Hag’s Apprentice — a 5E D&D Halloween Encounter
Halloween came and went, and with it lots of awesome ideas out there for running Halloween adventures for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. The Nerdarchy crew weighed in on the festivities too, with a spooky, kooky 5E D&D Halloween encounter. While we were planning a different video, the Roper Wrangler encounter, the idea for our Hag’s Apprentice encounter developed. In the Roper Wrangler the concept was a creature who hit creatures with another creature. In that case, a fomorian used a roper as a weapon to capture adventurers and use them for food on its roper farm, where a dastardly trio of duergar siblings built a spectator sports around captives’ desperate attempts to escape. Taking the idea a step further, in the Hag’s Apprentice we’ve got creatures wearing other creatures as adornment. And with Halloween coming up, we revisited the idea to create a dynamic, creepy encounter ready to deploy in your 5E D&D games.
Introduction of Transgender Narratives in 5E D&D
I’ve been discussing the inclusion of trans narratives in 5E D&D games via NPCs with people for a while now, and there are a few points that come up very frequently in discussions with Dungeon Masters. Many of them are very willing to include trans people but are not sure how to go about doing it — How do you include trans identities into lore and worldbuilding? I’d like to discuss some of the most common questions and thought processes DMs have that may be preventing them from tackling trans narratives, as well as providing some solutions as a starting point. This is a topic that has a lot of elements to it, so I won’t be able to cover everything in just one article, even if I tried, so please don’t expect this to be comprehensive and complete. It’s only intended to be a start.
Kickstarter Korner for October 2018, Week 4
Each week during the Quests & Adventures live chat, Saturday at 2 p.m. eastern, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch hang out live with fans from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. It’s a chance to share announcements and news, answer questions from the live chat and generally just hang out and talk nerdy with the Nerdarchy community.
In the description of each weekly video, Nerdarchist Ted compiles a list and links to all the videos and website content from the week. But he also shares a selection of cool Kickstarter campaigns. As an avid Kickstarter supporter, he’s happy to share his favorite RPG and gaming-related Kickstarters with you, the Nerdarchy community. Enjoy!
Banner Saga Needs a Tabletop Version Pronto
There are hundreds of fantasy novels, games, and movies that would make for amazing tabletop experiences, but few of them have the potential that Banner Saga has. With its balanced, yet varied gameplay mechanics and rich mythology, its perfectly suited to adaptation. Banner Saga has only recently come to my attention, and this is how it happened. I was playing 5E D&D this past Saturday with my usual group, and during a break we got to talking about video games. This in itself is not interesting, as it happens whenever you get our group together, but my friends were shocked when they asked me if I had played Banner Saga and I said No. I have since rectified this mistake.
Dice Games in Review — The Return of Dragon Dice
For you readers who are aware of my normal interests, feel free to jump down a paragraph. If you are new to Nerdarchy or Nerdarchist Ted then you may not be aware of my obsession with plastic. Be it dice or minis I never feel I have enough. I love board games and dice games and I am always looking for new ones to add to the collection. While I was attending GenCon, there was a booth from a company called SFR. There was always a decent crowd around the tables, which is a good and a bad thing all at once for the typical convention attendee. Seeing my aformentioned obsession with dice, I had noticed there was a large punch bowl filled with dice and I was intrigued. I know some vendors give out free swag at cons and free dice are cool. So I took a closer look.
Kickstarter Korner for October 2018, Week 3
Each week during the Quests & Adventures live chat, Saturday at 2 p.m. eastern, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch hang out live with fans from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. It’s a chance to share announcements and news, answer questions from the live chat and generally just hang out and talk nerdy with the Nerdarchy community.
In the description of each weekly video, Nerdarchist Ted compiles a list and links to all the videos and website content from the week. But he also shares a selection of cool Kickstarter campaigns. As an avid Kickstarter supporter, he’s happy to share his favorite RPG and gaming-related Kickstarters with you, the Nerdarchy community. Enjoy!
D&D Treasure — When Gold Isn’t Enough
When it comes to rewarding players in Dungeons & Dragons, there is gold and silver coins, magic items, titles, and more. But what if that isn't enough or your player's characters don't care about that? This is an an issue that came up in a...
Education Adventures: Math and More from D&D for Students
Education Adventures is a column written by educator Megan Hardy. Through the Outschool program, Megan teaches a series of Life Skills courses using fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. During the six week campaign, heroes head out to save the land from an evil ruler, facing challenges and battles and making friends along the way while learning logic and critical thinking. The campaign is designed specifically for children ages 9-14 and highlights problem solving, logic puzzles and team work while participating in a grand adventure. In the Education Adventures column, Megan shares insights and lessons she learns through teaching D&D for students and their experiences.
D&D-izing He-Man’s Power Sword for 5E D&D
At Nerdarchy, we get requests to D&D-ize characters from movies, TV, comics and literature fairly regularly. There’s a whole playlist on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel for D&D-ized fictional characters, which I’ve included for your convenience below. And my very first assignment as a contributing writer here on the site was to D&D-ize the Sword of Omens from the Thundercats mythos. (I’d written a few columns before but that was an assignment from Nerdarchist Dave.) I spent quite a few hours researching, referencing the Dungeon Master’s Guide for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, writing and refining that particular artifact. More recently, we had a request via the Nerdarchy Facebook page to D&D-ize another legendary cartoon weapon — the Power Sword from the Masters of the Universe mythology. This will be my fourth go around with D&D-izing something. I also have our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man under my belt, as well as collaborating with Professor Bill from Comic Book University on my two favorite comic book characters, Mister Miracle and Big Barda. So let’s get to it and create He-Man’s legendary weapon that makes him the most powerful man in the universe, for 5E D&D.
Player Agency and Why Some Curses Are Total Garbage
I promise you I’m not finished talking about Dungeons & Dragons villains, but something came up this week that requires my immediate attention and I will get right back to those as soon as I’m done with this one. Yeah, we’re going to talk about player agency in 5E D&D. I can hear people groaning already. The thing is, player agency has kind of lost its meaning in the midst of all of these discussions about it and I hear it used incorrectly as often as I hear it used right.
