The Psychology of a Likable RPG Character Part 1: Fun
Somewhere on YouTube there is a self-help series where this guy goes through and talks about the four emotions you have to hit to make strangers like you. Unfortunately, I watched it at some point last year and have cleared my cookies and browser history many, many times since then and am unable to find the video in question, so let me open this with a bit of a disclaimer; these ideas are not mine. I would love to link that video here. If you happen to know what it was or who it was, please leave a comment so I can go back and properly credit him. (And then our wonderful Nerditor Doug found it for me, so if you want to check this guy out he’s over here and makes a lot of Game of Thrones references.)
Pathfinder Second Edition Preorders Are LIVE!
Pathfinder Second Edition preorders are live!
Less than a day off huge news from Paizo and their new weekly Twitch show, they give us the heads up once again! As of March 27, Paizo playtest sets are officially available for preorder. Everything you need to explore and get a leg up on the cool swag that is Pathfinder Second Editino is available from now until May 1.
Paizo TV Goes Live with a New Pathfinder Show
Breaking news!
Paizo announced in a press release on March 26 the start of a weekly live stream Fridays at 4 p.m. Pacific on their Twitch channel beginning March 30. The live stream will help answer fans’ Pathfinder Second Edition questions and provide news and entertainment based around both Pathfinder and Starfinder. Paizo has been cranking out the blog posts over at the playtest site, providing sneak peeks at leveling and different class features. The team has also been globetrotting to different conventions to showcase the playtests and get people involved.
RPG Immersion through Audio Aids
“Immersion” feels like a worn out word in the modern sphere of nerd culture. Video games belabor it as a tagline as often as they use “visceral” to describe combat or “realistic” to describe environments or “Dark Souls-like” to describe difficulty. We’re beset on all sides by virtual reality headsets claiming to be as immersive as real life, story-oriented video games touting their immersive open world experiences, and all manner of other advertising exploits of the word.
Spoiler Alert! D&D Beyond Ingest Quest Campaign Management Tips
Following on the heels of Ingest Quest episode 1, the live stream fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Spelljammer game, I shared some tips on managing and running a campaign using the D&D Beyond tools for keeping all your adventure information in one convenient place along with tooltip creation for easy reference to monsters, magic items, conditions and more. As the campaign continues, the public and private notes grow right alongside the characters and story. This presents a challenge for quickly finding what I need during play. Fortunately, there’s an easy solution.
Help Save the Tarrasque: Gifted Vision Behemoth Mini Needs You
Hello gamers and fans of wonderful minis. Nerdarchist Ted here calling on you not only out of selfish greed to get the Gifted Vision Behemoth mini that I backed on Kickstarter but to help out an awesome company that makes cool miniatures. There is a bit of backstory here that I will try to explain as best as I can without being any more than a backer.
Kickstarter Korner for March 2018, Week 4
Each week during the Quests & Adventures live chat, Saturday at 2 p.m. eastern, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch hang out live with fans from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. It’s a chance to share announcements and news, answer questions from the live chat and generally just hang out and talk nerdy with the Nerdarchy community.
Why Do We Play? RPG Game Master and Player Differences Explored
In a recent video from Nerdarchists Dave and Ted, they explored the question of why we Game Master. It’s a fantastic video if you haven’t checked it out yet, and it gave me a lot to think about for my own motivations. In this article I’d like to explore a topic that runs parallel to theirs but at a higher level of generality: why the differences in motivations between being a GM and being a player leads to most conflicts at the table.
Worldbuilding: Where to Begin with a Homebrew Campaign Setting
You’ve been playing roleplaying games for a bit now. It might be Pathfinder, Dungeons & Dragons, Savage Worlds, or untold countless possibilities. The problem is you don’t like the setting. It almost fits the image in your mind but not quite. You’ve looked around, found some old campaign setting material at secondhand stores or eBay but no luck. So, what do you do? How do you make the world you want too? Don’t worry — Nerdarchy is here to help. Over the past month or so you’ll have seen some changes in the Nerdarchy landscape. We have Nate the Nerdarch and Kienata running the Nerdarchy After Dark late-night build sessions. We’ve posted some articles for items like World Anvil and Realm Works to help you organize things. However, none of these really give a starting point. Why not fix that now? Let’s look at how to start.
Kickstarter Korner for March 2018, Week 3
Each week during the Quests & Adventures live chat, Saturday at 2 p.m. eastern, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch hang out live with fans from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. It’s a chance to share announcements and news, answer questions from the live chat and generally just hang out and talk nerdy with the Nerdarchy community.
In the description of each weekly video, Nerdarchist Ted compiles a list and links to all the videos and website content from the week. But he also shares a selection of cool Kickstarter campaigns. As an avid Kickstarter supporter, he’s happy to share his favorite RPG and gaming-related Kickstarters with you, the Nerdarchy community. Enjoy!
5E Midgard Heroes Handbook from Kobold Press Awaits the Bold
The kobolds at Kobold Press have done it again! The Midgard Heroes Handbook for 5th Edition is already available from the Kobold Press store, with physical copies starting to arrive in the hands of gamers this week. This 216-page hardcover book contains everything a player needs to create a character for the Midgard campaign setting and features the same top quality content we’ve come to know and trust from Kobold Press.
Kickstarter Korner for March 2018, Week 2
Each week during the Quests & Adventures live chat, Saturday at 2 p.m. eastern, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch hang out live with fans from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. It’s a chance to share announcements and news, answer questions from the live chat and generally just hang out and talk nerdy with the Nerdarchy community. (Except this week, while the crew was away as featured guests at Cleveland ConCoction!)
In the description of each weekly video, Nerdarchist Ted compiles a list and links to all the videos and website content from the week. But he also shares a selection of cool Kickstarter campaigns. As an avid Kickstarter supporter, he’s happy to share his favorite RPG and gaming-related Kickstarters with you, the Nerdarchy community. Enjoy!
Performing Mechanics Surgery on Your D&D Game
There comes a point in every Dungeon Master’s experience with Dungeons & Dragons when they think to themselves “I wish fifth edition did X better” or “I wish fifth edition had rules for X”. If we’re completely honest with ourselves, fifth edition D&D is by no means a perfect system. But recognizing that and wanting to remedy it for your specific group are two different viewpoints entirely. You can begrudgingly admit the faults in the mechanics of the system and carry on, all the while realizing what you want to achieve isn’t explicitly written. Or you could work on the problems you see in the context of your individual game and try to fix them.
Pathfinder Second Edition – The Revision of Paizo’s Giant
Big news is a bit of an understatement – this week Paizo has come out saying that a new edition of their beloved Pathfinder will be out for test play by August 2. I had always wondered when this would come. Pathfinder has run first edition for a staggering teb years. I’m not 100 percent on this but I don’t know of another game company that has had an edition run that long. Many have asked why now? Is the company in trouble? Is fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons 5E rising to be too much of an RPG juggernaut?
The Return of Rappan Athuk: Reborn for 5E on Kickstarter
There’s a vast underground network of tunnels, caverns, halls and ruins. There are evil monsters, wicked traps, and devious tricks waiting to disembowel or otherwise harry ill-prepared adventurers who wander in. Hope is a foreign term to the grizzled veterans who approach the entrance to the limitless depths. They’ve abandoned the word in favor of more appealing ones, ones they’ve come to be fond of.
Combat. Glory. Treasure.
This is Rappan Athuk. This is the Dungeon of Graves.
