Going Out In a Blaze of Glory: Thoughts on Character Death
Hey nerds! You may already know some of us met up this past weekend at Origins, and I’ve got to say it was a blast. I was so excited to get to meet Nerdarchist Dave and Staff Editors Ty and Doug in person. Getting to hang out together was really awesome, and one of the things we got to do was play in a one-shot together, DMed by Kobold Press’s Stephen Rowe (who was coincidentally just in a daily live chat).
Let me lead off by saying it was pretty amazing and I have legitimately never been that into a combat before. But something else happened. That was my little brother, Max, experienced his very first character death.
Nord Games unleashes Revenge of the Horde on your D&D game
Ultimate Bestiary: Revenge of the Horde from Nord Games offers an awesome resource for incorporating a variety of monstrous races into your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game. At nearly 200 pages, the book presents creature options for bugbears, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, ogres, orcs and more. The book is available through Nord Games in PDF and hardcover options, for $15-45. In addition to the D&D version, there is a Pathfinder edition, too.
Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch backed the Kickstarter campaign, and you can watch their Nord Games-sponsored flip-through video above. In addition to the hardcover book, they received the reference deck, all five encounter builder decks and 258 pawns featuring the new creatures from the D&D book.
Open Legend RPG character build: Lucelia Heliotrope
You might be familiar with our Friday Open Legend game, Aether Skies. Doug, Dr. Bill and Ty have already done character builds for the game, and those articles were fascinating reads, so now I’m stepping up to the plate to shed some light on my contribution to the party.
Like Ty, I’ve got spoilers ahead. You guys know the drill.
Using Tabletop RPGs for Social Empathy
I’m not really going to go about proving that science fiction sometimes gets used as a tool to pursue social issues. It’s well documented, and I don’t feel like I need to prove it. Star Trek is practically built on it. Fantasy novels aren’t immune from it, either. Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series bleeds social issues, perhaps even to its own detriment.
Tabletop RPGs aren’t exclusively fantasy and science fiction, but it’s hard to avoid their significant presence in the hobby. After all, we already live in a world of Houses & Humans.
Why would we want to spend four hours a week (way more than that for GMs) steeped in daily chores and making sure you include the TPS report cover sheet? It’s far more fun to enjoy something far outside of ourselves, usually with at least some fantasy elements, be it a western, superhero, or a horror game.
There’s actually another reason for that. As children, steeping ourselves in extraordinary worlds helps us learn about the real world around us. We’re able to experiment in a safe environment. As adults, that still holds true. In fact, I would argue that it’s more important for adults.
D&D grung and other monsters are people, too
Monsters as notable NPCs and player characters in D&D is something I’ve touched on in past columns, including last week’s exploration of the similarities between a TTRPG GM and a Swiss Army knife. Since then, I ran the “Grungle in the Jungle” adventure idea for my gaming group. Inspired by Stream of Annihilation’s One Grung Above from WotC Product Manager Christopher Lindsay this adventure puts the players in control of a band of grung from Volo’s Guide to Monsters.
Dealing with PTSD for RPG Characters
PTSD in gaming
Many Marines return to the states with vivid memories of their combat experiences, and the array of emotions they face internally may be hard to detect. While changes in behavior are more obvious, symptoms can also manifest in physical form. [Marines from Arlington, VA, United States/Wikimedia Commons]
Open Legend RPG character build – Kryzikk
A kobold from the fifth edtion Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual.
Hey, guys, Professor Bill of Comic Book University and I guess I’m up next to talk about my character for the Open Legend RPG game on Fridays at noon Eastern on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. I think that, by now, it’s pretty obvious that I have an affinity for comic books, so I took my inspiration from the comics to get in my character’s head. Open Legend RPG is an open source roleplaying game designed by Brian Feister, who sponsors our weekly live game. The core rules for the game are available for free online here.
RPG: Playing by Post
The roleplaying community is typically populated with people who have strong tabletop roots. This isn’t surprising. After all, Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop game. However, using dice and a rules system in meat space around a gaming table isn’t the only way to roleplay. There are a great many people who play-by-post instead.
Jon Heder’s lesson in design elements for role play
Barbarian duck. Art by Stephen Prescott (deviantart user stephenartist)
Episode 99 of Critical Role may have irrecoverably changed my perspective of role playing games forever. Well, that’s not 100 percent sure. Jon Heder, who is coincidentally from my home town, made my favorite D&D move I’ve ever seen. He took Path of the Duck Totem Warrior. That’s right, instead of Bear, Wolf, or any other standard Totem, he went with Duck, which I assume he worked with Matt Mercer to custom make. My mom and I talked about it, and we kinda figured that being from Oregon played a role in him wanting to be a Duck, because there are tons of other ridiculous animals that he could’ve gone with. But the point is that he chose to do something ridiculous, and ridiculous it was. Not only was it ridiculous, but he used the opportunities to largely squander them. One of his skills was Commune with Ducks, which he used to get completely useless information.
Top 10 Stereotypical Roleplaying Gamers
Here we go again. I like top tens. They have a certain charm to them. Being a gamer, I get to see a lot of roles played by an amazing variety of people such as yourself. I know that they can be good, bad, or just plain hilarious. Can you think of the various role players you have seen at your table? I am sure if you think hard enough, something your great mind is highly capable of doing, you can match up at least a few of those listed below with your table. In no particular order, here is the repeated role player types I have seen. Some of these I like, and some I do not. Though I would love to hear your opinions and stories on such.
Blast from the Past: Nerdarchy Invades the Marvel Universe
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpBK1lZg32c&w=560&h=315] Class was in session when Professor Bill from Comic Book University (aka Nerdarchy staff writer William C.) took a group of mild-mannered nerds for a trip to the heart of the Marvel Universe for a game of the Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing Game. [caption id="attachment_19932"...
‘Dice, Camera, Action’ never waffles on D&D fun
How can your game go wrong when the lead story designer for the team behind creating Dungeons & Dragons runs the campaign? In “Dice, Camera, Action,” Wizards of the Coast’s Chris Perkins leads a core party of adventurers along with several guest players through a live streaming season of the official published campaign Curse of Strahd in season one. The second season continues the party’s adventures with Storm King’s Thunder.
E19 YR1- What Happens After The GamePlay| Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Wrap Video Podcast
Episode 19 of Nerdarchy the podcast Year One. Here we actually do a wrap video after our 1st 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons Game. It's the normal crew plus our buddy Mark who is playing in the game with us. https://soundcloud.com/david-friant-458990853/e19-yr1-what-happens-after-the-gameplay-dungeons-and-dragons-5th-edition-wrap-video What Happens After The GamePlay| Dungeons...
E15 YR 1- NPCs, Choker, GM Tip And Dungeons And Dragons Monsters Podcast
Time for another podcast mash-up with two of our Year one vids put together into one podcast. This time we have Game Master Tips combined with a Dungeons and Dragons Monsters. On one hand we have an NPC episode and a episode about the monster-...
10 Things You Don’t Need to Know About Your RPG Character
There’s a certain kind of player, and I myself am one, who just wants to know everything about their character and has a tendency to overthink it. If you’re one of those, this article is for you. None of these are things you absolutely have to know the answers to, but they can be fun to think about. So if you’re the kind of player who spends way too much away-from-table time thinking about your PC, have fun with this.
