New DM Handbook: Rethinking Firearms
No, this isn’t a conversation about gun control. This is about introducing and including modern firearms into your Dungeons & Dragons campaign from the Dungeon Master’s Guide (264). With some help from Ty Johnston, who graciously aided me in my implementation for this article with his thoughtful insights and suggestions, I have something I think can be integrated into any campaign that wouldn’t explicitly forbid it by the nature of the world. I’ll go into further detail later when I’m going to be talking about ammunition, but gunpowder doesn’t even need to be introduced into your world to make it work. Artificers could infuse a cantrip-level spell of thunderwave, which we’ll call thunderblast, that can be activated by a mechanic in the firearm itself, which would then propel the ammunition without the need of gunpowder.
“Shadow of Your Former Self” – Out of The Box D&D Encounters #47
Ask any Dungeon Master what the most dangerous thing in a Dungeons & Dragons game is, and I’ll bet the majority will come back to you with “the players.” Players can range in power and abilities more than any monster and will always find the cracks in any system and crawl through. Players will think outside the box more often than not and will work around problems you might think they need to face head on. I can remember playing “Zelda: The Ocarina of Time” forever ago, and the most frustrating encounter was fighting a shadow mirror image of yourself.
Sourcebook Review: Recovery Dice Options
In Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons, healing works a little bit differently. Each class, as usual, has a certain type of hit die that you can roll to get more hit points at higher levels. What isn’t quite so usual is the idea that you have a pool of these dice you can use to heal yourself during short rests. The reason for this is to allow parties to keep moving longer without having to camp inside dungeons. Spend some hit dice, recover your health, and keep moving.
Recovery Dice Options ([amazon_link asins=’1545236488′ template=’PriceLink’ store=’nerdarchy-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’d4c37b80-209b-11e7-8ec2-75f53789e3bc’] from Amazon) is about alternative ways to use these dice. Conceptually, the idea of being able to use your recovery dice for things other than recovering hit points is intriguing. After all, you are quite literally using your own life force to fuel some of what you can do with this, and it is taking a resource that is, otherwise, very limited, and giving it more purpose.
RPG Character Creation: Unveiling the Psyche through D&D
The first thing we do when playing Dungeons & Dragons is character creation. Without the characters, there is no story; we know this. In order to create a character we must first decide which character to make, why that character, and then the details. In order to do this we have a great opportunity to take clay and make a mold out of our own ideas and desires. You may have heard that the way a person views life, people and situations is based off his or hers own experiences? Well, this is one of those times where we get to use all the tools life has given us and make something with it. Once we take hold of this art form, the opportunities for character building and world building take off. Each character creation has its own unique flare and destiny that drives the adventure to its perfect and final crescendo.
With tabletop RPGs, sometimes you just want to play the damn game
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="456" class="zemanta-img"] Role-playing gamers at the Burg-Con in Berlin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption] Here at Nerdarchy, you could say our bread and butter is talking about tabletop role-playing games, most commonly Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition. We have videos and articles and a forum...
New DM Handbook: In-Game Games
It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about fully theoretical implementations. There are some things that have been based on observations, general concepts, tropes, and other literary tools, but it’s been a long time since I’ve talked about something I’ve absolutely nothing to base my ideas on. That’s what I plan on doing. I’ve set up the groundwork for my players for the future, but I haven’t had a chance to implement it.
Today, I’m going to be talking about in-game games. I can’t be sure how often they get used in most campaigns, but being that the way the game’s solution for contests is to roll ability checks against each other (PHB 174), I can’t imagine that it happens all that much. The biggest problem with this, of course, is that players that have some form of gaming set as a tool proficiency are now being penalized against the other more useful ones, which is where my solution comes in.
Secrets From The Dungeon: Roll Playing The Ego With Dungeons & Dragons
My last week’s article covered a brief character creation ideal, which was to create your Dungeons & Dragons character based entirely off your own ego. I think for most people, most characters are made this way, or at least partly. You might add features or traits that you have, eg. your character suffers from an untamed shaking in one hand that won’t stop due to real life PTSD that you struggle with. Or perhaps your character wears a certain handkerchief in one pocket as a symbol of a past event that changed him, and he wears it to remember. While these small details are mostly forgotten along the character creation path, to really explore those details can add a lot of fun and/or humor to your game play style.
The C Team innovates live streaming roleplaying games
As promised last week, I’ll be taking a closer look at the myriad online roleplaying game programs that I enjoy to offer some reviews and analysis as well as any tips or pitfalls therein. The criteria for me as a gamer, fan, audience member and for the purposes of this series are the entertainment value and the takeaways I can bring back to my own game group.
Most of these shows (okay, all of them on my initial list) are Dungeons & Dragons games. In keeping with that spirit, I’ll rate where each program has a Success or Failure along with where it scores a Critical Hit or a Critical Fail, and wrap up with a Perception Check for miscellaneous observations and standouts as a viewer.
ThunderCats Ho! Sword of Omens D&D-ized
As a follow-up to Nerdarchists Dave and Ted’s video where they D&D-ized the legendary Sword of Omens from the ThunderCats cartoon, I’ve been tasked with taking a shot at the crunch for this incredibly powerful artifact. You won’t need Sight Beyond Sight to watch that...
New DM Handbook: My Bag of Holding
D&D Beyond has been on my mind as much as I can afford, as any English major in his senior year can. I recently had a conversation with Scott Garibay about it, too. I can’t afford to do a lot, because I have so much on my plate right now, but I’m really excited by what it’s going to mean. Don’t get me wrong, I think what they’re doing already is good. It’s a useful tool that’s a very efficient version of a lot of things already out there. I know we’re only at the first stage of the beta, and there’s a lot more to come, but that’s the part I’m looking forward to. As it stands, there aren’t really any solutions out there that I like.
“Pay to Play” – Out of the Box D&D Encounters #46
Sometimes you just need to lighten up and have fun. A series of high-tension encounters filled with danger and worry can certainly establish the right tone, but sometimes you just need to laugh or have fun. It is my hope the following encounter will combine...
Friend time: Does your group get together outside of game night?
This is one of those topics most of us would like to claim we do and, while there are a majority of us who play with close friends/family members, there are still those of us who only participate in the game and not in the after-game relationships to the people we game with. There is a certain level of trust and mutual respect that arises when we play with someone. It’s very difficult to role play when we aren’t willing to bond somewhat with the players we spend those many hours of play with. On the contrary, when we do invest even a little bit of time, we find we have much more than just another acquaintance; we have a friend, which is awesome! Who doesn’t want awesome friends who are open to playing, getting real and having fun?
The art of gaming without gaming! Trials and triumphs of a full-time nerd in a part-time world
There is no disputing that tabletop role-playing games, and Dungeons & Dragons in particular, are more popular than ever before. While still a niche hobby, that niche has grown considerably large, and the perception of it has shifted as well.
The moment when I realized how great a step forward the role-playing game hobby has taken occurred not too long ago. My gaming group musters at a coffee shop, hauling our books, dice, pencils and accouterments to a private room in the back. From 4-10 p.m., our group of middle-aged nerds leave jobs, families and other responsibilities aside to step into a fantastical world of make-believe. During one of our gatherings, I went to get a cup of coffee and the teen-aged girl barista asked me if I was with the group in the back, and if we were playing Dungeons & Dragons. I said yep, I’m the Dungeon Master.
“Super cool,” she said.
Dungeons & Discourse: Digital Media
As Nerdarchist Dave has mentioned in the past, the staff writers here at Nerdarchy.com have really started to gel. We’re putting together a module for Geek & Sundry’s International Tabletop Day that I think is fantastic, and we have a lot of great discourse, a majority of which is just for us. We share our perspectives with each other, elicit help, or provide suggestions. Sometimes we just talk about whatever. I think what makes it the best is that, even if we vehemently disagree with each other, or it’s a couple of us railing against the world, there is a genuine respect that allows us to know everyone is actually trying to listen to and understand each other, even if all we did was take a merry-go-round.
“Gang of One” – Out of the Box D&D Encounters #45
How many times have you, as Dungeon Master, heard this phrase: “Wait, a (insert monster)? In (insert environment)? Don’t they normally occur in (insert different environment)?” How many times has THAT been a headache? Well, this Out of The Box addresses that sort of dilemma. True, many random encounter generators, whether digital or printed, separate the reasonably possible creatures into the environs they should be expected in. However, the DM may wish to use a creature because they may never have tried a new one, or find the list of possible encounters uninspiring.
The simple solution is to re-skin a creature in such a way as to MAKE it plausible.
