Level Up Your 5E D&D Game with Evocative Descriptions
I play Dungeons & Dragons three times a week. On Tuesdays I play with the gang on Nerdarchy Live. On Wednesdays I play in my home game with my chosen family and every other Thursday I play with my author friends on Quill & Sword. Having played so much 5E D&D I’ve learned that descriptions are utterly vital. Dungeons & Dragons is a type of theater of the mind. You and your friends share a story experience much like a play or a movie except the experience is different for each person because there are no screens or stages — only your imagination. As such, Dungeon Masters must take a role similar to an author. They craft stories with descriptions to help their audience (in this case the players at the table) to envision what’s happening.
Join #My30DayWorld RPG World Building Challenge with Jorphdan
Renowned YouTuber Jorphdan’s (the PH is silent) normal repertoire includes Dungeons & Dragons lore videos on everything from Forgotten Realms to Spelljammer. Spurred by My 30 Day World challenge put out by Absolute Tabletop and a Fantasy World Building Guide from WebWriter.net, Jorphdan concocted a challenge to end this 2020 — 30 Days of RPG World Building! If you missed out on NaNoWriMo or GamoWriMo never fear because there’s still plenty of time to do #My30DayWorld challenge!
Discover Dreams of Fire by Council of Geeks’ Nathaniel Wayne
What do you get when you mash elemental magic and a tale of escape and intrigue? Suppose you combined a world of electropunk technology with whimsical faeire dangers? What you get when these things collide is the novel Dreams of Fire. Dreams of Fire is an upcoming electropunk fey novel of intrigue and self discovery by Council of Geeks YouTube sensation and debut novelist Nathaniel Wayne. I had the privilege of interviewing Nathaniel about their upcoming work over on my YouTube channel. What’s more, beyond this interview, Nathaniel graciously agreed to answer a few more questions in the form of text, and I’ve included that interview below.
Torth: Castle of Evil
In my last piece I wrote about one of the modules I wrote back in the Mesozoic era. “After all our 12 year old minds, while imaginative, couldn’t spin a coherent narrative. I still have a dungeon I wrote back then called Torth. It’s… um… well, the Plan 9 of modules. Made no sense.” Within hours, the stalwart and suffering editor sent to me “I am curious about Torth! Although my opinion of Plan 9 is colored by Ed Wood, which I’ve seen several more times than the actual Plan 9 haha.” [NERDITOR’S NOTE: That’s me!] However, by that point the semester was concluding, work was piling up, and I couldn’t do it. Now the semester is done (I earned 2 A’s and an A-) and here I am sitting on the couch writing about something I wrote some 40 plus years ago. Get off my lawn.
The Nightmare Before Critmas — Tale of a Holiday One-Shot
The Nerdarchy crew experienced a tremendous year in 2019! We grew by leaps and bounds, earning a Silver Play Button for the YouTube channel, creating a wildly successful Kickstarter, organizing Nerdarchy the Convention and growing the website right here by hiring me full time along with staff writers Megan R. Miller’s increased role with us and the author and writer of this very post, Steven Partridge. Steven is a remarkable writer, a creative powerhouse and really a good-natured and great hearted fellow. The whole Nerdarchy crew is so happy to have him as part of the family. Steven regularly contributes fun, intriguing content here to help inspire better games and better friendships. Please go visit his website to see all the stuff he is up to here. But that’s enough of me hijacking his holiday tale! — Nerditor Doug
Heroic Literature and Rogue Blades Foundation
When the dice come out for a tabletop roleplaying game, many of us like to play a hero. Often we gamers think of our characters as heroes and we like to have them perform heroic actions. Sure, sometimes it can be fun to play the bad guy, but at its heart of hearts, tabletop RPGs were originally based around the notion of heroes working together to overcome evil and obstacles. If one looks back at the roots of RPGs, the original Dungeons & Dragons was much based upon epic fantasy, a genre of literature teeming with heroes of one stripe or another.
Today, Rogue Blades Foundation (RBF) seeks to promote heroes and all things heroic within literature. What is RBF? A literary publisher of heroic fiction and heroic-related nonfiction.
Way of the Third Eye — Blind Fighting Psychic Monastic Tradition for 5th Edition
The Mis-Adventurers: An (Almost) Epic Tale is a new adult comedic fantasy adventure novel that hits a lot of the beats of a D&D campaign and the lovely disasters that can ensue. As the author, I very consciously designed the story this way, because some of the best stories I’ve ever experienced have been around the game table.
A large part of what makes D&D work so well as a storytelling avenue is its codified rules. These define things like how magic works, what weapons can do, and even resolving complex maneuvers. As an author trying to capture the proverbial magic of a tabletop roleplaying game story, I knew I’d have to codify many of the book’s events in terms of game mechanics. As such, I devised a unique new D&D subclass for each character.
Shelter Divine Domain — Cleric Subclass for 5th Edition
The Mis-Adventurers: An (Almost) Epic Tale is a new adult comedic fantasy adventure novel that hits a lot of the beats of a D&D campaign and the lovely disasters that can ensue. As the author, I very consciously designed the story this way, because some of the best stories I’ve ever experienced have been around the game table.
A large part of what makes D&D work so well as a storytelling avenue is its codified rules. These define things like how magic works, what weapons can do, and even resolving complex maneuvers. As an author trying to capture the proverbial magic of a tabletop roleplaying game story, I knew I’d have to codify many of the book’s events in terms of game mechanics. As such, I devised a unique new D&D subclass for each character.
Epic Destiny — Legendary Warrior Sorcerer Subclass for 5th Edition
The Mis-Adventurers: An (Almost) Epic Tale is a new adult comedic fantasy adventure novel that hits a lot of the beats of a D&D campaign and the lovely disasters that can ensue. As the author, I very consciously designed the story this way, because some of the best stories I’ve ever experienced have been around the game table.
A large part of what makes D&D work so well as a storytelling avenue is its codified rules. These define things like how magic works, what weapons can do, and even resolving complex maneuvers. As an author trying to capture the proverbial magic of a TTRPG story, I knew that I’d have to codify many of the book’s events in terms of game mechanics. As such, I devised unique a new D&D subclass for each character.
Path of the Brawler – Pro Wrestler Barbarian for 5th Edition
The Mis-Adventurers: An (Almost) Epic Tale is a new adult comedic fantasy adventure novel that hits a lot of the beats of a D&D campaign and the lovely disasters that can ensue. As the author, I very consciously designed the story this way, because some of the best stories I’ve ever experienced have been around the game table.
A large part of what makes D&D work so well as a storytelling avenue is its codified rules. These define things like how magic works, what weapons can do, and even resolving complex maneuvers. As an author trying to capture the proverbial magic of a TTRPG story, I knew that I’d have to codify many of the book’s events in terms of game mechanics. As such, I devised a unique new D&D subclass for each character.
College of Dazzling – Special Effects Bard Subclass for 5th Edition
The Mis-Adventurers: An (Almost) Epic Tale is a new adult comedic fantasy adventure novel that hits a lot of the beats of a D&D campaign and the lovely disasters that can ensue. As the author, I very consciously designed the story this way, because some of the best stories I’ve ever experienced have been around the game table.
A large part of what makes D&D work so well as a storytelling avenue is its codified rules. These define things like how magic works, what weapons can do, and even resolving complex maneuvers. As an author trying to capture the proverbial magic of a TTRPG story, I knew that I’d have to codify many of the book’s events in terms of game mechanics. As such, I devised a unique new D&D subclass for each character.
Rune Casting — The Teleporting Trap-Maker Wizard Arcane Tradition Wizard for D&D
The Mis-Adventurers: An (Almost) Epic Tale is a new adult comedic fantasy adventure novel that hits a lot of the beats of a D&D campaign and the lovely disasters that can ensue. As the author, I very consciously designed the story this way, because some of the best stories I’ve ever experienced have been around the game table.
A large part of what makes D&D work so well as a storytelling avenue is its codified rules. These define things like how magic works, what weapons can do, and even resolving complex maneuvers. As an author trying to capture the proverbial magic of a TTRPG story, I knew that I’d have to codify many of the book’s events in terms of game mechanics. As such, I devised a unique new D&D subclass for each character.
This subclass was inspired by the lizard wizard himself, G’naark. Rune Casting is a very mobile sort of subclass, something wizards have never really had before. The Rune Casting wizard can also lay magical traps to ensnare others. Frankly, I’m not really sure where my brain was when designing this, and out of all the subclasses I wrote for The Mis-Adventurers, this was probably the most heavily inspired by what I wanted a single character to be able to do.
3 New Cantrips for D&D Inspired by The Mis-Adventurers: An (Almost) Epic Tale
The Mis-Adventurers: An (Almost) Epic Tale is a new adult comedic fantasy adventure novel that hits a lot of the beats of a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign and the lovely disasters that can ensue. As the author, I very consciously designed the story this way, because some of the best stories I’ve ever experienced have been around the game table. A large part of what makes D&D work so well as a storytelling avenue is its codified rules. These define things like how magic works, what weapons can do, and even resolving complex maneuvers. As an author trying to capture the proverbial magic of a TTRPG story, I knew that I’d have to codify many of the book’s events in terms of game mechanics. Among these are three new cantrips. Each of these new cantrips for D&D was designed with the classes listed in mind.
How to Tell a Story Like a D&D Campaign
“The Mis-Adventurers: An (Almost) Epic Tale” is a new adult comedic fantasy adventure novel (boy, that’s a mouthful). It follows a motley, dysfunctional crew of hopeful adventurers as they bumble and bicker their way along a quest to earn their freedom.
And I wrote it.
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.
