Guest Author - Jay Shaffstall
More and more GMs are creating RPG campaign web sites for their home campaigns. It's great from the perspective of fellow GMs who want to get new ideas, or for players who want to point their GM toward new ideas. It's also a way to capture the campaign in a form that won't get lost with time. New players can be pointed to the web site to get a feel for the history of the campaign.
Some of the features you might want to include in your site are an adventure log, telling about the latest adventures of the party, a list of NPCs with descriptions, a GM blog that talks about the campaign out of character, character blogs that allow players to reveal more about what each character is thinking (like a character diary), a time line of events, etc.
It might seem intimidating to do all that if you aren't used to creating web sites, but luckily, you don't have to be a techie to put your campaign online.
There are online services that are designed around role playing campaigns. One is Obsidian Portal, which bills itself as a content management system for RPG campaigns. You get a blog to use as an adventure log, and a campaign wiki that can be edited by the GM and the players. The intent behind the wiki is to build a knowledge base of information about the game world, but it could be used for character diaries, or anything else. The NPC tracker lets everyone see the important NPCs in the world.
The GM at Obsidian Portal has a private wiki they can use to keep track of campaign notes and future plans. No more losing your campaign notes in an airport and having to improvise during your next game!
Something like Obsidian Portal is the most comprehensive solution for role playing games, but if you don't like the feature set there you can always put your campaign online in other ways. You can get free wiki hosting at WikiDot, free blog hosting various places, etc.
If you're going to roll your own, rather than use a portal site, I'd recommend using a blog for the adventure log. Give each of your players an account on the blog using the character's name, so that they can leave in-character comments on blog posts. That'll give them an option for interacting outside of your regular sessions, and will make the site more interesting for casual visitors.
I'd start at Obsidian Portal, though, and take a look at some of the campaigns that are already online there. You might get some ideas on what to do for your campaign site.
Obsidian Portal
WikiDot
