Speak With Dead #02: NecRomantic Questions
Dear Maxillae the Mad,
While trudging through an ancient tomb the other day, I became cursed. Now I only find myself attracted to zombies, ghosts, and, most strangely, skeletons. Should I tell my cleric about this or just wait for it to clear up?
Signed,
Lust-For-Unlife
A Little Rant About Stupid Armor
An example of not-so-stupid armor.
Stupid armor
Hey, nerds, today we’re going to talk about something stupid. Specifically, stupid armor.
There are a few quick ways to get my jimmies rustled, and putting a character in a skimpy outfit and trying to claim it’s somehow battle armor is one of the big ones. There is a time and a place for drawing something kind of outrageous and enticing, and what is supposed to be full plate is not that.
Speak With Dead #01: Brain Food
Dear Maxillae,
What is the best way to avoid the whole issue regarding my friend? We were going out for a while, but she is unfortunately an alchemist who shed her mortal coil. I still want to keep things going, but I just don’t know if I can deal with her hunger for brains anymore, or if I should just become a lich to be with her.
-Grant
30 Fantasy Gaming Flash Encounter Ideas
Sometimes games don’t flow like we expected them to. You planned to take three hours, and your players get through most of the quest in one. Not everything that happens at the Dungeons & Dragons table has to be part of some epic happenstance, however. Sometimes, small things stand on their own and aren’t at all part of the bigger picture. We as Dungeon Masters need them because it helps us control the pacing of the game.
So here are 30 quick and simple small scenarios you can throw at your players in a flash when things are a little bit slow or you think you’re going to run out of game before you run out of game time.
Going Out In a Blaze of Glory: Thoughts on Character Death
Hey nerds! You may already know some of us met up this past weekend at Origins, and I’ve got to say it was a blast. I was so excited to get to meet Nerdarchist Dave and Staff Editors Ty and Doug in person. Getting to hang out together was really awesome, and one of the things we got to do was play in a one-shot together, DMed by Kobold Press’s Stephen Rowe (who was coincidentally just in a daily live chat).
Let me lead off by saying it was pretty amazing and I have legitimately never been that into a combat before. But something else happened. That was my little brother, Max, experienced his very first character death.
Speak With Dead #00: Raising Questions
Salutations nerds! I’ve got an idea I think we’re all going to have a lot of fun with, but I’m going to need your help to make it happen. The idea is to do an advice column like “Dear Abby,” but from the point of view of a necromancer, and more for entertainment than for actual advice.
Nerdarchy Talks Shop With TL Frasqueri-Molina
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDHBR90gfu8 If you like Nerdarchy’s daily livechats (or even if you haven’t seen much of them and are curious), you absolutely do not want to miss out on watching Nerdarchist Dave’s interview with TL Frasqueri-Molina. She is the Senior Enterprise Project Manager at Legendary Digital Networks...
Open Legend RPG character build: Lucelia Heliotrope
You might be familiar with our Friday Open Legend game, Aether Skies. Doug, Dr. Bill and Ty have already done character builds for the game, and those articles were fascinating reads, so now I’m stepping up to the plate to shed some light on my contribution to the party.
Like Ty, I’ve got spoilers ahead. You guys know the drill.
Pixelscapes gets psychedelic with D&D monster art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpwEd5KoR-0&t=2736s Jen Gagne of Pixelscapes stopped by the Nerdarchy live chat with Nerdarchist Dave to talk psychedelic D&D monster art, drawing, sculpture and of course gaming. She’s an amazing artist, unafraid to be bold with her color selection, and she’s been gaming for a really long...
RPG: Playing by Post
The roleplaying community is typically populated with people who have strong tabletop roots. This isn’t surprising. After all, Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop game. However, using dice and a rules system in meat space around a gaming table isn’t the only way to roleplay. There are a great many people who play-by-post instead.
Top Ten Best Shinies in Pokemon
Let me open with a confession: I spent hours last night on my Nintendo 3DS running a little animated version of myself back and forth from a girl standing next to a bipedal cow in a hood, to a little fence enclosed area, and running in aimless circles on a three-tailed bull so some pixelated eggs would hatch on the off chance I’d find a fire larva of a slightly different color than the other fire larva.
I’ve already done this 300 times.
If that doesn’t sound crazy enough, I’m prepared to do it another 200 times before I start getting frustrated, and probably another 500 more before I give up for a while.
Dungeoneering 101: Dungeon Design Basics
Back on April 24, Nerdarchy released a video about Dungeon Design Basics.
This was a sponsored video by ArmorClass10.com, who happen to be the vendors of the shirts our illustrious Nerdarchists are wearing in the video. By the way, it’s not all D&D stuff over there, they’ve got at least one Doctor Who reference and one about not stepping on a Lego that gave me a good chuckle.
The Virtues of an Epic Failure: Really Critty Stories
On April 17, Nerdarchy released a video about Critical Failures and why to use them.
Gaming Elitism Isn’t Dead
This probably isn’t news to you, but no matter how many times we sit down and have the discussion of “this is a game and there isn’t a wrong way to play it,” there are still going to be people who will be glad to tell you exactly how you’re having fun wrong. Most of what I end up seeing personally are hardcore roll players getting upset because people aren’t min-maxed.
Evil is a Spectrum
There is oh, so much talk floating around about evil characters and good characters in tabletop RPGs and how you should or shouldn’t mix them in parties. Every time you get people together talking about Dungeons & Dragons, this is something that’s going to come...
