5 Tips to Make Your Games Grittier and More Dangerous | Exploring Grimdark in your RPG
Sure, your party just dethroned the tyrant, but is the person they put in his place really any better? Is there a good option among the solutions to your party’s current problem? These and many other questions lead to themes explored in grimdark. Grimdark seems to be a staple of fiction at present. Audiences love exploring the viscera of violence, the corruption of political systems, fluid morality and the consequences of actions — even those traditionally deemed heroic. We can look to things like A Game of Thrones, The Witcher and others for examples of dark fantasy settings with grimdark themes.
Beware the Werefrogs of Muckwuggle, the Frog God for 5E D&D
[caption id="attachment_64454" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Some werefrogs have allegiance to no one, and may have been descended from spawn of Ramenos or some other frog power. Many current day werefrogs are linked to Muckwuggle. They are known as the Batrachians. [Art by Ashkan Ghanbari][/caption] Werefrog Medium humanoid, neutral...
What Constitutes Bad Roleplaying at the Tabletop?
Salutations, nerds! I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what constitutes bad roleplaying and I know there’s a lot of talk about this sort of thing floating around the internet as regards tabletop roleplaying games like fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Let me start by saying we’re not going to be talking about elitist nonsense today. So if you clicked this thinking you were going to find some vitriol about people playing pink haired characters with cat ears, look elsewhere. Also I’m going to go roll a pink tabaxi after this. Instead, after a lot of consideration and deliberation I’ve come to the conclusion a lot of what people consider to be bad roleplaying actually boils down to selfish roleplaying.
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Paladin Sacred Oaths by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted get back to basics and discuss the paladin class for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. In the video they look across all of the 5E D&D books with paladin content. There are paladin subclasses in the Player’s Handbook, Sword Coast Adventurers Guide and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and Dave and Ted share an overview of the character class plus weigh in on their personal gaming experiences. Outside of official sources there are countless Sacred Oaths created by players all over the world. We’ve created one recently for our April early access Patreon rewards. The Oath of Vanity included with Hairable Ideas as a follow up to 2019’s popular Beardomancy will hit the store next month but you can get it now along with all our other supporters at the $2 level plus get immediate access to years worth of previous rewards. Check it out here. Over at Dungeon Master’s Guild there’s currently 681 products tagged as character options with warlock content too. But there is another source of homebrew content I’m looking at today — D&D Beyond, where people have used the homebrew tools there to create 600 Sacred Oaths for 5E D&D paladins. Let’s get into it and take a closer look at some!
Player Agency Can Be a Game Master Resource
During a recent conversation with Nerdarchist Ted he told me about a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game he ran. Each month Ted runs a live stream game sponsored by RPG Crate. Time was a factor for these sessions, which typically run about two and a half hours. Because the adventures included in the monthly subscription box are packed with content Ted streamlines things to adjust for his group and the time constraint but in the most recent session the game threatened to end before the party reached a satisfying conclusion. Ted felt in a pickle. An idea sprang to his mind, and he utilized player agency in a wonderful way as a solution. His DM tale stuck in my mind and I’d like to share some thoughts on how player agency can be an incredibly useful tool for a Dungeon Master. So let’s get into it and as bonus I pulled the video of Ted’s game. Enjoy!
3 Ways to Add Unearthed Arcana Spells and Magic Tattoos to your 5E D&D Game
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted share their arcane research into Unearthed Arcana 2020 — Spells and Magic Tattoos. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Unearthed Arcana present something other than subclasses. We saw Class Feature Variants last November, a couple of takes on the artificer around spring 2019 and Sidekicks in Dec. 2018. It’s a terrific treat to see something different! Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing new subclasses (almost as much as designing them) but expanding what fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons can do beyond character class features gives us more tools to explore our worlds as we tell stories of fighting monsters and finding treasure as they progress in power. In the case of \this latest playtest material I’m thinking about interesting ways to add content from the Unearthed Arcana document into 5E D&D campaigns.
Stepping from your Friendly Local Gaming Store into the Friendly Global Online Community of Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
Greetings, fellow nerds! With current events limiting social interaction and preventing in person play there has never been a better time to try playing your favorite tabletop games online. There are many options available but I am here today to inform you of a particular free community that is growing on Discord. The Ghostsong Guild is a West Marches and Adventurers League inspired gaming group that specializes in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and we are looking for additional players and Dungeon Masters to join us. We do not limit the amount of characters that you can have. That way you are always free to try new things and have more fun. Characters persist and progress through various challenges presented by multiple DMs — making each character’s journey a unique story intertwined with the stories of other players!
D&D Ideas — Unseen Enemies
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is unseen enemies, which we discussed in our live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST and talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Visit us over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel here and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss these live chats on Mondays at 8 p.m. eastern, plus our regular three videos each week where we talk about D&D and other RPGs. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy, by signing up here. With the COVID-19 pandemic situation we want to assure everyone we’re following all the guidelines and regulations, and practicing safety and preventative measures like social distancing, and we strongly urge everyone to do the same. Our partners and employees health is our No. 1 priority. Visit Coronavirus.gov for the latest news, updates and developments.
D&D Party Composition — Playing an All Paladin Party
Over on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted explore the idea of an all paladin party for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. This video series continues to prove popular and I’m sharing my take on the concept of single party composition here on the website. Playing an all paladin party in 5E D&D makes for one strong party with solid defense, offense, buffs and healing — the total package, right? While Dave and Ted share their insights into 5E D&D party composition in the video I’m more concerned about a different kind of strength from a paladin — the strength of their conviction. When it comes to a campaign setting of academia for each particular character class, let’s get into it and see how students at Sacred Oaths get graded on how well they uphold the tenets of their oath and not how awesome they are in combat.
5 Resources to Make Your Online Tabletop Roleplaying Game Epic
Stuck at home? Wallet feeling a little parched? Need a distraction to whittle the time? Then why not try playing a tabletop roleplaying game like Dungeons & Dragons, Fantasy AGE or something else online? Following up our previous article on online gaming let’s talk some more about resources that can bring your online TTRPG to the next level.
