Monster Morale with Meaning for 5E D&D
Salutations, nerds! Today we’re going to talk about monsters and their tendency to fight to the death every single time in tabletop roleplaying games like fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Now, I’m not saying they should break and run every single time but morale is a real thing. Dungeon Masters have a tendency to get into the middle of a game and hit a point where we’re thinking about the things on the battlefield just as things on the battlefield for the adventurers to hit then vend treasure and experience points from. But it matters why the monsters are on the field and what they’re trying to accomplish. A group of goblins who got bullied into joining this fight by a much larger hobgoblin probably aren’t going to stick around, for example, after their hobgoblin bully gets decapitated. Consider what monsters are trying to take and what they’re trying to protect. What are the stakes for your 5E D&D antagonists and creatures and what happens if they lose? Is it going to be worse than dying?
5E D&D Worldbuilding Insights from New Mythic Odysseys of Theros Subclasses
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted share their thoughts on the two new fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons subclasses inside Mythic Odysseys of Theros. College of Eloquence bards and Oath of Glory paladins bring new options for players tied to the themes and concepts of the new 5E D&D campaign setting. If I’m honest it was surprising there aren’t more new subclasses included with MOoT. Circle of Stars felt like a surefire piece of the Theros puzzle! On the other hand if it shows up in a future product more closely tied to the stars (like Spelljammer?!) or a Feywild campaign adventure you won’t find me grousing about it. In the meantime, since I enjoyed thinking about how curating the playable races for characters can become a resource for campaign creation and worldbuilding why not apply the same principles to subclass options?
Balancing RPG Verisimilitude Against We’re Still Playing a Game, Right?
Helping to run a small business dedicated to tabletop roleplaying games puts me in a position to think about RPGs. A lot. While I consider myself far from an expert game designer or theorist I’ve got to assume writing, editing, planning and considering these games leaves me with at least a little insight and today I want to share a profound moment from my RPG experiences. A while back I wrote about how the best RPGs let you know clearly up front what the game is about. The post found traction and stimulated good conversations. The idea for that post came after reading an early backer version of Vaesen — Nordic Horror Roleplaying and you can check it out here. I bring it up because this post also comes from ideas inspired from the same rule book. One small sidebar in one of the mysteries included with the game changed my whole perspective on verisimilitude and reminded me the importance of remembering we’re still playing a game. So let’s get into it.
5E D&D Worldbuilding Insights from New Mythic Odysseys of Theros Playable Races
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted continue exploring Mythic Odysseys of Theros for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. This time they take a close look at the new races for character options in the campaign setting. Up until now in my own games players have been free to create characters with very little restriction. But with the inclusion of Supernatural Gifts for characters adventuring in Theros there’s been a shift in my thinking. Let’s get into the new races in MOoT and touch on how it changes perspective on what to include and exclude when it comes to creating a setting, worldbuilding and running a campaign in 5E D&D.
Maximum Apocalypse the RPG Post (Apocalyptic) with the Most
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted destroy your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons campaigns with five different apocalypses. But there’s another tabletop roleplaying game that looks at these apocalyptic scenarios and scoffs! Maximum Apocalypse earns the title because characters drop into a world not only post apocalyptic but the aftermath of all the apocalypses (apocalypti?) AT THE SAME TIME. You’ll draw on every survival instinct and trick you can imagine in the face of 11 distinct apocalyptic perils taking place simultaneously. Think you’ve got the grit, determination and savvy to live through kaiju attacks, robot uprisings, zombie infestations, economic collapse, the Rapture and six other threats to all existence? Then read on…
From Spelleater Minotaur to Path of the Spelleater Barbarian for 5E D&D
Mythic Odysseys of Theros is out for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and Greek myth is the name of the game! My housemate and I have been talking for a while about what sorts of third party supplements might fit nicely into a Theros campaign and we came up with several. In Nerdarchy the Store you can find Horris, the Horned Lord. Horris is a labyrinth keeper and minotaur with the power to turn magic back on those who wield it. As a labyrinth dwelling minotaur, what better place to stick this? Horris the Horned Lord contains a one shot encounter introducing spelleater minotaurs. This adventure takes less than ten minutes to read through and it’s easily adapted into any campaign setting. As I read through the adventure I got thinking, suppose there were individuals who might follow in the hoofsteps of Horris? What would that look like? Thus was born the Path of the Spelleater, a barbarian Primal Path for 5E D&D.
5E D&D and League of Legends Cross Over in D&D Beyond’s Dark Tides of Bilgewater
A new source book for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons presents not only a new setting to explore but an exciting new direction for D&D Beyond, the creators behind this League of Legends crossover with 5E D&D. Legends of Runeterra: Dark Tides of Bilgewater launched fully integrated over at DDB through a partnership with Riot Games. Lead designer and editor James J. Haeck from the DDB team along with designers Makenzie de Armas, Celeste Conowitch Todd Kenreck developed and created this sourcebook for the scoundrel’s paradise of Bilgewater, a place where everything is for sale and fortune favors the bold, for the 5E D&D ruleset. Let’s see what’s inside.
Supernatural Gifts of Theros Spark 5E D&D Storytelling
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted bestow Supernatural Gifts on heroes from Mythic Odysseys of Theros, the latest fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons official release. The new Theros campaign setting reimagines mythological tales from our own world’s Greek tradition and arrives for 5E D&D from Wizard’s of the Coast’s other huge game Magic: The Gathering. Gods of Theros exert tremendous influence over the setting from the cosmology down to the commoners living in the poleis (cities) of the world. Most assuredly the lives of heroes intersect with gods, starting with character creation where they receive Supernatural Gifts to help them achieve their goals.
RPG Guide to Practical Character Optimization — Part 3
Part 1 of this guide to character optimization for tabletop roleplaying games goes over some general guidelines and touches on a few key points of the practical optimization process. You can check that out here. In Part 2 we covered optimizing your RPG characters for combat, a significant part of many games. You can find that part here. In this last part I’ll share general tips and tricks for approaching optimizing while maintaining a well balanced character for both in the game and your fellow players.
RPG Guide to Practical Character Optimization — Part 2
Part 1 of this guide to character optimization for tabletop roleplaying games goes over some general guidelines and touches on a few key points of the practical optimization process. You can check that out here. Now we’ll dive headfirst into combat.
RPG Guide to Practical Character Optimization — Part 1
Hail and well met! I thought I’d share with you all something that’s been on my mind for a while and that’s the concept of character optimization in tabletop roleplaying games. I’ll occasionally refer to third edition (v. 3.5) Dungeons & Dragons because it’s one of the systems I’m the most familiar with (it’s also the system I’ve been using for most of the games I run nowadays). My intention is for this guide’s content to include such systems as GURPS, old or new World of Darkness, Rolemaster and so on. There are so many great systems out there it’ll make your head spin. Anyway, onto the show and the first of three parts of my collected thoughts on what it means to optimize in RPGs.
Holiest 5E D&D Character? Mythic Odysseys of Theros Says Hold My Kykeon
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted channel divinity to come up with the holiest character in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons to answer a community request. We returned to the Character Build Guide series we haven’t created for in a while and developed the Holy Paragon, a 5E D&D character leaning all the way into their divine nature. But now Mythic Odysseys of Theros released digitally and if you really want to play a character devoted to the gods, look no further. I’ve been incredibly excited about MOoT since we stumbled upon the release prior to the announcement and I looked through the whole hotly anticipated book this morning. I’m blown away.
Suffuse Your 5E D&D Campaign with 5 Color Mana Spellcasting
When Fil Kearney saw Wizards of the Coast creating settings and material for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons straight from the planes of Magic: The Gathering like many other players he anticipated the classic five color mana system wouldn’t be far behind. But after six Plane Shift releases plus Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica officially incorporating the worlds of M:TG to 5E D&D magic in the two games remains distinct without any crossover. So like any creative gamer Fil set out to develop his own 5 Color Mana system. Tap Untap Burn is a robust system for incorporating Magic’s classic color wheel into 5E D&D and Fil poured a tremendous amount of work into this to excite longtime Magic fans as well as 5E D&D players without any knowledge of the seminal trading card game. So let’s get into it and see what you can add to your games.
Save Me, Online Gaming! You’re My Only RPG Hope
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted look at how current events could change the Dungeons & Dragons hobby forever. Social distancing and stay and home guidelines affect tabletop roleplaying game enthusiasts around the world whose in person player groups are on hold or or exploring ways to play games like fifth edition D&D online. Physical accessories like miniatures and terrain represent some of the changes this different way to play can manifest, since these types of accessories often remain shelved, replaced by web cameras and virtual tabletops. My own gaming takes place almost exclusively online ever since my longtime home group dispersed due to moves and relocations but we’ve kept up getting together and playing for a few years now. Like Dave and Ted mention in the video there’s valuable takeaways from online gaming we can bring back to our in person sessions in the future and as someone used more to the former than the latter I hope these observations enrich your RPG experiences too, so let’s get into it.
Changing 5E D&D Character Races to Fit Mythological Campaign Themes
Many times players and Dungeon Masters want to play a campaign with the feel of a specific mythological style. While Dungeons & Dragons makes for a remarkable tool set for building and playing any setting you wish the races presented in the game are generally written in such a way as to be either two generic or, as in the case of the dragonborn and tieflings, too specific in their backgrounds. When creating a customized setting the ultimate goal should be to provide maximum player options while maintaining the style and flavor of the game and setting you desire. Let’s focus on how to do so for one of my favorite settings steeped in the feel and flavor of Scandinavian and northern European myth and folklore.
