Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Dragon Champion with this New Magic Item
Tempered in the Mage Forge, Drukal the Fang of Drasusgino comes to you by way of Nerdarchist Dave’s Court of Wyrms campaign. A Land of the Lost style setting for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons adventures this hidden region sees reptilian and draconic entities as the dominate creatures. Kobolds, lizardfolk, dragonborn, yuan-ti and others of the scaly persuasion hold sway in a land of dinosaurs, drakes and dragons.
Write the RPG You’ve Always Wanted During GamoWriMo — the NaoNoWriMo Spinoff for TTRPG Nerds
It’s November, which means National Novel Writing Month — also lovingly referred to as NaNoWriMo. Last year, Dael Kingsmill proposed a twist on our classic NaNoWriMo called GamoWriMo. The premise of NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write at least 50,000 words of a novel in a single month. GamoWriMo’s challenge was similar: take the niggling idea for an RPG campaign that just won’t leave you alone and get it to a playtest worthy state before the end of the month. Both challenges emphasize getting words on a page as opposed to immaculate quality.
Listen to the Sound of Music | Tool Time with Musical Instruments in 5E D&D
In our continuing discussion of tools and proficiencies in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons it’s time we talked about a craft many appreciate and even more confuse with the existing Performance skill. Grab your kalimba and take a seat in the orchestra because we’re talking about instruments. As a quick note tool proficiencies are generally nebulous in 5E D&D and their applications vary depending on your Dungeon Master. These posts are meant as guides for those who don’t know where to start but many DMs already have established rules for how tools proficiencies work in tandem with skills. So make sure to ask how tool proficiencies work in your own games.
Player Choices Foster RPG Division of Labor for Better Game Experiences
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted ponder the ins and outs of Dungeon Masters recognizing and respecting player and character choices in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. The discussion applies to any tabletop roleplaying game and encompasses both mechanical and narrative choices during character creation and throughout a campaign. To me this speaks to paradigm shift in the RPG hobby. So let’s get into it.
Buff Your 5E D&D Battle Master Courtesy of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
Dungeons & Dragons Principal Rules Designer Jeremy Crawford recently shared a bit of inside information about Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything sure to get fans of the fighter class excited. In particular Crawford wrote about Battle Master builds included in the upcoming book of expanded rules for fifth edition D&D. So let’s get into it.
Exploring Eberron through the College of the Dirge Singer Bard for 5E D&D
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted strike a chord with Exploring Eberron with another look at the character options included in the Dungeon Master’s Guild book produced by Keith Baker, the original creator of the megapopular Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting. D&D players embraced Eberron’s rich and detailed setting from the very beginning. Exploring Eberron does a terrific job illustrating how curating character options creates a tremendous opportunity to show, rather than tell, what is special about your world. Exploring Eberron includes several subclasses for 5E D&D characters to choose from specially tailored to the setting, and Nerdarchy explores them all like we do. In the case of the College of the Dirge Singer bard I’m going through the book to find the connection points between the subclass and the larger world it comes from. So let’s get into it.
4 Ways to Make NPCs Likeable in your RPG Experiences
Salutations, nerds. I’m coming in with some tips and tricks to get player characters to like a the non-player characters in your tabletop roleplaying games. I know we’ve all been there before in situations where you worked really hard on a character for the party to interact with and they got there and just hated them out of the gate. There’s not much to be done about this. You can do everything right and still have that happen every once in a while. Here are some methods I’ve gathered to narrow the margin for error and throw an NPC at your party they’ll like both in and out of character.
D&D Ideas — Goblins
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is goblins, 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 goblins in Aces High a gang of goblins led by a resourceful boss take to the skies on giant bats to launch aerial assaults with an explosive new weapon — grenados! This fan favorite encounter and map flies off the page and into your games 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, by signing up here.
What Do Your Unearthed Arcana Subclasses Say About Your 5E D&D Character? Part 5
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted do what they do and pour over the latest Unearthed Arcana 2020 — Subclasses, Part 5 for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. This new playtest document presents two new subclasses for 5E D&D. Way of the Ascendant Dragon monks revere the power and grandeur of dragons while Drakewarden rangers use their magical connection with nature to form an enduring bond with a minor dragon, a drake. Dave and Ted cover the subclass specifics in the video and here I’ll look at these 5E D&D playtest subclasses with a mind towards what sort of characters they might represent. So let’s get into it.
Follow the Steps to Make Best Use of 5E D&D Skills
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted explore fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons skills every character should have or at least the three skills that keep coming up most often in their games. I’ve got a different Perception on when, how and what particular skills get checked during a 5E D&D game. (See what I did there?) So let’s get into it.
5 Ideas to Spice up Your RPG Character Backstory
If I’m being honest I’ve absolutely been That Guy who shows up to a tabletop roleplaying game session with several pages of backstory for my character. In all fairness these times are few and far between and the pages are usually full of narrative instead of exposition, but still Backgrounds are the life blood of your RPG character’s introduction. The events that shaped them up to this point help inform how you portray them and their introduction to the rest of the party. After musing on backgrounds, I wanted to share some ways that GMs I’ve played with have spiced up background elements in games I’ve been a part of. So, let’s cover five ways to make your character backstory more interesting!
Create Your 5E D&D Alien Hero or Villain With Hero Forge
If you are as big a fan of Hero Forge as I am you’ll be as thrilled as me when I let you know they have added alien races to the selection of model choices. The most recent Treasure Tuesday revealed Aliens & Arm Options for your customizable miniature creations.
Crafting your 5E D&D Gelatinous Cubes Encounter
Hello and greetings. I apologize if I tricked you into thinking this was about fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons table preparation. Nope! this is another crafting idea from the mind of Nerdarchist Ted. I was at the store looking for a new cat tree. Despite not seeing the tree made of carpet for my cats to destroy in the clearance aisle I saw a game that looked like it used tiny plastic cubes. I instantly thought of gelatinous cubes. It was worth investigating as a potential new fun crafting project for my 5E D&D games.
Brave the Dangers of Fangs and Talons with WizKids Miniatures
I have said it before and I will say it again — I love miniatures. Well, WizKids is back and they have brought the monsters! Releasing the second week of November D&D Icons of the Realms: Fangs and Talons offers some amazing monsters of all shapes and sizes. This also includes one of my new favorite miniatures.
Consider Your Character Backstory Before Your Next RPG Experience
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted share their thoughts and perspective on the essentials of backstory for a tabletop roleplaying game character. A terrific post from Tribality got the wheels turning on approaching a character backstory not so much as a narrative piece of fiction detailing the events leading up to the adventuring life. Instead a great character backstory functions as a resource to inform game play in the present tense. So let’s get into it.
