Please Allow Me…
Hail and well met! I’m Sophie, and I’ve been invited to contribute to this esteemed community. I know — big deal. So, let me tell you my qualifications. Well, to start with, I’ve been playing hobby and tabletop roleplaying games since 1977. I started Dungeons & Dragons with the basic “blue box” edition back in 1978. That means I have dice older than some of you. Probably most. However, it’s not just that I’m older than the Nerdarchy guys, I also spent 13 years working in the gaming community.
Random Encounters like The Mandalorian in 5E D&D
When it comes to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons I tend to run a lot of one shots and shorter campaigns. I like this scenario just fine because I’m always finding inspiration for new campaigns and gaming with new friends. After watching chapter one of The Mandalorian last week my first thought was wow! This Disney+ show is incredible. And my second thought was this would make an awesome 5E D&D campaign. A party of bounty hunters navigating the underbelly of scum and villainy sounds like tremendous fun to me. I found a lot of inspiration from Nord Games Ultimate NPCs: Skulduggery for a bounty hunter campaign. Now with two chapters of The Mandalorian available for viewing, we’ll match it with a second chapter developing this idea. So let’s get into it. (And don’t worry — still no spoilers!)
Nerdarchy the Convention is the Ultimate Way to Stay Nerdy
Have you been keeping up with Out of the Box: Encounters for 5th Edition? We experienced phenomenal success with our first Kickstarter, and because of that we were able to grow as an entity in so many ways. Not the least of these is hiring me as a full-time Nerdarchy content director, at least in my opinion! We’re incredibly excited about the book we’re putting together. Seeing all the extraordinary art being created to bring all 55 encounters to vivid life on the pages, the evocative maps and all the bells and whistles like custom Nerdarchy dice really make us proud of this project and we cannot wait to get these things into your hands and on your gaming tables. But we’d be lying if we didn’t say we’re overjoyed about our ultimate stretch goal — Nerdarchy the Convention!
Bounty Hunting like The Mandalorian in 5E D&D
If you’re like me and what I suspect are tens of thousands of other nerds, you fired up Disney+ today and watched episode one of The Mandalorian. And since you’re here I’m going to assume you’re also a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons player. Taking those two things into account, it can’t be far from the truth that a lot of us were not only blown away by the premiere of this new streaming show and our first thought was “this would make an awesome bounty hunter 5E D&D campaign!” And I just got a copy of Ultimate NPCs: Skulduggery from Nord Games so I’m going to use this Game Master’s Toolbox book to help. If this sounds cool to you, I’ll give you a promo code for 20% off the book and everything else in your cart from Nord Games when we’re done. So let’s get into it. (And don’t worry — no spoilers!)
Celebrate #5yearsof5e and 45 years since D&D’s First Publication
Guess what happens in 10 days? Wizards of the Coast commemorates five years of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and 45 years of D&D history since the game’s first publication in 1974 with the D&D Sapphire Anniversary Dice Set. The complete set of luxury aluminum dice is created exclusively for WotC by Level Up Dice, and will be available directly from WotC starting at 11 a.m. PT on Nov. 21, 2019.
Get Badges for Nerdarchy the Convention at Presale Pricing
So, we’re doing Nerdarchy the Convention. That’s a thing, that’s happening. Nerdarchy the Convention rolls into the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center for Halloween weekend 2020 and we are beyond excited for this inaugural event. We’re celebrating our core philosophy of for nerds, by nerds with everything we love about the culture and community surrounding tabletop roleplaying games at one of the largest suburban exposition centers on the East Coast of the United States.
5 Ideas for Your Halloween Adventure
Halloween is fast approaching! Finally! The one time of year when grown-up nerds can cosplay without fear of judgment! It’s also a prime opportunity for some festive tabletop roleplaying game Halloween adventures. With loads of nightmare fuel in our favorite books by Wizards of the Coast, Kobold Press and more, we’re just about set. All we need is to build a framework to unleash these delightfully dreadful monsters. In this week’s RPGtube video, I’ve shared 5 session prompts to keep your players on the edges of their seats! While good monsters and a good plot can make a fantastically frightful session, I’ve thought of 5 ways to immerse your players just that little bit more!
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.
Wendy’s Feast of Legend RPG brings the beef!
A while back, Old Spice dipped a toe into the tabletop roleplaying game community with their Gentleman class. But today, Wendy’s was like, “hold my Frosty.” The fast food giant dropped an RPG bomb today with Feast of Legends: Rise from the Deep Freeze, a 97-page game rulebook and campaign setting. The brand’s sassy social media strategy upped its hip quotient, tapping into the enormous popularity of RPGs with the game.
Kit Bashing a Nightmarish Miniature for Dungeons & Dragons
There are many awesome crafters out there on YouTube. You can watch tutorials on how they make great stuff. I was inspired by a miniature I saw someone else make on the internet so I figured I would share with all of you the process I took to make this awesome mini.
4 Ways D&D Enthusiasts Can Run a Business in Their Spare Time
Playing Dungeons & Dragons requires a lot of different skills: leadership, storytelling, acting, math, teamwork, communication, strategizing, resilience, and a whole host more. These aren’t just qualities that help you in D&D. They’re talents that you can use to run a casual business. Below I’ve listed four great businesses that are ideal for D&D enthusiasts to run in their spare time.
4 Businesses D&D Enthusiasts Can Run In Their Spare Time
Playing Dungeons & Dragons requires a lot of different skills: leadership, storytelling, acting, math, teamwork, communication, strategizing, resilience, and a whole host more. These aren’t just qualities that help you in D&D. They’re talents that you can use to run a casual business. Below I’ve...
D&D-izing He-Man’s Power Sword for 5E D&D
At Nerdarchy, we get requests to D&D-ize characters from movies, TV, comics and literature fairly regularly. There’s a whole playlist on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel for D&D-ized fictional characters, which I’ve included for your convenience below. And my very first assignment as a contributing writer here on the site was to D&D-ize the Sword of Omens from the Thundercats mythos. (I’d written a few columns before but that was an assignment from Nerdarchist Dave.) I spent quite a few hours researching, referencing the Dungeon Master’s Guide for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, writing and refining that particular artifact. More recently, we had a request via the Nerdarchy Facebook page to D&D-ize another legendary cartoon weapon — the Power Sword from the Masters of the Universe mythology. This will be my fourth go around with D&D-izing something. I also have our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man under my belt, as well as collaborating with Professor Bill from Comic Book University on my two favorite comic book characters, Mister Miracle and Big Barda. So let’s get to it and create He-Man’s legendary weapon that makes him the most powerful man in the universe, for 5E D&D.
Getting New People to Play Roleplaying Games
It is the best time to be a nerd. Personally, I've been channeling my inner Heisenberg for as long as I can remember anytime I'd get the nerd label thrown my way -- own it! Fortunately (or maybe a little unfortunately when we get a...
Secrets of Picking your Dungeon Master for a D&D Game
Like Nerdarchists Dave and Ted mention in the video below, back in the day when I was a young gamer, there was no such thing as picking your Dungeon Master for a Dungeons & Dragons game. If you were interested in playing D&D, and you were lucky, you could muster a group and offer to be the DM yourself, and maybe at some point get one of the other players to take a turn behind the screen running a game. My only other experience finding a new group to play with was through a flyer pinned at the comic book store from a couple of friends looking for more players. And it was a successful run that kept us all rolling funny-shaped dice through most of high school. Back then, there was also an organized play program called RPGA. They ran ads in Dragon Magazine and had their own publication, Polyhedron. But in 2018 the circumstances for hopeful D&D players is vastly improved. How? Let’s get into it and find out.
