JaceSummers
I was interested in seeing some other user generated items for some inspiration in my own loot tables, but just doing a little investigation on the most popular campaigns didn't turn up much. Anything in fact, every item tab on a campaign I clicked on was bone dry empty. Is there a reason that no ones taking advantage of that? Maybe the wiki is more efficient at keeping track of items? Are you guys using mostly stock items to keep your party's power balances where they should be? Lemme know whats going there.
Comments
I like the idea of using the items tab as a place to put things like tables, charts, and other such non-map information. That would really facilitate the use of the textile link generator when building new wiki pages.
It's a convenient place to collect all the homebrew equipment items or equipment house rules for the campaign; I'm pleased that it was added as a campaign-specific feature, rather than storing it under my profile.
I think it is very useful to have separate lists for items, characters, locations instead of treating them all as wiki pages when it comes to organizing them in the pulldown list. The wiki page lists can get long enough as it is without cluttering them up with grains like items or very specific locations.
The Character and Item pages work well because they make it easy to differentiate between game stats and descriptive text; in my games locations don't usually require a stat block, just description, and the open-format wiki pages give me more options for how I present the material.
Tags also make it easy to group locations for skimming the way the Character and Item tabs do,
bq. The wiki page lists can get long enough as it is without cluttering them up with grains like items or very specific locations.
I was running into that problem at first as well, but then I started breaking pages down into smaller blocks of grouped links and this organization helped eliminate too lengthy lists of links and text.
My current campaign I have started using it from the beginning and I like it.
"I met a traveller from an antique land....."
CotM May 2016: Mysteria: set in Wolfgang Baur’s MIDGARD.
Previous CotM Aug 2012: Shimring: High Level Multiplanar Campaign
Inner Council Member
Signs & Portends, Dwarves of Lost Koldukar, In a certain realm
Also, as an incentive to get players to use OP, the lootbag is good. DM wants a player to use OP? make them a loot bag item, and tell them you will be quantifying their treasure in there, so if they want to know how much loot they are holding, they better log into OP and check!
I have had a lot of fun making items such as:
Lucky Coin
Set of Masks
Circus Gear Kit
Tabaroof the sheepdog/ mount
etc
When I come up with or find some new gear in game, I just add it to the appropriate item in OP (circus kit, lootbag, another mask for the set, etc)
I still have a wiki description for some things, but things that change and that I may want to associate secrets with, are better left for the item tab. For example-- the DM knows that my character has an irrational faith in his lucky coin's predictive abilities, from reading the item details. But his fellow party members havent figured that out yet...
It also provides a convenient location for a DM to get magic items/ rewards ideas. If they see some non magical user created items, that provides a good clue as to what sort of items that player is interested in.
BTW, I love the items tab because I have a lot of ships in my game and that means I can things like this:
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/spelljoined/items/hammership
Game Designer, Pro GM, multiple ENnie Award winner
GM of Planejammer: The Spelljoined (Pathfinder 1e) Campaign of the Year 2011 and still going strong!
GM of The Planewalker's Guild (Pathfinder 1e)
Need a GM? Book me today!
"PhoenixMark":http://www.obsidianportal.com/profile/PhoenixMark
"CRIMSON SKIES":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/crimson-skies
"COTM June 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/crimson-skies-junes-campaign-of-the-month/
If it goes away, I will use the character page for items, tagged appropriately.
Unconquered Kingdoms, July 2016 CotM
killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":https://a-god-rebuilt.obsidianportal.com
"OP's COTM April 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/a-god-rebuilt-aprils-cotm/
Just trying to help out.
"Age of Heroes":https://heroes-of-hellas.obsidianportal.com/
"Avatar: Conquest of the Imperial Order":https://avatar_adventures.obsidianportal.com/
"COTM November 2011":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/november-11-campaign-of-the-month-avatar-conquest-of-the-imperial-order/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=november-11-campaign-of-the-month-avatar-conquest-of-the-imperial-order
DM, Current Campaign: The Godlands: Rise of the Blood Moon Kings
DM, Previous Campaign: Avatar: Conquest of the Imperial Order - CotM: November 2011
Y'all are proabably right, I just really like the items page.
Unconquered Kingdoms, July 2016 CotM
_~Mae_
"Whispers in Tamris":https://whispers-in-tamris.obsidianportal.com/
~Mae
CotM Selection Committee
I just got to my items page and once again must express disgust (WTF developers?) The layout is again baffling - the picture of the item is way down at the bottom. My scroll background shifts the bio to the far left and the spacing between the fields as well as the text size and spacing sucks. I like the category selector but it is also spaced to closely to the other text.
A) is there anyway to manually space or size these fields?
I am not thinking so...
Killervp - if it is ok with you I am just going to wholesale steal the way you do yours (always liked it)
In my new campaign I so far have five items. As with the last campaign, I am only using it for important items and not listing every item. (Do people actually do that?) However, I have no problem with the layout. It all works well for me.
twiggyleaf
CURRENT CAMPAIGN: "Mysteria":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/mysteria - set in Wolfgang Baur’s MIDGARD.
Previous CotM Aug 2012: "Shimring":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/shimring
"I met a traveller from an antique land....."
CotM May 2016: Mysteria: set in Wolfgang Baur’s MIDGARD.
Previous CotM Aug 2012: Shimring: High Level Multiplanar Campaign
Inner Council Member
Here is what mine looked like STANDARD, no CSS.
"Items Page":https://unconquered-kingdoms.obsidianportal.com/items
Unconquered Kingdoms, July 2016 CotM
I know part of it is my width settings but my campaign makes extensive use of HTML tables and getting the MF'ing settings right on those have been neigh upon impossible. I also know my scroll background messes with things. I stole Maratise's horizontal nav bar which has helped on some fronts but ultimately I think a wiki formatted item page (maybe using Kallak's character page layout code) will prove much better.
"Leonidas300":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/metzger/wikis/leonidas300
"A Manifestation of Chaos":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/metzger/wikis/main-page
COTM - Sept. 2012
Unconquered Kingdoms, July 2016 CotM