D&D Ideas — Underdark
Running Aberrations and Their Followers in Dungeons & Dragons
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” The Call of Cthulhu
When considering aberrations in your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons games it is important to remember the nature of these horrors. Minds and bodies made of stuff from beyond your campaign world, aberrations are truly alien things without connection to the physical laws and regular psychology of even the most foreign minds. Mastering the presentation of aberrations can be tricky, and to keep them from presenting as nothing more than just another monster require subtlety and often restraint.
D&D Ideas — Aberrations
D&D Quest Starters by Character Class — Rangers and Rogues
Looks like people are enjoying this D&D Quest Starters series so far and we are now more than half way through. The thought behind these ideas is to give simple little scenes for roleplaying, skill challenges or both, for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons characters based on their character class. These could take five minutes and can be great to give a player whose character does not normally step a chance to shine, or at least encourage them to roleplay their character. The advice here is designed to be generic but these ideas can hopefully inspire you to encourage your players. If a player latches onto the NPC you provide, then feel free to build on that scene over time to have it mean more and the character might keep coming back to the NPC or vice versa. That is why it is a quest starter — it can easily lead to some fun long term quests over time. Use the navigation bar at the top under the title to check out quest starters for other classes like barbarian and bard, and cleric and druid, and fighter and monk.
D&D Ideas — Seasons
D&D Quest Starters by Character Class — Fighter and Monk
Welcome back. Or welcome, if this is your first foray into D&D Quest Starters. The thought behind these ideas is to give simple little scenes that offer roleplaying, a skill challenge or both, for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons characters based on their character class. These things can take five minutes and can be great to give a player whose character does not normally step into the limelight and allow them to shine, or at least encourage them to roleplay their character. Only you know what each of the players in your game are capable of as well as what is going to interest their characters. The advice here is designed to be generic but these ideas can hopefully inspire you to encourage your players.
D&D Ideas — Aquatic Adventures
D&D Ideas — Lairs
Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week we will delve into lairs for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons.
Bad RPG Stories are Only the Beginning!
Writers and Game Masters have a ton of things in common. A writer’s main goal is to tell a good story to entertain their target audience and sell a profitable amount of their work. A GM’s goal is to facilitate fun through a good story and entertain their own target audience — the players. Because of these similarities, GMs can learn a lot from studying good storytelling tactics. In this week’s RPGtube video, I discuss my top five tips for GMs, as coming from the perspective of a writer.
D&D Quest Starters by Character Class — Cleric and Druid
If you happened to have missed part one, D&D quest starters are designed as small scenes or quick skill challenges meant to get some roleplaying in. Maybe you use these when you feel a character needs to be put in the spotlight. Maybe you wrote story plot about one of the characters and you do not want to leave the others out. Bring in some quest starters and allow the roleplaying to begin. These can develop into larger stories if all involved like where the story is going but they can also be a simple one and done conversation. This series is organized by character class, and last time I did a large intro and knocked out bard and barbarian. So today we are going to look at a couple more. Do you have faith?
D&D Ideas — Nightmares
How Background Enhances Your D&D Character
The notion of your D&D character having a background is integral to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. It grants you a precious few skill proficiencies, and a combination of tool and language options. While background was a part of 4E, it wasn’t nearly as prominent or impacting as it to your D&D character in this edition, and I think the reason for making background such a big deal is directly related to the attempt of 5E to harmonize mechanics and roleplay.
Curse of Hollow Hills – Undead Miniatures on Kickstarter
From the people of Crippled God Foundry, allow me to present the Curse of Hollow Hills. Dungeons & Dragons, or let’s face it any fantasy roleplaying game, would not be the same without hordes of undead. It is that fear of a fate worse than death that can scare the normal mortal into staying in town. It takes a brave adventurer — or a foolish one — to brave the trials and tribulations of the monsters out there. And the undead are one of those. Curse of Hollow Hills is a miniatures project of fantasy heroes & undead monsters. If funded, it will include a collection of up to 50 original sculpts (including future stretch goals), inspired by the most iconic undead creatures of fantasy novels, RPGs & tabletop board games.
D&D Ideas — Artifacts
Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week we are talking about artifacts — uber-powerful magic items that can reshape your D&D campaign world. But before we dive into that, an update on the Facebook page. I’ve regained access, but I wouldn’t say control. The forces of evil are still listed as the owners of the page. I’ve got it unpublished but not deleted. These people won’t have to be subjected to the nonsense that has been going over there. I’m convinced I won’t be booted off the page by these evildoers again. We are fighting to get it back before we initiate the self destruct mechanism. We are leaving that for the last resort.
Broken or Killer D&D Animal Companion Combo
Time to build a better D&D animal companion in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. You decide if this is a killer or broken D&D combo. Below you will find the video and transcription.
