I am a big fan of session blogging and I try my best to log each of the games I run here on my blog or if i am a player over at the Dragons Keep Roleplay Club website. I stumbled across Obsidian Portal as an alternative to creating my own wiki/campaign website and thought I'd check it out.
What is Obsidian Portal?
It's essentially a campaign logging tool which allows you to keep track and share your adventures, characters and NPCs, locations and maps.
What I like
It's Free - anything which requires a subscription has really got to provide me with something special which I can't easily get elsewhere.
It's Easy - If you can use a webpage and are familiar with how hyperlinks work, then you can create your own campaign wiki.
Google Maps Integration - The ability to quickly and easily generate your own campaign maps and populate them with markers which link to wiki entries is fantastic. The interface is a little clunky but it works. I can see this coming in very useful as my players explore their surroundings.
Campaign of the month - The Obsidian Portal official blog Words in the Dark regularly awards creators and it's a great way to showcase some of the excellent work which people are doing for their players.
What I Don't Like
Limited Functionality - Many of the advanced features are understandably kept behind a paywall. I understand that this is part of their business model and if you gave away the crown jewels for free you would limit your ability to generate revenue.
Limited Formatting - I am not a fan of the markdown engine it uses which has difficulty with basic items such as italics and there is no ability to add tables.
Summary
This is a very early review of this tool as I am still getting to grips with it and populating my own campaigns for Judge Dredd. It's value will only become apparent for me when I begin to use it in anger as a wiki during play.
Check out my Obsidian Portal Campaign page for Meanwhile in Mega City One and follow, favourite or just give it a thumbs up.
No comments:
Post a Comment