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At The Gaming Table

Nerdarchy > At The Gaming Table (Page 3)

D&D and Roleplaying Games Through Critical Illness

I have been a gamer since the age of 14 when I could understand the rules in the old second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook. I’ve played through many editions of D&D without a thought, enjoying the ability to take on a new role or create a new world. Here unfortunately is where things take a drastic turn. On April 18, 2016 I was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer, which at current date is at stage 4. A lot of people have asked me how I dealt with it, what did I do, etc. I kept gaming. I ran Savage Worlds and D&D games. I also played in D&D and Pathfinder games. I’ve had the good fortune to play in games here on Nerdarchy not to mention unMade Gaming.

D&D 5E tieflings queer

Roleplaying the Other — Tieflings are Gay

Hello, and welcome to Roleplaying the Other. In this column, I’m going to be largely focused on roleplaying, worldbuilding, and interactions at the table. They will be filtered through my own personal lens of queer experiences in the hobby. Firstly, I should define when I say “queer,” I am referring to LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) experiences. This is a blanket term encompassing asexuality and other distinct identities, as well. If you are not one of these letters of the acronym you may be asking yourself what you’re doing here. I’m glad you asked. I’m going to be sharing insights I’ve gained that can hopefully help anyone’s table run a better game. I am not a spokesperson for all identities and I’ll be reaching out to people within the community for their perspective from time to time.

RPG player character

Roleplaying the Other: The Queer Experience

Hello, and welcome to Roleplaying the Other. In this column, I’m going to be largely focused on roleplaying, worldbuilding, and interactions at the table. They will be filtered through my own personal lens of queer experiences in the hobby. Firstly, I should define that when I say “queer,” I am referring to LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) experiences. This is a blanket term that encompasses asexuality and other distinct identities, as well. If you are not one of these letters of the acronym you may be asking yourself what you’re doing here. I’m glad you asked. I’m going to be sharing insights I’ve gained that can, hopefully, help anyone’s table run a better game. I am not a spokesperson for all identities and I’ll be reaching out to people within the community for their perspective from time to time.

Finding Adventure or Letting Adventure Find You in D&D

One of the greatest things about being a D&D player these days is the opportunities to game with lots of different people. Whether it’s through Adventurers League, online games or the huge number of people out there excited or curious to try fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons to invite to the table at home, I’ve been fortunate to play way more D&D than ever before in my 30 years of gaming. It’s provided so many chances to improve as a Dungeon Master and as a player. And I’ve learned that running D&D benefits your time as a player and vice versa. You can learn a lot about what you enjoy as a player through being a DM, and carry what you learn as a DM to the other side of the screen, too.

trans people 5E D&D

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.

D&D age effect

How to Run 5E D&D for Senior Gamers

I recently ran into a situation at the gaming table that for some reason absolutely perplexed me. It all started when I volunteered to run a game for my family, who wanted to understand what Dungeons & Dragons was all about. The catch here is simple, they are in no way what most would consider gamers, all of them were 50+ and had never touched a tabletop roleplaying game or video game prior to the experience, so I believed I had my work cut out for me. I learned some interesting things, and finally came to the realization it was no different than any other group I had run 5E D&D for in my life. [NERDITOR’S NOTE: the DnD Grandma illustrates how you’re never too old to try new things!]

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.

dnd 5e

Dungeons & Dragons — Your Fun is Wrong?

As fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons YouTubers we get the question of whether content is official pretty often. Honestly the only time it really matters is when you are playing organized play like Adventurers League. Anything else really is homebrew Dungeons & Dragons even if you are playing prewritten D&D 5E adventures set in an official D&D campaign setting.

5E D&D archmage spells

Giving Players Chores at the Table to Keep D&D Running More Smoothly

Salutations, nerds! I want to talk about the division of labor at the table during a Dungeons & Dragons game! Now, I know you may be saying, “The Dungeon Master is doing most of the work, the players are just playing their characters, right?” But that’s not always the case. As the DM, giving players chores at the table is sometimes the prudent choice. A lot of the upkeep can be done by the players to keep the DM’s brain power free to keep the game rolling. So today I’m going to go down a list of chores you can give to your players to keep D&D running more smoothly.

D&D Character Optimization Really Miscasts My Cantrips

Within the Dungeons & Dragons circles the conversation about optimizing, min-maxing, and power gaming is always in a perpetual spiral. I’m here to lay out the case that a focus on mechanical advantages does not benefit play or the party. A focus on D&D character optimization can reduce focus on an interesting character, most certainly leads to grabbing more than your fair share of spotlight, and piles work onto your Dungeon Master’s lap. This argument is not intended to stop you from playing your way. If this is fun for you, I’m not coming to your table and knocking your minis off the battlemat.

When is D&D no longer Dungeons & Dragons?

I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons for some time now and until D&D 5E, the number of people playing has never been higher. The landscape of the community has also changed quite a bit. With live stream games and actual play series like Critical Role, and online play, the hobby is vastly altered. All these aspects make for a wider and better hobby. But it does bring up questions in my mind. I’m seeing more D&D playstyles than I ever have in the past and often the games I watch at other tables is much different than the game at my table. This leads to the question: when is D&D no longer Dungeons & Dragons?

Dungeon Master Tips — Running D&D for Large Groups

What follows is an article I originally posted at Medium, but Medium just isn’t the best, err, medium for discussing Dungeons & Dragons. I think what follows are good Dungeon Master tips, especially for newer DMs,  for running D&D for large groups. I hope the Nerdarchy community finds it useful. A lot of new players have their first experience playing D&D in game shops, or in games they tracked down online via Meetup or other sites. This also goes for players who have recently gotten back into the game after a hiatus. Those games can sometimes be overcrowded, and it’s especially important that DMs are ready to deal with the challenges presented by crowded games so these new and recently-returning players are able to come away having had a fun experience.

Underprepared D&D Players Miscast My Cantrips

The longer I spend wading through the waters of Dungeons & Dragons on social media, the more I find being a Dungeon Master who makes preparations is a little more rare than I initially thought. Everyone has their own means of having fun, but I can’t roleplay comfortably without ample notes, spreadsheets, and clear understanding of a rules system. Lots of psychology to unpack there… but now is not that time! Now I must explore my commitment to D&D as a lifestyle game. I spend sometimes 8 hours writing for a session. Underprepared D&D players who come to the table over the course of months and still don’t know basic functions of their character, commonly used core rules, or which die is 8-sided really miscast my cantrips.