https://forums.obsidianportal.com/categories/general-discussion/p38/feed.rss Tue, 15 Sep 2026 22:50:53 +0000 General Discussion Discussions on Obsidian Portal Community Forums en-CA https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1631/developing-a-character Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:02:45 +0000 Dihan 1631@/discussions
How do you all go about developing your characters? What is the process?]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1618/creating-hordes-of-enemies Thu, 18 Nov 2010 03:12:55 +0000 Neithan 1618@/discussions The point is you tried, right?

PS-Is there a wrong way to do this?

-Neithan]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1622/confused-newbie Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:31:11 +0000 liondriel 1622@/discussions I am aware that this might be a horribly stupid thing to ask but I am indeed confused this early in my snooping around here:
What exactly IS obsidian portal? I stumbled over this site looking for means to run a campaign exclusively online. But on first and second glance it does not seem to be that. Then I thought this is"just" a site where real offline p&p play gets tracked and promoted....but giving OP a third look seems to make that impression wrong as well.

I failed to find information to solve my puzzlement, so I decided to post here. Hope this does not sound too dumb.

Regards, Liondriel]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1619/addressing-my-absence Thu, 18 Nov 2010 07:36:15 +0000 Duskreign 1619@/discussions
On October 28th, I saw for the first and, God willing, the last time, an infant laying dead in the arms of his grandmother. This infant, son of Obsidian Portal user Darknova, lived for less than fifteen minutes. He died in the arms of his father, Matt, my best friend, my brother, and a man to whom such a horrid fate is least of all deserved.

What can a person say to offset such misery as Matt endured that day? How could anything dull the pain that lingers in him still. I shake and cry for him by day and by night. I stood in a yard of graves as tiny as I had ever seen, doing the math, realizing that I was surrounded by hundreds of infants whose total life, added together, didn't equal half of my own. Matt saw his son reach up for him, heard his weak gasps, felt his vain struggle to survive, and then, experienced what has to be the absolute worst thing any human being has ever had to experience. In an instant, everything that was Matt's life was over, and a new, hellish version of earth rose to imprison him.

That's where I have been. I have been trying, as best as I could manage, to brave this new hell with my best friend and help see him back to some semblance of the light he once knew.

My return here is no sign of victory. The darkness that haunts Matt will linger far into the future, perhaps enshrouding his every remaining footstep on this earth. I will always feel the tremendous weight of his pain, and in whatever meager fashion I am capable, try to provide a few bright moments to guide his way through the dark.

I have missed this place, and the people in it. I have tried to return earlier, but I could not fathom the point until now. It is hard to reconcile playing a game, much less working on a wiki for said game, in light of these events.

I dreamt of my father. I realized upon awakening that it was more of a collage of memories than a dream. I lost him two years ago, and it devastated me, but that pain is nothing against Matt's, so for the past few weeks, in a sick way, sharing Matt's pain has helped me deal with my own. I think that's why I had the dream, and why I've decided to return to my friends at the Obsidian Portal.

In my dream, my dad tells me that we die when we can't live anymore. He emphasized the word 'can't.' I didn't get it at first, but he spelled it out for me. Much of our lives are our passions. My family and my friends are my passions. They are the reasons I live. I have been denying them, hiding from those things which make life worth living. I felt like I couldn't live anymore, knowing that Matt's son got 15 minutes, feeling so guilty for all those fifteen minute chunks of time I whittled away without care. In the amount of time I spent on my wiki for Wyrmshadow, Matt's son, and all those other babies in that cemetary, could have lived and died many times over. If it sounds morose or macabre, that's because it damn well is.

But I am not dead. I am alive. I miss this. This place is part of what makes me feel alive. I am not hiding anymore.

I'm sorry to all my friends here, for whom my absence might have seemed rude. I'm sorry, too, if this message seems somehow misplaced. Obsidian Portal has meant a lot to me since I found it, and the friends I have made here mean even more.

Anyway, I thought you deserved an explanation. I'm glad to be back among friends, where I can feel alive again.

Mike Scott
(Duskreign)]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1609/battle-mats-chessex-vs-roll4initiative Mon, 08 Nov 2010 02:06:37 +0000 KanedaX321 1609@/discussions
Right now I'm comparing erasable battle grids. Chessex seems to be the standard, but eBay also has a listing for a grid from a website called roll4initiative.

Has anyone ever made any comparisons between the two styles of mats? Chessex is a vinyl grid, while roll4initiative is laminated. Is one better or worse than the other? I picture a laminated grid as stiff, difficult to roll up for storage and even more difficult to flatten out again later, but I might be off the mark on that. It is more cost-efficient, especially as part of r4i's "gamer's kit", but I also know Chessex is the tried and true model, since it's the mat my DM uses in my current campaign.

Opinions?]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1601/the-lumbering-dead Wed, 03 Nov 2010 06:21:09 +0000 Yoshara 1601@/discussions
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/the-lumbering-dead/wikis/classes

This brings me to skills, now I am trying to base this on D20 modern rules, but loosely, I am trying to make it unique. I want to incorporate defensive construction, so for example players find a well defensible house and want to board up the windows or construct a tall stockade fence around the perimeter.

Another skill could govern over firearm management. I would like to incorporate firearm jamming and degradation, making firearms very powerful but somewhat unreliable. This would force the PCs not only to venture out into danger and keep it interesting but it would also see that classes are not more or less powerful than each other. For example, the hitter can't take out zombies as quick as the shooter but the shooter could have a firearm jam, run out of ammo, or other unfortunate but very real issues you would run into.

I want to make this as close to real life as possible, what issues would you run into while holding up against the undead? what different kind of undead would there be? fast zombies? smart zombies?

Anyways, if you guys have any ideas don't be afraid to post them. I would like to hear from you even if you think its a stupid idea, because sometimes its not.

Here is the link to the front page.

http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/the-lumbering-dead]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1425/forum-etiquette-guidelines Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:26:02 +0000 autumnschild 1425@/discussions
What we love about our forums is that it sort of takes care of itself. It's like one of those self-contained ecosystems with the algae and the snails, and the rocks, and shrimp, and little plants. Micah, Ryan, and myself like to look in from time to time and see what's going on. On my last trip through I realized that we had not really given the forums the attention it rightfully deserves in quite some time. So we're making some changes to fix that. This post is part of that fix'em up process. **This post is about Forum Etiquette Guidelines.**

Now, to my knowledge, we've never had a problem with folks being consistantly rude on the forums. The worst it gets is the 3.5 vs. 4e slapfights that kinda sit at a slow burn for months. Like a tire fire. We're ok with heated discussion, so long as nobody claims to have hard scientific evidence about the girth of someone else's promiscuous mother. Anyway, here are the rules:

**Do:**]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1587/ideas-for-gladiator-games Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:49:48 +0000 gaaran 1587@/discussions https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1584/micro-leveling Wed, 20 Oct 2010 04:39:09 +0000 Duskreign 1584@/discussions
h4. A more organic, gradual experience system

I have always felt that the traditional experience/leveling systems in place were a bit odd. A character will fight, bleed, retreat, lick their wounds, plan, love, laugh, and do all the many lovely things an adventurer is wont to do, but it is only after they have achieved some seemingly arbitrary goal that they see any kind of benefit from their toils and troubles. In fact, this goal isn]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1582/run-for-cover-game-mechanic-help Wed, 20 Oct 2010 01:54:06 +0000 gnunn 1582@/discussions
My next game session is tomorrow night, but I've been so slammed at work that I haven't had the energy to plan for it when I get home. The good news is that my players are on a specific mission, so I don't need to worry too much about the evening jumping the rails. The bad news is that I need to come up with a custom game mechanic for what will likely be the 2nd encounter of the night.

Here's the situation: The party will be traversing the Plane of Shadow in a region known to be the hunting grounds for a Nightwing (CR14). I wanted my players to have to deal with something too powerful to fight for once (They are all level 8 with an effective party level of 9 or so.)

Since the fly speed of a nightwing is significantly faster than anyone but the monk, and it is pretty much guaranteed to hit if it catches someone in the open, I figure their best bet is to dash from full cover to full cover. That way, they only need to deal with any shadows it summons, as long as they time their dashes.

I want to come up with a mechanic for quickly generating areas of cover. and the distance between them so that I don't have to draw a map of the entire route. Any recommendations or thoughts?]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1573/age-of-legends-gets-a-makeover Thu, 14 Oct 2010 23:10:53 +0000 arsheesh 1573@/discussions
Well I had not intended to post this until after the renovation of _Age of Legends_ was complete. However, I began the process of creating a new look for my campaign two weeks ago and there's no telling how long it will take to complete. Moreover, I've gleaned allot from reading all the helpful comments posted on Gaaran's "My New Layout":http://forums.obsidianportal.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=1566&page=1#Item_22 post, and felt that the AoL renovation process could benefit from a bit of constructive criticism from the OP community. The main impetus for AoL's renovation was that I wanted to more clearly demarcate the "Campaign Setting" aspect of the site, from the actual "campaign" that I have been running thus far. In this I took my cue from Duskreign and Gaaran, both of whom have created campaign settings with specific sections allotted to the campaigns being run within that setting. I also want to thank Rase Cidraen for pioneering the "wiki side-bar":http://forums.obsidianportal.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=1561&page=2#Item_1 that I have adapted for my site.

Thus far I've only finished renovating the "Home Page":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/age-of-legends, the "Main Page":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/age-of-legends/wikis/main-page, and the "Campaigns":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/age-of-legends/wikis/campaigns page (which is bran new). Still, the basic layout is all there. I intend to give each of the major wiki sections of the Main Page a layout similar to that of the campaigns page (that is, with the parchment). I've also created a "character sheet template":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/just/wikis/main-page that I intend to use for the PC's.

What do you guys think? I've had a couple of people tell me they preferred the old campaign banner (or perhaps a hybrid of the old and new banner) to the new Parchment banner. I can see their point. However I put allot of thought into whether or not to switch banners. In the end, I felt that the old campaign image worked well as a banner for the campaign I was running, but was not representative of the entire AoL setting. Hence, I preserve an adaptation of the original banner in the campaigns section. Does anyone else have any thoughts to add though?

Cheers,
-Arsheesh]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1580/props-dice-loot Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:59:56 +0000 bepnewt 1580@/discussions
I'm thinking about buying some as some sort of prize or even loot for my players. I use "Paizo's GameMaster Cards":http://paizo.com/gameMastery/itemPacks right now for the items they have, but I think some magic dice found in some loot somewhere would be a cool prop instead of just using one of the Paizo cards.

I am definitely going to mess around with his "Laser Printed Dice":http://dicecreator.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/open-source-dice-making/ to make a set. In one of our campaigns, the players ( my Gnome and a Magi ) like to play Liar's Dice so having dice as a prop that are themed with magic symbols or something would be cool.

What kinds of props do you guys use in your games?

-BEP]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1576/my-campaign-video Sun, 17 Oct 2010 02:28:53 +0000 FrankSirmarco 1576@/discussions
"Give it a look":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/cthulhusupremusest and let me know what you think, gang.

All the best,

F]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1546/mana-system-for-d-d3-5 Fri, 24 Sep 2010 10:11:52 +0000 vstraydogstrutv 1546@/discussions
"Mana System":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/the-serpent-kingdoms/wikis/mana-system]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1568/hey-guys Wed, 13 Oct 2010 12:21:27 +0000 Duskreign 1568@/discussions
Wait... where's everyone going. Why are you running away!

/cry

:P]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1557/campaign-ideas Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:13:08 +0000 Silence_Eve 1557@/discussions
...maybe I should just go hide back in my cave and kill more Darkspawn before I leave for Minnesota Saturday.

Or we could have fun with this =D]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1558/gamer-cocktails Fri, 01 Oct 2010 18:25:33 +0000 FrankSirmarco 1558@/discussions
That being said, let's get on to the fun stuff:

"Rase Cidraen":http://forums.obsidianportal.com/account.php?u=11409 and I were discussing cocktails in "this":http://forums.obsidianportal.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=1555&page=1#Item_15 thread, and Rase brought up the idea of compiling a list of Roleplaying-inspired drinks.

Now, some of you may run a dry table, and that's OK - I'll be the first to say that nothing kills a gaming session more than a drunk player. However, I subscribe to the belief that a well-lubricated roleplaying group has less inhibitions and aren't afraid to get _into_ their characters.

We used to start each session with a "Jager Bomb":http://www.drinknation.com/drink/jager-bomb, but after a few years that got boring. From there, we started trying out new shots periodically, and even tried to create our own (I do not recommend trying the _Rune Lord_ or _Mammy's Puss-Puss_ - both of which were inspired by Rise of the Runelords, and of which both are TERRIBLE!).

However, we have found the "Wounded Dragon":http://www.barnonedrinks.com/drinks/w/wounded-dragon-7013.html to be delightful. And for the _Call of Cthulhu_ enthusiasts out there, I highly recommend a "Bloody Brain":http://www.idrink.com/v.html?id=3590 - it's not only tasty, but apropos for an evening of insanity-inducing craziness.

So, please feel free to add your own thoughts and recipes. The purpose of this post should be to educated other gamers and provide inspiration for your gaming group's resident mixologist.

Cheers!]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1553/gamer-badges Tue, 28 Sep 2010 02:35:17 +0000 Curufea 1553@/discussions
Sometime ago some friends mentioned the idea of scout-type badges for achievements in roleplaying (and other gaming as well). Being the headstrong graphic designer hobbyist that I am, I went and got suggestions from various RPG boards and made up some badges.

You can find them here-
"Gamer Badges":http://www.curufea.com/Wikka/wikka.php?wakka=GamerBadges

Images are mostly clipart or images found on the web, so some rights issues may be involved if you make the commercial. However they should be fine for your own entertainment :)]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1522/squidgirl-art-stats-backstory-contest Thu, 09 Sep 2010 21:32:50 +0000 autumnschild 1522@/discussions
Link to the contest description and rules: http://blog.obsidianportal.com/?p=989

Good luck!]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1318/yay-i-have-ascended Sun, 09 May 2010 12:57:08 +0000 JimTriche 1318@/discussions https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1462/what-to-do-when-a-pc-becomes-possessed Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:34:18 +0000 Dyluth 1462@/discussions
Twice I've been able to play a PC while they were possessed and both times the games went quite well, but I was curious to hear what other GM's thought.]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1542/in-game-character-preparedness Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:20:59 +0000 Bagel 1542@/discussions https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1535/whaddup-with-the-opcast Fri, 17 Sep 2010 05:13:18 +0000 Duskreign 1535@/discussions
D. Uskreign]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1513/cake-is-a-lie Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:16:10 +0000 Silence_Eve 1513@/discussions
"Dr. Who agrees":http://browse.deviantart.com/?order=11&offset=1848#/d2xqm7d]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1512/characters-planning-or-evolution Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:49:23 +0000 RaseCidraen 1512@/discussions
When it comes to a character: is his path predetermined, or does he evolve?

I know a great deal of my characters had intricate backstories, goals and drives, and every time I played them, those goals and drives got changed and warped into something I never quite imagined. I wanted my character to advance to be the greatest fighter to ever be known, but suddenly he was taking levels in ranger, and a few in mage-craft! I was baffled at myself until I discovered - the character had taken on a life of it's own, outside of my own creation: There was no metagaming. No plan to go from Power Attack to Cleave to Greater Cleave. The character decided that his personality, his fighting style, would subtly continue to shift, as did his personality. And I loved every minute of it. It seemed completely natural, and completely organic.

How many of us have been completely, utterly taken aback by something we *knew* our characters would do, but never expected it? But looking back, we know that it never _ever_ could have gone any other way?]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1521/elfquest Wed, 08 Sep 2010 04:00:53 +0000 JimTriche 1521@/discussions
"ElfQuest Comics Online":http://www.elfquest.com/gallery/OnlineComics3.html

They are full of great writing and wonderful artwork, though I'm sure more than a few of you are already familiar with them.]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1518/con-etiquette-part-i Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:21:59 +0000 Dra8er 1518@/discussions
Yea pimpin teh blog...]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1499/obsidian-portal-podcast Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:24:42 +0000 Embirsiphone 1499@/discussions https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1502/the-now-listening-thread Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:17:23 +0000 VociferousUrsus 1502@/discussions
Post what music you are currently listening to.

If you are not listening to music currently you must weep and post what music you wish you were listening to.

Go!]]> https://forums.obsidianportal.com/discussion/1507/a-game-because-i-m-bored Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:35:20 +0000 Embirsiphone 1507@/discussions
In no particular order mine are

Chainmail dice bag
DM wristband(which is currently lost, but still)
Figurine paint, even though I have no figurines..
Double sets of AD&D books
Bodyshot Dice.. Mostly because I bought it without thinking of it's uses for DM, I just wanted one]]>