D&D Character Delve – Goliath Oath of the Ancients Paladin for RPG Crate Adventures on the Open Road
It is time for another fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character build. This time we will look at Maala, the Oath of the Ancients goliath paladin character I played in episode four of out RPG Crate sponsored game, Adventures on the Open Road: A Knight’s Tomb. Maala is a D&D character built on one major concept, the bearded woman. As a fan of American Horror Story I wanted to play a character like Ethel Darling (Kathy Bates). All decisions from that point on centered around what it meant to be a woman who is outside her culture, in a world where she does not fit the prescribed ideal of femininity.
Kickstarter Korner for April 2018, Week 4
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...
Running the Double Cross on Your D&D Adventuring Party
It can be a lot of fun for the Dungeon Master and a player in a D&D adventuring party to run a long con on the rest of the players, whether this is something planned out from the very beginning of a campaign or something that evolves out of the ongoing story line.
Exploring D&D Party Roles with the Healer
Our Running D&D Games without Filling Party Roles series continues. This time we look at the healer. When I think healer in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons I think cleric, druid, and maybe bard. Then there’s what I consider the secondary healers of D&D – bard, paladin, and ranger. Notice bard is included in both. Bard is a super versatile character class in D&D and has the ability fill several party roles.
Unearthed Arcana Order Domain for D&D Cleric Lays Down the Law
The latest Unearthed Arcana came out so of course we took a close look and weighed in on the new Order Domain for the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons cleric. It was first presented during The Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour, which streams live every Tuesday at 4 p.m. eastern on the D&D Twitch channel.
Celebrate International Tabletop Day with a Free Download of D&D Stuff
In 2017, some folks on the Nerdarchy team put together a free adventure for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons in recognition of International Tabletop Day. And for 2018 we’re at it again, and stepping up our game! To coincide with the revamp and relaunch of our Patreon rewards, we’re giving away a free download package of special rewards to everyone in the RPG community to help celebrate this most special of days on April 28. Empusia, Curator of Souls is a total package of D&D magic items, monsters, allies, enemies, dynamic and lost lore.
Empowering Your D&D Spells with Shadow Magic from Kobold Press
A couple of months ago we began reviewing the Deep Magic series for 5th Edition from Kobold Press. These are short PDFs over on DriveThruRPG and their own site. You can check out our playlist for the Deep Magic series on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. These books are full of new D&D spells to add to your game. These e-books contain more than just new spells, feats, monsters, magic items, wizard traditions, sorcerer origins, warlock pacts and patrons, and more. This our ninth video review on the Deep Magic series from Kobold Press. I usually don’t care for a lot of third party products, but Kobold Press is one of the exceptions.
Kickstarter Korner for April 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...
Party Roles: Playing D&D Games without a Tank
“D&D Tank – is it even a really thing in the game?”
This is a comment we received on our No Tank, No Problem – Running D&D Games without Filling Party Roles video. This is our first video in the Running D&D Games without Filling Party Roles series. The truth of the matter is I’ve been playing D&D games since first edition Dungeons & Dragons we looked for someone to fill the cleric, warrior, magic-user, and thief roles to fill out the D&D adventuring party even back then.
D&D Stories Bring Roleplaying Gamers Together and Create Communities
Whether gamers find themselves at a gaming store, convention, or someone’s home gaming group it’s our stories from the roleplaying games we play that unite us as a community. These bonds strengthen our existing friendship and help to create new ones.
Even if you’ve just met a fellow gamer for the first time you already have bounds to connect you together – your gaming stories. Plus what Dungeons & Dragons player doesn’t love sharing their characters or D&D builds with their peers?
Gee Whiz, Critical Role Animation Sure is Fun
Tabletop RPGs aren’t the first thing that probably comes to mind when you think about animation. There’s a lot of stuff going on at any given time and humorous or action-filled moments are often dispersed among hours of the player characters shopping or doing other tasks that don’t translate well to being encapsulated in a short spurt of animation. But over at Gee Whiz Productions, those drawbacks to a tabletop RPG session haven’t really been drawbacks at all. They’re doing amazing work in taking scenes from longer sessions like Critical Role and transferring them into animated gold.
Blast from the Past: Talislanta RPG is Totally Free!
Every weekday at noon eastern, the Nerdarchy YouTube channel welcomes guests for a live chat. Industry personalities from the top companies in the tabletop roleplaying game sphere like Wizards of the Coast and Monte Cook Games, creators sharing their work with Kickstarters, streaming or produced video content, blogs, artists, podcasters – the whole gamut of folks making and sharing cool content in the tabletop RPG space join the Nerdarchy community to talk nerdy. Super Geek Senda Linaugh, who joined Nerdarchist Dave to talk about the wide array of projects she’s involved with, really got me thinking about how many fantastic RPGs are out there. One of my favorites from back in the day is Talislanta, an RPG now available completely free!
D&D Power Gaming Munchkin Can Be a Fun Way to Play
You may find this hard to believe, but Nerdarchy has been accused of being power gaming munchkin players in the past. It’s true we sometimes enjoy optimizing or coming up with ridiculous character builds for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. When we analyze D&D character classes we often do it from a min/max standpoint with the mechanics. But in all fairness the mechanics are the part of the game that aren’t subjective so that seems like a fair place to start. Even though we don’t actually play our games as power gaming munchkins at the table we do have a lot of fun building crazy D&D builds and combos. We are actually likely to play suboptimal characters or even things we’ve complained about in videos.
Live streaming RPG (un)life with unMadeGaming
The RPG space is undoubtedly growing in ways it never has before. There are simply more options for games, whether new systems, new content for classics like fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and new ways to play all of these games like live streaming RPG gameplay. From Critical Role and Acquisitions Inc. straight on down the line, thousands of players and Game Masters share their tables with the world. Mike Hunt, whose unMadeGaming brand showcases a wide variety of RPG systems, is one such content creator.
Kickstarter Korner for April 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...
