D&D Ideas — Cults
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is cults, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of cults in Enemy at the Gate a manipulative guard acts as the agent of some greater villain in your world, perhaps with their own cult of agents and followers… A deceptive oni makes life difficult for the heroes by stopping them at a town gate and disrupting their lives along with 54 other dynamic scenarios in Out of the Box. Find out more about it here. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.
TTRPG Stock Sessions — The Time Loop
Salutations, nerds! Today I’m going focusing in on Groundhog Day. Not the movie but the concept of being stuck in a time loop as a tabletop roleplaying game stock session. This episode comes up in a lot of places. The first one coming to mind right now being the Supernatural episode where the brothers Winchester die repeatedly and have to live the day over. The time loop TTRPG stock session comes with a warning label — It’s frustrating to deal with. The time loop is a concept you want to make sure players are okay with before bringing it to the table. All the advice you see about how parties need clear goals is really hard to pull off in a situation like this so proceed with caution. After you’ve cleared it with your TTRPG group here are the things you have to hammer out.
D&D Ideas — Oceans
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is oceans, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of oceans in Fish Food a chance encounter on the high seas leads to a potential trifecta of terror: drowning, water issues and being lost at sea. A pleasant sea voyage turns upside down by attacking water enemies and a rapidly sinking ship along with 54 other dynamic scenarios in Out of the Box. Find out more about it here. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.
When Fight Club meets Cobra Kai Your RPG Character has to Fight
I take a lot of inspiration from everywhere both as a player and Game Master for my tabletop roleplaying game experiences. Reading novels, watching movies and TV present so many elements that have already been done so well — why not copy some elements to improve your own RPG experiences? I binged all three seasons of Cobra Kai over the weekend and man, what a show. It got me thinking about all the elements about fighting in a typical fantasy RPG. With so many urban adventures to play with it is no wonder fights can break out in the middle of the streets. If you plan to incorporate these kinds of groups, clubs or organizations focused around fighting in your games you could very much take inspiration from Cobra Kai and the movie Fight Club and make up rules and a place where these fights can go down.
Changing the Theme of Your TTRPG Campaign Midstride
Salutations, nerds! I’m taking a brief break from the Stock Sessions series to write about consent in tabletop roleplaying games. I don’t mean tricky things like gore and sexual content, which gets addressed a lot and is super important. But another side of the issue gets overshadowed quite a bit — content and expectations. Consent means everyone is on the same page about generally what’s going to happen in the campaign. Put simply if you’re playing a pirate game it’s reasonable for players to assume it’s going to stay a pirate game and not suddenly become a knightly crusade.
TTRPG Stock Sessions — The Heist
Salutations, nerds! I’m back with another tabletop roleplaying game stock session to dissect and analyze. Today I’m taking a closer look at one of my personal favorites — the heist. There’s something valuable held behind closed doors in a secure facility. Something TTRPG characters need, want very badly or have been hired to retrieve. This archetype is part of the reason why I love Shadowrun so much as a setting. The game is 80% heist jobs, which by the way are great because they leave plenty of opportunity to tackle the adventure from whatever direction the players approach. A heist can be done via a lot of roleplaying, lying to people to get into position or purely through stealth. Characters can go loud and blast their way in or save this option for a last resort.
D&D Ideas — Time
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is time, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of time in All That Remains time may have forgotten the story of a great battle and the heroes who fought and died but with a little curiosity and a lot of elbow grease adventurers can discover the past. A strange fog filled with the ghosts of a battle fought long ago form around an excavated monument along with 54 other dynamic scenarios in Out of the Box. Find out more about it here. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.
RPG Elements Abound in Disney’s Frozen 2
Nerdarchy talks about always seeking inspiration from everything but I was not expecting so much fuel for my imagination in Disney’s Frozen 2. I have always loved Disney’s animated movies and I might be behind the times on this one but as a father I can enjoy watching these movies with my kids. We just finished watching Frozen 2 and even for a movie about an ice enchantress set in a fantasy world there are loads of things I am ready to incorporate right into my own tabletop roleplaying games and my own personal magical RPG setting.
Running an Undead Campaign for 5E D&D
Undead in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons come in all manner of sizes and shapes and all levels of threat. From a Tiny will-o’-wisp to a Huge dracolich plotting the destruction of all living things undead can be the center of a 5E D&D campaign quite easily.
WizKids Warlock Tiles Inspire TTRPG Encounters in the Marketplace
Tabletop roleplaying game adventures in town can emerge from many places. How much fun can you have in the marketplace? Given all the possibilities of events to unfold in an outdoor marketplace it is the perfect set up for fun and imaginative game play. Outdoor stalls make for ideal places for hit and run tactics by assassins or basic street thugs. Many marketplace features distract the eyes and block line of sight. A marketplace also incorporates elements for characters and creatures to interact with. Look at all the remarkable segments of chase scenes in movies and TV shows. It can all happen in a marketplace.
5E D&D Monster Spotlight — Chimera
The chimera is such a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster from mythology and has made an appearance in all of the editions of the game. In fifth edition D&D a chimera can be encountered in a few different environments — grasslands, hills, mountains and the Underdark. These are all straight out of the 5E D&D Monster Manual and I’d add the aerial environment as well. This gives us quite a few places we can drop an encounter in with a chimera. They enter gameplay during tier two with challenge rating 6. Chimera are quite formidable with a decent amount of hit points, a fly speed of 60 feet and three attacks per round, one of which can be replaced with its Breath Weapon. Let us not forget villains like to employ chimera as mounts. A single chimera would be a medium challenge for four 5th level characters. These nasty beasts average 53 points of damage on a single round when they use their Breath Weapon or 32 when they can’t. If this D&D monster is played up to its full hunter archetype this is significant damage potential.
TTRPG Stock Sessions — Fancy Party
Salutations, nerds! Today I’m going to take a look at another stock session for tabletop roleplaying games in which we’ve got the biggest balls of them all! This series is going to be doing some party crashing. Or possibly attending legitimately with an invitation depending on what flavor you prefer. A stock session for a TTRPG is reusable scenario a Game Master can plug into campaigns that still feels different because of the specific characters involved and this one can be a good form break for parties who tend to do a lot of combat and traveling around and who tend to be excellent roleplay fodder. Most fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons parties spend a lot of their time in dungeons and on the road so seeing them all dressed up can be interesting. As before I’ll cover some of the decisions to make before running the Fancy Party TTRPG stock session.
Getting More from 5E D&D Monsters — Stonesnapper
The semi-sapient stonesnapper plant tends to grow where creatures that petrify like to make their lairs. The stonesnapper is a common fixture in many basilisk caves and there have been stories of medusae cultivating them and keeping them as pets in bygone eras. The flowers grow in vibrant colors, capable of motion and closing their petals around small objects. Their vines are also ambulatory. The stonesnapper doesn’t require much sunlight and in fact gets most of its nutrients by scooping up the leavings of creatures that have been petrified and then devoured — the crumbs left behind by things like gorgons, basilisks and medusae. The acidic fluid built up inside the stonesnapper in order to digest these leavings is a natural remedy for petrification. These plant monsters appear in Garden of Statuary, one of the digital fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons products we create for Patreon supporters and later for Nerdarchy the Store. Here you’ll find expanded 5E D&D content inspired by these opportunistic plant creatures along with the stat block as it appears in the book ready to drop into your games.
D&D Ideas — Dice
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is dice, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of dice it may be a Coin Flip to determine fortune or misfortune but the roll of the dice generates the effect every step of the way across a strange dungeon hazard. A floor made of giant coins, each promising fortunate or unfortunate effects, challenges heroes to cross along with 54 other dynamic scenarios in Out of the Box. Find out more about it here. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.
TTRPG Stock Sessions — Flashback and Memory
Salutations, nerds! Today I’m going to examine the concept of stock sessions for tabletop roleplaying games. In particular I’m thinking about the idea of delving into a character’s memories and exploring their backstory a little bit in a flashback! A stock session for a TTRPG is reusable scenario a Game master can plug into campaigns that still feels different because of the specific characters involved. Think of it kind of like how a good chunk of anime have a beach episode. That’s what I mean.
