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.)
Out of the Box D&D Encounters, Series 2, #38 – “Shadowboxing”
Out of the Box introduction
Spoiler Alert! D&D Beyond Ingest Quest Campaign Management Tips
Following on the heels of Ingest Quest episode 1, the live stream fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Spelljammer game, I shared some tips on managing and running a campaign using the D&D Beyond tools for keeping all your adventure information in one convenient place along with tooltip creation for easy reference to monsters, magic items, conditions and more. As the campaign continues, the public and private notes grow right alongside the characters and story. This presents a challenge for quickly finding what I need during play. Fortunately, there’s an easy solution.
Help Save the Tarrasque: Gifted Vision Behemoth Mini Needs You
Hello gamers and fans of wonderful minis. Nerdarchist Ted here calling on you not only out of selfish greed to get the Gifted Vision Behemoth mini that I backed on Kickstarter but to help out an awesome company that makes cool miniatures. There is a bit of backstory here that I will try to explain as best as I can without being any more than a backer.
Why Do We Play? RPG Game Master and Player Differences Explored
In a recent video from Nerdarchists Dave and Ted, they explored the question of why we Game Master. It’s a fantastic video if you haven’t checked it out yet, and it gave me a lot to think about for my own motivations. In this article I’d like to explore a topic that runs parallel to theirs but at a higher level of generality: why the differences in motivations between being a GM and being a player leads to most conflicts at the table.
D&D Design Diary: Martial Artist martial archetype
Hello! Nerditor Doug here to welcome a new writer to the family. Chris Chupp is part of the awesome Nerdarchy community and recently sent us a copy of his homebrew subclass for the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons fighter – the Martial Artist martial archetype. A couple of our writers gave it the once over and shared their thoughts about the content available over at the Dungeon Master’s Guild. I invited Chris to write a follow up design diary about his work creating the D&D fighter subclass. This is that design diary.
Worldbuilding: Where to Begin with a Homebrew Campaign Setting
You’ve been playing roleplaying games for a bit now. It might be Pathfinder, Dungeons & Dragons, Savage Worlds, or untold countless possibilities. The problem is you don’t like the setting. It almost fits the image in your mind but not quite. You’ve looked around, found some old campaign setting material at secondhand stores or eBay but no luck. So, what do you do? How do you make the world you want too? Don’t worry — Nerdarchy is here to help. Over the past month or so you’ll have seen some changes in the Nerdarchy landscape. We have Nate the Nerdarch and Kienata running the Nerdarchy After Dark late-night build sessions. We’ve posted some articles for items like World Anvil and Realm Works to help you organize things. However, none of these really give a starting point. Why not fix that now? Let’s look at how to start.
The Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour and What it Means for D&D
If you’re a part of the Dungeons & Dragons community and actively keep up with the content Wizards of the Coast is putting out on YouTube or Twitch, you’re probably aware of the incredibly named Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour. But if not, you really should be. On a weekly basis over on D&D’s Twitch channel, co-creator of fifth edition D&D and Franchise Creative Director Mike Mearls gets on for an hour or so and just designs stuff for the game.
D&D Beyond the Spheres of 5E Spelljammer – Ingest Quest
I’m a campaignaholic. My main home campaign of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons (on indefinite hiatus), a Curse of Strahd party, a family game following the trail of the Xanathar Thieves Guild, a megadungeon in a very rough stage of development, a just-launched live stream D&D 5E Spelljammer campaign and more all have a home together on D&D Beyond, which I confess does little to curb the compulsion to create campaigns.
Out of the Box D&D Encounters, Series 2, #37 – “Ambition”
Out of the Box introduction
D&D Martial Artist Fighter Subclass Bare-Knuckle Brawls its Way from Our Community to You
Hello! Nerditor Doug here to introduce this special post based on content straight from the Nerdarchy community, from creator Chris Chupp who sent us his homebrew creation for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons – the Martial Artist fighter martial archetype. Chris put this subclass together specially for one of the players in his D&D game who loves the flavor of unarmed combat monks provide and wants to punch some dragons but isn’t too keen on the ki system.
Chris shared his work with Nerdarchy to show appreciation for what he’s learned and taken from our videos and website to his own gaming table, and wanted to give back to the community.
