The_D
I see this popping up in a few threads, but I'd like a dedicated discussion about the way forums are used in campaigns, as this new update has dramatically altered the way that they can be used.
For my campaign, my group and I use the forums to further our game between sessions. There's a lot of information gathering and role playing involved that may not need dice and can be better done in post forum, allowing our table to focus on action. In order for this to work, the forum needs to be organized in such a way as to group things by area, character, plot thread, etc. This new design makes that kind of game enhancement impossible, or at least more trouble than it's worth.
According to this video: http://vimeo.com/77737413 (at around the 2:30 mark) the developers seem to think that the forums are only used for brief, disposable conversations and the last post is the only one that really matters. If that is how they see it an intend to proceed (and I see no word from them otherwise) then I no longer have a use for Obsidian Portal. Certainly not one worth paying money for.
I am an Ascendant member and I contributed to the Kickstarter. How many other people pay for Obsidial Portal to use the forums as I have been, or in such a way that is no longer possible?
My question to the developers is this: How many paying members will it take to change your minds about the forum functionality? Or is there even any chance that we can have that back?
Comments
My group and I made extensive use of the forums and sub-forums and it was the archive for all of our rules debates used for campaign precedents, and where we interacted for stuff to be done before in character time as well as things outside the game and now all of that history is just gone. I guess it was foolish of me to think that "hey, these sub-forum properly organized would make a great archive for these things" instead of completely backing them up on a word file. I mean, what was I thinking? surely they would not just get rid of something like that willy nilly, or without notification would they? Well... I guess I got my answer on that.
The_D, I do not use the OP specifically for the forums but it was a big plus for the portal and one of the features that saw the most use and that I liked best. I am absolutely stunned at the complete lack of forethought that this issue was given. I don't honestly believe the forums issue could have been more poorly handled.
Khrol - cause of death - depraved indifference to logic and reason.
"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
Age of the Dragons - Homebrew Fantasy | Edurance of Hope - Age of Rebellion
Nominate a Campaign for Campaign of the Month!
Had a table/chart for init. Posted battlemaps in them.
Had subforums for specific characters, both "out of character talk" and in character development.
Had forums for magical item creations, world background links.
It was comm central for us.
Unconquered Kingdoms, July 2016 CotM
We use textile and color for speaking, out of character comments, and strange languages.
It was actually neat when the undead spoke to the party in a gray colored whisper. (normal speech is green)
But one mistake, one bad punctuation, and its done. Or if I accidently use the wrong weapon for an npc Im hosed, I cant go back and fix the story when the players inform me of my errors.
Hmmm, I wonder if I can link my forums as an example...
"Test Forum Link":https://unconquered-kingdoms.obsidianportal.com/forum/main-adventure-arc
Unconquered Kingdoms, July 2016 CotM
Unconquered Kingdoms, July 2016 CotM
"Avatar: Conquest of the Imperial Order":https://avatar_adventures.obsidianportal.com/
"Duskreign’s Favorite CotM January 2012":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/wyrmshadow/wikis/012012
"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
DM, Current Campaign: The Godlands: Rise of the Blood Moon Kings
DM, Previous Campaign: Avatar: Conquest of the Imperial Order - CotM: November 2011
And as many have said... the new layout makes organization difficult. In each subforum and the main forum I just new where threads were. Now I have to search for them a bit. Yes, the most recent thread is on top, but with all the threads from all my subforums combined... it makes it hard for me to separate everything. And I liked having an area specifically for in-character roleplaying, separated from everything else in the forum.
Oh! And stickies! More important threads could be stickied to the top! I liked that. That was useful.
-Thorvaldr
DM of "Tyellador":https://tyellador.obsidianportal.com/
I understand (according to the Intro Video) that this was never as intended, but it's what we did and it's part of what I paid for in the Ascendant fee.
Even if it was included in the "free" version, I just thought the site was so good it deserved my dollars.... now I'm not sure.
/wolf
"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
As it turns out, the Forum RP was some of the best seen in the campaign, as it provided a place where people could consider their response over an hour or two (or more), provide context to their character's words by providing descriptions of actions, inner monologues, and other "flavor text" which is not as easy to pull off at the table. The gaming group that meets for the campaign is fairly large, eight people if everyone shows up, and so RP that only involves 1 or 2 characters kind of messes up the flow of the game for everyone else. Allowing players to take care of that on the forums was much preferable. Additionally, I have several players new to Dark Heresy and Warhammer 40K in general in this game, so having a forum where they could ask stuff like "What is the Adeptus Mechanicus?" or "How are servitors made?" (actual questions were more specific about factions in the game-world, but you get the idea) saved actual game-time as I could address this over the days between gaming sessions.
Plus, we had an XP log, that tracked all of the party-awarded XP, and marked the campaign milestones that awarded certain XP bundles. This is generally only updated once a month, maybe twice, so with the new format, it's going to take some digging to find that thread again once the new forum format gets used more frequently.
Hell, I would happily contribute more money to another Kickstarter just to get subforums back, if that is what it will take. I know there are free forums out there, but I really liked the community feel and the general idea of Obsidian Portal. So, I'd still rather pay money here than go to a free site that is just a forum. But frankly, the forum is the most important part to me, and if I can't have it here, then I don't need to be giving money here.
I hope that there are enough people like me to convince the developers to listen.
http://forums.obsidianportal.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=3394&page=6
DM, Current Campaign: The Godlands: Rise of the Blood Moon Kings
DM, Previous Campaign: Avatar: Conquest of the Imperial Order - CotM: November 2011
The developers would be wise to acknowledge that customers, paying customers, use the site (esp. the. Forums) in ways unintended. I understand the forums have been restored (to a certain degree), but this is different than accepting uses that diverge from what the website authors intended.
So, I appreciate The_D for starting this thread and creating a platform for folks to share what role forums play in their campaigns.
Like many PbP gamers, we make extensive use of the Forums. Fortunately for us, we did not use the sub-forum feature, so we were unaffected by that disablement.
Here's a little CSS I'm using to make the Forums more usable for us. The first blurb was posted elsewhere and enables you to change the text entry box and font colors to suit your taste and eyesight. The second blurb lets you modify any wiki links used in your forum.
input[type=“text”], input[type=“email”], input[type=“password”], input[type=“tel”], textarea, textarea:focus, .campaign-settings #style-settings #custom-css-field {color:black !important;background-color:#eeeeee !important;}
.wiki-page-link{text-decoration:none !important;color:#470913 !important;font-weight:bold !important;}
Thanks to "Thorvaldr":https://tyellador.obsidianportal.com/wikis/exploring-your-site for demystifying CSS so I could go figure out that second bit myself!
killervp
"A God...Rebuilt":https://a-god-rebuilt.obsidianportal.com
"OP's COTM April 2012":http://blog.obsidianportal.com/a-god-rebuilt-aprils-cotm/
Unabashadly pushing for 300 fans!
Just trying to help out.
-continuing the adventure between table sessions (the forums had more options than the adventure log comments)
-keeping track of loot from each adventure
-discussing rules rulings and homebrew rules
I would like to see the forums go back to being forums, not an e-mail inbox. If the new format was good for forums, then why not adopt it for the community forums? Because it is not a good forum format. I had even hoped that the forums might be improved by adding the ability to add forum privileges to be able to give specific players access to certain forums (or subforums) for those occasions were a member of the group becomes separated from the others and has private information that should not be shared with the rest of the group yet.
However, in other games I play in we use them for solo+GM character scenes(whether those be dream sequences, or personal time with an NPC...etc), writing interludes during long periods of downtime. Mostly
role play stuff in general.
Sorceress,
GM of
"The Hero Academy":https://the-hero-academy.obsidianportal.com/
How do I get the background behind my text to just appear white?
I realize if you were using sub-forums, that's still an ongoing problem.