Something for Everyone at Dungeon Masters Guild
There’s a little something for everyone at the Dungeon Masters Guild. A couple of creators got in touch with us to share their work; the Dungeon Masters Guild newsletter shared new stuff for characters, DMs and content designers; and we’re getting back to making stuff for the DM’s Guild ourselves with the Adventurers League Witch Doctor Character Build Guide adding to the marketplace this Friday, Oct. 18. A steady flow of new stuff continues to stock the digital bookshelves at the DM’s Guild, and this week we’re dipping a toe into DriveThruRPG too. The community content coming across my desk this week all had a common thread. Whether it was player-centric in the form of new character options or DM-centric like adventures there are strong worldbuilding opportunities in these products. I appreciate any D&D content that makes me start thinking about how it fits into and enhances a campaign setting.
D&D Curses and Cursed Items
We’ve had D&D cursed items on the brain for it seems like a month now at least. Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus motivated us to look at some of the darker and more evil D&D magic items and artifacts. Some of them are really nasty! Part of our discussions led to thinking about curses in general and cursed items in particular. And then on top of all that, the Cursed Collective Kickstarter from Session Zero launched, with Nerdarchists Dave and Ted contributing to the project with cursed items they designed.
Unearthed Arcana — Twilight, Wildfire and Onomancy
Unearthed Arcana is flowing like elven wine! New playtest stuff for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons in the free Unearthed Arcana documents get all the D&D nerds excited. We’ve been enjoying the steady stream of cool new toys to wonder about, and the most recent share from Wizards of the Coast presents three new subclasses for D&D — Twilight Divine Domain for clerics, Circle of Wildfire for druids and Arcane Tradition Onomancy for wizards. Imagining how new content adds to a D&D campaign is always a lot of fun so let’s get into it.
Portraying History as Cultural Point of View in Collaborative Storytelling
Salutations, nerds. Today we’re going to be talking about cultural point of view and the way history is recorded. Particularly, we’re going to be talking about how that applies to your gaming setting and the things you present to your players in games like fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons or whatever your favorite game happens to be. One of my absolute things in games is the effect you get where you know “x” happened, but everyone who was around to talk about it after believes it happened differently.
Dungeons & Dragons Takes Manhattan
I went on a fantastical adventure in Manhattan in New York City. The Cauldron is a magical gastropub experience located on 47 Stone St., New York City. It’s a pub catering to the nerdier elements of the city. One of the first sights to greet me as I entered the establishment was two young ladies playing Operation. That’s right, the game with a red-nosed guy who lights up and buzzes annoyingly when you fail to remove a piece from him without touching the sides. The Cauldron’s aesthetic is that of a magical tavern as I made my way deeper in to see a 15 foot tree in the center of the bar. This is no ordinary tree — it has beer taps coming out of it. Magical wands activate the taps so patrons of this magical place can dispense their own ale. A true beauty to behold.
As cool as the surroundings are, I wasn’t on a sightseeing trip or even visiting to participate in the potion classes they hold. Oh, no, I came for the Dungeons & Dragons. Along with sharing my experience below including a photo gallery, you can watch the first episode of Cantrips & Casters I attended live in Manhattan.
D&D Ideas — Fast and Dirty Monsters
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The Pledge Manager is live. You can select your tiers, add-ons, or even late pledge. If you somehow missed the Out of the Box: Encounters for 5th Edition Kickstarter you can still get in on it. Check out the Pledge Manager here.
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Next up, the release of the Nerdarchy the Convention trailer is out there in the wilds as well. Check it out here.
Free Kobold Encounter Takes Your D&D Adventure Out of the Box
A couple of months ago, Nerdarchy launched our very first Kickstarter — Out of the Box: Encounters for 5th Edition. The community support and encouragement blew us away! Everyone on the team is super proud of the campaign and even more excited to get the final product into the hands of the 4,057 backers who pledged $256,734 to help bring this project to life. Since the Kickstarter campaign ended, we’ve received a lot of requests for another chance to support Out of the Box and get a copy from those who missed the opportunity to back while it was live. But fear not! Through the Pledge Manager those folks will have a chance to preorder the content and existing backers can add on to their initial pledge. So in classic Nerdarchy fashion, we decided to create even more stuff and give it away for free to celebrate.
(Re)Discover Monsters with Meaning Inside Tome of Beasts Pocket Edition
Everything old is new again! Kobold Press is set to release Tome of Beasts Pocket Edition on Oct. 29 according to Amazon (where you can preorder here) and I recently received an advance copy. I’ve long considered Tome of Beasts to be an integral part of my fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons experience. It’s been a minute since flipping through the pages, and getting the pocket edition was a great opportunity to remind myself why I dig the book so much. If I’m honest I’d never read the introduction so starting there was in order.
Art of the Encounter in Tabletop Roleplaying Games
One of the things we enjoy the most about tabletop roleplaying games is the collaboration taking place between Game Masters and players during a game. The emergent stories spun from game sessions, interaction between player characters with campaign settings and the way player agency impacts GM guidance and adventure direction is the juice! The art of the encounter in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons or whatever game you’re playing has as much to do with how players connect with content as it does the content GMs create. A good GM presents engaging scenarios. A great GM works with players, guiding the group through creating the story of their characters. There’s a shared responsibility to making encounters better.
Alchemical Items in Deep Magic: Alkemancy by Kobold Press
I was provided a free copy of Deep Magic: Alkemancy by Kobold Press, and for the past few weeks I’ve been reviewing it. If you haven’t seen my previous articles, please check those out first, then come back to this. Today, we’re embracing RPG materialism and talking all about items!
Keep Mordenkainen Busy Keeping Track of Your DM’s Guild Content
Did you know over 4,000 new products stock the Dungeon Master’s Guild digital marketplace from 2019 alone? I read this on Twitter so you know it’s legit. Best-selling DM’s Guild author and cowriter of Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus M.T. Black shared the tidbit the other day and it really got me thinking. When I was a young Dungeons & Dragons nerd, I’d haunt the single column of bookshelves at Waldenbooks, perusing the games and modules there. They numbered in the double digits at best. It’s a great time to be a D&D player and creator. The DM’s Guild offers a marketplace to share your creations with the world, and we’ve got many thousands of products to enhance our games to choose from — including many of those old classics I browsed back in the day. Here’s a small sample of some of the DM’s Guild products that crossed my desk this past week.
Real World Adventure Hooks for D&D — How Do You Like Them Apples?
Players of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and other roleplaying games seem to always have at least a sliver of brain power devoted to thinking about the games we love. Art can inspire a character we play or the setting for an encounter. Dramatic relationships and interactions can inspire campaign plots and NPC motivations. And the world we see all around us can add clever details and verisimilitude to our settings. A recent tweet from Grand DM caught my eye and this installment of Real World Adventure Hooks for D&D comes directly from the image they shared.
Weigh Anchor for A Complete Guide to Nautical Campaigns
Vehicles and the sorts of exotic adventures featuring them are a big draw for tabletop roleplaying game campaigns. Nerdarchy friend and host of How to be a Great Game Master Guy Sclanders is no stranger to running epic campaigns on the high seas, in the skies or across the blasted landscape of Avernus, and he’s sharing that expertise with A Complete Guide to Nautical Campaigns. The Kickstarter is currently live and by the looks of it by the time I’m done writing this post it will more than likely be funded. Check it out here and navigate your way to the pledge level that works best for you.
NPC Relationships and Reputation in D&D Factions
Salutations, nerds! Today we’re going to be talking about fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons NPC relationships and reputation in D&D, something some player characters are very good at and others…not so much. Some PCs take the attitude that NPCs are basically just Popsicle sticks with faces painted on them who are supposed to vend gold because they were charming enough. Your job as the Dungeon Master is to make those NPCs feel like real people, and sometimes real people aren’t going to pay you more no matter how well you rolled because they just don’t have it.
