What we look for in a Featured Campaign

Comments

  • autumnschild
    autumnschild
    Posts: 153
    *This post will be edited as time goes on and new criteria raise the bar*

    You've asked us in the past about how we pick the Featured Campaigns. Well, here it is. This is our typical M.O. when we go shopping around the O.P. for F.C.s:

    -What is the update frequency?
    When was the last update to the campaign? Are updates sporadic, or constant?

    -Is there maximized usage of the O.P. tools?
    When we click on the tabs for the campaign, is there content in most of them, or just the auto-text placeholder? How thorough is the Adventure log or wiki? Are there player comments or forum posts? Are there NPCs to track and items to itemize?

    -Does it have that certain… je ne se quoi?
    What new or exciting thing does this campaign have? Is there a unique setting? Is there tight player integration into their campaign? Is it hilarious? Does it have interesting house rules? Does it have YouTube videos? Is the art really bangin’? Is there a calendar that converts Gregorian time to Fantasy time? Are there pictures of the game table, or critical roles? Did the DM go to the trouble to re-work a literary classic and set it in their campaign as world building lore? Are the players’ internet celebrities that would want to be our friends and invite us to their birthday parties? There has to be something interesting about the campaign that makes it special.

    -Is everyone having fun?
    Reading through the logs and wikis, you can really get a sense of how involved or how enjoyable a campaign is. If the players’ aren’t having any fun, or if the DM isn’t enjoying herself, then why bring that to light for everyone to note and mock and ridicule?

    -Can we get in contact with the DM?
    Sometimes we contact a DM and ask them what they think of being a Featured Campaign and they never write back. It makes us sad. Having DM consent is critical, and sometimes the DM provides us with useful tidbits that make for an even better Featured Campaign article.


    More to come as we think of them!

    AutumnsChild(dan)
  • outrider
    outrider
    Posts: 46
    great idea since micah and his partner are busy. I do have a question though. Say somebody has a good campaign but isnt making full use of the tools because of say not knowing how to do something like do pictures or art or the ability to use photoshop, will that disqualify them.

    I know that I dont have the ability at this time to improve the appearance of my campaign. I have been featured campaign twice but I cant compete with the graphics folks out there, so I chose not to.
  • autumnschild
    autumnschild
    Posts: 153
    Great question outrider,

    Typically we use the above mentioned metrics to identify our Featured Campaigns, but sometimes, like in your hypothetical, there's a jewel in the rough. We know that not everyone is a graphics person, or knows how to script their pages for optimum viewing pleasure. While there are only so many hours in the day that we can lurk through the many campaigns here at Obsidian Portal, we will amend the list of criteria above to include others. Perhaps how popular a campaign is based on the number of people who have viewed it and added it to favorites? And I'll be sure that we spend more time browsing through the campaigns to pick out potential Featured Campaigns that aren't just flashy, but have some real substance.

    I hope that addresses your post well enough to satisfy!

    AutumnsChild(dan)
  • dungeoncrawlers
    dungeoncrawlers
    Posts: 32
    I think graphics and layout should be the least important thing. Don’t get me wrong, they make a campaign wiki and campaign log look great --- but, they can even make a “poorly” done campaign look great. Content and utilization of the tools themselves I think should be most important. That’s my opinion anyway.

    And, on the other suggestion, the number of people who follow a campaign is not necessarily a good measure of the quality of that campaign; many times it’s more a measure of how long a campaign has been around. I mean: if it’s bad it won’t be followed, but I suspect there are a lot of great campaigns out there with very few people following them beyond the players themselves simply because folks haven’t happed across them yet.
Sign In or Register to comment.

March 2024
Wrath of the Highborn

Read the feature post on the blog
Return to Obsidian Portal

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Discussions