Player Agency and Cooperative Stories Make a D&D Game Belong to Everyone
Its a very common phrase in the roleplaying circles that its “the Dungeon Master’s Game.” As with most aspects of this hobby, its not always so cut and dry. In your D&D game, you might find infusing some player agency through cooperative storytelling might get a you a new level of engagement from your players. This player agency can take many forms, to include working together with your players to collaboratively create the setting and world.
Win Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes for 5E D&D — First Look and Flipthrough
Friday, May 18, 2017 was the Wizards of the Coast release of Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes to specific FLGS and digitally through D&D Beyond. This is the newest D&D book from The Wizards of the Coast team. Wide release for this 5E D&D book will be on May 29.
The folks over at the PR company for the WOTC team, 360 Public Relations, is always good about getting us early copies so we can show them off to the fans. We always give them away. It’s still nice to get the free 5E D&D swag even if we don’t keep it most of the time. Speaking of which you can get in on a give-away running to May 31 for one of five copies of Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes.
Kickstarter Korner for May 2018, Week 3
Each week during the Quests & Adventures live chat, Saturday at 2 p.m. eastern, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch hang out live with fans from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. It’s a chance to share announcements and news, answer questions from the live chat and generally just hang out and talk nerdy with the Nerdarchy community.
D&D Etiquette from Metagame to Manners
We decided to do a video response to an article over on the Jimmi Waz Ere website. We copied the article below for convenience, as well as our thoughts on the 10 Things You Need to Respect About D&D Etiquette video. By all means if you like Jimmi’s article click the link below to take look at the articles he’s got on his site and show him some love by sharing and commenting on the original article.
Is There a Best Way to Build a D&D Party?
We had recently did a series on Playing D&D without Filling Party Roles. We did a video for each party role and how play without them both as the Dungeons Master and a player. As a follow up we thought we’d combine some of the lessons we took away from that series as well as go into the opposite direction.
D&D Character Builds Gets Creepy with the Lizard Wizard
We do several different types of D&D character builds here at Nerdarchy. There is a series we call D&Dize. In those videos we take fictional characters from movies, TV shows, novels, video games, and comic books and stat them up using fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Then there is just our normal or regular D&D Character Builds. These builds are based off of standard tropes in D&D. Each of these 5E D&D character builds are optimized to really good at a specific part of the game and fit into typical D&D tropes.
Tilting on the Axis of Alignment in D&D 5E
Some would argue alignment no longer has a place in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. No matter where you lie on alignment it has been and will be, for the foreseeable future, a part of D&D. We had better get used to it because it’s here to stay. Alignment is a moral reference point we as players use to guide our actions and make sure we are sticking to the concept we have laid out. As important as the Traits, Ideals, Bonds and Flaws are, the core concepts of law vs. chaos, good vs. evil and all of the gray area leaves room to play there within.
5 Magical D&D Weather Phenomena
Salutations, nerds! We play fifth edition Dungeon & Dragons, and a lot of the settings we spend our time in come equipped with intense magical nonsense that permeates almost everything from wizards to weapons to other odds and ends. Depending on the kind of campaign you’re playing, the weather can sometimes be overlooked unless the Dungeon Master is specifically trying to drive characters someplace to take shelter, and honestly that’s okay. We drop details to enhance play, not to get in the way of it.
Kickstarter Korner for May 2018, Week 2
Each week during the Quests & Adventures live chat, Saturday at 2 p.m. eastern, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch hang out live with fans from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. It’s a chance to share announcements and news, answer questions from the live chat and generally just hang out and talk nerdy with the Nerdarchy community.
Things Get a Little Chaotic When We Review Deep Magic: Chaos Magic from Kobold Press
We recently looked at the Deep Magic series Chaos Magic PDF over on the YouTube Channel. Nerdarchy has become great fans of the Kobold Press Deep Magic series. There’s tons of options for players and Dungeon Masters alike in this series.
Creating a Good Necromancer for Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons
We decided to take a stab at creating a good necromancer for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Nerdarchy has had a cantankerous relationship with our fans when it comes the wizard tradition of necromancy. We are of the philosophy of if you animate dead you are creating evil creatures, which is an evil act.
Upcoming Games: Part-Time Gods 2nd Edition from Third Eye Games
Part-Time Gods is a tabletop roleplaying game from Third Eye Games where the players take control of gods living in the mortal realm. Not demigods or godlike beings, but actual true gods that rule over a specific domain like life, death, fire, or nature… or, if you’re feeling particularly whimsical, taxi drivers, balloons, breakfast cereals, or boxing gloves (not boxing, not boxers, but boxing gloves specifically). Part-Time Gods opens the door for modern high-fantasy adventure where a pantheon of gods does battle with otherworldly forces to defend the mortal realm while trying to keep their mortal lives from falling apart.
Can One Spell Change the Way D&D is Played?
Small things or changes can greatly effect the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons gaming experience. Like how easy it is to figure out what the magic items in the dragon’s hoard do. In earlier editions of D&D the identify spell existed, but it wasn’t as potent when it came to examining magic items.
Stream of Many Eyes, a Rubber Chicken, and You — Memorable Campaigns for D&D
A cult strives to bring their dragon goddess into the world to wreak havoc. Demons from the Abyss invade the Underdark. Evil elementals build a powerbase in an ancient temple. A vampire holds sway over a cursed land. Giants compete to establish a new cosmic order. An archlich inflicts a terrible curse upon the world. Great campaigns all around. Fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons players around the world have saved the multiverse from these threats countless times. And the upcoming Stream of Many Eyes will reveal the next campaign for adventurers to tackle. But it’s the How and not the What that makes these memorable campaigns.
Kickstarter Korner for May 2018, Week 1
Each week during the Quests & Adventures live chat, Saturday at 2 p.m. eastern, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch hang out live with fans from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. It’s a chance to share announcements and news, answer questions from the live chat and generally just hang out and talk nerdy with the Nerdarchy community.
