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.
D&D Adventurers League Community Manager in the house
Nerdarchist Dave and Assistant Web Editor Doug, coming off of Origins Game Fair, welcomed D&D Adventurers League Community Manager Robert Adducci for a live chat. The Nerdarchy team at Origins met Adducci and many other great people there, and were happy to have him join us to talk nerdy for an afternoon.
Adventurers League is the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons organized play program. It offers a way for people to get involved in a larger campaign and community. Previously limited to in-store play, the program has widened to include conventions and even home games – as long as the DM abides by Adventurers League rules.
These rules are essentially the standard D&D rules. There are a few elements specific to Adventurers League play designed to maintain a consistent experience across the board. That way, Adventurers League players know what to expect no matter where they take their characters and log sheets for Adventurers League games.
D&D Adventure Awaits with Tomb of Annihilation and More
Along with announcing the next storyline in the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons family at June’s “Stream of Annihilation” live stream event, Wizards of the Coast revealed several new products set for release in Q3-4 2017 along with the Tomb of Annihilation adventure. Whether your bookshelf could use a few things to fill the space, you’re a D&D completionist or looking ahead to the holidays at gift ideas for the nerds in your life, here’s a rundown of D&D books and accessories headed your way.
Origins 2017 – game convention from a new perspective
Attending a game convention is not new territory for me. Fresh off of Origins 2017 in Columbus, Ohio, the gaming juice runs at an all-time high and I’m pumped to plow forward with gusto on as a fan of tabletop roleplaying games as well as a savvy up-and-coming Nerdarchy aide-de-camp.
My first game convention was, coincidentally, Origins Game Fair back in the early 90s when civilization was at its peak. I’ll never forget inadvertently joining a world championship tournament of Diplomacy, having never played the game. For about an hour I had my opponents thinking I was some kind of savant, making bewildering moves they’d never seen. Then they realized my cluelessness and my stint as a global leader quickly ended.
Out of the Box D&D Encounters, Series 2, #5 – Spider Mine
Inspiration for encounters can come from a number of sources. Common ones are books, movies and other literary or performance arts. This latest one comes from one you might not expect – an old game. Minesweeper. In this case, the field isn’t a logic exercise to reveal where a mine or other explosive device might be. Instead, we will use a natural creature – a spider.
Diversity in Dungeons & Dragons
Behind the scenes in the Nerdarchy writers’ chat group, there’s been some discussion about creating a repository of pre-generated character builds for our readers, new players, or maybe even for Dungeon Masters to have on hand to pass out for their games. One of the chief requirements we decided on (if we end up doing it) is to make sure that we’re “woke” about character options. While I’m not a fan of the actual term, I fully agree with the sentiment. I’m a strong proponent of diversity. People can easily turn their backs on something because they don’t feel they can identify with anything in it. Not having something they can connect to is very isolating. This is more than understandable. It’s very human for us to want to feel like what we do is reflective of who we are. As a society, I believe we don’t do as good of a job as we can to be inclusive, but I can’t control society. What we can do is to be more inclusive in our everyday lives, and including as much diversity as we can in Tabletop RPGs is one way we can do it.
Nord Games unleashes Revenge of the Horde on your D&D game
Ultimate Bestiary: Revenge of the Horde from Nord Games offers an awesome resource for incorporating a variety of monstrous races into your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game. At nearly 200 pages, the book presents creature options for bugbears, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, ogres, orcs and more. The book is available through Nord Games in PDF and hardcover options, for $15-45. In addition to the D&D version, there is a Pathfinder edition, too.
Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch backed the Kickstarter campaign, and you can watch their Nord Games-sponsored flip-through video above. In addition to the hardcover book, they received the reference deck, all five encounter builder decks and 258 pawns featuring the new creatures from the D&D book.
IDW D&D Comic Book – Frost Giant’s Fury
Hey, guys, Professor Bill of Comic Book University and by my name, you can probably tell that I kind of like comic books. I review a lot, and one of my current favorites is one that may appeal to every Nerdarchist. The comic in question...
Gaming Superstitions
In an effort to combine the Nerdarchy YouTube channel and the website articles, I am drawing inspiration directly from this ArmorClass10.com-sponsored video. The subject at hand is gaming superstitions. To begin with let’s define the concept, shall we? Superstition is defined as “a widely held but unjustified belief in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action or event, or practice based on such belief.” With that in mind, let’s delve into a few I have seen, heard of, or been told about.
Out of the Box D&D Encounters, Series 2, #4: Calliope
I have personally looked through a Monster Manual and told myself that a particular monster could not be used to its potential without me being accused of being a “dick Dungeon Master.” One of those creatures is a Harpy. They may have a low intelligence, but they’re smart enough to use the Luring Song to cause grievous harm to a target and then fly away if things get too tough. If Harpies were ever paired with something to take advantage of a target incapacitated by the Harpies’ song, then things could get pretty rough in a very short while. This will lead to bad player-DM relations in a very short span of time, especially if the source of that Charm effect keeps leaving and flying away at range. Harpies need to fly away because they have a very soft AC and are not that formidable in combat. They rely on numbers and evasion.
Pixelscapes gets psychedelic with D&D monster art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpwEd5KoR-0&t=2736s Jen Gagne of Pixelscapes stopped by the Nerdarchy live chat with Nerdarchist Dave to talk psychedelic D&D monster art, drawing, sculpture and of course gaming. She’s an amazing artist, unafraid to be bold with her color selection, and she’s been gaming for a really long...
D&D grung and other monsters are people, too
Monsters as notable NPCs and player characters in D&D is something I’ve touched on in past columns, including last week’s exploration of the similarities between a TTRPG GM and a Swiss Army knife. Since then, I ran the “Grungle in the Jungle” adventure idea for my gaming group. Inspired by Stream of Annihilation’s One Grung Above from WotC Product Manager Christopher Lindsay this adventure puts the players in control of a band of grung from Volo’s Guide to Monsters.
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]
Out of the Box D&D Encounters, Series 2, #3: Ascension
It is a widely known fact that life comes in many shapes, forms and varieties. The lifeforms in fantasy add to this melange. However, we tend to see those fantasy creatures as certain “accepted” forms. The mythologies of the world, too, add to this list of accepted forms. Nearly all ancient races had some form of a giant, dragon, vampire and ghost. Some of those forms have made it into Dungeons & Dragons nomenclature. Modern movies, comics, and other fiction have certainly gone to some length to further break the back of this limitation, but there are still many more steps to walk on that journey.
What I would like to do here is take something from mythology and the D&D universe and further alter it, to expand its range and variety within the game. Not only that, but I would like to add an element back from earlier fantasy that seems to only exist in the realms of horror now. There was a time when Fey were feared as they might abduct children and place changelings in their place. Elves were notorious for that. Redcaps were more common (now introduced in Volo’s) and were murderous little cretins. Sprites, Pixies and Brownies (no, not made of chocolate) were dangerous little tricksters. The Feywild was a dangerous place where time is fluid and unpredictable, as were its residents. Their motivations were (and still are) alien to mortals.
Matt Mercer of Critical Role talks Tal’Dorei with Dungeon Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eXwQ8oWcZ0
Dungeon Life’s Todd Kenreck was one busy journalist at Wizards of the Coast’s Stream of Annihilation June 2-3, 2017. On his Twitter feed, Kenreck shared that he was able to score 29 interviews with various D&D dignitaries, including the inimitable Matthew Mercer, actor and Dungeon Master for Geek and Sundry’s Critical Role.
