Strongholds & Streaming Kickstarter from Matt Colville Raises the Bar
Just over two years ago, John Wick’s 7th Sea: Second Edition Kickstarter smashed through the barriers of roleplaying game potential, becoming the first campaign of its kind to surpass the $1 million mark. Among contemporaries in the RPG space, consistent hits from Monte Cook Games and Richard Thomas, along with extraordinary successes from Evil Hat Productions, Modiphius, Kobold Press, Frog God Games and others illustrate the possibilities of crowdfunding. And with the meteoric launch of Strongholds & Streaming, the first Kickstarter project from Matt Colville, we will almost certainly see the bar raised even higher.
The Best Time to Be a Nerd: How Amazon and Twitch Make It Easy
With the Amazon purchase of Twitch in August of 2014, many eyebrows were raised in confusion and fear the mega-corporation would tarnish the platform. Many nerds, geeks, and gamers found Twitch to be a safe haven where they could watch their favorite streamers play video games, interact with communities, and engage in the sphere of geekdom in all its flavors and colors. And with the introduction of Amazon into the picture, people believed that safe haven would disappear into the aether to be replaced by profit margins and the ever-reaching hand of big business.
But now as we enter 2018, it’s clear over the past four years the platform has been bolstered, not bloodied, and the geek community has more opportunities to not just survive, but thrive, in the modern world.
Build vs. Create a D&D Character: What’s the Difference?
Hey guys, this is Kenneth Woody coming at you with another helpful bit of insight. Today I’d like to talk with you all about fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons as well as two concepts a lot of D&D players blur together. What are these concepts you may ask? Glad you asked, today we’re going to be talking about what it means to build a character versus creating a character. So, without further ado, let’s get into it eh?
Out of the Box D&D Encounters, Series 2, #32 “Don’t Feed the…Flowers?”
Out of the Box introduction
The range of plant-based foes in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons is small. Treants, awakened plants, blights, shambling mounds…and very little else. There should be more. A lot more. [NERDITOR’S NOTE: 33 in official sources. Thanks D&D Beyond!]
Carnivorous plants exist in our own world and come in a wide variety of colours and use many techniques to grab their prey. Ambulatory plants are a staple of fantasy (including those already listed), but are almost always magical or otherworldly in nature. If there existed actual mobile, carnivorous plants of such a size as to be a real threat, then they would be a true terror.
Critter Corner: Highlights from Episode 3
Hello! Nerditor Doug here to welcome you to the second installment of Gin’s musings and thoughts on the new campaign of Critical Role, Geek and Sundry’s mega-popular live stream gameplay starring Matt Mercer as Dungeon Master with a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors playing D&D. New episodes stream every Thursday at 10 p.m. eastern. Viewers can watch through Alpha Project, Twitch and recently YouTube live as well.
Worldbuilding: The Soul of D&D Cities
Hey nerds! Today I want to talk about a more ground-up, specific aspect of D&D worldbuilding. You get a lot of talk about cultures and countries, races and religions, but specific cities can be a wonderful way to set a particular session apart from others and that is where I want to turn your focus.
Examining Xanathar’s Lost Notes To Everything Else for 5E D&D
After a week of exceedingly bad health followed by a week of recovery I have returned, undeterred from my task of bringing to you honest reviews of the homebrew content so popular among gamers of all generations. Today we will be reviewing the little gem known as Xanathar’s Lost Notes To Everything Else for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, available on the DM’s Guild. I’ve had this little badboy in my hands since December, and what is significant is this one I sought out on my own. This D&D content comes from the minds of Ruty Rutenberg, Lysa Chen, Will Doyle, James Haeck, James Introcaso, Rich Lescouflair, Shawn Merwin, Cindy Moore, and the one-of-a-kind Satine Phoenix. And Nerdarchy has an exclusive coupon code for when this book finds it’s way into your shopping cart too.
Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes Reveals Conflicts of D&D Multiverse
We can thank Wizards of the Coast senior director Nathan Stewart and franchise creative director Mike Mearls for revealing the next fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons book during the Fireside Chat on the D&D Twitch channel Friday, Feb. 2, 2018. And today we got the official announcement from WotC about Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes!
Rot From Within D&D Adventure Trilogy Review
Salutations, nerds! Over the course of the past three weeks my Saturday group and I have had the pleasure of running the Rot From Within trilogy, an adventure trilogy for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons designed by James Introcaso, Lysa Chen and Cindy Moore.
Part one is called Fester and Burn, part two is Rotting Roots, and part three is Putting the Dead to Rest and all three of these D&D adventures can be found on the DM’s Guild for a paltry $2.99 each (though I believe Fester and Burn is currently marked down to $2.24 if that sweetens the pot for anyone).
Out of the Box D&D Encounters, series 2, #31 – “Beardtoberfest”
Out of the Box introduction
Critter Corner: Highlights from Critical Role Episode 2
Hello! Nerditor Doug here to welcome you to the second installment of Gin’s musings and thoughts on the new campaign of Critical Role, Geek and Sundry’s mega-popular live stream gameplay starring Matt Mercer as Dungeon Master with a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors playing D&D. New episodes stream every Thursday at 10 p.m. eastern. Viewers can watch through Alpha Project, Twitch and recently YouTube live as well.
The D&D Chimera – Randomized!
Chimera – the spawn of powerful beast of legend, a creation of a mad wizard or poor fool’s curse by a demonic prince. However a chimera comes into existence we can all agree the three-headed Dungeons & Dragons creature with the tenacity of a dragon, stubbornness of a ram and ferocity of a lion is pretty freaking cool. What could be better right? What about the petrifying gaze of a basilisk, the strong back of a mule and the rust monsters ability to corrode the tools of the enemy?
This article brings you another randomized fifth edition D&D monster.
Flavour Shots: D&D 5e Paladin Shrines That Use Lay On Hands
Flavour Shots are short descriptions of game artefacts and phenomena for use by Dungeon Masters, Game Masters and Storytellers in their games. Feel free to drag and drop these into your own games, and modify to suit. Let us know if you end up using them. Some will be portals to other realms, some will be magic items, others will be monster encounters. This time, it’s fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons paladins, what it means to Lay on Hands and different ways to use this iconic class feature.
Lord Soth Isn’t a D&D Death Knight, He’s THE Death Knight
Hello nerds! Nerditor Doug here with a bit of content to share from the Nerdarchy community. Viewers of our Nerdarchy live chats, RPG Crate-sponsored Adventures on the Open Road, Marvel Superheroes Roleplaying Game live plays and more are familiar with Fraginator. This fan and friend of Nerdarchy games with us and remains a great part of our community. Always on the lookout for cool content, when Frags mentioned a homebrew version of the death knight Lord Soth from his home game I asked him to send it in so we can share it with you.
Critter Corner: Discussing Critical Role Episode 1
“Welcome to Wildemount. The year is 835 PD, or Post Divergence.” – Matt Mercer
Hello, Critter darlings. Have you wandered my way because you haven’t yet caught the first episode of the Critical Role new campaign? Or were you perhaps one of the 100K+ plus live viewers, but now you’re out amongst the interwebs looking for analysis, fan theories, and/or gossip? In any case, I hope you’ll find something interesting here. Fair warning, this isn’t really a ‘highlights’ kind of article. I do give some character overviews and a session summary, but my main purpose is trying to build a case for a theory I have about the overall story arc we might see as the new season unfolds.
*mild spoilers for Critical Role, Campaign 2 Episode 1 ahead
