D&D Ideas – Anything Goes

D&D Ideas – Anything Goes

January 20, 2023

Dungeons & Dragons/ Editorial/ Free Nerdy Things/ Game Master Tips

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week we don’t have a topic since we didn’t have a live chat since Sunday fell on Christmas this year. We usually hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on the Nerdarchy YouTube Channel to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Did you know we’ve got a plentitude of best selling titles over at the Dungeon Master’s Guild from our Character Build Guide series. Each one includes narrative and mechanical guidance for players from 1st to 20th level plus an NPC creature version inspired by them for Dungeon Masters.

Along with our best sellers there’s dozens of other CBGs as well as encounters and they’re all set to Pay What You Want prices. You can grab them all up for nothing or $1M — it’s whatever you want! Over at Nerdarchy the Website we share peeks behind the design for all of them and now we take things a step further by creating Out of the Box style encounters for our Patreon supporters every month. Browse through some bestsellers and add them to your collection here.

Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Normally we have a coherent theme for the weekly newsletter based off of weekly live chat, but with all of the chaos of the holidays there was no chat. So Nerdarchist Ted and I will be free styling it.

First off I want to address something we’ve been asked about over and over again OGL 1.1. We’ve been asked to weigh in on it multiple times and asked if we’ll do video on it. Couple things: we’ve only got a leak so we are waiting to see what the final release looks like. Matter of fact I asked our attorney about it. He happens to be an IP attorney and they basically said “I’m not even looking at any of the leaks and waiting for the official WotC release. Then I’ll write an article about it”. Two if we did do a video on it at this point it feels like we’d just be doing it for clicks and views. There are a couple of lawyers out there that have done videos on it though and they might be a better place to look than Ted or I. No doubt when the official release drops we’ll weigh in though.

For now we’ll continue to play 5e D&D, look at what One D&D has to offer with the playtest rules releases, play other TTRPGs, and continue to work on Zoo Mafia RPG. I don’t see our home games changing much anytime soon.

Speaking of other TTRPGs we’ve got a mini series of actual plays coming up on the channel – Vast Grimm: Into Oblivion Sci-Fi Horror RPG Actual Play Mini Series #1 .

Join us 8:30 PM Eastern Time live for the game.

The plan is to run three sessions that pick up from the last Vast Grimm one shot we ran – Vast Grimm Sci-Fi Horror RPG Live Play One Shot for Würm Fest We’ll all be revisiting those characters.

Vast Grimm is an OSR sci-fi horror role-playing game hacked from Mork Borg.

Product Spotlights

Dark Paths: Little Shop of Dark Delights

This Fifth Edition content explores new, darker paths for adventurers to follow. Beginning down one of these dark paths leads to power but at a perilous cost.

If you want to go to another plane of existence, Elandra Faen can open the door — for a price. You pick the location and she will wait for you for three days going by the time of the destination plane rather than your home plane. She will charge you twice if you want her to hold the flow of time for you while you are gone.

Modular Location — Shop of Dark Delights can show up anywhere! Includes map and d100 table to determine the Price of Admission
Alchemical Goods — 15 distinct artisanal consumables with a variety of effects
New Magic Items — Masque of Bastion, Masque of Vexes, Masque of Wrath, Summoning Bell
NPC — Elandra Faen, based on the Party Animal CBG
New Monster — Dark Animental

Add Dark Paths: Little Shop of Dark Delights to your collection here

From Ted’s Head

It is that time of year where there is so much going on, it can be hard to keep it all together. I have had way too much going that even with us taking the weekends off from our usual gaming I feel like I still have no time. I did have some time recently to get in a few games of my favorite board game though. Betrayal at House on the Hill is by far my favorite. The fact that every time you play can be so wildly different than the last just makes it incredible.

If you have been around here for a while you will know that this is my favorite and that I have adapted the concept into D&D one shots and even ran a 6 session game at D&D in a Castle this past September. The more I play the game the more I like it and the more inspired I am to keep adjusting and making more. So today I am going to make some magic items (Cursed items?) based on some of the omens in the game. Since each omen can start the story in the game from a number of rooms, each can be flavored very differently in a campaign world. So however you want to use these items make sure you build on top of what I have here to make each item unique in your world.

In Betrayal at House on the Hill, each omen is something that can either be something simple, but creepy, or the major component of a greater story. Most of these cards are objects, but some are living creatures: a Madman, a Girl, or even a Dog. There is even one that is entirely intangible: Bite. In the game something just bites you. If it does not start the story it is just weird and gone, but if it does hold on things are about to get challenging.

So I am going to make a magic item for the Mask and an effect for the Bite. Please feel free to use them as you please in your games. If you do, feel free to tell us about it.

Mask

The Card says: Mask, a somber mask to hide your intentions.

Mechanically this card allows you to trade sanity for knowledge in the game when you put it on, or take it off to lose the knowledge and get back your sanity. It is a great swing item when you need those mental stats adjusted.

But In D&D you can easily correlate those to Int and Wis if you wanted but then the item would not be very fun. So I am going to ask you to jump to page 265 of your DMG and see the rules about the Sanity Score. It is one of the extra abilities that are optional and should be included in such a game based on a spooky house. I might have to begin using this more. It also could be very useful to rely on page 258-259 talking about Madness. So let’s dive in.

Somber Mask

(rare Wondrous Item, requires attunement)

This half mask looks plain and simple at a glance. It does not even have a way to fasten on to keep it from falling off. When you hold it you can hear faint whispers like the mask is trying to tell you something, but you cannot make it out. What if you just put it on, then maybe you could hear them. If you attune to the item and place it over your face it will mold perfectly to your face and is impossible to to come off unintentionally.

Once you attune to the mask and put the mask on you are cursed and cannot take the mask off. While you are attuned the mask can whisper secrets to you. When you attune to the mask choose one skill: Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion. If you are not proficient, while attuned you are considered proficient. If you are already proficient you add double your proficiency. Each time you make use of the skill associated with the mask make a Sanity Saving Throw (if you are not using Sanity make a Wisdom Saving throw instead) DC15. Failure results in a short term madness. If you suffer 3 short term Madness within a week the next failure produces a long term madness instead.

When you finish a long rest you can change the skill from the above list to a different choice. While you are attuned and cursed by the mask you do not want to part with it no matter the argument.

Next up the Bite

Bite: A growl, the scent of Death. Pain. Darkness. Gone.

There is a lot to work with here, but to work it into a story can be difficult when approaching from a generic jumping off point. This works well if the party is up against a planar foe or undead given the text from the card, but anything can work.

This will be a cool feature or mini feat that you can give a player that is designed in some ways like the wound Frodo received in Lord of the Rings. Instead of it coming from a blade it could come from a special creature or even a spell.

Bite

(add this effect to whatever caused the wound or damage)

This is a lasting wound(reduce your HP by the amount of the damage taken until you receive a like amount of magical healing). Even once the damage is gone the area is tender and sore. You have advantage on Wisdom (perception checks) to sense the source of what caused this wound. When you finish a long rest make a Constitution saving throw DC 15. If you fail, sometime during the day you will suffer a short term madness. Your dm will tell you when. It is possible to have this happen at the worst possible moment.

The Bites lasting effect changes you. Increase 1 ability score by 1.

This kind of thing can be given out singly or slowly throughout the whole party marking them by the BBEG. There could be even worse things besides this and maybe boons to work in as well.

So there you have it, just a few things inspired by my fav board game. Until Next Time. Stay Nerdy!

Announcements

Nerdarchy will be at D&D in a Castle once again July 8th-12th of 2023. Both Nerdarchist Dave and Nerdarchist Ted will be each running a table of D&D. They are running out of spots but there are still few left if you are interested in going on a D&D luxury vacation.