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.
The North Seat 5E D&D Campaign Setting from Ethan Hudgens
Often, I find myself wandering around different Discords and Twitch channels wondering what other gamers are up too. Recently I’ve been watching something on the UnMadeGaming channel and found Mike in a game being run by Ethan Hudgens, and I watched in fascination as they tried to kill a bear. As usual Mike had a rough night, but I found myself more and more curious about campaign setting. After the game I was chatting with the folks in the Discord channel and found out Ethan has his work up on DriveThruRPG presented by Encounter Roleplay (another great channel I strongly recommend you check out). After buying The North Seat primer and book one titled Hostadd, Our Home, I am completely intrigued by the story and I think you should be too. Today, we’re going to take a look at the primer and do a review of the books. Hostadd is a 5E D&D alternate campaign setting and style. After reading book one and the primer, I think you’ll really enjoy it so let’s take a jump in and start looking at things.
Pacesetter Games and Simulation with Unexpected Miniatures
I filled in for Nerdarchist Dave on one of our weekday live chats a while back when we were doing them regularly, and I got to sit down and have a great conversation with Ben Barsh from Pacesetter Games and Simulation. They have a range of products for a variety of different roleplaying games, but we talked about their Kickstarter and bringing Pasesetter into fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons adventures. You can check out their successful Rise of the Nefarious: A 5th Edition Campaign and and their other 5E adventures on the Pacesetter website.
5E D&D Monsters Become BFFs and Adventurers Pay the Price
One of my favorite things about Dungeons & Dragons is the monsters. There’s so many incredible creatures throughout the history of D&D! My go-to method for creating adventures in my own games is starting with a monster and developing ideas from there. It’s no surprise the Monster BFF series from Nerdarchy the YouTube channel ranks high on my list of likes. In this series the crew takes two or three 5E D&D monsters, puts them together and discovers what sort of encounter emerges. I’ve had the privilege of sitting in on two planning sessions for these videos and contributing ideas. The first one got me hooked enough to work on an adventure based around the monster pairing. And the second one, in the video below, I helped turn into Nerdarchy’s first Monster BFF product over on the Dungeon Master’s Guild. The Roper Wrangler’s got ropers (duh), it’s got fomorians, it’s got faerzress, it’s got an Underdark location — basically it’s got deadly peril for adventurers who stumble across this encounter. Because sometimes a creature’s gotta hit a creature with another creature.
5E D&D Magic Item Deep Dive — Stone of Good Luck
The stone of good luck, or luckstone, has been a staple good, yet persistently underrated, Dungeons & Dragons magic item since some of the earliest editions of the game. It retains this status in 5E D&D, as an (un)common item virtually any player would say is good, but which nonetheless gets overlooked compared to other items. In my experience, for the cost of one attunement slot, there are few items out there — even of higher rarity — that greatly surpass the luckstone for a wide variety of characters, though any given class or race has some specific items that beat it out.
Forest Kingdom Campaign Compendium for 5E D&D
When Nerdarchy went to GenCon 2018 I met some of the people over at Legendary Games and got a copy of their Forest Kingdom Campaign Compendium for 5E D&D to check out. I am a huge fan of fey and forest games out in the wilderness and away from normal civilization. If you want to pick up the book on Amazon you can do so here. You can also head over to the Legendary Games site and check out this or other amazing products they offer.
D&D Campaign Settings — Eberron has Come to Adventurers League and 5E
While at GenCon 2018 we got to sit down with Keith Baker creator of the Eberron — one of the official D&D campaign settings. Eberron was launched via a contest during third Edition Dungeons & Dragons. It was then updated to fourth edition D&D. Now on the DM’s Guild you can pick up the Wayfarer’s Guide to Eberron the 5E D&D conversion. On Sept, 21, 2018, Adventurers League started offering an Eberron Campaign. Normally Adventurers League is PHB +1. For the Eberron campaign it will be Player’s Handbook, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and bugbears, goblins, and hobgoblins from Volo’s Guide to Monsters.
If you aren’t familiar with Eberron it’s a arcana punk setting. It takes place after a 100-year war between what is now the five nations of Khorvaire. The catalyst for the ending of the war is a apocalyptic event known as the Mourning. It wiped out Cyre, one of the warring nations, and no one knows what happened, leaving behind a haunted wasteland. Nothing like the threat of an apocalypse to bring people together.
Way of the Zen Archer Monastery for 5E D&D
Why not a Way of the Zen Archer Monastery for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons? With the release of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything for 5E D&D a lot of options have been opened up. The zen archer is a fun archetype for a fantasy game. That wasn’t possible previously. There was absolutely no mechanical reason play a monk who used ranged weapons. But XGtE changed things up by allowing for the creation of the ranged attack-based monks. We can now have a zen archer build. Why not take it a step further and create a monastery of zen archers. We recently did a character build video you can watch down below. We made it Adventurers League legal. We also did a character build guide and put it up over on the DMs Guild.
Armor Up Your 5E D&D Character Sheets With Gauntlets
Our friends over at ArchVillain Games have asked us to sponsor an article to help get the word out about their KickStarter for Gauntlets — Beautiful 5E Character Sheet Cases. I’m not sure how much help they needed though. After only 16 hours Archvillain Games has successfully funded their first KickStarter. Cameron Rout and Konstantinos Martinos are the minds behind Archvillain Games. I know some might be put off by this being a first KickStarter, but Cameron is one the minds behind D&D in a Castle with several more castles planned for next year. He’s got my vote of confidence after witnessing the inaugural D&D in Castle firsthand. Gauntlets are designed to have 5E D&D character sheets inserted in them or they can act as template for your character sheet by just using a blank sheet of paper. They come different options and designs. I don’t think it would be an overstatement to call the Gauntlet an artisanal way of displaying your character sheet either on the gaming table, a book shelf, or anywhere else you keep your gaming gear.
Big Monsters Have More to Love for Exciting D&D Encounters
Part Dungeon Master creativity, part player buy-in, exciting D&D encounters with big monsters in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons have a lot of moving parts to consider. Whether a low level party needs to deal with an awakened tree situation, or a group of characters at the pinnacle of their adventuring careers take on the tarrasque — or Tiamat herself — there’s more to consider than hit points and armor class. Adventuring ain’t easy, and anything from a pack of goblin bandits all the way up to Acererak itself are dangerous foes. But when huge and gangantuan sized D&D creatures squares off against the party, the threat escalates by orders of magnitude. A clever DM looks beyond the stat block, and collaborates with the players to create an immersive and memorable experience.
D&D Villains: Sympathy for the Devil
Salutations, nerds! Today, I’m going to talk about villains again, and this time we’ll be discussing sympathetic villains in your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons games. I’m talking about the wizard whose been vivisecting people trying to come up with a cure for his wife’s ailment and save her life. I’m talking about the planar being who has cut a swathe of chaos across the land trying to get home. I’m talking about the blackguard who was betrayed by his people and had his heart stained in darkness. These are the D&D villains you almost want to fix. The ones who tug your heartstrings and make you hesitate to kick their butt. These are the Mr. Freezes, the Princess Lunas, and the Magnetos of your D&D campaign.
Getting New People to Play Roleplaying Games
It is the best time to be a nerd. Personally, I've been channeling my inner Heisenberg for as long as I can remember anytime I'd get the nerd label thrown my way -- own it! Fortunately (or maybe a little unfortunately when we get a...
Secrets of Picking your Dungeon Master for a D&D Game
Like Nerdarchists Dave and Ted mention in the video below, back in the day when I was a young gamer, there was no such thing as picking your Dungeon Master for a Dungeons & Dragons game. If you were interested in playing D&D, and you were lucky, you could muster a group and offer to be the DM yourself, and maybe at some point get one of the other players to take a turn behind the screen running a game. My only other experience finding a new group to play with was through a flyer pinned at the comic book store from a couple of friends looking for more players. And it was a successful run that kept us all rolling funny-shaped dice through most of high school. Back then, there was also an organized play program called RPGA. They ran ads in Dragon Magazine and had their own publication, Polyhedron. But in 2018 the circumstances for hopeful D&D players is vastly improved. How? Let’s get into it and find out.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game in the Deck of Many Things Magic Item Campaign
For disclosure — in my decades as a Dungeon Master and player of Dungeons & Dragons, I have neither used nor encountered the infamous Deck of Many Things. But after sitting in on video planning and discussing it at length with Nerdarchists Dave and Ted, Nate the Nerdarch and Intern Jake, I want to! The powerful Deck of Many Things has been a part of D&D history since the very first supplement — Greyhawk — in 1975. In every edition of the game since, the deck has caused weal and woe for players and DMs alike. Whether it shows up in a randomly generated treasure hoard or enters a campaign due to DM planning, the Deck of Many Things has major impact. So much so that many DMs outright disavow the legendary magic item. Me? I’m excited at the possibility of basing an entire campaign around it. Am I crazy? Perhaps. Let’s get into it and find out.
D&D Villains: The Enemy With the Inhuman Face
Salutations, nerds! I want to talk a little bit more about designing and running the bad guys in your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game. Specifically, I want to talk about the kinds of bad guys that cannot be reasoned with. Dark creatures that could never be mistaken for “human.” I’m talking dark gods. I’m talking the tarrasque. I’m talking the massive thing on the horizon that just swallowed the cathedral and made the party feel so small in Session One in a single bite, yes. I’m also talking about smaller demons. I’m talking about the insectoid creature that keeps hollowing out people’s bodies and using their meat puppets to its own ends. These are the inhuman monsters so alien there is no connecting with them and the only chance you have is running them through before they do more damage. If you even can. If you’re even sure where to hit it.
