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Monday, January 3, 2011

A Peek Into the Northlands and Beyond

Just about every gamer has heard of Obsidian Portal by now I'm sure, and if not well, I have to ask: what rock have you been hiding under?  I cannot begin to say enough about how valuable this site has been for me and my gaming group over the past few months.

My friends and I have been playing DnD off and on together for years now.  Of course, when we were growing up, we played weekly and sometimes more often than that, but as the years went on, and we all sort of went our separate ways, it became difficult to gather more than once or twice a year.  Thankfully the internet came to the rescue.  We decided to try a play by post method on our own private forum early last year and it has been very successful for us.  Along the way, however, we've had to take a few periodic breaks, so game play has not moved as quickly as we would have liked.  That's where Obsidian Portal comes in.

Shortly after we started playing on the forum, I stumbled upon Obsidian Portal and immediately signed up.  After watching a few tutorials and checking out some other campaigns to get a feel for the tool, I decided it would be perfect for me as the DM to organize the adventure.  My memory is terrible unfortunately, but as we played on the forum, I would update the campaign on Obsidian Portal.  As we've taken several breaks along the way, it has proven itself as one of the most valuable DM tools I've ever seen in my years gaming.  Without this site, I would have forgotten much of what occurred along the way after our many breaks in the game.  Sure I could have slogged through hundreds of posts on the forum to get caught back up, but the idea of that is frankly overwhelming. 

Now, with Obsidian Portal, we can take a break for two months, come back, and not miss a beat.  I've even found a way to get the players involved in the process as well.  To replace the table top sessions of role play, I encourage them to post their own entries to the adventure log on the site.  The results have been fantastic so far and really has helped get the players more involved in the campaign and their characters.

Also, Obsidian Portal can be used in a variety of different ways, but the trick is learning how to utilize the tools on the site.  There is a bit of a learning curve, but by investing a couple of hours into really learning how to use the tool, you can save yourself from major headaches down the road.  There are many fine examples of the tool out there, but if you'd like to see how we've used it thus far, head on over and take a look at my campaign.

5 comments:

  1. That looks like a heck of a tool. I wonder if it could work for my group. Is there a forum linked to the wiki where you conduct your play by post?

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  2. Well it's very versatile and can be used in a variety of ways. There is a forum option available for every campaign so technically you could probably do everything from the site itself. I have not linked our forum to the campaign mainly because none of the content from our forum is visible to the public anyway. We use a free proboards forum with a dice roller script added that let's us generate random dice rolls in our posts for combat and the like.

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  3. Hello, and welcome to the gaming blogosphere! Your blog came highly recommended (read about it at Gothridge Manor) and I look forward to following it. In the meantime, here's my own blog:

    http://unto-the-breach.blogspot.com/

    And as for Obsidian Portal, I am going to find some time to look through your campaign page. Here's mine, if you're interested:

    http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/wanderers-tales

    Happy gaming!

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  4. It sounds like you understand it pretty well. Obsidian Portal isn't really meant for PbP or online play, but instead to track the overall game. I built it for managing an in-person around-the-table group, but it works just as well for what you're doing. It's probably best that you're using a different forum for the actual play/posting. Some people use our campaign forum for that, but it was never really intended for that purpose.

    Glad you like the site, and thanks for the nice writeup :)
    Micah
    Co-Founder, Obsidian Portal

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  5. Micah- Yes, I've really only scratched the surface with how useful your site can be. Thank you for developing such a useful tool. As I said, truly one of the better DM tools I've ever encountered. Thank you for dropping by and commenting.

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