Thoughts: Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium

WotC released a new magic item book and I’ve had a month or so to finally read through it thoroughly. It’s an interesting departure from the previous adventure vault books, being pretty sparse on the number of items and having more emphasis on descriptions and providing a back story of the items themselves. Add to that additional mundane items, armor, weapons, and a bit of rules for henchmen, and you’ve pretty much have a concise rundown of the book content.

The magic items are a mixed bag. Some classic AD&D items return and get a 4E treatment. Just about each item entry has some details on the item’s history and lore. It seems they are making an effort to put some wonderment and flash back into magic items, and I think it’s a nice touch. There is a nice section on giving magic items story elements. I think there is a fairly good spread of items to cover just about any class or item slot, giving your PCs some new things to drool over.

Cursed items are also included. I really like the idea that curses are pretty much item properties that a DM can slap onto just about any existing item. The emphasis seems more on using cursed items as a vehicle for story elements, rather than befalling your players with a ‘gotcha’ situation. There are lots of suggestions for introducing cursed items and I especially enjoy the idea that item curses might be tied to a very beneficial item. So that awesome sword might make a PC an absolute monster in combat, but having this great power comes with a trade off. It’s a nice idea and gives the players tough choices.

There is also quite a few new equipment, armor types, and a few additional weapons. I expect much of the weapons were additions to the stock essentials books. There are also some neat superior implements to give them a unique twist. However these require a feat to use. I appreciate the option and allows a small work around with your min/max PCs (especially as there is a cap on the bonuses from feats). I expect that tying superior implements to feats also can curb some abuse, but it does give that ‘chicken or the egg’ conundrum for players. They can’t get the benefits of a superior implement unless they take the feat, but might not take the feat unless they have access to such an implement. This is something that will require some DM to PC communication for certain.

There are also some tables describing the value of certain trade good along with approximate costs for different housing. Combined with the additional equipment, I like having this handy. It allows me as a DM to explore other types of rewards aside from the normal magic item or gold option.

This is sort of an important book as it is the first jump into magic items post-essentials. This leads me to a bit of a sour taste with the book. A handful of items have been presented before in the adventurer’s vault books (AV). Granted some of the properties have been tweaked, but why they didn’t just stick to being in the errata I don’t know. It would have been nice to just present new, never seen before, items to the 4E game. I get the idea that WotC wants to abandon all the earlier books, and not saddle new DMs coming in through essentials with having to pick up the other AV books. I can see this simply besides a few older magic items being included, they also provided the rules for PCs making alchemical items. If this is the case however, I think they made a huge omission with the henchmen.

The lauded henchmen rules are also here. For the most part they give the DM an idea of how different hirelings could be introduced into the game (and most are very fragile with combat stats effectively like minions). There are examples of companion characters, which effectively give the players a chance to round out a party with another man-at-arms henchmen. But are there any rules for them? Nope. You’ve got to dig out the DMG2 to get those rules. I am very surprised with representing certain magic items and providing alchemical rules, the companion rules got left out. A quick and dirty version could take up one page. In the end, new DMs coming in from essentials are pretty much left to using examples in the book and will have to wing it if they wanted a higher level NPC.

Another huge beef with me is making this an independent game store only purchase. I get trying the throw some support back to the smaller retailers. And I think having an initial limited release for 6-8 months including only these retailers a nice gesture. But totally avoiding the larger book distributors is pretty harsh. Some folks just might not have the option to get this book at smaller retailer, and that is doing nothing towards some independent retailers taking advantage of this (last I checked some were selling this book at $70+ on Amazon). Next time, here’s to hoping WotC considers giving the FLGS a 6 month head start and then open up distribution to other retailers.

So is it worth your dollar? If I were a new DM and jumped in with essentials, I’d say an emphatic yes. Aside from the magic items, you have a lot of armor, weapon, and equipment options for the PCs. Otherwise I see the books as a very optional purchase. If your players want to explore other weapon focus feats or you wanted to dabble in curses, this is something you’d likely want to buy. As always, more magic items are nice to have but if you all ready have the adventurer’s vault books you likely have enough items all ready. For the DM that has much of the 4E material, I’d consider picking up Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium as a nice stocking stuffer, but not that must have book.

Expeditions of Amazing Adventure: the Floating City of Phomparr

Nestled in the center of the great swamplands is Phomparr, the floating city. This city is a dizzying network of canals and streams broken up by small marsh mounds of thick vegetation. It is rumored that hundreds of years ago, a cult following a primeval destructive god spread throughout the land. The populace offended Melora by worshiping this primitive god of a past age. They had cut swathes of trees and cleared the land for large temples of stonework. In her fury, Melora raised the river waters making the land a swampy marsh, with ground so soft no stone foundation could be laid.

Phomparr declined but slowly crawled back from this great cataclysm. While much of the land could not bear a stone walls, trees with thick tangles of roots sprung up easily. Simple structures of light wood and bamboo could be made, elevated up as platforms above the flooded swampland. While Melora washed the land with her fury, she also imparted her gifts of life. The tropical swamp exploded with verdant growth as a myriad of fresh vegetables and fruits could easily be cultivated, and the dark waters were stocked full of fish.

Now only great public meeting halls and temples are the common structures seen within Phomparr, precariously balanced on long stilts of bamboo and timber. Some more wealthy citizens try to elevate their status having such homes above the waters and motes of tangled roots and grasses. However, most of the citizens happily live their lives on small boats. It is common to see teeming markets of fresh food and dried fish among the tangled network of canals within the city. Despite the ancient calamity that befell them, the resilient people of Phomparr have remained and flourished in this wild tropical swampland.

The city of Phomparr is widely known for their great markets. Many adept trappers and herbalists delve deep within the swampland wilds, returning with unique flowers, roots, and wild beasts. The markets are a bustling affair of trading and auctions for fresh goods and exotic plants and animals. At times such trade is a dizzy affair for those not familiar with the rapid exchange of words, hand gestures, and goods the local citizens engage in. But if one has a quick tongue and a sharp sense of commerce, unique goods can be purchased. As such, many traveling merchants make the dangerous trek through the wild swamps to Phomparr to seek out wondrous animals and plants, items that would turn a great profit in the more temperate neighboring lands.

The people of Phomparr have little need of a city guard. Many take up slights against family honor by a quick thumping of heads to the offending family. Occasionally though, a darker deed is committed. Such evils are punished through a quiet formation of a townsfolk mob that see to the sinking the responsible party’s boat. For without a boat one is doomed in Phomparr, as this exiles them to a harsh life in the unforgiving remote swamps as tribal wildmen.

More zealot followers of Melora as of late have become an increasing vocal minority within Phomparr, seeking to destroy any standing structure. They see constructed temples to Melora as an affront to the god, and especially have ire towards those citizens that seek to live in stilt houses. This has caused some friction between the more wealthy citizens and some of the lower class. However most citizens would agree this fringe element of Melora worshipers are too fanatical in their beliefs.

Scrolls for 4E – Part 2

Last time I talked a bit about how I use scrolls in 4E, now I’d like to offer my house rules for creating them.

To create a scroll, the player must have the ritual feat. Players can only create scrolls with spells (or powers) that they are capable of using. So they cannot create scrolls for spells that are of a different class, or those of a higher level. Any power except at wills or class feature powers can be created into scrolls. Additionally, no power with the martial keyword can be used to make a scroll.

The time needed to create a scroll is in days equivalent to the level of the spell. One more day is required if the spell power is a daily. Each day is spent writing a condensed version of the spell’s power and requires many special reagents and magical inks. In essence the spell is cast and key fragments of the spell are bound to special parchment. Each day also requires an extended rest. If this cycle of work is broken, the entire process must be restarted (but does not require any additional materials or costs for reagents).

The cost in gold is equal to the level of the spell X 50 gp. The exception is for daily powers, which double the base cost for the scroll. Example, a level 1 daily spell would cost 100 gp to prepare (50 gp X level X 2), the same cost for a level 2 utility spell (50 gp X level).

Rituals can also be created as scrolls. In order to prepare a scroll, the player must have access to a written version of the ritual. To prepare a ritual scroll the player uses similar rules and time as those for scrolls. Note that players are not bound to using the same class or power source when preparing a ritual scroll, however they cannot prepare a ritual scroll that is higher than their level.

The component costs for preparing a ritual scroll are doubled. If the ritual requires a focus to be expended, that focus must be present when the ritual scroll is cast. For example, View Location can be bound to a ritual scroll, but the focus must also be present when the scroll is used. It is not ‘stored’ in the magic of the scroll.

Casting rituals from scrolls is a difficult task, as the ritual is truncated to select power words, diagrams, and key movements of the hand. Any skill check made using a ritual scroll incurs a -5 penalty.

Time to cast is dependant on the original casting time:

  • 10 minutes or less – instantaneous
  • 30 minutes – 10 minutes
  • 1 hour – 30 minutes
  • Greater than 1 hour – half the casting time (ex. Raise dead would take 4 hours instead of 8)

It is expensive and time consuming to create scrolls. Additionally for many rituals, if time allows, it is likely better to cast a ritual carefully, rather than trying to quickly fire one off from a scroll. Sometimes the expedited time is helpful (say being able to cast a knock ritual quickly) but for more powerful rituals, most likely it is better to take the time to cast it normally.

I also wanted to be sure that there were key powers from classes that remained exclusive. Magic missile is such a staple power in the wizard’s repertoire, it would be silly to spend the time and effort to transcribe such a minor magical power into a scroll. Rather, it would be more useful for the wizard to spend his time preparing a spell of more power. I’d use this reasoning if players are clamoring to create a stockpile of Healing Word scrolls.

Allow players to buy scrolls also and use the costs for creating a scroll for an idea on the price (quick rule of thumb: 50 gp X level and double it for a daily power). However I would really encourage using scrolls as treasure. The costs for creating them can serve as a guideline for replacing an equivalent in treasure. The flavor alone might be something players enjoy, as a low level wizard might appreciate the ability to fire off a warlock’s Vampiric Embrace. As I’ve mentioned before, for some villains having a few scrolls tucked away in a chest within their lair just seems appropriate. Hope folks find this inspiring to try and put scrolls back into their 4E game.

Scrolls for 4E – Part 1

WillinghamTreasureLooking through the random treasure tables in Pathfinder’s Gamemastery Guide made me realize that I miss scrolls in 4E. I’ve noticed I’m not the only one as Blog of Holding has been thinking about this too. I’ve parsed out rituals as scrolls in my game, but I miss honest-to-god, one shot spell scrolls. I always felt they gave the PCs a little flexibility. Plus I think they represent classic loot for some baddies. Nothing like raiding a necromancer’s tower and scoring a few scrolls in the process. So here is a few house rules I use for scrolls in my game:

Players must be trained in the ritual feat to use scrolls. Using a scroll is a standard action. The scroll must be read from one free hand (typically a minor action to produce from a pouch, tube, backpack, pocket folds of a cloak, etc.). The reader must be unrestrained and able to speak. Once the scroll is used the magic fades from the page and the parchment becomes too brittle to write on.

The spell (or power) expended from the scroll is based on the reader’s abilities and skills. The spell cannot gain any implement or weapon modifier bonus from the player. The spell’s power emits from the scroll, and the player can manipulate it somewhat, but not direct the spell through a wand, staff, or other magical focus as an implement.

Characters may use scrolls for any spell equal to their level or lower. If a player is not trained in the power source of the spell on the scroll, they must make a moderate DC check to successfully cast it. The DC value is based on the level of the spell being read from the scroll.

This check has no skill training or ability bonus modifier. The player does gain a level bonus for this check. If the player fails this check, they expend their standard action but the scroll is not used (and may be attempted again). In effect, the player gets about halfway through the spell and begins to fumble lines, and not understand specific symbols and words on the scroll. Note this check is not made if the scroll user is trained in the same power source of the scroll spell.

Example, a 4th level wizard is attempting to cast cure light wounds (2nd level divine utility power). They must make a moderate skill check to use it, as the wizard draws power from the arcane. The DC for using the scroll is 13 (appropriate for a moderate level 2 check), and the player would only get a +2 bonus to this roll (level modifier bonus for a 4th level PC). If they were attempting to cast Shadow Veil (2nd level utility warlock spell), no check would be needed as the power is drawn from the arcane source.

I use this as it allows PCs to dabble in other spell sources, but still requires a bit of luck to pull it off. Granted the higher the level of a player in relation to the spell being cast means they will get a better shot at reading the scroll correctly. However if they want to avoid this completely, it’s best to stick with similar spells that draw from the same source of power.

I also have tinkered around allowing rituals to be cast from scrolls too. However this is a bit much for now. I’ll get on to how I allow players to make scrolls in part two.

Hey, WotC! Give us a Nentir Vale campaign setting all ready.

So a while ago a Nentir Vale campaign setting was floated out there, but was pulled from the line of upcoming products. I imagine that a bit of the material got rolled up into threats to the Nentir Vale, as there is some background info in that book to my understanding (didn’t pick it up, so can’t say anything concrete on that). It looks like the Nentir Vale and the surrounding region will be a blank slate which is a shame and something that needs more attention, especially for new DMs.

I get the focus WotC had when 4E rolled out. Work on presenting the rules and help with explaining the nuts and bolts of the game. As for describing a campaign world, let the DM decide. Why bother putting all this work into describing possible histories, legends, and a fantasy lore that most DMs are just going to cherry pick from, or at worst ignore completely. Nope, best to just reinforce over and over, ‘this is your game, play the way you want, make the world the way you want.’ I personally found this direction a little refreshing. Let people play what they want, don’t saddle it down with all this canon of past editions.

Of course the failure with that comes with new players. I expect most people that rolled into 4E all ready were playing D&D. They had a grasp on making up their own campaign, or at least had a slew of older edition books to draw inspiration from. But what about the new DM? As much as I loved the idea of ‘just make it your own’ I think new DMs needed a little more guidance. I think if I was a 13 year old trying to get a campaign running, I’d need some help and a lot of background to get some adventure ideas.

Given this void of a D&D world for new DMs to play around in, the writeup in the DMG was not too bad. A fleshed out town with a few ideas, beginning adventure, and a sketch of the surrounding lands. Add to that the Keep on the Shadowfell as a free pdf download, and there were a few things out there to keep a group busy. But I expect folks were restless to get a new incarnation of other settings, so Forgotten Realms rolled out.

I really feel that that was one of the big reasons Forgotten Realms sort of fell flat when it released. You had this entire idea of a wild, untamed land in need of heroes, that Forgotten Realms had to be altered and reworked to fit with this new idea of a campaign world. So many changes were made, and this idea of vast expanses of uncivilized regions (something not quite in line with much of Forgotten Realms) seemed to saddle this setting. Likewise I think that was what made Eberron and Dark Sun shine so much when they were released. Simply put they were allowed to be the different settings/worlds that they were. Forgotten Realms had to be the new default setting for 4E, and 4E had these core concepts of a setting that ran counter to established lore so much so, that a lot had to be changed to bring this setting in line with the generic D&D setting 4E needed.

Make Nentir Vale the generic setting – Let Forgotten Realms go. Reintroduce a new world that has the core classes and races, and the default pantheon as part of its world. Let the other campaign settings revel in what makes them different (like drow, swordmages, the underdark, portal circles, etc.). Everything in this new setting would be reinforced by material in the core books. If a new group picks up a campaign setting, they have this entire new pantheon and mythology to wrap their heads around. They likely have new races and new classes as options, it can be a little overwhelming if you are new to the game. Offer a setting that supports what are in the rulebooks, not new material that alters and amends what they are trying to become familiar with. A Nentir Vale setting would help with this and best of all, fits perfectly with the points of light theme.

Use available products – With Keep on the Shadowfell, Thunderspire Labyrinth, and the Pyramid of Shadow, WotC all ready has a heroic adventure path with this setting. Add to that a few other books they’ve put out like Hammerfast, you’ve got a small line of products that would sell if they had some support. WotC all ready has a lot of material available, they just need something to help tie it all together. A campagin setting would be a step in that direction.

Let the fans do the heavy lifting – A lot of fan made material is out there. Why not announce more source material for the Nentir Vale would be a new series in Dragon? Let folks submit their historical timelines and thumbnail sketches of the surrounding regions. Let them offer ideas of what is in Harken Forrest or the Witchlight Fens. Better yet once most of this is printed in Dragon, at the end of the year compile it into a single PDF and offer it to folks with a DDI subscription. A print version would be great, but a compiled digital form is workable too.

Blurbs and short highlights are fine – We don’t necessarily need a complete detailed history and a full description of each region, just flesh out the surrounding lands a little more. Give the players an idea what certain regions a particular race would call home. Write up a few paragraphs on particular kingdoms and lands. Spend more time and material on presenting potential threats and villains for the players to face off against. We don’t need volumes of material, just something for inspiration.

Stick to the heroic tier – Getting up to level 10 is just fine here. We don’t need to dip into world cataclysmic events and gods. Keep it focused on the lower tier to help new players get into the story. Spreading out appropriate threats to higher tiers cuts off story avenues for a new DM. Keeping everything heroic means just about any villain or evil faction could become a potential story for the DM to use.

Give us a generic setting in the Netir Vale. Give new DMs some more information and a world they can play with that adheres to the limited fluff in the rulebooks. Combined with Kobold Hall, and a few one shot adventures in Fallcrest, new players could get a solid start in their adventure career. They could branch out further heading to the Keep on the Shadowfell (just drop the first part with the kobold hideout and you’d have a solid adventure to shift into). They then could follow it up heading to other locales, or stick with playing the published adventures. In the end players could have a grand campaign all throughout the Nentir Vale and potentially move on to other parts of this new world if needed. Give Nentir Vale some support, WotC!Nentirhex2

Initiative combat cards

I’ve sort have gone full circle with tools to keep track of combat. I toyed around with some different programs and found a few I liked. But of late I’ve sort have gone back to keeping track of stuff with paper and pencil. Maybe if I pick up a tablet I’ll try out combat manager programs again, but I’ve found that a laptop on the table sort of adds another divider between myself and the action.

I’ve whipped up a combat sheet and like using that. But I thought I might try using something a little more visual in keeping track of initiative order. So I made up some initiative cards that would also have some info on the PCs and monsters.

I made them to fit on an index card for some added bulk. I ended up placing self-laminating sheets over my cards. That way I could use a dry erase marker and get a little more mileage out of each individual card. I also included a format so that the card could fold in half. They can be used as stand up tents or be slipped over a DM screen. This might be more useful if you want to allow PCs to keep track of the order (the other side is blank so it can be freely written on).

One big drawback is that they do take up a bit of space on the table. However I like that I have just about all the important stuff right on the cards. I can also split the HP box into sections of 2-3 columns so I can use one card for a few monsters.

The big plus is I can turn cards sideways as I go through the initiative order indicating they’ve had their turn. Players can see where they fall in line with the turn order and know when they are on deck. Plus if I have to shift things around, it is just a matter of switching the card order (for delayed actions and such). I hope folks find them useful for their game.

Get off my 4E lawn

A while back I let my DDI subscription expire. I simply found I wasn’t utilizing it as much. I enjoyed reading the content in Dragon and Dungeon, but wasn’t really using it in my game. I found much of the online tools lacking compared to other offline programs (like.. cough… Masterplan… cough.. or power2ool).

There has been some improvement. I tooled around with the monster builder and liked that. The compendium was neat. The few times I used the character builder I found it pretty useful. So there are some promising tools there with DDI, just not quite something I am using in my game to maintain a subscription for.

The big thing that I do see becoming a problem is player errata. Granted aside from Dungeon and Dragon online mags, I think the character builder is almost an essential tool now. Despite what people say about the powers and feats available, once you start parsing down what race/class you are playing, choices start to limit a bit. Stick to particular campaign settings and you get even more limited options. You can build a character without DDI.

However without DDI you cannot build a PC that is using the current character rules. It seems that WotC is making a complete pass through the old classes in the PHB. October errata rolled out another list of changes, this time for the rogue. Granted if you are maintaining your character via the character builder, this is no big deal. If not, you have to print out those changes and keep em handy, likely also highlighting powers/abilities in the PHB to remind you they’ve changed. It’s getting unmanageable.

Now for the regular gamer Joe that plays with his buddies every once in a while. The whole falling behind in errata is simply not a big deal. They can play D&D to their heart’s content with all the books they bought and have a grand time. But sitting down with another group. Bringing a character into organized play. Suddenly that could become a problem if they aren’t rolling up the PCs using the latest iteration of the the character builder.

I’m glad WotC is continually going through material and making sure stuff that is broke gets fixed. But at the same time I’ve realized that so much has changed from the original core books, you are being pushed into maintaining a subscription service to keep up with the rules.

Now, you don’t have to do that. You can simply hole up in your basement with your buddies and have a ton of fun playing 4E. But if you want to play with other folks, things can get a little bumpy. I am seeing things parsing out even more between folks that’ll be using DDI to make up their PCs, and the poor sods using the printed rulebooks.

I think I’ve become that crusty old gamer sticking fervently to his worn books, muttering about past days where they didn’t have to keep a subscription to a database to roll up characters. Others will roll their eyes at me, gently pat my hand and tell me to go sit in the corner quietly, while they continue their conversations about the new Magic Missle Mk III. Yeah, I think throwing in the towel with keeping up on the errata and letting my DDI subscription lapse has turned me into that old hermit gamer. I just hope I don’t become too out of the loop that I have no idea what is happening new with D&D, but I think this blog has all ready starting to become obsolete.

The long campaign

I’ve looked over my adventure log and realized that our homebrew campaign of Terrene has gone on for over a year now. Most of my campaigns have gone on for 4-6 months. Granted I think when I was younger I could get a near weekly game in. Right now I try to run our D&D game every other week, and a handful of times we’ve only managed to get something going once a month.

Still it has been a long time. The group is currently level 5. I think I dragged out the leveling curve a bit when it all started. Most were new to the game (or new to 4ED), so I wanted players to have a bit of time to understand the mechanics of the game and their potential. Since then I’ve noticed the group is really getting some synergy in combats, and all of their characters have grown a lot, fleshing out their motivations and backgrounds more.

To be fair I’ve also run a sandbox game of sorts. There is an overarching story, but at the beginning I always gave the players an option B. So at a potential plot crossroads they could always stick to the main story and tackle the next objective, or run off and do the second option. Granted I do drop in some small elements to build on the main campaign plot, but most of the time it was a designed as a diversion for the main story. I think the players like this, as they have some direction but still have some opportunities to explore the world. The downside is that it can drag things out a bit for the main story of the campaign.

As things have gone on, I think the group is ready to try something different. As for myself, I’ve found Terrene is losing its luster. I’m ready for a change of scenery and want to run a different campaign. I’ve been chomping at the bit to run a Dark Sun campaign, but I think my group is leaning towards Eberron. I’ve stolen a lot of ideas from that setting for the current game, but I might explore the idea of subterfuge among the dragonmarked houses.

No mater what I’ve decided I’m going to stick to a shorter campaign run. I’m also considering throwing off the idea of a major story arc all together. I’m thinking instead of running a sandbox type of game, with the main objective of the group being to raise their status within one of the houses (or at least raise the status of their chosen patrons). I think I want to try and narrow down the scale and work on the PCs backgrounds also.

I really want to explore the concept of making the player’s backstories fodder for adventures. I’m sort of going down this road now, and I think it’ll help add some closure to the campaign if some of these issues are resolved. When starting this new campaign, I think I’ll require something meaty from every player.

So I am curious do folks run a longer game? If so what has make you wrap it up? Or are shorter campaigns of 4-6 months something more people like?

Dipping a toe into space fleet battles with Firestorm Armada

It’s been ages since I painted minis. Moving to Korea I had to pack up a lot of my miniatures and hung up painting for a while now. But the bug has crept up again and I’ve had a long hankering to get back into painting.

I recently picked up Firestorm Armada and really like the miniatures. I’ll post my impressions on the game once I get a few games under my belt. For now I thought I’d share my painting exploits. Below are a few pics of the Sorylian Collective fleet I am working on.

The figures are pretty nice. A mixture of resin and white metal, they have a fair amount of detail. Some of the miniatures are pretty big. Notice the battle cruiser with the coffee mug in the background as scale. I’m looking forward to finishing these guys up and seeing how they do in the vast reaches of space (which also happens to be my living room floor).

Obsidian Portal – An essential campaign tool

I’ve gushed about Obsidian Portal before. It is a fantastic tool to keep your campaign organized and share information with your players. I particularly like that I can parse out information that is public and have other parts that are for the DM only. I have to say that there is a lot of functionality for free accounts too. There are definite advantages to subscribing to Obsidian Portal, but I like that the folks operating it haven’t hamstrung a lot of features for free users too.

Since I’ve been using it a while I thought I’d pass on a few basic tips for maintaining your campaign:

Start small – Don’t get carried away when you begin your campaign write up. Keep your topics and links down to 3-4 sentences. It’s a tool mostly for you as a DM, so use it as such. Initially having pages and pages of history, and page long descriptions of every location might sound cool, but in the end you are making a lot of work for yourself. Keep it a framework and slowly add the details you need.

Keep an adventure log – One of the best features Obsidian Portal, it’s a great tool to keep track of your campaign. Just get into the habit and update it regularly 1-2 days after your latest game session. You don’t need to write down every nuanced NPC conversation or detail every combat. Just try to cover the highlights of the session.

The adventure log is a really wonderful tool. It helps chronicle major events in the campaign. Best of all, players can access it to refresh their memories which is ideal if some players have dropped out of being a regular at the table. You can email a link of the last session before your game night, and then players can easily get a recap of the past session. Best of all, you don’t have to saddle 1-2 players in keeping a log book of all the important NPCs and locations, everything can be accessed in the adventure log.

Note the important stuff – Don’t get bogged down with every NPC the players come across. Don’t write out a description of every location the group went to. Just note the bare bones and let the campaign grow. Likely you give a lot of detail and description while you are running your game. It works giving the captain of the guard, the shady bartender, and the cankerous priest names during your game. But don’t think those details have to ever need to see the light of day in campaign writeup.

Another important point is once you’ve committed to putting it in the campaign log, you’ve made it part of your world. Keeping things to just the important bits helps prevent you from having problems with continuity. It also helps in making things flexible in your world. Just having the highlights of a particular region allows you to fill in details later if needed, and allows you to switch out characteristics if the story leads that way.

Don’t be afraid to metagame – Especially for the adventure log, there is nothing wrong with listing the exp and treasure gained after a session. Not everything being written needs to be a narrative tale of events. The DM section of pages is also a great use for this. Don’t be afraid to put in those notes to help you with organizing and planning future sessions.

Use a map – I’ve found it immensely useful to give the players a map so they get a better grasp of the world they are running through. If anything, it can spark their imagination and lure them into traveling to some far off location. Obsidian Portal also has a feature to allow you to link webpages to your campaign map. If the players want to know the significance to the Keep of the Eastern Pass, they can click on the map link and be taken right to the proper page. It’s a great tool.

Get your players involved – This is a great way to have your players contribute to the campaign world. Get your players to add some detail about certain regions or historical topics. Another great thing to get their input in is with the adventure log. Rotate the duty and have each player be responsible for providing a chronicle of the past session. Don’t hesitate to allow your players to add to the campaign world.

Use it as a reference – Sometimes it’s hard to keep all the details straight of past events, or try and remember the highlights of a historical timeline. Obsidian Portal is great for a reference to your campaign world. However, try to try to keep it streamlined. I fell into the trap of having a bit too much detail when I started it up. As I kept up on my campaign, I began to keep simpler details and recognize it was there to help me with keeping particular ‘facts’ of the game world straight, but it didn’t have to be some encyclopedic tome of the land.

Don’t expect the players to read it – In the end, Obsidian Portal is a tool to keep your campaign organized. Don’t expect your players to use it much. Approach it more as a tool to help you as a DM for your game. Some of my players love the campaign site. They like being able to understand certain political factions and found the adventure log especially helpful. Others really could not care less about it. Don’t get into a tiff if your players don’t read what you put up. Concentrate more on making Obsidian Portal work for you and help organize the game you DM.