RPG
This weekend, I ran the 12th session of my 4e campaign here in Japan. This campaign is based in my Vlachia world, which is the scenario where I have DM’ed all my D&D campaigns (AD&D, 3.0, 3.5, 4e) since teenagerhood. The 4 players are all Brazilian students in japan like me. We play once or twice every month since august last year, and this has been a great way for me to kill whatever I may have of homesickness.
Anyway, I thought about sharing my views on some resources I have been using in this campain.
Firstly, and specially, I’ll talk about the Obsidian Portal website. They host RPG campaigns, by offering a wiki/blog mix format that works really well to store NPC information/Session information and to make it available for the whole group. I have been slowly transfering the info from my paper notebooks into that site (slower than I wanted). It is cool also to browse other people’s campaigns to hunt for ideas. There are free and paid memberships, but other than the free membership being allowed only one map online, it is completely usable.
Also, I have recently bought the Player’s Handbook 2 for the 4e system. I was really curious about some of its classes, like the bard and the sorcerer, and I wanted to make it available to my players. My opinion of the book is this: the new classes, items and options are a great addition to my game, but the book could be much, much better organized. For instance, something that sorely lacks is a good page where all the classes are described and compared together. Crossreference is also weak - the entire subsection describing the shaman goes by without explaining many details of its spirit companion - the class defining feature. All in all, it is worth to buy the book, but it does feel shoddily made.