Creating a Person in Star Trek Adventures vs. a Character in D&D
I’ve been playing Star Trek Adventures with GM Drew Murray, Doug Vehovec, and Asa Kinney. One week Doug couldn’t make it, so Drew, Asa, and I decided to have a frank discussion about the good and the bad things about Star Trek Adventures.
One of the things we talked about was how Star Trek Adventures helps you create a person, and not just a character. Dungeons & Dragons is great for creating cool characters and concepts, but it’s limited in its ability to define a person. There are still races in Star Trek Adventures, and your position on the ship acts ostensibly like a class, so it’s not like there’s no comparison between the two games. The difference really is the approach, and that all starts with the character creation system.
D&D Worldbuilding: Fictional Song and Things a Bard Does
Salutations, nerds! What are the bards in your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons world singing about? That’s what we’re going to be talking about today.
The songs of a fictional D&D world are a really big deal in terms of how the world breathes and the general feel of it as a setting. Remember, once upon a time before we had easy access to the printed word, news was spread through story and song and spake in rhyme so the layfolk would more easily remember it. And if a few things got embellished along the way, well. That’s just the nature of the music made to sooth the beast, isn’t it?
Ten Things DMs Should Know About the PCs in Their Game
Hey nerds!
As the Dungeon Master it can be a chore sometimes to keep the action moving, and many of us want to give each PC a shot in the spotlight by picking on them individually.
That can be difficult though, if you don’t know much about them. I’m not talking AC or hit point totals, though, I’m talking about backgrounds, preferences – generally the fluffy bits.
So today, we’re going to talk about ten things you can ask your players about their characters that make for good points to pick at when it comes to tailoring sessions specifically for them.
I’m going into this assuming you already know to keep it even and get around to everybody, and that playing favorites is bad.
If we’re all on the same page, then here come the questions.
RPG Player Tip: Great Stories Don’t Need Great People
Getting back on the regular track this week after Origins 2017 – con fatigue is a thing that is real, folks – there were two RPG player experiences I’ve had recently that taught me a valuable lesson. One is from the time-stamped video above that happened during Nerdarchy’s Open Legend RPG-sponsored live game Fridays at noon EST. The other is from my home group’s fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game. Both situations illustrated a poignant paradigm. As you’ve undoubtedly guessed from this article’s title, the lesson is that great stories emerge from less-than-great people.
Great examples of not so great people in RPG campaigns who drive the narrative forward and create great stories are everywhere. Critical Role’s Vox Machina will be the first to admit they’re often terrible people. Dice, Camera, Action’s Waffle Crew barely get along. Acquisitions Inc.’s The C Team aren’t exactly shining examples of heroism. And Titansgrave’s cast of adventurers were built from the beginning with inherent flaws. Yet all of them tell compelling RPG stories full of action, excitement, humor and drama driven by characters who are far from perfect. I’m sure anyone’s home game has plenty of examples, too.
Dealing with PTSD for RPG Characters
PTSD in gaming
Many Marines return to the states with vivid memories of their combat experiences, and the array of emotions they face internally may be hard to detect. While changes in behavior are more obvious, symptoms can also manifest in physical form. [Marines from Arlington, VA, United States/Wikimedia Commons]
The Virtues of an Epic Failure: Really Critty Stories
On April 17, Nerdarchy released a video about Critical Failures and why to use them.
What you can learn from your RPG characters
Tabletop roleplaying games afford players amazing opportunities. Through the characters and worlds we imagine at the gaming table, we create adventures and stories filled with heroism, villainy, danger, humor, drama, action and intrigue. Through game play we surprise ourselves through improvisation and collaboration, letting our shared stories twist and turn and carry us along. Through our characters’ actions, we affect the imaginary world and have an impact.
We invest something of ourselves into our characters. Players might portray characters who are exaggerated or ideal versions of themselves, or one aspect of themselves. Conversely, they can explore personalities, philosophies or lifestyles vastly different than their own. In a similar way, GMs create and run adventures that satisfy (sometimes intangible) goals and interests, populating the game environment with people, places and things – and monsters! – that appeal to those goals.
10 Things You Don’t Need to Know About Your RPG Character
There’s a certain kind of player, and I myself am one, who just wants to know everything about their character and has a tendency to overthink it. If you’re one of those, this article is for you. None of these are things you absolutely have to know the answers to, but they can be fun to think about. So if you’re the kind of player who spends way too much away-from-table time thinking about your PC, have fun with this.
1 – What does your character smell like?
Secrets From The Dungeon: Roll Playing The Ego With Dungeons & Dragons
My last week’s article covered a brief character creation ideal, which was to create your Dungeons & Dragons character based entirely off your own ego. I think for most people, most characters are made this way, or at least partly. You might add features or traits that you have, eg. your character suffers from an untamed shaking in one hand that won’t stop due to real life PTSD that you struggle with. Or perhaps your character wears a certain handkerchief in one pocket as a symbol of a past event that changed him, and he wears it to remember. While these small details are mostly forgotten along the character creation path, to really explore those details can add a lot of fun and/or humor to your game play style.
DMing a Killer Romance Arc in D&D
Bringing romance to D&D
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and with all this pink and red plastered everywhere, and all of these teddy bears crowding the shelves at every store, it’s no wonder I’ve got romance on the brain. It’s enough to make a person want to barf. But in honor of the holiday, I’m going to take a moment to talk about romance subplots at the gaming table.
Oljatt Century Armor – A Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Artifact Magic Item Collection
Hello Nerdarchist Ted here and I am going to present a new article series written by guest DM on our channel and frequent guest on our video Scott Garibay. Scott proposed to make this armor in one of my most recent sessions and while the idea was not fitting for our low magic world of ‘Chimes of Discordia’ it was a great concept that Scott wanted to take further. So without further ado.
The Oljatt Century Armor, an unprecedented collection of 100 artifact level magic items, were built over a 25 year period by the citizens of the city of Oljatt.
This is the first in a series of articles that will define the following for the Oljatt Century Armor –
Witch Hunter, The Movie, The Nerdarchy Game and the Backstory
Fear not loyal Nerdarchist there will be no spoilers here- I haven’t even had a chance to see the movie yet! Then what, pray tell is this article about you ask? Tomorrow night at (or around) 10:30 EST, Halloween, Nerdarchist Dave’s running an eerie Dungeons and Dragons Witch Hunter game live on Google Hangout for myself, Nate the Nerdarch, as well as friend, and frequent guest poster, Art Wood.
Our characters were created using the Witch Hunter (click link to download PDF of the class!) custom character class written by Critical Role’s Matthew Mercer. It’s a full 20 levels of a character class with three distinct orders to choose from, The Orders of the Ghostslayer, Profane Soul, and the Mutant. The three of us will be playing each of the orders as 15th level characters. Our intrepid Dungeon Master Dave has given us a 30 point stat buy and 6,000 gp to spend on starting equipment using the gold costs out of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for magic items.
Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition- Witch Hunter Class
Yours truly will be playing a dwarf following the Order of the Mutant. Below is the backstory for Egrec Rune Hammer:
The Dam in West Rustoch – Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition
Hello today I present you a Dungeons and Dragons story. This is written by Micheal Rovinski.
Ephram is an Aarakocra, commonly referred to as Bird-Folk, Bird People, or Avian Humanoids. At a young age, he joined a monastery to learn the way of martial arts, and once he learned enough he was sent on a pilgrimage. During his pilgrimage, Ephram seeks out those in need of help. It is a part of his martial philosophy, the Way of the Open Palm; a martial philosophy considered the key to maintaining harmony with nature, one’s surroundings, and the place that one has with the Celestial Bureaucracy.
Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition
Svirfneblin Bard – D&D Character build 5th edition – Outkast
Greetings Nerdarchists. Nerdarchy is looking to launch another game into our schedule. If you missed our session zero feel free to watch the video below. My character build for that Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition game is a deep gnome bard.
Now bards in previous editions really did not appeal to me. I think before 5th edition I had only played one bard in approximately 20 years of playing Dungeons and Dragons. 5th edition on the other hand really changed my mind. I have played in less than 10 campaigns in the year since the release of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition and 2 of those characters have been bards. So what does that say about them?
Dungeons and Dragons character build
So with this character build for 5th edition, my goal was to make a well rounded character. He has a few things that he would be good at, excel at really because of expertise but be a support character all around. As this race class combination is a sub-optimal character build it fits.
5E D&D Character Builds — Dragonborn Paladin
Hello Nerdarchy reader, Nerdarchist Dave here to talk character builds. I got me a hankering to delve into a dragonborn paladin for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Paladins are an iconic character class harkening back to the very beginning of the game. Dragonborn on the other hand are a bit newer, first appearing in 3.5 D&D towards the end in a different incarnation than the current version. They really came into their own with fourth edition D&D. To be honest it took me a little while to warm up to them as player character race. Honestly it was the 4E D&D art that killed them for me. Two words: dragon boobs! The idea of a mammalian trait slapped onto a reptilian race seemed ridiculous to me. But I’ve decided to grow as a person and get over it. Not too long ago I wrote an article about dragonborn that kind of made me want to play one hence this article where we build a dragonborn paladin.
