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I've been running a long-term online game of Shattered Star on my own forums (over a year now), and while I enjoy the setup, I've been curious about a nicer "campaign front" that I could use for easily displaying characters, maps, etc. Obsidian Portal seemed like a nice setup, but doesn't appear to allow external linking to other forums, and I don't really want to move to another forum.
What do people think of Obsidian Portal? Are there similar sites that help create RPG sites for free/small monthly? I'm technically capable of designing my own site, but don't really have the time to do so.
Thanks for the advice!
I thought it was great. A friend set the site up for my campaign a few years back and on one used it. Same with Google and Yahoo even further back.
I am on Obsidian Portal as a Player and as a GM. As a Player I use it to write a Journal of our parties adventure's. To use it as a Player there is no fee.
I have started using it as a GM for my Rappan Athuk game that starts in January. To have access to everything you may want access to as a GM there is a monthly fee. You can pay monthly or for 6 months at a time. There isn't a very hard learning curve. The biggest problem I can see is if none of your Players' use it to keep a Journal then it is an expense you probably don't need.
I love Obsidian Portal so much I bought a subscription.
I have two campaigns up on the site now:
My current campaign Champions of Old Korvosa, and my older Rise of the Runelords campaign, The Watcher of the Mists
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I like Obsidian Portal. I've used it to help keep track of NPCs, items, and storylines for several games. The biggest problem is getting your players on board. At best, I've had half the players of any given game use it. The other half either never create an account, or never check it.
I was able to setup everything I needed using a free player account. The GM fee unlocks some nice features, but as I was never able to get it used regularly, I never bothered.
Myth Weavers is a site set up for similar purposes. Not that I have anything against Obsidian Portal (it seems fine for what little I've used it for), but just to give another alternative.
I used Obsidian Portal for a couple homebrewed campaigns. Even for free you could use it to post maps and images, session notes and such. Of course I haven't been in there for like a year now, so things may have changed. Still, I thought it was fine for me.
Unfortunately my players never used it. 2 separate campaigns, with varying levels of RP and immersion, but with me stating bold face that the players SHOULD take some notes, consult the pages and be up on things for the games to make sense and they never did any of that. Both games have subsequently disintegrated.
Now I just share stuff with Google docs. I have a map and a campaign guide posted there for the current game. That reminds me; I should scan in the map that goes with the city for the campaign.
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To all of those who use Obsidian Portal: Do you know if there's a way to point the various Links to places external to OP? For example, I have my own forum. I'd like to point the Forum link there, instead of OP's forum. Not sure if I can.
Not a big deal breaker if I can't, just curious. OP does seem nice, although I can see it's going to take a bit of time to get everything setup.
I got an ascendent membership to OP about four years ago specifically to get the messageboards.
Since the "reforge" the site is buggy and less mobile friendly.
Messageboards are a joke of disorganization. I have some threads that were stickied before the "reforge" and are now stuck sticky, and the sticky feature is now broken (for more than a year) so I can't add new sticky threads or unsticky the old ones.
On that topic, site support is non-existent. So, basically, don't have any issues because they wont be addressed.
The site messageboards also have their own unique BB code. So, a website that has RPG's as its main schtick has the "+" as an active BB code operator. The "+" is the BB code marker for underlined text. Don't plan to copy/paste a character statblock because it WILL be a bloody mess.
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One thing to consider is using Roll20.net for maps and characters. It has a persistent chat archive, so you could use it for die rolls as well.
Some games I've played in on Myth-Weavers uses Myth-Weavers for the forums and character sheets (and die rolls, since M-W has an excellent character sheets and integrated die rollers), but Roll20.net for the maps. It's a nice combination.
Karui Kage, you were asking if you could link from OP to your forum.
I think I have found a way. On their Wiki page there is a link to a page describing Textile a font or formatting style I believe. Their link looks like this:
<a href="http://redcloth.org/hobix.com/textile/">Textile</a>
So if you substitute your link for the http in their example I believe you could do it.
EDIT: I just tried it and created a link to the PRD. So it works. Just don't forget the quotation marks.