Haste - The Official Obsidian Portal Podcast

| Episode 69 | Announcements Tonight we're joined by Dustin Snyder of Baldman Games, who recently aided putting on a great little con called Winter Fantasy, formerly DDXP. Tune in as we talk about the con and a whole lot more! Topics  Winter Fantasy Wrap Up & Look At Next Year With new additions like a board game library and Pathfinder, Winter Fantasy brought about some great new features to its lineup this year. We talk with Dustin about what its like to run a con, what went on this year, and what to expect for next year. We should note that Winter Fantasy also brought about an event worthy of marking your calendars, the first ever female 5 star Pathfinder GM! Jason Morningstar's Sirai Playtest First play tested at Metatopia, this was the second time Sirai had been playtested out in the wild this year at Winter Fantasy. The game is a combo LARP / Board game but not really, it's very hard to describe. Very free flowing and open like most of the stuff Jason Morningstar does, listen to Dustin and I's first impressions and tell us what you've heard about the game or your thoughts on it! D&D Classics WotC finally dropped the digital back catalog bomb on us and shocked a lot of people by using Drive Thru RPG. Dustin and I discuss some of the great stuff you can find on there, including freebies - but most of all we want to hear your opinion on this new endeavor of WotC's! Tip Corner GM’s: Collaborate! This one is a no brainer and we may have said it before but be sure to not make all of your games a one person show. Let your players work for you, let them help build and shape your world. Everyone will be more invested and you get to work less! Twitter Poll @Mandarific & @JffDougan ask: "What are some good RPGs for kids / how can we make RPGS more accessible for kids? Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |

| Episode 68 | Announcements We hope to see you at Winter Fantasy this weekend! Now, on with the show! Topics  Pathfinder Kickstarter Afterthoughts Micah and I discuss our afterthoughts on the extremely well run, down to the wire Kickstarter campaign ran by the Goblinworks folks. We'd love your thoughts too. Gnome Stew New Year New Game Contest The guys over at Gnome Stew have a great contest going on and there's still time to enter. Tell them what game you want to run this year, why, what system, and what challenges you might encounter. You could win a Drive Thru RPG gift card, as well as ebooks of all of their publicaionts like Masks, and a few others! Character Death & Creation by Rob Schwalb Mr. Schwalb has a great piece up on his blog about character death in the 1e game he's been running for a while now. He discusses the barrier to entry with how long character creation takes in contrast to lethality and some other really great thoughts on the topic. Micah and I argue discuss. Tell us your thoughts! Tip Corner Did you know you can embed a video onto a wiki page? Just click the little video button on the toolbar and give the link to a video on Youtube. Try pulling together some epic images, epic music, and little text, and you can make a sweet intro or trailer. Twitter Poll @Forbestay asks: Should you require paper character sheets? Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |

| Episode 67 | Announcements Stay tuned to the blog for an upcoming caption contest! Now, on with the show! Topics  Monsters by Email A really cool service that provides high res artwork of monsters for your game, publishing, and more. It's fairly cheap and pretty hard to pass up. Check it out! 2013: Year of Shadowrun With the new year here there sure is a lot to look forward to for Shadowrun fans, despite what you might think based on Micah and I said about the game last episode we are pretty excited to see all of this stuff coming this year. Also, we're both pretty into games called Crossfire. New Torment Game Set In Numenera Universe We discuss the announcement of the upcoming sequel to Planescape: Torment that will be set in Monte Cook's "Numenera" world, which was a recently funded Kickstarter RPG forthcoming RPG project. Tip Corner Use the good stuff! If you've got a dragon, or a beholder, or some other big monster or set piece you want to use for your game, just use it! If you wait forever to use it you might never get the chance to! Twitter Poll @Dudecool03 asks: when playing in a campaign do you lean towards fighting or solving a confrontation with non violence? Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |

| Episode 66 | Announcements Congrats to GM RRouillard on his game Legacy of the Realms winning 2012's Campaign of the Year. Also congrats to Wolvensense on winning the December caption contest! Topics  Dice Shield We stumbled across a really cool tool for tabletop gamers who don't want their dice interfering with their game boards, pieces, and miniatures. The Dice Shield solves this problem, and a few others. After all no one likes those clattering cubes messing up their games right? The question for us though is, is it worth 50$? What do you think? D&D Tools.EU This website is a vast online compendium of books, spells, rules, feats, and a lot more - but is it even legal? How does it compare to other SRD's? Seems like a great resource regardless of any of the legal stipulations. Tune in as we discuss! Gaming Resolutions for 2013 We decided to broadcast our gaming resolutions for the coming year. Do any of ours sound like yours? Any advice for us? Let us know what you are going to do differently this year! Jerry Speak up when problems start to arise at the gaming table instead of being passive aggressive about it Venture far outside of my comfort zone of genre/game systems and run a Deep Space Sci Fi, or Modern Fantasy type game (dresden, warhammer 40k, savage worlds) Create something of my own, a kids game, a board game, something. Not counting my NaGaDeMon project. Micah Play Eclipse Phase at least once – the damn thing is free! Give DnDNext playtest a try It’s a secret…let’s just say “unleash” the PCs in my dark heresy campaign. Tip Corner Use the character quick selector when writing blog posts. Just click the little person-in-folder icon above the text area and you’ll get a list of all your characters. You can filter by name or tag, just start typing and it filters the list. Twitter Poll @Bartoneus asks: How do you like mixing Sci-Fi and Fantasy? Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |

| Episode 65| Announcements A cool little app that was brough to our attention RPG Ambience is definitely worth checking out, so be sure to do that! Also, don't forget that there's a new Caption Contest with lots of prizes this time just for the holidays, don’t miss out on your chance to win them! Topics  ENWorld Hacked :( It appears that recently one of the biggest RPG websites out there has been hacked. ENWorld has stated so on their front page and are looking to rebuild things piece by piece but it seems like it's going to be quite a task. Apparently code was lost, and lots of data as well. Micah and I give our condolences and talk about silver linings here. Here's to a brighter, more secure future for ENWorld! Saga of Dragon Star & the N.R.G. Core Rules The Gamesmith LLC guys have a kickstarter up for their N.R.G. Core rules along with a Fantasy Western setting entitled "Saga of Dragon Star" up as a double-whammy kickstarter. The project looks really great and has a focus on tactical and strategic combat, if you are into that we suggest you go check it out as they don't have much time left! Salvaging A Campaign The guys over at Gnome Stew have a great little article up about salvaging a campaign, retcon'ing and a lot more matters dealing with the demise of an epic story. How do you avoid or revive games when these things happen? We discuss! Tip Corner Have an in-game forum, and a meta-game forum to keep those two worlds separated. It helps! Twitter Question @KiloGex (Jesse) asks: What D&D race/class combination would you NEVER want to play, even under torture? Listen to find out!  Music Credits | Intro: "Christmas Remix" | Outro: "Christmas Remix" | by Plastic3 |

| Episode 64| Announcements There's a new Caption Contest with lots of prizes this time just for the holidays, don’t miss out on your chance to win them! Topics  Saving You The Pain Chris Pramas, head of Green Ronin publishing, creator of the Dragon Age RPG, 2e Warhammer Fantasy, among many other things has started up a tumblr entitled "Saving You The Pain". At first we thought it would just be a gag website but he's actually posting to it regularly with some really insightful stuff. The tumblr focuses on MMO's and game design in general and his believe that we should be dumping a million dollars into tabletop games instead of MMO's. Be sure to check it out, and toss us your 2 cents in the comments! Note: Chris contacted us and said that he didn't start the tumblr as a response to Paizo in particular, but that it was something he's been thinking about for a long time. Wearable Dice Rings Do you hate dice? Like rings? Novelties? Just cool new gaming stuff? If any of those things apply you'll want to check out and possibly back this Kickstarter. The novelty seems like it may wear thin with some, but we think they are cool. How long do you think these will hold up against the wear & tear of regular gaming? Talk to us! Christmas Gifts for Gamers We did this last year so we're going to make it a tradition. Micah and I discuss our hot top 3 gamer gifts we want for Christmas this year. We discuss gateway gifts and practical gamer stocking stuffers. What did we miss? Do we have horrible taste? What do YOU want? Micah Eclipse Phase PDF and/or hardcover – Free (or not) Fiasco basic rules Movie Soundtracks on iTunes/Amazon/Whatever – Tron, Dark Knight, Inception, Borderlands, other movies Honorable Mention - Battlegraph Dry Erase Board Jerry Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition Iron Kingdoms: Urban Adventure Dungeon World Runner Up – Savage Worlds In Print Tip Corner Use Obsidian Portal to set up pre-game or pre-campaign guidelines to help speed things along before you actually sit down at the table. Don’t overload players with every decision, but give them a few to think about before they show up. Twitter Question Michael (@OnlineDM1) asks: What are your go-to board games or other fun options when an RPG session falls through or is delayed? Listen to find out! (Hint: Not Apples To Apples because Micah despises it.) Music Credits | Intro: "Christmas Remix" | Outro: "Christmas Remix" | by Plastic3 |

| Episode 63| Announcements None! Time for topics! Topics  Pathfinder Online Kickstarter, Take 2 There is yet another Kickstarter up to fund more of the Pathfinder Online MMO that is coming from Paizo/Goblinworks. The previous Kickstarter was to fund a tech demo and this one is for the actual game. Micah and I talk extensively about it and I try and explain my apprehensiveness to the best of my ability. Gygax Magazine A newly announced magazine that is already mired in drama called "Gygax Magazine" has been quite the topic of discussion on the internet lately. We've obtained some info from Jayson Elliot's (one of the people behind Gygax Magazine) podcast regarding what the magazine will be about as well as when we should expect it and a bunch more. There's a lot of speculation at this point but we'll know more soon! Stan! Leaves WotC In a very candid series of blog posts, the multifaceted nerd that Stan! is has detailed his decision to leave Wizards of the Coast, mainly for creative reasons. Much of this sounds akin to what happened a few months ago with Monte Cook leaving  WotC and the D&DNext design team. Be sure to all three parts of his blog post and give us your two cents on the whole situation if you feel so inclined. Tip Corner Quick tip! At the start of next session, make sure everyone has everyone else’s cell phone number. No sense in playing Chinese telephone with your group, have everyone's contact info from day 1! Twitter Poll Brian Patterson / (@d20monkey) asks – One of the iconic core races is removed from D&D forever. Which is it and why? Listen to find out! Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |

| Episode 62| Announcements Tonight we're joined by Wolfgang Baur, a man with so many titles it would be unfair to only call him by one (which is exactly what I did in the intro, shame on me) to talk about Kobold Press's new campaign setting: Midgard! Also, the Roleplayers Chronicle has a great hurricane relief bundle package going on, it ends on the 10th though so if you want to help out you better do it quickly! Topics  Midgard Campaign Setting We talked about Midgard a little last week, but this week we have Wolfgang Baur himself in the house and we talk about all things Midgard including why you might want to play in Midgard instead of say... Golarion, or the Forgotten Realms. That's right folks, we went there! (Really, Micah did so blame him). Also here's the link to that preview up on Kobold Quartery (as well another preview at DriveThruRPG) so you can check out some of the great flavor Midgard has to offer for free! The Pepperoni if the Damned Last week Matt Dukes from Critical Hits was talking about a gaming night gone all wrong, we discuss these situations each on a personal level. We talk about backup plans and lots more, there are good ideas to be scraped from this discussion so listen up! Tip Corner We’re all gamers, and most of us have a huge long list of games we want to try and run but we often only have time for one or two. To break up monotony of your campaign ask your players if they’d like to run a one shot of a new system every X number of sessions just to keep things fresh. Variety is the spice of life after all! Twitter Poll I'm stealing Wolfgang for a game design question as part of an ongoing series on Obsidian Portal's blog that I’m starting for NaGaDeMon: “If you were designing a game where character death might occur at a regular rate, is there anything you’d do with character creation, combat, or otherwise that would ensure the game could remain fun?” Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |

| Episode 61 | Announcements Micah and I have firmed up some of our “Sipstarter” ideas and will have more info for you guys in the week(s) to come. Now, onto the topics! Topics  d20Monkey First Edition Kickstarter We sit down and talk about Brian's d20Monkey Kickstarter and what you can expect from it, as well as backer rewards and plans for the future of hard copies of the comic. If you're a fan of Brian's comic or even just our comic caption contests (done by Brian) consider pitching in! NaGa DeMon Are you a game designer, or at least wan't to be one? Naga Demon may be just the thing for you. You see, "Naga Demon" is a quirky abbreviation for "National Game Design Month" which is an exercise for all of us aspiring game creators to help us put our dice where our mouth is. Not to mention the name puts the more popularly known NaNoWriMo to shame because it sounds at least 5x more awesome. Brian and I discuss how these things benefit us personally, and as a community. Midgard Campaign Setting That's right folks, the long awaited Midgard campaign setting for Pathfinder from Kobold Press has finally arrived. Around 300 pages of beautiful artwork and a truly unique world for you to run games in. New classes, races, spells, and entire schools of magic, and a ton more. This book is oozing coolness from every single page and we highly suggest you check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kRJL0EyCTdg&w=420&h=315 The book is for Pathfinder but is very crunch light and would work for most any fantasy game system you'd like to use. Brian and I discuss some of the awesomeness within its pages and more. Did we mention there is a Beer domain for clerics? As if that isn't reason enough to check this out, there's also a preview up on Kobold Quartery (as well another preview at DriveThruRPG) so you can check out some of the great flavor Midgard has to offer before making your decision. Tip Corner Don't procrastinate! Set aside 15 to 30 minutes to bang out that adventure log after each session before you forget or just keep putting it off until next session rolls around and you're unprepared. Get it up on OP as soon as you can and get it out of the way, you'll thank yourself later and your players will too. Twitter Poll @ForbesTay asks: "Currently started next game with two new players. What are good hooks to get them into it with out over loading them?" Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |

| Episode 60 | Announcements Tonight we're joined by Anja and ZP Keister of d20Burlesque! Also, Micah and I are still kicking around ideas for our “Sipstarter” fundraiser and we’d love to get some more feedback from our listeners so be sure to listen to our last episode for details on what we’d like to do and let us know what you think would be some good rewards for those who pitch in. Lastly, we’re going to be headed to Winter Fantasy this January to cover the convention, check out the blog post for the details and stay tuned for more! Also d20Monkey has a Kickstarter going on for his comic, be sure to check it out! Topics  d20 Burlesque We interview Anja and ZP about their burlesque show and inquire about the sheer nerdyness of the whole endeavor. What is burlesque, who should and shouldn't come to their shows, and what to expect while there. Tune in as we chit chat about the art of geeky strip tease. Female Friendly Gaming We continue talking to Anja and ZP about aspects of female gaming, gaming communities and more. Tip Corner It’s great to have the main page of your campaign decked out for the whole world to see, but is that what your players really need? Try updating the main page of your wiki with an image or excerpt from your most recent session to immediately jog their memories and get them excited about picking back up next time. Maybe even bait them with some sort of cryptic hint or clue. Twitter Poll @ForbesTay asks: "The pace of the Dark Heresy game I'm in is brain numbingly slow. How do I inform the GM without sounding like a jerk?" Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |

| Episode 59 | Announcements No announcements, onward to the show! Topics  The Kickback Machine As all of you know, we cover a lot of Kickstarter stuff. Kickstarter might seem like a magic crowd funding bullet that everyone is so eager jump on board with, but what about the ones that fail? If you're looking to do a kickstarter of your own, or just want to research what might make or not make one, be sure to check out the Kickback Machine. Multiclassing in D&D Next Recently Mike Mearls posted a piece about how they are exploring multiclassing in D&D Next, it's obviously a big deal to a lot of folks - the comments are 46 pages long. Micah and I weigh in (and argue with each other) on the topic, what's your stance? Sipstarter Charity Fund Drive (Idea) We've been thinking about our own fundraiser here at Obsidian Portal, but we're not selling widgets - we want to help provide clean drinking water to those who need it. Micah and I have been throwing around ideas for a while, we'd appreciate yours as well in this endeavor. Tell us what you think! Tip Corner Make a TODO list at the bottom of your adventure log post for the night. Keep a running list as you’re playing of things that you want to table but look into later. If you make it public on your wiki, your players will hold you to it too! Twitter Poll @JssSandals asks: The DM has an NPC accompanying the party. What are interesting ways for that character to be there without the DM rolling dice against himself all night? Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |

| Episode 58 | Announcements Tonight we're joined by Privateer Press Community Manager and Staff Writer Simon Berman, and we're going to be talking in depth about this week's Iron Kingdoms RPG release! Join us as I grill Simon about IKRPG, among other things. Keep your eyes peeled for a new contest soon! Due to this show running a bit longer than our normal show, I've provided a short minute/second mark guide so you can skip around if need be:   Iron Kingdoms RPG – 1:00 “Their First Expedition” – 15:39 Story Realms Kickstarter – 22:32 Tip – 25:27 Twitter Question/Poll – 26:33 Topics  Iron Kingdoms RPG Launch! I sit down with Simon and ask one too many questions about the Iron Kingdoms Full Metal Fantasy RPG that launches this Wednesday (19th). We go over what's included in the first book, what is coming up for the game, and some insight into the game's design ethos and the history of Privateer Press. "Their First Expedition" Steve Winter has yet another great piece up on Kobold Quarterly about a player's first RPG session ever. How to make them memorable, competing with video games and a metric ton of wisdom in one short blog post. Simon and I discuss good starts for new players and give a few tips of our own. Story Realms This looks to be a great gateway for kids who have an interest in gaming, Story Realms is a hybrid of board game, rpg, choose your own adventure style books and perhaps a few other things. Aiming to land somewhere in the middle between highly granular RPG rules and improv acting indie story game, it looks like they have something cool going on. Their Kickstarter has a bit of time left in it, and 20$ will get you the core book. Tip Corner Do you switch around your locale when you play on game night? If it’s possible, give it a try. A change of scenery is always nice, even if it’s just from one dining room to the next, but sometimes people get worn out on playing host/hostess. Every now and everyone needs a break from conducting the hospitality train! Twitter Poll A week or so ago we posted a link to a study on GameScience dice vs "regular" dice and asked what people thought about it. We asked which type of dice they preferred and why, our restuls overwhelmingly leaned toward “regular” dice to no surprise. The most common answer was that dice are supposed to be random and that it wasn’t that big of a deal to them, cost was also a big factor as well. What are your thoughts? Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |

| Episode 57 | Announcements Tonight we’re joined by Eric Ausley from the GamersTable podcast, check them out at gamerstable.com a roundtable topical podcast on all things gaming. You can also follow them on twitter: @GamersTable. Our d20Monkey caption contest for August is over, congrats to our winner Robert! Topics  Iron Kingdoms Release Date Moves Up! Sounds like Gencon was a good time for the folks at Privateer Press this year, as it has resulted in them bumping up the release date for the Iron Kingdoms RPG! We know we're a little nuts for IKRPG, but that's okay - you will be too soon enough. (We also briefly mentioned Level 7 Escape, which will be OP's Board Game Corner feature this month, you can check out our unboxing of it here.) 13th Age Expansion Kickstarter There's an expansion in the works for 13th Age called "13 True Ways", the ever-emerging RPG by Jonathan Tweet & Rob Heinsoo. This expansion is full of new stuff for both players and GM's meant to really show off what the system is capable of. We're definitely interested. Stuff For The Travelling DM An article over at Stargazer's World pointed us toward this cool little device that should be useful to any of us who use technology at our tables - a bluetooth audio cube by Verbatim. Looks like it has multiple options for powering it and playing music through it, personally I (Jerry) want to buy one immediately. Tip Corner I’ve got a non-OP tip for you this evening because I felt the need to share some recently acquired wisdom. When starting a new campaign, try and come up with a story arc that has an end. Yeah. If you’re like me and you just imagine the campaign lasting years and years and no one ever getting bored you’re probably wrong. A 3 act story structure will help your game prep immensely. Twitter Question(s) Last week we took a little twitter survey, I’m going to relay some of the best responses we got instead of a question tonight. Our question was “We want to know: what is the absolute dumbest thing you’ve seen a GM or player do in-game?” A couple breaking up during a gaming session in front of everyone. A GM instructing his group to take a short break, and then disappearing. A GM trying to “create drama” by jumping up on his chair, breaking it, and slamming face first into the table sending minis flying everywhere. Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |

| Episode 56 | Announcements We're back from Gencon, and we won 2 ENnies! Thank you all so much for this incredible honor, we couldn't do any of this without any of you! Speaking of you guys, there's still a comic to caption, so get on it before it's too late! (Pssst, we're throwing dice in this time.) Topics  D&D Documentary There's a new D&D documentary on the horizon and it's looking really good, they have a kickstarter up to help fund the project too (surprise!?). Micah and I aren't exactly sure why they need one though, so tune in and tell us how wrong we are! Fantasy Flight Does New Star Wars RPG Another big announcement from gencon was that there was going to be a new 3 part Star Wars RPG from Fantasy Flight. Each game will focus on a different area of the world and take place during the original 3 films. You can buy a printed copy of the beta rules right now, and there are also some rumors that there will not be a PDF available due to some conflicts with Lucas Arts. D&D Digital Products Return During the first ever Keynote Address this year at Gencon, Wizards of the Coast had many announcements, probably the most exciting one being that all of their back catalog will return digitally sometime 'next year'. This should encompass basically everything ever pubslished for D&D by TSR/WotC. Micah and I speculate a bit but mostly rejoice, what are your thoughts? Leave us a comment! Tip Corner When you’re using custom CSS for your campaigns and loading up your own custom background images (or any image for your campaign really), try and be sure to optimize the images for the web. You can do this with photoshop and other various programs by performing a web optimized save. It will help your campaign page load faster! Twitter Question(s) @Forbestay asks: with the playtest going on and my group bored with 4e should i try to start a campaign or do one shots? Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |

| Episode 55 | Announcements New caption comic is up, get on it! Our finalists for the Excellence In Innovation Award are: Masterplan, Roll20, Character Distiller, Fantasy Grounds, Lost Tools, Dark Theatre’s Character Folio, and Tabletop Forge. Come to our panel this year for some conversation and to find out who wins the award. We hope to see you at gencon! Topics  Dragon's Game Board Yet another virtual tabletop emerges into the arena to vie for our attention and dollars, Dragon's Game Board seems like a cool concept. A bit of a twist from the usual virtual setup that incorporates your smart phone into the mix, tune in ans Michah and I pontificate! Dragon's Bard Not to be confused with the above project, Dragon's Bard is a slick looking new fantasy board game set in the world of Dragonlance and is up on Kickstarter. We're not sure exactly how the game goes down but we know it sure is pretty, and that you guys might like it. Check it out! Gencon Tips The Illuminerdy, Critical Hits, The Dread Gazebo, and quite a few other blogs are giving out their best tips for Gencon this year. These tips mostly apply to every con you might attend so take heed and absorb what you can whether this is going to be your first con or your five hundredth! Micah and I also give you a tip or two of our own. Tip Corner Last session kind of a drag? Make something explode at the start of the next one! Your players want excitement and they will overlook the blatantly obvious “you just made that up” moment when the session starts. Twitter Question(s) @TheUniverseGM – What do you do with a drunken sailor, early in the morning? Music Credits | Intro: "Prelude" | Outro: "Stande Alone" | by LukHash |