TTRPG Stock Sessions — The Time Loop
Salutations, nerds! Today I’m going focusing in on Groundhog Day. Not the movie but the concept of being stuck in a time loop as a tabletop roleplaying game stock session. This episode comes up in a lot of places. The first one coming to mind right now being the Supernatural episode where the brothers Winchester die repeatedly and have to live the day over. The time loop TTRPG stock session comes with a warning label — It’s frustrating to deal with. The time loop is a concept you want to make sure players are okay with before bringing it to the table. All the advice you see about how parties need clear goals is really hard to pull off in a situation like this so proceed with caution. After you’ve cleared it with your TTRPG group here are the things you have to hammer out.
D&D Ideas — Oceans
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is oceans, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of oceans in Fish Food a chance encounter on the high seas leads to a potential trifecta of terror: drowning, water issues and being lost at sea. A pleasant sea voyage turns upside down by attacking water enemies and a rapidly sinking ship along with 54 other dynamic scenarios in Out of the Box. Find out more about it here. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Spell Assassin
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted take precise aim at a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character who puts a sneaky spin on their magical attacks. The Spell Assassin leans into their rogue training to get the drop on adversaries with the Assassinate feature and take them out through a deadly spell salvo. Dabbling in a few disciplines compiles a very particular set of skills for this 5E D&D character over the course of their adventuring career. So let’s get into it.
When Fight Club meets Cobra Kai Your RPG Character has to Fight
I take a lot of inspiration from everywhere both as a player and Game Master for my tabletop roleplaying game experiences. Reading novels, watching movies and TV present so many elements that have already been done so well — why not copy some elements to improve your own RPG experiences? I binged all three seasons of Cobra Kai over the weekend and man, what a show. It got me thinking about all the elements about fighting in a typical fantasy RPG. With so many urban adventures to play with it is no wonder fights can break out in the middle of the streets. If you plan to incorporate these kinds of groups, clubs or organizations focused around fighting in your games you could very much take inspiration from Cobra Kai and the movie Fight Club and make up rules and a place where these fights can go down.
Terrorize 5E D&D with the Path of the Beast from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
Fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons allows players to make their own characters with a variety of mechanics to support their favorite archetypes and custom craft their own unique person to play in a story woven by friends. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything added a deluge of new options to the 5E D&D mix. Between the recent Unearthed Arcana introducing Gothic Lineages and the new announcement regarding Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft I can’t think of a better time to talk about the Path of the Beast Primal Path for 5E D&D barbarians.
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Artificer Brings Arcanapunk to 5E D&D
Several iterations of the artificer have appeared in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. There’s been three Unearthed Arcana versions, Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron, Eberron: Rising from the Last War and now Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. The artificer was introduced during 3.5 D&D with the Eberron campaign setting. Eberron brought what we at Nerdarchy like to refer to as arcanapunk to the D&D game. If you are a fantasy purist the artificer and arcanapunk might not be for you. Maybe you are like me and have gotten kind of bored with vanilla fantasy and want to spice it up a bit.
Unleash 5E D&D Horror with Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
Creatures of the night can rejoice (in a dark and brooding way) when Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft releases on May 18. Arguably fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons’ most popular adventure Curse of Strahd pulls adventurers into the Mists of Ravenloft where they contend with supernatural horror in Barovia. The campaign reimagines one of D&D’s most beloved settings and Wizards of the Coast revisits the dark realm along with many others in the newly announced 5E D&D book.
Changing the Theme of Your TTRPG Campaign Midstride
Salutations, nerds! I’m taking a brief break from the Stock Sessions series to write about consent in tabletop roleplaying games. I don’t mean tricky things like gore and sexual content, which gets addressed a lot and is super important. But another side of the issue gets overshadowed quite a bit — content and expectations. Consent means everyone is on the same page about generally what’s going to happen in the campaign. Put simply if you’re playing a pirate game it’s reasonable for players to assume it’s going to stay a pirate game and not suddenly become a knightly crusade.
Oath of Glory Paladin from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Embodies 5E D&D Heroism
Paladins in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons take Sacred Oaths and become ideal champions of those tenets. The Oath of Glory found in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything was originally the Oath of Heroism. The tenets of the oath changed a little bit in the final version and some of the features as well. Since the character I play in a weekly live stream 5E D&D game took the Sacred Oath of Glory during their journey as a justicar it felt only natural to share a closer look at this fantastic subclass.
TTRPG Stock Sessions — The Heist
Salutations, nerds! I’m back with another tabletop roleplaying game stock session to dissect and analyze. Today I’m taking a closer look at one of my personal favorites — the heist. There’s something valuable held behind closed doors in a secure facility. Something TTRPG characters need, want very badly or have been hired to retrieve. This archetype is part of the reason why I love Shadowrun so much as a setting. The game is 80% heist jobs, which by the way are great because they leave plenty of opportunity to tackle the adventure from whatever direction the players approach. A heist can be done via a lot of roleplaying, lying to people to get into position or purely through stealth. Characters can go loud and blast their way in or save this option for a last resort.
