RPG Character Creation: Unveiling the Psyche through D&D
The first thing we do when playing Dungeons & Dragons is character creation. Without the characters, there is no story; we know this. In order to create a character we must first decide which character to make, why that character, and then the details. In order to do this we have a great opportunity to take clay and make a mold out of our own ideas and desires. You may have heard that the way a person views life, people and situations is based off his or hers own experiences? Well, this is one of those times where we get to use all the tools life has given us and make something with it. Once we take hold of this art form, the opportunities for character building and world building take off. Each character creation has its own unique flare and destiny that drives the adventure to its perfect and final crescendo.
The Name Game, Part III: Last Names, Titles and Sobriquets
I’ve talked about naming characters before in a previous article (the second one was about places, in case you were wondering), but I neglected to cover last names, so that’s what we’re going to talk about right now. Mind you, my advice before regarding making up names still applies if you want something super fantasy sounding like “Arthainas” or “Cerdoth,” but this one is all for the more naturally occurring names.
E8- YR 1 Nerdarchy Presents Alex Augunas From Everyman Gaming A Third Party RPG Publisher Podcast
Welcome once a gain to Nerdarchy the Podcast Yr1. This our earliest gaming content from YouTube ported to sound cloud as an audio podcast for your listening enjoyment. Nerdarchy Presents Alex Augunas From Everyman Gaming A Third Party RPG Publisher https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llSNfVxIEng Nerdarchy the News Letter- http://nerdarchynewsletter.gr8.com/ Before hanging with...
The TitansGrave role-playing game show is a top-notch production
Returning readers might make me eat crow for the RPG encounter planned for this session. D&D is hiding in shadows and moving silently this week while the Fantasy Adventure Game Engine sets the stage for Geek & Sundry’s TitansGrave: The Ashes of Valkana. There is a huge variety of live streamed and recorded RPG play sessions out there. The merits, value and impact are debatable among many, but not me – I enjoy them as entertainment and believe they add value to the hobby. For those reasons, I’m taking a closer look at my favorite programs and sharing not only what makes each program fun to watch, but what gamers can take away and bring back to their gaming tables.
With tabletop RPGs, sometimes you just want to play the damn game
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="456" class="zemanta-img"] Role-playing gamers at the Burg-Con in Berlin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption] Here at Nerdarchy, you could say our bread and butter is talking about tabletop role-playing games, most commonly Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition. We have videos and articles and a forum...
E7- Yr 1 Playing Paranoia RPG And Making Friends With The Friend Computer RPG Discussion
Episode 7 for the Nerdarchy Yr 1 Podcast is now in effect. This time Nerdarchy is going to explore a new tabletop RPG game Paranoia. Nerdarchist Ted and Ryan got to play Paranoia with game master Travis. https://soundcloud.com/david-friant-458990853/e7-yr-1-playing-paranoia-rpg-and-making-friends-with-the-friend-computer-rpg-discussion Playing Paranoia RPG And Making Friends With The Friend...
E6- YR1 Player Character Tips Character Builds Tabletop Role-Playing Games Discussion Panel Podcast
We continue the Nerdarchy Podcast experiment with episode 6. These are our early videos from the Nerdarchy YouTube Channel Year One. As the series of the videos continues so does the quality of the sound and video. https://soundcloud.com/david-friant-458990853/e6-yr1-player-character-tips-character-builds-table-top-role-playing-games-discussion-panel Player Character Tips |Character Builds| Table Top Role-Playing Games...
Comics and RPGs: Voices in my head
Have you ever played a possessed character? How about a Malkavian from World of Darkness? I love the crazy character, the haunted ones; they have so much to offer.
Now I think most Vampire: The Masquerade players and GMs know that the Malkavians aren’t necessarily crazy, that in fact they are speaking to someone through a dimensional wormhole or some other such story, but to everyone else they seem perfectly mad. Imagine if you were warped from the ’80s into the future “McFly!” and you saw all these people walking down the street talking to themselves? You don’t know what Bluetooth is, so they all look crazy to you.
New DM Handbook: In-Game Games
It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about fully theoretical implementations. There are some things that have been based on observations, general concepts, tropes, and other literary tools, but it’s been a long time since I’ve talked about something I’ve absolutely nothing to base my ideas on. That’s what I plan on doing. I’ve set up the groundwork for my players for the future, but I haven’t had a chance to implement it.
Today, I’m going to be talking about in-game games. I can’t be sure how often they get used in most campaigns, but being that the way the game’s solution for contests is to roll ability checks against each other (PHB 174), I can’t imagine that it happens all that much. The biggest problem with this, of course, is that players that have some form of gaming set as a tool proficiency are now being penalized against the other more useful ones, which is where my solution comes in.
E5- YR 1 Building Your Tabletop Role-Playing Game Campaign Game Master Tips Podcast
Nerdarchy the Podcast continues. From our Year One of Nerdarchy videos going up on YouTube and now being converted to a podcast. We continues delve into another game master tips. This before we really began talking about 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. Nerdrchy gaming discussions were...
Once upon a time, book stores were like treasure maps
In today's world, readers can find just about any book they want. If a particular book, fiction or non-fiction, is not available at one of your local book stores, you can always head online. The most obvious place online to find a book is Amazon, but...
E4- YR 1 DMing On The Fly And Rewarding Character Backstory Game Master Tips
Time another episode from year one of Nerdarchy on YouTube. In this podcast we once again merge several of our Game Master Tips episodes into one podcast show. https://soundcloud.com/david-friant-458990853/e4-yr-1-dming-on-the-fly-and-rewarding-character-backstory-game-master-tips Running A RPG Game On The Fly| Winging it,When Players Go Rogue| Game Master Tips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwKdHjaI61g A lot goes into...
How to Keep Players Invested in Your Tabletop Game
Dungeons & Dragons game in IV Getxo Comic Con. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Most of us come to the game to play it. Your players want to get involved in your world and your story, Game Masters, or they wouldn’t have come in the first place. Even so, though, you know the difference between a game people come to play out of habit and one they spend time away from the table thinking about. And let’s be honest, you really want that latter one, don’t you?
Of course, it takes more than just a couple of tips and tricks to run a great game, but having some of the right tools can’t hurt you. So let’s talk about a few ways to keep your players wanting more.
Secrets From The Dungeon: Roll Playing The Ego With Dungeons & Dragons
My last week’s article covered a brief character creation ideal, which was to create your Dungeons & Dragons character based entirely off your own ego. I think for most people, most characters are made this way, or at least partly. You might add features or traits that you have, eg. your character suffers from an untamed shaking in one hand that won’t stop due to real life PTSD that you struggle with. Or perhaps your character wears a certain handkerchief in one pocket as a symbol of a past event that changed him, and he wears it to remember. While these small details are mostly forgotten along the character creation path, to really explore those details can add a lot of fun and/or humor to your game play style.
Are fewer people reading today?
Print is dead, right? Maybe, maybe not, but either way, that doesn’t mean reading has died.
Is reading dying or dead? It would seem so. Every few months there’s an article online or in the newspapers or magazines about how people don’t read nearly as much as they used to, or that fewer and fewer people pick up a book. But I’d argue otherwise. I think more people are reading than ever before.
