, and you typically earn one point per content submission. Rewarding players with Karma for writing a background and adding content has empowered them to be deeper participants in the campaign and alleviate the load of DMing. I have a bad memory in my old age, and being able to look up details in the logs is a big deal for me. Plus it's fun to read the players' RP perspectives on what happened. I'm a stingy DM, so it's nice to have a reward system in place where players feel empowered to take rewards rather than always waiting to receive them.
Your wiki customization looks great, did you do it all yourself?
I learn by example and by doing, which means I'm a slacker. I did all the CSS wiki customization by myself, but I used Langy's Edgerunners campaign to deconstruct how overriding CSS worked with Obsidian Portal. I made fairly decent notes on what in my CSS does what and affects what, so if anyone is looking to recreate something they see on Karameikos, you're welcome to use my CSS as a guide to implementing it. For anyone who wants to start using CSS to customize their site, I recommend w3schools for straightforward examples and trial and error to see what affects what. You can do just about anything you want to accomplish even if you're untrained like me if you're willing to tinker. The community of the forums is very helpful if you have specific questions as well.
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?
Well, I just checked my profile and surprised myself. I registered January 10th, 2008. I was an early adopter of internet services, and when I ran into Obsidian Portal, I think I was searching for DMing aids. The concept got me thinking about a SaaS style information sharing point. I had tried logs back in high school, but this was more gaming styled. DMs and players share a fantasy reality. OP was like that but sharing fantasy information. The idea of recording what we had done appealed to me, and the possibility of players to contribute to it got me excited. What if my players could write some of this stuff for me? Well, it worked. It took the Karma system to get the ball rolling, but I'm very happy with the results.
Now that the Reforging has been live for a little while now, what are your favorite parts?
Whether I'm coding on an internal company intranet, sharepoint, confluence, or whatever, what I appreciate most is the ability to override restrictions and do my own thing. I'm a copy/paste coder, but I manage well. So I would say I appreciate most the enhancements to entering my own CSS to reshape the appearance and functionality of the site. I also appreciate that the Reforging represents continued investment in sustaining OP as the premier online campaign aid. With OP's user base, that is big potential.
Knowing that the game has been going on for over a decade, this may be a hard one to answer, but what would you say the single biggest highlight from Karameikos has been so far?
Personally, I enjoyed seeing the party rally around its wizard to help elevate him to the high rank of nobility he achieved before his ignominious exile, and I've enjoyed seeing them all achieve long term goals which truly impact the domains they care about like rallying armies to defend land they carved out. However, I asked the players for their highlights. I'd like to say it was when the party's brash fighter was the last man standing against a black dragon they were never meant to defeat so early in its appearance with all his armor destroyed and his comrades sickened and dying around him who landed a natural 20 and natural 20 to confirm a critical that decapitated the dragon… or one of the other epic dragon or demon battles… but it was not so noble a consensus. Apparently, the highlight was a night during Arcanium (a three day celebration of magic in the capital of Glantri) where the fighters all got drunk, investigated a very unusual new House of Ladies of Ill Repute, and met the ladies of the House who turned out to be enslaved half-trolls, vampires, and a medusa who got punched in the face by the wizard Count's highest knight before he and his companions laid waste with bastard sword and scimitar and general excessive force to the feeble guards and ushers of the House resulting in their near arrest and revocation of their licenses to wield weapons within the city limits. They gave me a good laugh despite how nutty things got, and to be honest, it's not the worst thing they ever did. Ahh players… can't live with them… not a game without them.
Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GM'ing pearls of wisdom.
It's hard to say I have something relevant as far as GM'ing tips. I've been GM'ing for 25 years, but that in itself doesn't mean I'm any good. What I've learned came from working hard at this role, well, for 25 years. So my first pearl of wisdom and power is keep trying, and if you enjoy creating a shared fantasy reality for your players, then do whatever YOU love. Don't feel guilty about taking your campaign where YOU want it to go, because if the GM is not enjoying himself, the game has no future. That's not a recommendation to force outcomes or put adventures "on the rails" or even to ignore the desire of your players, but be honest with yourself. GMing takes time and effort. If you don't love what you're doing, there is no game without the GM. Chances are, if you're jazzed about the adventures you're taking your players on, they will be, too.
The only other thing I would say is Don't be afraid to try new things or put yourself on unfamiliar ground! I'm a writer, so putting everything and every detail down on paper seems not only natural to me but a necessity in order for us to play. One of the hardest things for me to do was let myself write on the fly. That means running an adventure with only a paragraph or two of notes at a very high level and filling in all the details while you play. At a certain point of experience, you can do this! You'll never know when you're at that level as a DM until you let yourself try. I gained the confidence by stepping out of my comfort zone and attending a local RPG meetup on DMing and ad lib techniques, and it worked for me. Ask yourself, "Why can't I write the same things I write before a session during a session?!?" Sure you can! You're just as creative while your players are watching you as you are alone on the couch with your notebook. In fact, you may find that your creative juices are flowing even deeper while you're on the spot. That was a big revelation for me and took my fun to the next level. It also freed up more time to play with the kids, go to the gym, drink more beer, and grill more meat which is a big hunk of wins.
Thanks for your time!
Thank you for the recognition and opportunity to talk about our campaign! We've been on OP for a long time watching these campaigns get picked, so it's been a thrill for all of us to be in the spotlight for a month. Thanks to Langy and the forum for the CSS tips. Major props to Pebbles for last month's interview on his gritty Shadowrun campaign. I'm a fan. And finally thanks to my friends and players who somehow continue to put up with my stingy, difficult, and even lethal adventures over the years!
That's it for this month folks, that's also it for 2014. Start thinking about who you'd like to see win that lovely chalice of dice for Campaign of the Year, it's just around the corner! In the meantime, keep great suggestions for featured campaigns pointed toward my inbox.]]>
First off, feel free to tell us about the person(s) behind the GM screen.
Where are you from? What do you do both aside from gaming? Wife and kids? Where can we stalk you on the internet, that sort of thing!
Hanno: My name is Hanno Behrens, I'm 49 years old, a computer scientist working as a freelancer in Hamburg, Germany. I live alone with my cat and a girlfriend somewhere in the city. I've been roleplaying since the mid 90s, but my first contact was at university, where we used roleplay to simulate attacks on computersystems, which was quite similar to Shadowrun, just without Magic. But with real background. You may say I'm a professional hacker and codebreaker, just that I only practice this as a kind of hobby because the only persons that really need a codebreaker would be people I'd refuse to work for. Well most of the times I kill trojans, clean computers, set up security on systems or design environments, school people how to use computers, learn programming and things like that. I love the idea of free software and media and support it whenever I can.
I don't have kids but I always wanted to have some. But things went in a different direction in my life. So I make other babies, like this campaign. I contributed some code to the Linux kernel and you may find me as the creator of the NEO keyboard layout, which is a German/European version of the Dvorak layout. But it was aiming much further. You have it already installed if you use any Linux on your computer. It has lot of support here in Germany, I think many more write NEO than Dvorak. Quite successful. So, that's something I did, maybe the biggest thing. Never got a penny for it. Money is not my strength.
If you want to stalk me, just search my name and you will find the SFD, the Streetfighter Digest, which is a Shadowrun Sourcebook of epic size, a co-op production which was mainly maintained by me, that I was trying to publish a couple of years ago but miserably failed getting any money for it. So I just put it on the net in the end. For free. Many of my ideas and my coworkers found a way into Shadowrun 4, but I/we never got credit for it. That's the way it goes, but I don't mind. The important thing is, that it's out there and people use it.
Ideas have no copyright.
You'll find my personal homepage at http://pebbles.schattenlauf.de but that thing is outdated and not maintained anymore. Will resurrect it one glorious day. Better luck with finding me on G+ or YouTube. Mostly technical stuff about computers or/and music. I never would use Facebook. Over my dead corpse.
Jennifer: I'm Jennifer and I also live in Hamburg. I'm a librarian, a childrens'/young adult librarian to be precise, and I'm the go-to person if you want to have some random information thoroughly researched. I have more pets that any sane person should have, from budgies to bearded dragon to assassin bugs. You can stalk me at my blog, Bookscorpion's Lair
So…tell us about The Rat's Nest, in a nutshell.
Hanno: It's ten years ago that I thought up the idea of a low life style Shadowrun campaign. With people actually living on the street and not hovering over it in a GMC Banshee. To get back on the street, to cancel the overpowered normal Shadowrun characters, to get back to being poor and powerless and living on the streets. Being on the same level of the people living around you – with just a little edge.
So the world gets complex and colorful and the squatter from the next building is actually a person and not some nameless page of numbers to shoot at. Starting this I began to do some legwork and recherche about slums in our world. Since the Rat's Nest was one of the parts of the city that never were part of any campaign I know it was the perfect ground.
And there I started the Shadowrun Sandbox.
I was looking for new players because the groups I was playing in were not able to get the concept. I tried but it failed and I stopped it several times. Then, starting with a young technomancer who was hired from the streets as a squatter for not more than a roof over the head and food to work as a typical guard/grunt I started the campaign.
Starting with one player, I produced around fifty NPC at that time, then there were coming in more players, the group ended when the main players were leaving the city to study somewhere and that was the moment when it really got the big bang and I found my current players.
It was one of those moments you are waiting for your whole life. Ten years of planning and preparation and learning and reading and schooling yourself. Of writing stories and working on your story telling skills and I finally found a group that ran with that idea.
I mean try to get Shadowrun players when you say: "Well, you're going to play a bunch of street-kids." Tried it several times on conventions. I ended up as a player instead GM'ing.
What do you enjoy most about Shadowrun, and what version of the system are you currently running and why?
Hanno: I use SR4 because SR3 has some major drawbacks. And was the reason for me to create the SFD. We now slowly adopt to SR5, but many things in the new SR5 just don't work or just are not acceptable for a low power environment that we play. The trick is to keep everything near together. Keep everything down. Make an average NPC still count something and avoid the power spiral, that just invalidates more and more of the colorful background.
If your character is a vampire-cyber-mage-uberchar with a quadzillion points on every major skill and friends in the highest boards of megacons and millions to spend on gear you just destroy everything in your path. The only thing to do for you is safe the world from invading Cyberninja-Troll armies that come in GMC Banshees with support fire from orbital stations. This is just bullshit. This has nothing to do with Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is Noir and it's small people on the street trying to make a living.
So get back to basics.
Jennifer: I've only ever played SR4 and SR5 and both have their problems. I like SR5 better, as a whole, but house rules are neccessary, especially with a low-powered group like ours. What drew me to Shadowrun was the idea of the Matrix – as a librarian, that kind of information space is endlessly fascinating. If we ever get data jacks for real, sign me up.
What do you enjoy most about modern/sci-fi campaigns?
Hanno: I really like that they are real. Most of the things that we use in the Rat's Nest campaign actually exist in a scary way already somewhere in the world. We just collected them and put them together in our slum environment. The world touches the people that play in it. Because they find out that things they thought were from my imagination actually happen out there. And this makes you think, when you play it.
It's always that you try to get a message across with the things you do. With the stories you tell. You try to give people the opportunity to understand, to learn and to feel the things around them.
The genre is just far enough from the real world that we are not fixated on the details but are near enough that we get the link to reality. And we start to think about our world. And how close we live to what our characters actually do in game.
Jennifer: Shadowrun is being overtaken by reality on a pace that's amazing. Or scary, depending on the details. I enjoy very much that I can read about some new invention or some social or political development, ramp it up to eleven and put it into the campaign. The Wordless Tech blog is a great source of inspiration…as are the news. And then I hope that I will not be right about where it will be going.
How regularly do you play, and where do you play? (If you play online, do
you use any certain tools to accomplish your gaming such as Google
hangouts, roll20, etc.)
Hanno: We play at my place once a week. A session is not longer than four hours, with one or two small breaks to get fresh air. We use the internet with Obsidian Portal, Google Maps for all environment. We try to make it as real as we can. We use Youtube clips or music for some situations. That's all easy for I am actually playing on my work place, with the rest of the players around, so I can activate things with a button.
Jennifer: We tried for a while to play with Google Hangout, but it just didn't work out. The problem was that only one or two players would come in via Hangout and the GM and two players were at Hanno's place. That is much more of a headache that it's worth. But if you have a group where everybody meets in a video chat, then it's a great tool.
Who puts all of your wiki together?
Hanno: Jennifer and I. We share the work on it, while I do most of the CSS stuff and technical issues, she at least puts so much work in it as I do. All players work out their character sheets and their informations and they provide pictures and drawings of their characters and adventure logs that they write from their character's point of view.
Which puts together a really interesting story, with multiple authors. It is fun to do and fun to read.
Jennifer: I've written the majority of the Wiki and, I'd say, about two thirds of the logs. I've always been the notetaker at any of my campaigns, so writing all that stuff came natural to me. I have a lot of fun doing research to find just the right picture (librarian, remember?) and to write news and rumours.
Where do you draw inspiration from when preparing your game?
Hanno: Reality. You find a slum like the Rat's Nest at Villa Miseria 13 in Buenos Aires, Argentinia today. You find landfills like those that are the center of income of the Rat's Nest in Rio de Janeiro. There are films like "Garbage Dreams" and some other that target the issue of people living from recycling. There are incredible slums in Kairo and the Zabaleen, the 'garbage people' do pretty much exactly what the Rat's Nest people do.
There are political developments in our society towards a Cyberpunk environment with the insane copyright laws, with media mega corporations like Sony BGM and others that do exactly the lobbying that will create a world like we have in Shadowrun. Without the magic, okay. But most of the things we play are no fiction anymore. They are a bit exaggerated. But they are real.
The Rat's Nest campaign is very political. Very very political. I said that as a storyteller you always try to make people understand something. We are on the verge to this world.
And it is a dystopia. Which is something people seem not to understand.
Yeah. I'm political with this. Very. I'm a very enthusiastic humanist and atheist. And to put all the religious and magical stuff in my world is a way I try to make people see what I see. Like in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.
Jennifer: I have a virtual post-it on my desktop where I jot down ideas and most of them come from stuff I read: from the news, from both fiction and non-fiction books, from sites like Atlas Obscura or Wikipedia (I'm a obsessive reader of Wikipedia, random facts for the win). And then I talk to my partner about it or to anyone who will listen, mostly other roleplayers, until the idea is ready to be put into play. And then the players proceed to do something I haven't thought of.
How much time do you usually take to prepare for a session?
Hanno: Hahaha. Okay. No comment. You have no idea. And I hope I never will or I'll wake up screaming. But it's different. It's like art. I take in a lot of shit that is happening in the world. And I just transform it into the campaign it's my way to express my feelings and my thoughts, if you understand what I mean. I won't say that I "put time" in this, like I don't put time in music. I just take my fiddle and play when I'm in the mood. It's something I have to do.
Jennifer: I'm of the school of 'flying by the seat of my pants'-gamemastering. I put in a lot of time to make NPCs and I will research floor plans and maps so I have stuff to throw at my players, handouts if possible. But preparing the story beyond some basic points? Nah. It will go off the rails anyway and that's the way I want it to be.
Aside from Shadowrun, I've read on your bio that you've played in a lot of
other systems (as opposed to GM'ing), what are some others you enjoy?
Hanno: I had really fun in a spinoff of the 7th Sea world, that we transfered into a 1880 settings, victorian a bit steampunk and that. I was playing a young female reporter, which was a very unusual occupation for a woman of her time. Sadly it ended. I play men or women, but I admit I have some tendency to love my female characters a bit more. I like to be the underdog in a way. To be weak and to be forced to be smart.
That's my mindset. In every (computer) game I play, I chose the underdogs. The small ships, the small whatevers. Small, fast, cunning, misunderstood or in some way deprived. I do have a heart for it.
I started playing roleplay at the university as a kind of computer security simulation. I was in the attacking team. After the first run failed miserably I organized the second which achieved the goal to destroy the complete data of a corporation without using violence or sacrificing anyone of my team.
It was a shock for the defenders. And the professor hm. He kind of enjoyed the outcome. See, I'm a hacker.
Jennifer: I've started with Vampire: The Masquerade and I enjoyed that very much, it's probably the reason why I'm still chosing fluff over crunch every time. The system I've played most is probably Call of Cthulhu, with Shadowrun and 7th Sea a close second. Hanno and I played together in Deadlands and Star Wars, too. These days, I'm really into freeform games. Stuff like Fiasco or Dread or Lady Blackbird, but also the very psychological intense games that come from Scandinavia, Jeepform or Nordic Larp.
How do you know your players, how long have you been gaming with them?
Hanno: My new group I know for about two years? I'm really not good with estimating how long I know people. I have problems with social environments. No, really I do. I just learned some good tricks to get around over time. Mostly through roleplaying. Jennifer I know for quite a time. Ten years? Maybe even longer. She's some of the most valuable persons that I ever met. Hm. Valuable. I use this word with having nothing better at the moment. I really like her and appreciate the way she's approaching stuff. She's able to focus on it. And she's as creative as knowledgable. Librarian. Yeah.
The rest of the guys are relatively new. But I like this current group a lot. While usual roleplaying groups are just interest groups this is something more. This is personal, I guess.
Jennifer: I did the math the other day and it's been twelve years. My Vampire group had been dying a slow death and, I can't remember how, my GM and me got into the very long-running group Hanno was part of. We still play weekly. The current Shadowrun group will have it's second birthday sometime next summer, I think.
What are your thoughts on the Shadowrun video games (if any)?
Hanno: I have played the Shadowrun Returns campaigns and some of the community content. They are great. Really great. And especially the Dragonfall campaign is doing quite the same sandbox approach that I have in my Rat's Nest. Just of course not as free as it is possible in a pen and paper game. But the idea is the same and it's very well coded. The storyline is just amazing and I can absolutly recommend this game. Even if you don't play it, just to support the people that did it.
Jennifer: I'm not much of a gamer, I don't have the patience, but what I've seen and played of Shadowrun Returns, I like a lot.
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site
and what keeps bringing you back?
Hanno: Jennifer brought me there. She's a hell of an inspiration for me and touches very many new ideas that would be under my radar if she would not be there. I think I'm doing OP now for two years or something? Since September 2012.
The project is great and I could not run my campaign without it. Really. OP is opening a whole new world of possibilities for my style of campaign. We have nearly 200 characters, most of them with well-developed background in the campaign. Can you imagine having a book of 200 characters that you have to search when people meet the character in the game? Impossible. And impossible for my players to remember everyone they once met.
But since every person keeps being in the game until she dies, it's important to track it. I don't know if you ever have been in the world of "1632", which is also a writing collaboration sandbox-style project? Read it. It was quite a fun but I was giving up at some point for my own projects were taking too much of my time to participate there in the depth I wanted.
There's a whole movement into the sandbox direction. Not just with campaigns like the Rat's Nest, but with other genre too. Writing, music (there are several collaborative music sites up), and not to mention Google Drive and the possibility to work on a text with a whole community at the same time. That's mind bending, really.
Jennifer: I read about it on another blog and decided to try it out. I like organizing information and Obsidian Portal is just the right tool for it. I wouldn't want to keep all of it in my head. I have a couple of other campaigns I manage there (sadly, only one is still active) and I enjoy being able to write my own wiki on a site tailored to roleplaying games. I also enjoy he incredibly helpful community at the Obsidian Portal forums who patiently explained CSS to me, among other things.
Now that the Reforging has been live for a little while now, what are your
favorite parts?
Hanno: I really like the way it was reforged. Except the pages don't work on my Android tablet. They don't work on my phone. I'm just lucky to be able to do RP directly at my computer so I can use the pages. And Jennifer is lucky to have a also laptop to work on.
The rest? Totally worth it.
The stuff of Obsidian Portal have done a really good job. And I have the feeling they don't got the positive feedback that they deserve for this. And I can't really express how much they have done for my campaign and how important their page is for me.
Jennifer: I quite like the Reforge now, after the initial shock of 'oh crap, nothing works like it used to!'. Tech support was quick to fix a lot of issues. I like the new search that offers you a dropdown menu and the quicklinks to create new wiki pages, logs ect. There's a lot of stuff people are asking to be added, like a way to properly search for campaigns, that I want to see and it would be great if we had more communication between the Obsidian Portal team and the community. The site is such a great tool for us and despite all the flak the Reforge got, the community still values it very much I think.
What would you say the single biggest highlight from The Rat's Nest has
been so far?
Hanno: Ow. That's quite a question. I personally like the stories about the PI Kowalski, but those stories are NPC only. My little "Noir" story that I put in there because … I could. And I think from the writers view it's maybe the best story that I put in. But the others have put a lot of very excellent content into the campaign. Fog's logs are very good, he's got quite a style.
Highlights. Hm. Let me think. The most recent big bang was the run on the chocolate factory. That was such a big cut in the story and it led to contacts with the Boston mob and the epic roadtrip that we are playing right now, that it's the most recent highlight.
It's very complex. Maybe Jennifer knows a better answer to this.
Jennifer: I have two highlights. One: the rat shaman who tried to take over the Rat's Nest. During that session, I honestly did not except Neil (my main character) to survive and I burned all my Edge to kill that shaman. Worth it. I would have gone out into the garden and screamed at the night sky if Neil had died, but to save the Nest, I would have gone every step of the way to the end.
Two: the Knight Errant razzia – half of the Nest burned down, a ton of NPCs got arrested and we ended up evacuating the Nest for fear of another razzia after some cops got killed (not our fault!!). When we tried to go back, another gang had taken over and we had to fight to retake our home. That was awesome because we had played long enough to come to love the Nest and to realise just how much work Hanno had put into that setting. And then he goes and destroys it all. That takes major guts as a GM and there was absolutely no guarantee we would be able to get the Nest back.
Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GM'ing pearls of
Hanno: No I have no wisdom at all.
But yeah, some things I do. I never put my players into the power spiral. That destroys your game. I talk a player out of something and try to explain why things don't work out. Even if the rules would allow them. I take the SR universe and modify it. I never stick to the rules like glue. I bend them until they work. I try to give my world stability and credibility. So just because you can do it and it is possible, things don't happen. There are so many examples for bad GM situations when for example an old woman at the Stuffer Shack is attacking the main adept of the group with her umbrella and suddenly she is an ex olympia master in fencing and she is an adept too and she gives the adept of the group a really rough time.
That's just bad. It's declassing the players character and the whole event is destructive. It's eroding the trust that the players put in you as a GM and the feeling for your world. So be fair. Be neutral. Your job is to make the world function. Your job is not to rescue some NPC just because you like him. Or you have planned something for him. If he dies, use some improvisation. Maybe your lost plot can still be put in the game. Sometimes it's good that it's lost because on second though it wasn't that good at all.
Trust your players. If you do, they trust you. Put love in your world and in your NPC. If they die, don't be revengeful. But always give something back. Feedback from the world is very important for the players to judge the outcome of their own actions. Never let violence happen without showing the pain and the suffering on the receiving end.
Give your players the chance to empathize with the NPC. Make them human as you can. Know the motivations of you NPC and how far they would go for something. When they just want to survive and back off. If you create a world of clay pigeons a senseless shooting you will get.
Try to talk. A cyberpunk world may be hard, tough, gritty and that. But people are almost never keen on getting shot. Or lose friends. Gritty doesn't mean that the powervalue of the weapons go up (like in SR5). It means that action has consequences. Bring down the consequences. If the players dodge it, maybe their contacts can't. The heat gets to someone.
You are a storyteller. Tell a story. Know a story. A story is not a Hollywood flick. You can't tell a story through describing special effects. That's not the film. That's not the story. The story, that's the human element. That's the drama. That's the loss, the gain, the love, the pain, the tragic.
Player characters are on the receiving end of the world. You should give it and take it. But if you take it, offer a new story, a new arc. NEVER ever just destroy something. That's just frustrating. That's not your role. You are a storyteller, so tell the story. If you have no story, don't mess with the things that are.
The things that are are always part of a story. Don't destroy content without creating new one. Don't make your world poorer, instead always provide, always enrich it. You may ride your players into a mess. You can destroy everything they have built up. But damn, if you do, you should have a good story for that in the wake of the destruction.
Sometimes I beg my players: please don't mess this up. Because I can't safe you from this. Because I'm not keen on doing that to the characters of my players. They know it. But they also know I will, if they botch it really hard. It will be a bad hour for me and for them. But that's your job as a GM. Be the world. Be not without compromise, without mercy, where mercy is possible. But be consequent. Be your world. Never beg for pardon for doing something. The players know that this is your job as a GM.
No risk no fun. Tell your story.
Jennifer: I'm going to be practical here. Have a list of NPCs names ready and have a list of NPCs even when the characters might not meet them. A good scenario runs on its characters and NPCs with their own life make a good world to play in. Think about what your NPCs do while the Pcs are not around and
stories might write itself.
When you describe a scene, don't forget about senses other than sight.
If the story goes off the rails, let it. See where it takes you. Improvising is, in my opinion, the most important skill a gamemaster should have.
Thanks for your time!
Hanno: It was fun actually. I talk too much, did I mention that?
Jennifer: Thank you for giving us that opportunity. It made my day when I found out that we are going to be CotM, I walked around with a big stupid grin all day. It's an honour and I want to give a shoutout and a big thank you to our players who throw themselves into out stories with abandon and make the
campaign what it is.
We were of course very happy to have spoken with Hanno at such length, and also to have put a smile on Jennifer's face! Just another amazing campaign, another month under our belts. Keep me posted to all of the great campaigns going on by dropping a message into my inbox. Catch you next time, folks!]]>
First off, feel free to tell us about the person(s) behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do both aside from gaming? Married? Kids? Where can we stalk you on the internet? That sort of thing!
Hi! I'm Dan, and I am retired USAF. I am married, and my wife works for the USMC as a DoD employee here in Virginia. I am going to school full time working on my cyber security degree. I am originally from South Bend, Indiana, and have lived all over the US and the world, and now reside in northern Virginia. I don't have much of a cyber-shadow, but I am on several forums with the handle R2builder. I am working on finishing up two sets of Stromtrooper armor and would like to join the 501st, and also actually build a functional R2 unit. I also like to build miniature sci-fi terrain using Hirst Arts plaster molds.
So…tell us about The Edge of Destiny
Well, the campaign is set 5 years before the events Star Wars: A New Hope. It is about a group of rag tag people living on the edge of the Empire, trying to make their way in it. They started out just trying to make a buck, but little do they know that they have a higher calling, and could help in the formation of the Rebel Alliance, and the overthrow of the Galactic Empire, and the restoration of the Jedi. Also, along the way freeing slaves, building up town infrastructures, defeating despots, bringing about the fall of the Black Sun and Zann Consortium, really just everyday stuff…
What do you enjoy most about the SW:EotE system?
I have never played a narrative system before so this was quite refreshing for me. I played WEG Star Wars back in the late 80's through the 90's, and this system really reminds of the fast paced fun of that old system. I also played the D20 CR, D20 RCR and D20 Saga. None of the D20 systems were as much fun for me as EotE has been. I really enjoy the immersive story aspect of the dice. The dice results are not a binary pass/fail. If a character does not succeed in a task, great things can still result from the dice roll, and it is up to the players to tell the story of why that is. Or they can succeed, but still have bad things happen. And I get to tell that story!
What do you enjoy most about sci-fi campaigns, Star Wars in particular?
I have always been a huge fan of Star Wars. I was two when it came out, so it has been a part of life before I can remember. I have always been fascinated by the high tech gadgets and stories of the sci-fi genre. I grew up watching Star Trek TOS, Buck Rodger, Battlestar Galactica. My Kenner action figures and ships were a huge part of my childhood and really helped me develop my imagination, and now that I am "grown up" I can continue to tell these stories and adventures, not with my action figures, but though Role Playing Games.
How regularly do you play, and where do you play? (If you play online, do you use any certain tools to accomplish your gaming such as Google hangouts, roll20, etc.)
My current group plays every other Saturday at my house. We usually start the game around 1200 and go until about 2100, so it a great gaming day for us. A couple of them drive over an hour to get to my house! I have a nice "Geekarium" set up. I have my pretty extensive Star Wars collection on display, so it really helps set the mood nicely. I have some pictures of it in my Portal page. Since we play in person, I don't use too many electronic tools. I use the Obsidian Portal to keep track of my campaign. I also use my iPad, and I can control my PC iTunes through it to control my Star Wars music playlist and volume through my PC speakers. I also use a great character generator from the FFG Forums made by the member OggDude!
Who puts all of your wiki together?
Well a friend of mine James got me into the Obsidian Portal. Back when I was stationed in Germany with him, he was a co-GM and helped out a lot with the Portal, and taught me a lot about CSS. Since I have moved back to the US, it is just me maintaining it and updating it. I do have a couple of players who post adventure log updates, for a little extra XP of course.
Aside from the obvious, where else do you draw inspiration from when preparing your game?
This is actually a hard question, of course from the best sources in the genera, Star Wars, Firefly, Trek, and so on. But aside from those, it is kind of hard to nail down were I get my ideas. With this campaign, I am getting a lot of ideas from the news. It is amazing how much news you miss out on when you live overseas (7 years in Germany), and don't have TV. But with all the stuff going on about National Security, the Secret Service, ISIS, Boko Haram, it is not hard to get ideas for the criminal underworld, the Rebels, or the Imperials. Speaking of Rebels, it is no coincidence that my campaign is set 5 years before the A new Hope. I may steal a lot from the new TV show, or have some cameos in my game.
How much time do you usually take to prepare for a session?
Really not a lot. I already have the overall outline for the campaign. The players have some great back stories that I will bring into the game and they can resolve some of their dilemmas and sort through personal demons. This game makes great use of an Obligation system that gets rolled at the start of each session. This could trigger a players past problems for the session. For the most part, I get an idea of an overall goal for the session, and that is it. We sit down to game, and just let the game happen. I do most of my stuff off the fly. It feels like "A Night at the Improv". It really helps that I have players that take great notes.
Aside from SW:EotE I'm sure you have played other systems too, what are some others you have enjoyed?
Well, I own and have GM'ed all the Star Wars RPG systems out there. I started gaming with the WEG system about 1989 with my cousin. 99% of my gaming time has been behind the GM screen. And 100% of that time has been a Star Wars game. So I hate to say it, but I don't have much experience with too many other systems or even as a player. I have played Shadow Run one time. Of course I have played a little AD&D, and some D&D 3.5. I have played Pathfinder a few times. I had friend of mine run a very short lived Palladium game that was awesome, Ray was a great DM, but alas, real life happens. I have never ran a game that was not Star Wars, and I have only ever played in a very few Star Wars games. I think full time GM's make for horrible players though.
How do you know your players, how long have you been gaming with them?
Well, we just moved to Virginia back in June, and got all of our stuff in August. I met this group through Meetp.com around July, so about 3 months ago now. So we don't know each other that well. A couple of the guys know each other from other games. Even though we just met and are really starting to get to know each other, we are hitting it off very well, and the Group is really starting to come together.
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?
I have been using Obsidian Portal for 10 months now, and looking forward to using it for years to come! I love the fact that it can be very easy to use and setup, and it can also be quite a challenge to setup and look great! There are a huge number of great looking Portal sites out there! (Tyellador!!!) I am quite jealous of a lot of them. One thing I love about the OP is that I can link in a sound file. So while I may not be able to mimic someone, or do a great voice, I can play a little audio clip and the players can hear what the NPC "should" sound like. I then try to imitate that voice to the (not very good) best of my ability, it is good to be able to hear it myself to kind of "get into character". I love the fact that I go in and create little hyperlinks for all my locations and NPCs in my player's adventure logs. They can then have a quick reference to pictures, sound clips, and info on all these. It is really just a great repository for all our knowledge.
What would you say the single biggest highlight from The Edge of Destiny has been so far?
For me watching my group really mesh and work together. Their shining moment came when I introduced an encounter that they could have easily avoided. They were walking along and one player noticed a "tooka doll" (a stuffed animal akin to a teddy bear, I have one in the Portal) lying in the mud. They could have just dropped the toy and went about their day, most of the group chose to take a look around, figuring that a dropped toy on this planet was not common. They see a small girl getting attacked by a group of ruffians, and decided they need to intervene and protect her. One Character was all for not getting involved though. Well the majority of the group gets involved, and blaster bolts and obscenities start flying all over. In the end they saved the girl, and while not everyone wanted to get involved, all helped out. This was a defining moment for the newly forged group and helped cement their confidence/alliance with each other.
Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GM'ing pearls of wisdom.
Man, another tough question. You guys make this stuff hard. J One word: FUN. If you or the players are not having fun, then why play the game. Being a GM can be very difficult, you have to find that fine line where you are giving the Group a challenge without it seeming like a contest or "me versus you" kind of thing. For my final thoughts I will only stay on the positive side: GM's, make your players feel like HEROES! They should be the center of your attention, the not NPC's, definitely not GM PC's, and don't ever make encounters were they have to get "bailed" out at the last second by a group of super NPC's. Instead, have them go bail out the second string, make the PC's the guys doing the butt saving. In my opinion the GM's focus should be making sure the Players are having a great time while telling a great story. Too many times I have seen/heard where the GM relishes in making things too difficult or the TPK. If your whole party dies, that is not a sign of how great the GM is. So make sure the players are having a great time, and by default the GM will also.
I would like to say Thank You to all those that have been a fan of my Obsidian Portal page, and to the moderators of the Obsidian Portal for recognizing the hard work of my Players and myself for awarding us the Campaign of the Moth. It is truly an honor, and from what I can tell the first Star Wars Edge of the Empire campaign to be awarded the CotM! Thanks to all my SW EotE past players: Alan, Andrew, Austin, James, and Mark. The current: Curtis, Nate, Michael, Paul, and the newest member of the Group, Drew.
That's it for this month folks, tune in next time as we explore yet another awesome glimpse into a campaign from across the galaxy!]]>
First off, feel free to tell us about the person(s) behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do both aside from gaming? Wife and kids? Where can we stalk you on the internet, that sort of thing!
I was born and bred in the great state of Texas! As a consequence I tend to make frequent use of the word "y'all" even in written conversation, but I'll refrain here for the sake of those from less… linguistically blessed locales.
I work in information security (sometimes called cybersecurity, though I always feel like that sounds just a bit cheesy for a real-world profession), currently on a team that manages website security for over 300 companies. I recently returned to school as well, as during my first run at university I floated around between majors and generally had no idea what I wanted to do. So right now I'm doing the "work full time AND school full time" thing, which is… delightful?
So…tell us about Outremer:
Outremer started out more as a setting than a campaign – an experiment in world-building. Originally, the idea was that Earth was lost and humanity was divided and scattered across dozens of distant star systems. Travel between the stars was slow, but technology was so advanced that cultures adapted to their new homes and eventually became alien to each other, and there was/is an emphasis on the interaction between these alien-yet-human peoples.
The players are highly creative folks and have done a great job helping me add depth and drama. We now have true alien species, governments and conspiracies, plotting megacorporations, etc… The themes are very "cyberpunk" – murder and mystery, crime and secrets.
I think it is very dystopic – the appearance of a thriving society with advanced technology and a bustling economy, but decay is lurking underneath.
What do you enjoy most about the FATE system?
Three things: flexibility, cooperation, and narrative-focus.
FATE can be adapted to handle just about anything with minimal fuss, whether you're building starships or trying to figure out how to handle something on the fly. It also involves the players as much as the GM in storytelling, so it feels more like a partnership in creating interesting plots and scenes. And the mechanics are just enough to provide structure, without distracting from the characters and the action.
What do you enjoy most about sci-fi campaigns?
To me, science fiction is a study of normal people and fantastic concepts. Its characters have realism and are motivated by natural passions and needs, but we place those characters in places and situations beyond human experience. I think it grounds the writing and characters, makes them easier to identify and connect with, and draws everyone into the world because its…just…maybe… possible.
How regularly do you play, and where do you play? (If you play online, do you use any certain tools to accomplish your gaming such as Google hangouts, roll20, etc.)
We are a Play-by-Post campaign run entirely here on Obsidian Portal, using the adventure logs as our game threads and running OOC discussions in the campaign forums. We play at a fairly relaxed pace (perhaps a full "round" of posts weekly), but we get some high quality writing.
We do use one external tool – the dice roller at RPG Library. It took a while to find one that would not only email results, but also natively supports Fate dice.
Who puts all of your wiki together?
The players have done a ton to contribute and improve – creating new pages, adding content to old pages, improving formatting and cross-linking. It is truly a whole group effort.
Where do you draw inspiration from when preparing your game?
Mostly music, weirdly enough. I like to collect soundtracks from various movies and games, and I'll put together a playlist that puts me in the right mindset for whatever I'm working on.
I also read a lot of hard-boiled and noir fiction, which is very dark but character-focused. So even though the game has a lot of high-minded concepts in the politics and technology that is in the background, its grounded by this idea that "people suck".
How much time do you usually take to prepare for a session?
Hard to say with a Play-by-Post campaign since we don't have distinct sessions, per se. Preparation is more of an ongoing thing every day: reading posts from the players, making small updates and notes for myself in the background.
In fact, one of the advantages of the medium is that you don't have to prepare an whole session's worth of material up-front. If you're not a great improvisational GM (which I am not), you have time to react to the unexpected that players come up with. Instead you can do it a little at a time, all the time.
Aside from Fate I'm sure you have played other systems too, what are some others you enjoy?
Like most a played a lot of d20, starting with Dungeons and Dragons 3.0/3.5 years ago. I really liked Pathfinder for a while (though I missed the material from my collected splat books… love a good splat book!).
I've enjoyed the Warhammer 40k roleplaying system (mostly Dark Heresy). In many ways it is the opposite of the Fate system: more mechanics than you can shake a stick at and your character is likely to die just attempting to eat hot soup with a blunt spoon. I think I have all the Rogue Trader material and would dearly love to play in a campaign of that.
How do you know your players, how long have you been gaming with them?
Our group is a product of the Obsidian Portal community. I think I interacted with most if not all of them on the community forums before the campaign, and they have other great campaigns going on OP, so if you want to see some excellent campaigns just check out their profiles. But we only started playing together earlier this year – we're pretty young as a group.
I really love the overall feel of your wiki, the maps are great too, did you make them yourself?
Thanks! I spend in inordinate amount of time playing with CSS, layout, graphics, etc… I got a lot of help from the masters on the community forums when I was just getting started, and slowly worked my way up from there. Lots of trial and error.
I'm currently using maps I made myself – the star map I am particularly proud of. The data is taken from HabCat, a database of real stellar data containing stars likely to support human life. Then using the real-world coordinates of those stars I generated jump routes between nearby systems. The visual representations are "artistically" placed, but the names, numbers, and data involved are all as close to the real world as I could manage, and I tried to use that to drive some of the history in the setting.
It was a long, complicated process using various data sets, programs, and far more time than appropriate, but it was fun, too!
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?
I think I first joined back in 2008 or 2009 as a player. I wasn't really a GM at that point, so when that campaign ended I forgot about it for a while. Then when I started to get serious about world-building, I wanted a place to organize my thoughts online, so I could access the material anywhere, and I ended up sort of "re-discovering" Obsidian Portal, which was exactly what I wanted.
"Obsidian Portal addiction" is a big part of why I keep coming back. I really enjoy setting up new campaigns and wikis, even if I don't plan on using them for an campaign in the foreseeable future. Beyond that, I like the community – browsing other people's campaigns, discussing roleplaying games, storytelling, etc…
Now that the Reforging has been live for a little while now, what are your favorite parts?
In a word: customization.
It was hard at first, but I cut my teeth on CSS during the Reforge, and now with the power and flexibility that Reforged OP has, I can create a campaign site with a look and feel that reflects the campaign and setting. That adds a whole dimension beyond the merely functional, and I find a suitably atmospheric campaign site (and the work to accomplish it) to be incredibly satisfying.
What would you say the single biggest highlight from Outremer has been so far?
I mentioned before that we are fairly young, but I would say two things have been pleasant surprises already.
The first is the character background work that the players did. Where Fate only requires some brief summaries to help with character creation and tying the group together, the players in Outremer did an excellent job of writing mini-roleplays and short stories. They were a great read, and there are built-in plot hooks with these PCs that I can mine forever.
Also, they've already started to uncover conspiracies and make some enemies. Right now, they are confronted with a virulent alien mutagen that has been stolen, there have been secret human trials going on in the city, and there's some substantial distrust developing between the group and some powerful NPCs.
Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GM'ing pearls of wisdom.
Story is king! If you care about making your world come alive, everything flows from there.
Branch out! GMs play the part of writer, director, and actor, so look for advice from "the greats" in those disciplines.
Also, consume as much diverse media as possible – particularly outside what you normally watch, read, or listen to. If you read a lot, try audio books; if you typically watch movies, try listening to just music instead; if you prefer action, watch a sappy romance. You never know when something new and different might be inspiring.
That's it for this month folks, tune in next time for more awesome campaigns from the OP community, and in the meantime, keep your suggestions flowing to my inbox.]]>
Today we're joined by GM Haligaunt to talk to him about his Vampire: The Masquerade campaign, Concord of Ashes. These vampires don't sparkle folks! Read on for all of the awesome-ness!
First off, feel free to tell us about the person behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do both aside from gaming? Wife and kids? Where can we stalk you on the internet, that sort of thing!
My name is Damien Edwards and I live in Sydney, Australia. I am a bartender by trade, and until recently a perennial student. I'm lucky enough to work in the shadow of the Harbour Bridge, and having the opportunity to work in one of the oldest suburbs in Australia is a constant delight. It has also sharpened my appreciation for Vampire, as observing Sydney's nightly ruck and run gives me some excellent ideas. I have an amazingly tolerant girlfriend who thinks nothing of me disappearing on nighttime adventures after work, and she also insists that I game regularly so I'm not "impossible to live with."
At the moment, the only place you can really stalk me online is right here on Obsidian Portal. I spend much of my spare time writing for the game, as I must have something like 100 unfinished wiki articles at the moment!
So, tell us about Concord of Ashes
The Concord of Ashes is a Dark Ages Vampire chronicle. Back in 2011 it began as my humble attempt to marry up the material presented in Transylvania by Night, Constantinople by Night and the Transylvania Chronicles but it has grown well beyond that vision. All of those are excellent books, by the way, but necessarily short on detail for obvious reasons. I always felt that it was a natural step to expand the core books to online media so that added depth and scope could be brought to the game. Many of the characters and factions touched upon in those books can be found heavily detailed on the Concord of Ashes wikis, but I'm not even close to being finished.
The chronicle is currently set at the beginning of April, 1204, less than a week before the 4th Crusade launches their final assault on the city of Constantinople.
The theme of the game has been surviving and embracing change. In the era of Cainite (vampire) history when the chronicle is set, the 4th Crusade's arrival at Constantinople signaled the end of the epoch known as the Long Night and the beginning of another known as the War of Princes. The Long Night was something of a Golden Age for vampires; their society was stable and unchanging, their dominion over mortal governance was solid, and everyone basically stayed put for centuries. The War of Princes rapidly escalates into a geopolitical morass of intrigue and war, where age alone is insufficient to guarantee survival and alliances can shift overnight. Ultimately, this conflict catalyzes the creation of the Inquisition, which then sparks off the Anarch Revolt, which then leads into the creation of the opposed societies of the Camarilla and the Sabbat of the modern game. I wanted to create a story where my players were not just witnesses to that tipping point, but actually had the ability to act as agents for good or ill as it all spirals out of control.
Ultimately, I would like to start leap-frogging through time after about 1240 CE, using each of the current PCs as the progenitors of a bloodline that would allow the players to keep on making younger and fresher characters for the stories ahead.
In the long run I am also hoping that there will be enough content, and enough interest, to have many vampire players contributing to it as a play by email platform.
What do you enjoy most about Vampire: The Masquerade?
I have enjoyed a vast number of other games in my 25+ of role-playing, particularly Dungeons and Dragons and both Star Wars d6 & d20. The World of Darkness has always tickled my fancy more than High Fantasy and Science Fiction, though, because it is just one step removed from the world we walk through each day and night. Without the giant leap into a radically different "game-world", the imagination of the troupe is freer to wander into more visceral and disturbing territory. By the way, it is deeply entertaining to wander through a city and visualize which buildings would make good havens, where supernatural people might congregate or hunt, and how they manipulate the rest of us. Is that arrogant guy in the suit at the end of the bar really drinking a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, or does this bar have a "special stock" for discerning patrons? Not a few of the characters in my cast of hundreds were created in the wee hours of the morning after meeting a noteworthy person at the pub!
Having said all that, Dark Ages Vampire (DAV) is somewhat different to Vampire: the Masquerade. With DAV I can indulge my passion for history and paint a tableau where vampires ran amok as true lords of the night; before they were brought down by the Inquisition and the Anarch Revolt. Although communication and travel were barriers, the clans arguably dominated the world more than they do in the modern nights. And to make it even more interesting, there were cases where they did so more or less openly. I find the idea of presenting that thin veil of monstrosity very compelling and enjoyable.
Speaking of vampires in general, and the overall radical-ness of your campaign – please provide your thoughts on sparkly vampires. I'm very curious.
Seriously. WTF?!?! I've never spent so much time in a movie hoping the "bad guys" would win. And no, I wasn't willing to read the books. Vampires work well as flawed and sympathetic people compelled by overwhelming urges to do despicable things. They even work as monsters of the week. They do not work, in my humble opinion of course, as sparkly super hero's.
How regularly do you play, and where do you play?
We are very much a traditional gaming group in most ways, meeting face to face and using dice and character sheets. With the reams of content that I have written, I reluctantly stopped using paper and moved over to a laptop last year, and one or two of my players have followed suit. We try to get a game in every week or at most once a fortnight, but time and work pressures often lead to hiatuses of up to a month. Even so, at such times we try to stay in touch regarding player actions and long-term plans. We even have a (somewhat dysfunctional) play-by-email forum set up. Even if we can't play, however, a few of us usually meet up for late-night beers every week or two where, as you might expect, we talk incessantly about the chronicle.
Who puts all of your wiki together?
For the most part, it is a one-man effort. I kidnapped some writing hack a few years ago and keep him chained to a computer in my garage. I pay him in scotch and hope for his trouble…
Actually, as I am constantly behind the ball trying to keep up with all the content updates, my players have usually been excellent regarding the story session summaries. I also have contributions from an old friend who moved to the United States many years ago. His short stories on the forum have kept me honest with my own output.
Where do you draw inspiration from when preparing your game? How much time do you usually take to prepare for a session?
Honestly? Documentaries and pseudo-historical dramas are great for getting me in the mood to write. It sounds cheesy, but anything from Covington Cross, Cadfael or Robin of Sherwood to more modern treatments such as Rome or even Game of Thrones. The point is to get in the habit of thinking in episodic terms; to strengthen one's intuition regarding what belongs in the next session and how to foreshadow what will come in later ones. I usually spend about 3 hours before each game jotting down what needs to happen that night, but I'll spend much of my spare time through the week examining the likely outcomes in broad strokes from each of the major antagonists point of view.
Aside from Vampire, I'm sure you have played other systems too, what are some others you enjoy?
I love playing Dungeons and Dragons. I ran a Greyhawk campaign over 8 years that followed the same characters through 7 years of game time. Indeed it continues to be a cause of some vexation that I didn't have Obsidian Portal to document the whole thing, although I have tried in fits and starts to have a go at it. Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance and yes, Ravenloft, were all frequent campaign worlds over the years and I do miss D&D immensely.
Star Wars d6 and d20 were great to play in for different reasons. The d6 system was a little unwieldy to learn but very flexible once you got the hang of it. The d20 was easy to learn but not terribly flexible at all. I learned a lot about making house rules when I was running Star Wars d20 and that directly correlates to doing so with Vampire's d10 system, which also needs a great deal of adjudication.
Shadowrun and Call of Cthulhu are both extraordinary games that I have enjoyed playing in the past. The insanity rules in the latter game are priceless! If only there were more hours in the day to run them too! And of course, though they are the same system, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Mage the Ascension and Wraith the Oblivion all deserve an honorable mention as fantastic games. All of them inform the World of Darkness where the Concord of Ashes takes place, and the cross-fertilization between the lines allows me to drop hints and "Easter eggs" all over my game…
How do you know your players, how long have you been gaming with them?
A couple of my players are old friends from my Vampire the Masquerade game, which ran from 1997-2002. My play by email player is from the same vintage. The others are much more recent additions. We met through the excellent networking contacts provided by a group known as the Sydney Geektogether.
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?
I started using Obsidian Portal back at the end of 2010. Initially, I wanted to try and consolidate my notes on my Greyhawk campaign after the game ended. It soon became apparent that that would be a Herculean task, so I set my mind to writing down notes for the Vampire game that had been percolating in the back of my mind since my Masquerade game finished.
So far as tools for my game, I've never encountered another medium that comes close to Obsidian Portal. I love that it gives me the ability to keep a permanent record of the game, and to showpiece what we have done for other lovers of the genre.
There's a lot of pretty great looking maps on your wiki, do they all get pretty equal use?
The Constantinople maps get the most use. A city that size needs a map to help the players visualize what is what and where it is. I have more maps I want to upload, but that has taken a back seat to other content for now.
Now that the Reforging has been live for a little while now, what are your favorite parts?
I am much better at writing content than presenting it in a savvy manner, as anyone who looks at the Concord of Ashes can attest! Speaking as a person who is poorly versed in creating a webpage, I confess that the Reforging has been daunting for me and I haven't exactly embraced it. Actually, other than a bit of mucking about with the Custom CSS and changing a few color schemes I haven't really explored much!
What would you say the single biggest highlight from Concord of Ashes has been so far?
My players might disagree with a groan, but the journey from Buda-Pest to Tihuta Pass was awesome. Anyone who has played the Transylvania Chronicles might recall it as a couple of scenes that could be plowed through in a session or two. We did in fifteen! I got to show my players (some of whom had almost no knowledge of the era) the difficulties of travel, many of the customs I had read about and the many reasons why vampires tended to stay put wherever they were Embraced. By the end of it, each of them knew the names of everyone else's retainers and even herd members, as well as their personality quirks and strengths. It was amazing to watch that take place.
Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GM'ing pearls of wisdom.
Firstly, gaming is a collaboration. Don't alienate your players. Through their interactions with each other and NPCs they write the story almost as much as their GM. With that in mind, don't rush character creation.Talk it out with your players and be sure to use the family, allies and enemies that they create when they imagine their character's back story.
Secondly, a picture really is worth a thousand words. Find pictures for your NPCs and the memorable scenes that you want to create. Otherwise you risk losing your players to the cast of hundreds that you want to create.
Thirdly, rules should be called guidelines instead. Agree on general principles and establish the notion that if rules don't work, or work poorly, they are subject to change through discussion and consensus. "Rules lawyering" bogs games down, as does the need to constantly look up unwieldy and needlessly complicated passages. No one remembers that nonsense for a reason. The story is what matters, and a well-told scene is what people talk about long after the game is done. With that in mind, do what you have to to keep momentum going.
And lastly, don't give up! If a wiki article or a character is bothering you, set it down for a bit and do another, easier one. And don't let your players give up. All games hit rough patches and you will sometimes struggle to get a session in, or be forced to take a break. Keep the lines of communication open and keep people eager to contribute.
That's it for this month guys, keep all the awesome suggestions headed to my inbox, and we'll catch you all next month in the post-Gencon world!]]>
First off, feel free to tell us about the person(s) behind the GM screen. Where are you from? What do you do both aside from gaming? Wife and kids? Where can we stalk you on the internet, that sort of thing!
There are two people operating under the name TheShadows – a bit of an inside joke of ours, the name – each with their own individual account. Though we realize now that it's been a while since we've last used those…
I'm Maru15, though I commonly just go by Maru. It's a username shared between most of my online accounts and though you'll likely be able to find it in a few places around the interwebs – some of which I've probably forgotten about, even – I usually just hang around the places where we roleplay, lately. I'm a Pharmacy student from Portugal, and when not gaming, I enjoy reading, a lot of it, videogaming and to balance those, camping and hiking on occasion.
I'm loevelynn, commonly known as Lo. I'm from Canada, I studied English Literature, and I'm the other half of TheShadows. You can find me where we roleplay, and on Deviantart (http://loandbehold19.
deviantart.com/) where I post some of my character drawings. When I'm not roleplaying online or depicting various roleplay characters, I'm most often reading, writing, or just hanging out with my pet rabbit, Ash.
So…tell us about Winter Is Coming.
The whole thing actually started by complete accident when some of our players met each other by chance on a chatroom for a Game of Thrones browser game. It began with some silly, nonsensical roleplay and eventually developed into something much more serious, which none of us expected at the time but we're all thankful for.
We try to balance the court intrigue that the ASOIAF series is known for, having characters compete with and conspire against each other for positions of power for themselves and their Houses, with an overarching plot with a common foe who our players must unite against if they don't want the whole Seven Kingdoms to come crumbling down. Said common foe is at the moment en route to the Wall separating the realm from the Lands of Always Winter with a clever plot to destroy it – and possibly bring about an invasion of the nasty creatures lurking beyond. As fans of the series will no doubt be able to tell, we've branched away from canon, creating our own custom story in Westeros. We've recently had our one-year anniversary, something that none of us had seen coming in the very beginning, and we're excited for what the future may bring and all the possibilities we still have to play around with.
What do you enjoy most about BRP?
(It's actually text based roleplay. We only noticed the discrepancy after reading this question, and were actually quite surprised that neither one of us noticed that particular option in the settings. It's been corrected.) Though it may not be for everyone, we think that this particular style of RP, lacking complex systems of stats, die rolls and such mechanics – we use some simplified versions on occasion – makes it easier for newcomers to join in, especially those new to roleplaying in general, of which we've had quite a few of.
We try to give politics and intrigue a bigger spotlight than actual combat, and when you have two players pitted against each other in a battle of whispers, die can do very little to help. It's up to each person's secrecy, plotting skills and ability to make allies. Additionally, the fact that we use live chat to roleplay makes it considerably faster-paced than the kind done on forums, for example, which we find exciting. It's harder to think under pressure, such as when you're put on the spot for something treacherous your character has done or said and menacing guards are starting to unsheathe their weapons all around.
What do you enjoy most about Game of Thrones?
Oh, wow… We could go on for quite some time about this one. We could talk about how George R. R. Martin's willingness to kill fan-favourite main characters adds much appreciated suspense to the story, as we never truly know if the "hero" – though the accuracy of the term is arguable, since most characters can't be oversimplified as "good" or "evil" – will make it out of a difficult situation. We could talk about how the focus on politics and intrigue instead of flashy magic and gruesome creatures makes for a refreshing, subtler take on the fantasy genre. We could talk about how awesome dragons are. Really, there's a lot to talk about. It's a great show and some amazing books, and we certainly recommend both!
How regularly do you play, and where do you play? (If you play online, do you use any certain tools to accomplish your gaming such as Google hangouts, roll20, etc.)
We have daily sessions online, in a Chatzy room we linked to in our campaign page. It offers some basic roll die commands that are more than enough to satisfy our occasional need for some randomness and keeps a record of everything we write. Though we sometimes use a variety of other services for voice and even video chat, they're not used for the roleplay.
Who puts all of your wiki together?
Well, we expect players to create and maintain their character pages and anything related to those, like items or songs. As for the rest of the wiki, it's a team effort. One of us writes most of the entries and manages the general organization of the page while the other focuses more on image editing and regular maintenance.
We're both perfectionists. We like making sure everything's as great as it can be, and that includes occasionally going over our pages to correct grammar and spelling mistakes or formatting accidents that other players sometimes don't notice. These things have a way of piling up, and it's lengthy and not particularly exciting work, but we help each other out a lot, and things just wouldn't work as smoothly if we didn't.
Where do you draw inspiration from when preparing your game? How much time do you usually take to prepare for a session?
We draw inspiration from George R. R. Martin's books, of course, a number of other works of fiction, History – research is a fundamental part of our campaign, we like to make sure that everything is at the very least plausible – and each other.
Our usual daily sessions don't really require any time to prepare other than a few minutes to chat out of character, get in the mood and wait for more players to show up. Often, players will just take the initiative, interact with each other and make things happen on their own. However, it does usually take us some time to plan events related to the main plotline, and depending on their complexity, it can take as little as a couple of hours and as much as a few days.
Aside from BRP I'm sure you have played other systems too, what are some others you enjoy?
It's funny, because actually, we haven't. Considering the circumstances of its creation, most of the participants, and that includes both of us, lacked any RP experience at all.
We've since acquired it, though, and newcomers to our community vary from complete newbies like we were to seasoned roleplayers – we get a good mix of both and try to be welcoming to everyone regardless of how familiar they are with the activity. This campaign did a great job of getting us into RP though, and we've both discussed other styles we'd like to try out eventually, like D&D.
Do you and your players all watch the show? How many of you have read the books?
The vast majority of our players watch the show, and most of those who don't have at least read the books. As for the two of us, one only watches the show and the other has only read the books. We've had some people who had done neither, and therefore had no knowledge of the ASOIAF series whatsoever, but, understandably, a lot didn't stick around. Some showed remarkable perseverance, though! (And memorized the ASOIAF wiki.)
How do you know your players, how long have you been gaming with them?
With a few rare exceptions who are friends or even relatives in real life, we've all met each other online. People have come and gone during the course of the roleplay, but a few of the initial ones, we've known for a little over a year now, ever since the beginning. Most have been around for months. We've grown close, and we're proud to say that there are people in the community that we can safely call friends.
I really like the Rule section of your Wiki, have you ever had players get particularly upset about any of them?
Not exactly, no. Every rule in that section has been created in response to situations we've experienced in the course of our campaign. Most of them will undoubtedly look ridiculously basic to veteran roleplayers, but they were essential at the time they were created and they continue to be so, given that we regularly take in inexperienced newcomers. It's a constant process, and we still have updates to that page as more rules are added or existing ones are tweaked.
Not every current player was around for the creation of each rule, but they were all written with the agreement of the group and we believe that in general, everyone understands the purposes behind them – which can be summed up to avoiding unfair situations, increasing everyone's enjoyment and helping us grow as roleplayers and even writers. While we do sometimes have a few conflicts over transgressions of those rules, those are more due to the players not thinking that they are in violation of them rather than disagreeing with their existence.
How long have you been using Obsidian Portal? What brought you to the site and what keeps bringing you back?
As our roleplay grew, accumulating history and characters, we started struggling to keep up with it all, and every time someone new wished to join, one of our players would have to interrupt his session for a long exposition.
Obsidian Portal was suggested by one of our members when he noticed these problems. It provided a reliable, appealing method of keeping a record of our endeavors in Westeros and allowed new players to explore our story freely, at their own pace and without disrupting the roleplay going on. Our community took to it quite quickly. It has since become an important part of our campaign and everyone has the link to it ready to be dispensed whenever someone expresses interest in joining us. It's really made things much easier for us, and well, I suppose that's why we keep coming back!
Now that the Reforging has been live for a little while now, what are your favorite parts?
It's a bit hard to remember Obsidian Portal prior to the Reforging at this point, to be honest, though we do recall that the addition of tags was a big improvement. We also got a lot of feedback from our players about how much easier linking to characters and other pages was, and it helped us quite a lot in our endeavor to have our wiki properly interconnected, ensuring that others could do it themselves without much trouble.
Overall, while there are still some bugs to flesh out, we're really happy with the update and how Obsidian Portal works, as well as excited to find out what the future will bring!
What would you say the single biggest highlight from Winter Is Coming has been so far?
In our roleplay, it's not unusual for characters to be off in their little groups, each with their own problems and concerns, as life in King's Landing goes on (somewhat) uneventfully between events of the overarching plot.
Our biggest highlight would have to be a moment that brought all characters together, friends and foes alike, against a common enemy bent on everyone's destruction: the invasion of the city by several mercenary companies from across the Narrow Sea and even some Westerosi traitors, all united under the flag of the main villain. Not only was that probably our most successful event, consisting of extremely long, uninterrupted sessions over two days and counting with the participation of a very large number of players, it also provided us with something to look forward to for a few weeks, eliciting extensive preparations for the incoming attack by the people of King's Landing and giving birth to some very interesting pre-battle situations and great character development.
Okay, before we get out of here, give us some of your best GM'ing pearls of wisdom.
At the end of the day, this is simply a game, we're all playing it to have fun and that should be what matters most. If you're not having fun, there's something wrong, and if there's something wrong, don't just expect it to get better by itself, do something about it! Players need to communicate with their GMs, and vice-versa. No problem can be solved by simply bottling up your feelings and waiting to blow up.