Art & Arcana Celebrates Visual History of Dungeons & Dragons
Featuring one of the most iconic images in Dungeons & Dragons history on the cover, Art & Arcana is set to hit bookshelves on Oct. 23, 2018 to take fans on a visual history tour of the world’s greatest roleplaying game. Written by Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson and Sam Witwer, with a foreword by Joe Manganiello, Art & Arcana is a massive 448-page tome available in hardcover and digital format from publishers Ten Speed Press.
The Psychology of a Likable RPG Character Part 3: Respect
Standard disclaimer: I got these points from a YouTube video centered around actual self help and the real life application of these points. I didn’t come up with this myself, I’m just repurposing it for fiction writing and roleplaying. I would love to be able to link that video here, so if you have it, drop a link in the comments please! (Edit: If you’ve been following, you know Nerditor Doug found it and it’s over here. Also Charisma on Command, very good material, makes a lot of Game of Thrones references, if you’re not already watching him you should be.)
D&D Power Gaming Munchkin Can Be a Fun Way to Play
You may find this hard to believe, but Nerdarchy has been accused of being power gaming munchkin players in the past. It’s true we sometimes enjoy optimizing or coming up with ridiculous character builds for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. When we analyze D&D character classes we often do it from a min/max standpoint with the mechanics. But in all fairness the mechanics are the part of the game that aren’t subjective so that seems like a fair place to start. Even though we don’t actually play our games as power gaming munchkins at the table we do have a lot of fun building crazy D&D builds and combos. We are actually likely to play suboptimal characters or even things we’ve complained about in videos.
From Hit Dice to Heroics: New Options for Your 5E Characters to be Awesome
Our fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons characters get put through the wringer on the regular during adventures, and pull off incredible acts in pursuit of quest success. And when they get a moment to catch their breath, a pool of resources – Hit Dice – waits to give them enough energy to press on. But what if there were other uses for these sometimes forgotten and often unspent dice? What if your characters could tap into these reserves outside of a short rest to perform amazing stunts? From Hit Dice to Heroics, our latest product in the Nerdarchy store, answers that question!
From Billy Goats Gruff to D&D Campaign Setting
Nerdarchist Dave here with a recap of one of our latest videos where we were inspired by Studio Woe’s Gruff – A Tactical Card Game of Mutated Monster Goats. They have a KickStarter for Gruff: Stuff of Nightmares you can check out, a stand-alone game fully compatible with the Gruff rules system and other Gruff games. Talking with the creator of Gruff really got my juices flowing for a semi-silly D&D campaign setting somewhere between Ravenloft and Dark Sun, but with evil shepherds and lots of goats.
Out of the Box D&D Encounters, Series 2, #40 – “Snowblind”
Out of the Box introduction
D&D Adventure: Pillars of the DM Craft, Part 2
So far, we’ve covered the role of action throughout Dungeons & Dragons’ storied history. We’ve seen how it shifted from a heavy emphasis on combat and puzzle solving to one that balances many different kinds of conflict reflecting the enigmatic and intricate ways we as humans come across conflict in our own lives. In this article, we’ll take a look at adventure, the second pillar in my analysis of the Dungeon Master craft.
The Psychology of a Likable RPG Character Part 2: Trust
Quick disclaimer really fast; these four points aren’t something I came up with. I learned this from a YouTube video and at the time of me putting my butt in a chair and writing these articles I have no idea where that channel is or where the video is because I look at as much porn as you do and had to clear my browser history. So, if you happen to have an idea of the video I’m talking about, I would super appreciate it if you’d drop me a link so I can credit the original dude for these ideas. (Edit: Our wonderful Nerditor Doug found it for me! He’s over here, the guy is Charisma on Command, he makes a lot of Game of Thrones references and is absolutely worth checking out if you haven’t already.)
Keep Your Campaign on Track: Sidestepping Your D&D Adventure
Every RPG Game Master has been there. You’ve been hard at work preparing the next leg of your campaign, complete with great NPCs, memorable combats and lots of different possibilities depending on how your players choose to progress. You’re super excited to get into it, but your players just… don’t. There are a million ways this could happen, so I’ll begin by sharing something which happened in my Dungeons & Dragons game recently.
Limitless Encounters 2: A helping hand for the time challenged Game Master
Every now and then, as a Game Master you hit a speed bump. Either you hit writer’s block, or you have an off night where players couldn’t make it and you need a quick one shot. What do you do? You haven’t had any coffee in a while and you’re in a slump. No worries, the Limitless Adventures Team has you covered. Off the success of the original Limitless Encounters, the team has come back strong with Limitless Encounters 2.
Out of the Box D&D Encounters, Series 2, #39 – “Dangerous Fruit”
Out of the Box introduction
D&D Action: Pillars of the DM Craft, Part 1
This article is meant as a continuation of my introductory piece on the three Pillars of the RPG Craft: action, adventure, and association. In that article, I established what I meant by each of those components and how they related to each other. As a quick summary, action deals with conflict, adventure fills the gap between action, and association is interaction by the PCs with the world that cycles back around to create more action. All of these components form the backbone of narrative development in a tabletop RPG, in my humble opinion.
Growing the D&D Community with Clinical Roll’s Dr. Megan Connell
Hello! Nerditor Doug here to introduce a very special guest poster here on our website. Dr. Megan A. Connell, Psy.D, ABPP is a licensed psychologist who seeks to empower the people she works with, viewing therapy as a short term method while she focuses on specific treatment goals. Dr. Connell enjoys working with teens, adults and veterans in her specialty areas of procrastination, motivation, anxiety, adjustment issues, relationship problems, anger, trauma, assertiveness training and depression.
The Psychology of a Likable RPG Character Part 1: Fun
Somewhere on YouTube there is a self-help series where this guy goes through and talks about the four emotions you have to hit to make strangers like you. Unfortunately, I watched it at some point last year and have cleared my cookies and browser history many, many times since then and am unable to find the video in question, so let me open this with a bit of a disclaimer; these ideas are not mine. I would love to link that video here. If you happen to know what it was or who it was, please leave a comment so I can go back and properly credit him. (And then our wonderful Nerditor Doug found it for me, so if you want to check this guy out he’s over here and makes a lot of Game of Thrones references.)
